Interlude

photo credit: Amy Melious, Winter Branches 

As this year o'2010 draws to a close, I find myself in an even more reflective state than usual in this passageway between old year and new. I start December full of busy intention, then shed all but the most essential plans and expectations of self as the days whoosh by, leaving me bewildered as to how I once again ended up so unprepared for all the doing/making/buying/sending that is Christmas. Wasn't I going to start earlier, having learned my lesson from all the previous turbulent December rides?! Why is personal change so hard to enact? It's like trying to use the same materials to make two vastly different products, say, a sweater and a guitar.

But this holiday season has been different for other reasons. Reasons that dissipated all my busy intentions and blew them away like a snow swirl in a gale. This Christmas was no ordinary happy holidays. No, this Christmas was a time to mark the days leading up to an incredible woman's departure from this life. My husband's Aunt Faye was in the thick of being a vibrant, compassionate elementary school principal in a low-income school with a large population of non-native-English-speaking students. She had a dazzling smile, a hardcore work ethic, a keen intellect and a rippling laugh. She listened intently and was extremely intuitive and insightful. At Thanksgiving, she was diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative neurological brain disorder called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and by Christmas she had ventured from this life into new, uncharted territory beyond.

Along with the sadness and surrealism of witnessing an amazing woman's dying days and her family's and friends' sorrow, there is something else I feel. I feel enriched. Faye, at 60 years old, was working, living and loving passionately. She was giving life all she had and was inspiring people of all ages as she went about her days.

Her family, friends and colleagues gathered during a week that would normally be dominated by holiday preparations. In place of all that hustle-bustle, we sat.
We sat with Faye.
She could no longer speak, and the silence of sitting with Faye was profound. It left us with time to contemplate who she was while still in her presence, listening to her breathing, holding her hand. Each visitor who came and each story told about her added to the resounding consensus that she was extraordinary and beloved.

The vulnerability of her position touched me deeply. She couldn't make decisions, couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't eat or drink. I wondered if those who were charged with caring for her and making decisions concerning her felt humbled by so weighty a responsibility. It seemed like tenderly and gingerly caring for a very powerful, beautiful, rare bird that had been injured, with the uncertainty and hope that you were helping and not hurting, wishing she could tell you what she wanted, felt and needed.

Somewhere in the interlude of sitting in a room with Faye, when there was nowhere else to be but there, all of life was distilled down to what remains when there are no more plans and no more activity. I found that what remains are the transcendent properties of faith, hope and love, just as found in the biblical passage I Corinthians 13:13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Love carries the day and covers us when we are stripped bare.

This Christmas I was given the gift of this interlude, and I am enriched by the last hours I spent with Faye. Even in dying, she imparted something so deep and true that I hope to still be contemplating it when life resumes its usual distractions and demands. I hope it will anchor me and give shape and purpose to all I undertake henceforth. I am thankful for the time I had to keep vigil with Faye and her family and friends. I kept wondering why I was there, and I think I know now that it was for me to receive nourishment that can only be spiritually discerned and digested.

Faye, thank you for the gift of this interlude. May your life and your death continue to inspire and touch us. And may I seek more than just self-improvement or personal change; may I seek nothing short of transformation, the kind that radiates like your smile and ripples like your laughter.

photo credit: Amy Melious

Bits of December

It's late o'clock, and I will have to peel my eyelids open in fewer than six short hours, but for the moment it feels good to be awake blogging by the soft white lights of Christmas by night. I can already smell the morning's coffee in my head, and I wish I could get started on it now. Thank goodness for the anticipation and comfort of morning coffee after the folly of staying up too late.

Here are some bits of December that I've enjoyed so far ...

 Father-son lumberjacks

 These two don't leave home without a football to toss.

 The Kickoff

 Hay bale snowman (only in Virginia!)

 Hauling the Catch

 Holiday party for Clayborne Education, waiting for invitees to arrive

 A busy elf

 "Have a peppermint."
(from my favorite girlhood books, the Anne of Green Gables series)

 The Life
(I envy the life my cat leads on a daily basis, and especially so on frosty, sleepy mornings when it would be sooooo very nice to stay curled up in bed.)

