Smile

I have been wanting to connect up with Josie's Two Shoes Tuesday for a while.  I determined I would do it this time, no matter what.  The word prompts to choose from for this week were Sorrow and Surprise.  Here is my attempt.

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It had been a long week.  Who was he kidding?  It'd been a long year.  Sun was shining bright beyond the two-story library windows, mocking him, taunting him to abandon the books and head outside for the first warmth of spring.  He'd grown squinty and pale spending his days bent over a laptop or musty old books under florescent lighting.   Five long years in pursuit of the almighty doctorate, and he'd already exhausted his year sabbatical to work on his studies.  The days and months just behind him consisted of long nights studying, a pot of coffee before 6 a.m. and longer days teaching classes on three hours sleep.  This day, distraction played on his senses, as his mind drifted to years ago, and a girl he knew from days gone by.

What he'd given up in the chance he'd let pass, haunted him daily for years, and then faded to yearly, when the days turned warm, and he knew summer sun and starlit nights were her favorite.  For the most part, he'd been able to hide from this reminder, behind podiums and under stacks of periodicals dusted with time and neglect.  Today the thoughts were near palpable.  Moving from table to bookshelf to the computers proved futile in shaking the sense of nearness that were his memories.

Stepping to the window, he tried to shift his focus to other things so that he could get back to his work. He spotted the student center, adorned with banners for the upcoming spring festival, reminding him to get his extreme games team together.  His eyes found a colleague's car, and he thought that maybe he would step out to find him, go grab a cup of coffee and a short break.  No, something pulled him back into the artificial light illuminating his pile of books and planning for Monday.

Resolved to accomplish his goals for the day, he returned to the books, and his concentration of the task at hand.  It wasn't until about ten minutes before library closing, that he looked up through the shelves near his table to see someone walk in, looking around, obviously searching for something.  He recognized the grace of her motion instantly.  It stopped time and held him in place as she moved closer and now stood just a bookcase length from his spot by the window.

Turning, she stopped when she spotted him stunned in place, not breathing, like a kid in a game of hide and seek, knowing capture was eminent.  She'd been passing through on the way to her grandparents' lake house, and stopped in for a quick look-up of a particular facet of history of the area.  She'd wondered if he still worked here.  Knowing the likelihood was slim, she wondered if he'd be there on this random, sunny day, ensconced deep within the folds of knowledge.  Surprise shaped the slow smile permeating her face, alighting the spark of a smile of his own.

I Just Called to Say...Listicles

For some, this song proclaimed the heights and depths of feeling loved - a phone call in the middle of the day to say 'I love you'.  Sure, it is a sweet gesture, but it doesn't move everyone in the same way.  The key to knowing how to "say" I love you, is to study and learn the way in which the other person receives it.  You see, the term 'love' is so severely distorted today.  What we see plastered across every magazine and in t.v. and movies is the warping of 'eros' or romantic love, and it becomes 'love with a hook' - selfish, empty, destructive.  This is not love, for it takes and holds tightly.  This false copy smothers and extinguishes that which it sought in the first place.

Many years ago, I went through a study called "The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman.  More accurately, we beat that thing in the ground, for a thirteen chapter book turned into two-plus years of OVERKILL and after it was all said and done, I was fine if I didn't hear the terms 'love tank' or 'love language' again.  Abused the heck outta that Equus ferus cabullus.

However, there is truth in the idea that we all receive love (as a verb) in different ways.  The premise (and one of the chapters from the book) is that Love is A Choice.  It it truly not for what we gain but what we give that yields the most return for all.  To summarize the 5 love languages, there's Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.  A person usually has one as their top love language with one or two that follow close.  Mine has long been Quality Time with conversation (words, words, always words) but in more recent years I have noted a slight increase in acts of service and physical touch.  Not sure if it's age or transition in life but love languages can change.  My least/lowest remains Gifts.  You can also detect them in your children - Best Girl is a Quality Time/Physical Touch gal - 'Mom, can you brush my hair/play with my hair, scratch my back/rub my shoulders?'  Eldest is Gifts.  That boy lights up like a stadium on game day when you 'surprise' him with something, generally an item he has asked for (and asked for, and asked for, and asked for.....etc.) and then you just spring it on him when he thinks you forgot.  