Marshmallows Anyway

         Image taken from: http://shop.poshbrats.com/ekmps/shops/poshbrats/images/marshmallow-scrub-1220-p.jpg
It doesn't take much for me to feel palpably discouraged. And I tend to blog when I'm down rather than when I'm up. Makes for a pretty uninspiring blog if you ask me! This is really not the stuff of public consumption. It's more like a therapeutic journal entry. Tonight I feel derailed by trying to limit my son's computer and video time while doing things together like decorate the Christmas tree and make tissue paper flowers to bring cheer to a dear relative who is very ill in the hospital. The discouragement set in when my brand-new strand of twinkle lights turned out to be defective. Half the strand lights up with a cheery twinkle and the other half is dark and dead. There's no use decorating a tree without working lights. No use making hot chocolate and trying to create a festive atmosphere for an aborted evening of decorating. Besides, my husband is out working so it's just Knox and his tired mom to make merry.

So we moved on to the tissue paper flowers. Happy, cheery and bright, right? Except that after diligently cutting out tissue paper squares of all colors, I discovered that I didn't have the beads or the pipe cleaners needed to assemble the paper bouquet. So instead, Knox is watching a DVD after I had already given him extra computer time while I talked to a long-distance friend. And I am pondering how quickly discouragement can set in and how little it takes to deflate me until my spirits have all the oomph of a limp, sagging balloon. Creating an atmosphere and keeping it all going (the laundry, the dishes, the meals) is hard work. I'm discouraged by the setbacks and the sink full of dirty dishes as my energy wanes and the evening's intended cheer has been dampened.

But Knox just asked for hot cocoa with marshmallows anyway. He doesn't need everything to be just so. There's no valid reason in his book why we can't go right ahead and have hot cocoa and marshmallows anyway. What better way to cheer up a dull evening? Enjoy some marshmallows anyway! Pile them high! Maybe I need that little child of mine to show me the way sometimes more than he needs me to make everything as wondrous as a storybook or a catalog page or someone else's blog ...

A Murphy's Oil Soap Kind of Day

It's a domestic, Murphy's Oil Soap kind of day here at Chisholm Place. I did some actual hands-and-knees scrubbing of my kitchen floor. That's a mighty rare occurrence 'round these parts. The soft lemony smell of Murphy's Oil Soap makes it worth it--domestic aromatherapy. I also take a certain satisfaction in aggressively rubbing out spots and blemishes; insert Lady MacBeth quote here: "Out, out, damned spot!" I'm taking this wee blogging break to connect myself to the millennia of women who have kept their homes and done domestic labor. It's never-ending. My home will never be as shiny and dust-free all at one time as I would like, but at least I'll have one or two places to look that are cleaner than they were before. It's all about the psychological editing and cropping of the view. And at least the Murphy's Oil Soap makes it smell clean! My boys are out buying twinkle lights for the Christmas tree, so I'd better get back to my domestic chores before they return and the decorating begins!
P.S. These vintage housewives smiled incessantly while scrubbing filth.
I listen to music and sigh and groan a lot. ;-)

Too Busy (and Tired) to Blog!

I hate the "I'm so busy" truism that most of us are afflicted with in modern life, so I've tried to make mine original by saying: "I'm uncomfortably busy right now." What I'm actually trying to convey with this little phrase is that I don't want to be so busy and that it is uncomfortable and that it's only right now--it's not a perpetual state that I will choose to remain in. It's right now while my husband's new office space needs attention to be ready for business. It's right now while we enter the holiday season. It's right now while so many good things to be involved in doing sprang up so quickly that I'm left with not even enough time to go out and buy the new shoes that I badly need. I'm not talking about a stereotypical woman's love affair with shoes. I'm talking about my shoes are so old that rainwater seeps into them, that one pair fell apart completely, and that my feet are sore every night in exaggerated ways. I'm talking about actually needing new shoes, not just coveting them!