So, for this week's Monday Listicles and the topic 10 Ways to Say I Love You I will exemplify each of the 5 Love Languages using real life experiences, given and received.

1.  A message - handwritten or electronic that spells out what you mean to that person, how you make them feel, their appreciation of you as a person, inside and out.

2.  A sticky note stuck on the bathroom mirror/steering wheel/coffee mug with words of encouragement.

3.  A Saturday/Sunday drive, headed nowhere in particular, good tunes on, talking about anything and everything all along the way.

4.  Doing a project together - cooking, yard work, putting together a 472-step bookshelf...on second thought...

5.  Getting an item of a loved one's clothing to wear in their absence  - priceless.

6.  Receiving a compilation of photos of your children/special event/beloved pet, etc.  Most assured to evoke tears.

7.  Finding a plate of eggs with a note on the front seat of the car on a hurried morning (most are...) headed to work.

8.  Cooking/baking a favorite dish/meal when it is the last thing you really want to do.

9.  Holding hands on a regular day while running errands, or while drifting off to sleep.

10.  A stealth embrace, sneaking up behind someone, sliding your arms around their middle, and burying your face in the crook of their neck - delicious.

What is your love language?

The Long Embrace

Leaves cling to summer's hues, 

grasping the golden beams of light

for one last look

before fading to grey.

One long embrace,

entwined in ardent devotion

the impression of that touch fading,

before drifting to distant memory.

Oh you know, rain falling outside, favorite fall candle burning (White Barn's 'Flannel'), listening to tunes, writing poetry.  It's that kind of day.

This one on repeat these days...

Catching A Break

The next two days encompass my fall break.  Actually, it will amount to a long weekend, because today I am working at home to catch up.  Yesterday I found out that this year's break IS, in fact, shorter than last year.  I thought so!  At first I thought I was imagining it - I had booked our usual trip to Myrtle for the break, starting on Tuesday.  ALL my syllabi showed only one day of classes this week instead of two (DOH!) - I did have to amend that, much to the groans of my hopeful charges.  'What?!  They gypped us a day?!'  Okay, so rather than whine, I shall be grateful.  Three-day weekends are nice.  

I ended up canceling the trip to the beach for this week (no, I'm not sick...or dying, which would normally be the ONLY two reasons I'd pass on a sojourn to the shore).  Since break was shorter, and there really is far too much to be done on the home front, the trip was eighty-sixed.  So here I am, stretched under a crocheted blanket, fall candles ablaze, steady rain out the open windows getting absolutely nothing done.  

And I like it.

So to catch up a little - 

Where were we?  Government "shutdown"?  Obnoxious run rampant on the Hill?  Insanity over a faulty health 'care' plan?  Let's not even talk about that, agreed?  I'm up to my gullet in it all, and I just want to jump into a small boat, and paddle it out into the middle of a still and serene body of water to find quiet.  Or this:

My dog, God love her, is such a fruitloop.  She routinely hides out under various pieces of furniture.  She may not be so nutty after all.  She may be on to something.

So enough about that.  

What does one do when one gets sick to death of all the arguments, debates, fury (mine), sadness (mine) and ugly sobbing (yep, this girl's)?  She harkens back to simpler days of cooky arts and crafts and decides to latch hook.  

I was toodling down aisles at a well-known craft store looking for items for a surprise care package for my best girl when I came upon a section of these things and I gasped at the sight - I'd forgotten about these!  I used to love to do them as a kid/preteen.  The more I thought about how perfectly repetitive and mindless this would be to complete (to actually complete something!  oh the joy!), I grabbed a couple and started on one the other day.  Therapeutic.  Cheesy and comforting.  No calories.  Bonus!  So when it is done I will have a lovely rug creation called "Butterfly Moon".  

Speaking of my best girl, she is doing GREAT!!!  That is her though - she truly blooms where she is planted!  She is learning a lot, primarily a lot about herself and who she is and was created to be (YES!!  So glad for this for her!), who God is and how purposeful is His entire design of the universe.  She is making friends like crazy, and loving on all the various little munchins that belong to the staff that routinely run around campus.  This is one of my favorite photos of her:

Oh my WORD, this.  But mostly I get all kinds of crazy goofy photos that she sends to me in texts of her vast and varied funny faces.  Unlike her brother, Eldest, she actually communicates with us almost daily, even if its just a quick text or an emoticon.  So interesting the differences in sons and daughters!  So the news is, her group in the photography track will be going to India to work in ministering to those trapped in human trafficking.  If I could go, I would.  This is one of my deep longings - to rescue the exploited.  

As for me, I am percolating right along.  I have received my test results and they found all is  - normal.  So this is welcome news, but still leaves me a bit mystified at why I will occasionally have chest pains and debilitating fatigue that seems to wash over me out of nowhere, but I will take 'normal'.   Until my November follow-up and I can ask some pertinent questions, I will remain ever-grateful for each day.

I mentioned a while back too, that I was in pursuit of a possible teaching position overseas.  I went through the first round of interviews (sweating bullets) by phone and was told I was definitely a candidate to move forward to the next interview - an in-person interview probably held in a major city nearby.  However, for now, the idea is on hold.  I'm not so sure anymore that that is the direction I need to take. We shall see.  I am now eyeing a six-month volunteer opportunity to work in Cambodia in a group that teaches people right out of the sex trade how to make a life for themselves and become self-sustaining.  I know the Lord knows our heart's desires.  This is one that has held fast over many years - to be able to DO something that truly makes a difference.  I want to give up all to go give more, to those greatest in need of light and love.  Before you argue that I already DO make a difference.....maybe, barely.  Mostly I make class notes and grade papers, and have long meetings.  It seems much ado about nothing, most days.  

So that's about it for me, for now.  I do have posts that are circulating.  Some I'm hesitant to post.  Others, I just have yet to find the time.  Eventually, maybe.  For now, I shall catch this break, like a wave, and go with it.

In the mean time, a song and a more current photo, although it still doesn't show the haircut adequately.  

Roomful of America

I don't know about you, but these times have me spinning - angry, helpless, determined, screaming, resolved, proud and scratching my head, all at the same time.  The bombardment of idiocy continues and after a while, you just HAVE to step away from all the madness.  Step away, and step right into the middle of a room full of sweet, precious America.

I get to do that, from time-to-time.  There is this place, locally, where we go for breakfast on occasion, when "the rules are made up and the calories don't matter".  We go on those days when we don't plan for lunch, and dinner is tentative.  It's THAT good.

From the minute you walk in, every saying that ever touted the idea of not looking back or letting go of the past suddenly seems brash and cruel.  You know that feeling you get(got) from walking into your grandparents' house?  Right into their kitchen complete with good smells and outdated but beloved trinkets you recall from childhood?  The walls and warmth welcome you right in.  For starters, the walls are wood-panelled.  I don't know how long ago you found yourself surrounded by faux wood planks in shellacked sheets on the walls, but my last experience would have to be circa 1986 in my grandparents home on the lake, and my own humble abode in my childhood home across from my elementary playground.  There was a time when I might have shirked this blatant mark of bad taste, but now?  Now I wrap this wood-paneled comfort around me.

The rooms are cluttered in decor a la' garage sale finds.  Washboards and country sayings.  Fake flowers and hot glue.  Booths line the perimeter and tables gather in the middle.  The name itself speaks 'country' and 'home folk' and 'you wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world' on a Saturday morning.

These people that own it - they are good people.  They once worked for a catering company.  They finally grasped the idea of American entrepreneurship and decided to run a restaurant themselves.  I taught their children.  My children knew many of the workers.  It isn't ever uncommon to come into a place like this and hear, 'How's your Mama?'  Hairnets and Saturday hair, and sleep face aside, we all meet and greet, making small talk and express genuine concern for people that make up the word 'community'.