I love my therapeutic exercise of blogging and I hope to have more time to do it soon, and more nights that I'm not drooling on my pillow by 9:30pm. But blogging, like Facebook, is something that I can put aside when my days are full up. I've drafted posts in my head, like I've drafted thank you notes and birthday cards that have never seen a stamp or envelope. I do, however, manage to keep up on my favorite blog (SouleMama) and squeeze in a few visits to a couple others (recently, LifeInGrace and Monked&Fifed) in the beloved blogosphere. I love SouleMama for many reasons, but one of them is that there is a rhythm and a schedule to her blog, so I know that Fridays will simply be a photo of a special moment, the weekends feature her sponsors and their giveaways, and M/T/W/Th will be snapshots of her life of home, family, farm and craft. Blogging really takes time, and those who do it regularly are truly committed to it. I admire them and love to read their blogs, but I honestly wouldn't want to manage a much-visited and commented-upon blog. But, as an acquaintance in high school commented once when I said I couldn't imagine being a supermodel: "Oh, Sara, you'll never have to worry about that!" (It was funny, honest and a little mean.) I like that my blog is quietly waiting here for me when I get the urge.

A Big, Happy Exhalation

     Somewhere on this playground behind my house, my son and his playdate are playing at this very moment while I sit on my back deck that overlooks the park, keeping one eye on them and the other on my laptop. I am exhaling deeply and happily as they play outdoors together without me! No waiting to exhale, although I am wondering if this miraculous event might be interrupted at any moment. Could it be that I am entering a new era wherein Knox plays with an age-mate in ways that don't involve mom??!!
     This half-hour is the longest Knox and a friend have ever gone without my involvement. This strikes me as so natural and healthy. It's the way my childhood was. I played for hours on end with my neighborhood girlfriends, outdoors and indoors, without any direct participation from our mothers. We even got our own snacks and drinks, as I recall. Perhaps they occasionally served a snack or procured some material we needed for our play, but we were blissfully self-sufficient for the most part, unless my childhood memory distorts the truth.
     I so want to raise a child who has the wherewithal to play with his friends unassisted and unrefereed. I want him to know the boundaries like I did as a child, and to have instinctive good sense about people to avoid or when to holler for mom. I remember when I was in second grade that my school in San Diego had a half-day each week, and my friends and I would walk unaccompanied across a major intersection to the Carl's Jr. fast food joint at the top of our street. We ordered our lunches and ate together, completely unchaperoned. We were allowed to walk without parents to Baskin-Robbins or the drugstore ice cream counter. I even walked two miles to a gift shop with a friend at age 8. We never went out of bounds or encountered any problems whatsoever. I knew to get away from any adult who made me uncomfortable for any reason, and I did have to do that on a few occasions throughout childhood.
     It will be interesting to navigate a shift toward more independence with my now 6-year-old son. I tend toward hovering and protecting, but right now I'm enjoying hovering from a safe distance and allowing both him and myself to taste some very healthy, happy freedom!

Obsession

I have an obsession. I'm obsessed with SouleMama's blog and the spaces she creates. I know I'm not alone in this because she (Amanda Soule) has thousands of devoted blog readers who have an emotional and visual connection to her blog because it feels like coming home to a place you love and want to be. I have collectively spent hours and hours reading and studying her blog and the comments people leave there. She reliably warms, soothes and inspires people with the way she lives her life as a nature- and beauty-loving creative mama. She uses her blog to focus on all the good and beautiful favorite things and moments in her family's world. She's extraordinary. Off the charts, really.

I come away from reading her blog wanting to be just like her and wishing I could go spend a week in her home. I would so happily follow her around all day and night (as I get the impression she stays up late sewing, knitting, writing, or painting and decorating her new farmhouse).

She reminds me of one of my favorite people on the planet, my friend Lauren, who similarly creates beautiful art and spaces and loves her children, friends and family well. Both women cook and craft and love nature. I have happily followed Lauren around her space and her family many times, just perfectly content to be with her in her world--a world where life is beautiful and children's hearts and creativity are cherished. It's not a world where no one cries or disasters and disappointments don't happen--they do, daily-- it's a world where these extraordinary women never allow life's stresses and strains to in any way slow them down or stop them from seeing life as beautiful and making it more beautiful for everyone in their life. They are forces of energetic creativity and love. They are as productive as I am lazy! They are as highly motivated to make things for people as I am to sit and read a book or browse the Internet. ;-)

The key here for me is not to fall into despair and discouragement that my life and my space don't resemble theirs. The key is to realize that people inspire others by living fully and richly their own lives in whatever way comes most naturally. I'm thankful to have so many inspiring guides and fellow travelers.