This morning, I walked into the yard sale-esque room to settle my tray and plate full of Southern breakfast goodness.  Looking around, my heart swelled.  I caught sight of  beautiful, weathered faces, bent over plates of steaming eggs and grits.  Faces that had seen history, firsthand, upfront and center.  Faces that experienced the play of sadness, heartache, joy and contentment, in the lifetime's map upon their skin.

I saw hands, gnarled with hard work and age, grasping cathead biscuits poised above hot coffee.  Hands that already toiled the land, whether that be actual soil, long days and longer nights, 40-hour work weeks and load of responsibility.  Hands that probably went without.  Didn't extend for a handout.  Reached for goals they'd set for personal betterment.

This room was full of all walks of life - grandparents across from grandchildren, generations apart but sealed by blood and family.  Hispanic families, here for a better life, working in the local plants, here rightly or not, it doesn't show in the common Saturday morning sunlight.  They bring with them grade school cherubs, much like the ones I taught, and a pajama'd baby slung over burdened shoulders.  Two African American sisters, sharing a booth and surely good Saturday gossip as they solve all the world's ills.  Elderly couples, sitting silent across from each other, letting their years of history be the dialogue between them.

One such table struck my attention - an older African American gentleman, donning a 'Retired Army' hat, and patriotic shirt with the American flag, its motif.  He sat across from a scraggly fellow, camo hat, shaggy hair, worn t-shirt, and they were intent in conversation.  I made my way to the Tupperware containers for refills, self-serve style, just beyond their table.  Walking back, I stopped.  I placed my hand upon the shoulder of the retired Army man, to signal my presence and to politely indicate my interruption of their discourse.  I wouldn't be long.  I just had to say - "Sir, I thank you for your sacrifice and your service to this country.  I always try to take notice (indicating his hat) and to express my gratitude for you, and for your family, in what you have done for this country.'  He humbly said, 'Well, thank you.  Thank you for that.'  The man with him said, 'This here is a good man.' To that I replied, 'They all are, very good men, and deserving of our respect.'  I thanked him again, and walked toward the door.

This room.  Full of real, everyday humanity.  Real.  Raw.  Beautiful community existing shoulder-to-shoulder, in civility and mutual respect.  Hard work.  Responsibility.  Sacrifice and simplicity.  Take me home, to this room, THIS America, any day.

No Reserve for the Uncovered

I careen through a week, putting in over 40 hours in three days, ideas for posts flittering through my consciousness like the dust flecks in sunshine.  Yet, I just can NOT seem to make it here any sooner than a Saturday afternoon, midday when the procrastination begins edging on panic that I now have less than 48 hours to gear up for Monday.  Nonetheless, I am here to do some form of catching up.

Where do I start?

I thought about crafting my lengthy missive on the current state of our Union (that is actually not a true term, at present) but am working on that one, on paper, doing my research, forming a valid statement.    I could write about how things are settling in, now that I am home, and a full week out from taking my youngest to her home-away-from-home for a while, or what it is truly like to have an empty nest (the positives).  Maybe later.  I do have a post brewing about stepping into a roomful of MY America.  That post is sure to follow, for it has followed me around, clinging to my shirttail since this morning.

No, I decided on some humor.  I reasoned that we all probably need a chance to laugh, and I welcome the opportunity to laugh at myself.  I chose to present my experience at the cardiologist's and my stress test on Thursday.  I will not withhold anything.  It is too funny, to keep it 'under wraps' - oh my - the puns!

So Thursday was my appointment to go have my stress test done at my cardiologist's office.  For any of you that may be unfamiliar with a "stress test", it is a cardio test to measure the heart's response under external stress.  It involves a treadmill.  And lots of wires.  I joked to several people that I could have saved us all a lot of time and trouble by simply checking 'yes' next to a box marked 'stress', but that isn't what it truly measures.  It does not determine how much stress you are under, but how your heart responds to stress.

Now that I think about it, maybe conducting this test on a treadmill isn't the best measure.  Maybe they should hook us up to the wires and gizmos and send us on into a meeting where the person that routinely 'leads' the meeting drones on and ON and OOOOOON  a fellow colleague is a passive aggressive that bullies his/her way, and talks too much. And the meeting goes on for 2 and a half hours. THAT seems to be a more valid determinant as to how the body/heart deals with external pressure.  THAT'S the setting where I felt my heart slam against my chest, and I saw sparkly stars and tunnel vision, and my left side went numb.  Just a thought!

On to my appointment.  I show up in my yoga pants with the magenta stripe, running shoes and matching exercise underthings and coordinating t-shirt.  If I was going to have to sweat in a doctor's office, I might as well make it count as a workout and look the part, right?  My disequilibrium occurred when the nurse came in, and said chipperly, 'Okay, remove everything on top and put this on.  I'll be back in to get you ready!'

My face, upon hearing 'Remove EVERYTHING on top

This girl does NOT exert without certain 'measures' in place, to keep everything fastened down.  You gals know what I mean.  I believe, wholeheartedly, in Newton's law, and seek to combat it by keeping things 'secure'.  You know, the bazooms version of 'keep your arms, head and legs inside the moving vehicle at all times'.  (From here on out, I aim to use humorous terms for the 'girls', just for fun).

She placed before me, THE GOWN.  Told me to put it on, open in the front.  At least it wasn't the paper version.  I guess they knew better than to send a bunch of sweating folks on a treadmill wearing a sheath made of Bounty.  That thing would shred faster than the EYE ARR ESSSS records on target groups.  So it was a lovely hospital-issue blue.

I'm standing there, my gown helplessly tied to preserve some sense of decency when you're face-to-face with a stranger and you need to 'make polite'.  She grabs bottles of this and swaths of that, and says to open the front.  She turns to get her accoutrements ready, I spot the basket of disposable razors on the counter against the wall, and suddenly, thank God, and all the heavenly hosts that I am NOT a hairy, middle-aged man, having to be shaved like a neglected poodle.

Picture this - wait...on second thought...don't do that!

She turns, and I am instantly aware of our height differences.  I can not remember her name (I did notice it on her tag, but it fails to surface now - we'll call her Brittany), but I wanted to make formal introductions, 'Brittany, meet my Cha-Chas, Cha-Chas, this is Brittany.'  She was EYE.TO.EYE level with the Dirigibles.  I felt there needed to be some sort of formality here.  She proceeded to prep my skin with the alcohol rubs and blobs of something that looked like spearmint toothpaste.  

She applies the ekg pads 'here', 'here', 'here' and 'there', peeking around and under the beacons, where needed.  Brittany then hooks up 1400 wires to the attached discs and closes the robe.  With tape.  I do not understand this.  The twin peaks are now smacked down with layers of medical tape.  How is this better than a coordinating lycra exercise bra, I ask?

I hop up on the treadmill, feeling like I am in somewhat familiar territory, having logged miles on these things before.  I've got this.  Piece of cake.  I wasn't thinking that I don't routinely show up at the gym, shod in knee-length, flapping gown, wires coming from every possible location, a blood pressure cuff, and no home for the muchachas.  

The idea is that I start out, slightly inclined and going at a fairly slow pace.  No problem.  I do this easily, no holding on.  A saunter, of sorts.  Then every few minutes or so, she increases both the speed and the incline.  Okay, Brittany.  Bring it on.  Increments one and two pass without incident.  No problem.  Breathing easy.  Could carry on a full conversation, had Brittany wanted to chat about the breeze, or current events, or the view outside the window.  I've got this.  

Two more increments, and Brittany is now wondering WHEN this gal's heart rate will rise because it is lunch time, and she has errands to run.  (My heartrate was found to be too low at the previous appt.)  By the third increase, I am gathering that dang gown from around my knees, while trying to keep trotting, and holding my cuffed arm down, while hanging on to the bar with the other arm because the incline seeks to now roll me right off the back and into the hallway.  At the last increase, Brittany reminds me to put my left arm down as the blood pressure cuff inflates again, mid-stride.  I am now in a full-on run, incline at a hill comparison to Mt. Kilimanjaro, holding on with one arm, while keeping my left hanging useless, continuing to try and gather bunches of gown away from my legs while I attempt to stay vertical AND keep the grapefruits stable.  

If I'd only had a video, I'd be able to quit.  Today.  It was that funny.