Friesencold

Yesterday I got to read 150 pages in my book, to finish Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons. It was my first book by this author, recommended to me by my mom. I enjoyed the story immensely. It was as good a story as The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, but entirely different. I left the book feeling amazed that the characters aren’t even real and that someone made them up in her mind. What a gift to have a mind that can do that, and then to be able to put it in words that others eat up.

My next book to read is by my favorite fiction writer, Alexander McCall Smith. He’s a genius, and I could read him and only him just about forever. He has three different series that I keep up with: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series, The Sunday Philosophy Club Series, and The 44 Scotland Street Series. Love Over Scotland is from 44 Scotland Street. I’ve had a hold on it at the library for weeks (maybe months) and I just got notified a couple days ago that it was my turn to check it out. So now I have it, and I know I’ll be as happy as a lark once I get inside the story. TJ will catch me smiling as I sit on the couch reading and he’ll say, “what are you smiling about?” I might even have to read him a few lines, and he always lets me.

The reason I got to read so much yesterday was because Bauer was sick with something. He literally laid on the couch most of the day, watching the video I checked out from the library about Big Bear going potty. It was a poor substitute for the first day of potty training that I had been planning to do yesterday, but I’m sure Bauer had more fun lying on the couch watching a video than being asked forty-seven times “Are you dry?” Except I don’t think anything about yesterday was much fun for Bauer.

I had already scheduled a doctor’s appointment for him in the afternoon because he had been limping since Monday and we wanted to have his legs and feet checked out. But before I could get him to this appointment, he had 2 episodes of throwing up and had developed a low-grade fever during the day on Thursday. The pediatrician thought the fever might be related to the limping problem, so he sent us to the ER to have an X-ray, ultrasound, and bloodwork done on Bauer. Thankfully, all the tests came back completely normal, and today Bauer’s fever was gone although the limp has continued. I took Bauer back to the pediatrician today for a follow up visit and the doctor wants to see him again on Monday, to see whether he is improving. We hope and pray it is just a sore muscle that will heal itself, and soon.

My perfect kitchen window just got better. Our neighbor put up a lighted Christmas tree in what appears to be her sitting room, which is the room I look into from my kitchen window. So now I get to see the three darling birds on my windowsill plus a Christmas tree.

And on top of that, the bulbs were replaced in the Harris Bank sign while we were gone on vacation.

And it was 48 degrees today.

And Bauer napped for 3 hours.

And I finally got to work out.

That’s a lot of good things going for this day.

We just returned from our Thanksgiving trip to visit my grandmother and my mom’s side of the family in SC. I could not stop thinking about how much babies and old people are alike. Bauer was born 78 years after my grandmother Virginia, yet they are needy in a lot of the same ways. We are all needy in many ways, of course, but the similarities between the very young and the very old are nothing but fitting, I have decided. We come in a certain way and we go out a certain way, and though we need people all along the way, we especially need those people to love and care and understand and just be with us during those times when we are most fragile, most dear, most tender, and most close to that unspoken place which is both before (we can’t quite remember) and after (we don’t quite know).

I was also thinking this trip about all the people I saw in the airports we passed through. I was in the bathroom looking in the mirror as I washed my hands and I saw a lady next to me looking at herself in the mirror, and I thought how that face of hers is the face she is most familiar with. She doesn’t have to study it really because she already knows it. A quick glance lets her know what is right or not right at the moment, but for me to know her face, I would have to study the unfamiliar features and take time to get that image burned in my head. She always remembers her face even when she doesn’t see a mirror for days, which of course never happens to us anymore. We look to see ourselves and we are most familiar with our own faces and that to me is such an interesting thought that I think I could write a poem about it.

It’s super quiet at home today. Bauer is asleep and I’ve just been reading. There is very little traffic and no other outside noises to mention. I just looked to see what car that was, and it was one of those newer Mustangs that I love. I would like to have one of those, except how impractical can you be with a 2 year old.

In Orlando, I had a friend named Michelle and one day, she came to our house out of the blue to show us her new white Mustang. TJ and I both thought she was serious, and seriously lucky. She let it go for a moment but soon told us it was her dad’s rental car that he got while visiting her in Orlando. Lucky. Napoleon-Dynamite lucky.

Which reminds me of Bauer’s 1st birthday cake. We still lived in Orlando at the time, so I was able to get his cake from Publix. Yes, my favorite vanilla cake with buttercream icing. We had decided on a Napoleon Dynamite theme for Bauer’s party so we had the cake lady write “Bauer’s 1! Flippin’ sweet!” on the cake, right next to the big unicorn.

It seems to me that unicorn should be unihorn. Words are so interesting. I once saw a movie called Wordplay. It was a documentary-type movie about people who do crossword puzzles and people who write crossword puzzles. All of those people love words, just like me. Except I don’t do crosswords. One thing from the movie that I like to remember is that Dunkin as in Dunkin’ Donuts easily becomes something new entirely when you take the D and move it to the end. Think about that.

I don’t do crosswords because I’m not too smart when it comes to that sort of pop-culture trivia. Don’t get me wrong – I do like looking at People Magazine but I don’t always know who’s who and who’s in what. I like reading about Mary Kate and Ashley, Jessica Simpson, Sandra Bullock, Brittney Spears, and Angelina Jolie. Among others.

I hated it when Nick and Jessica broke up or divorced or whatever. TJ and I used to love watching the Newlyweds show with those two. Well, I don’t know for sure that TJ loved it but I did. We really don’t watch much TV at all these days and what with the writer’s strike and all, I guess it will be a while before we get our 24 and LOST back.

But I’m fine to sit and read instead. I always did like a little bit of quiet. Or like today, a lot of quiet.

[Cheers to Madeleine L'Engle for her book A Circle of Quiet - I hope she won't mind I borrowed the name.]

My friend Ellen told me about this site and I had to make myself stop playing to come tell you about it.

www.freerice.com

What a very simple, good idea.

and these are my cold hands….

and this is my favorite little boy….

Isn’t he a doll?

Our whole front yard is covered with a thick layer of yellow leaves that have fallen off that big tree. It looks much more open and light out there now, which I like, even if it does have to be colder for this to happen. What a nice thing to have happen – a feeling of more light – to make the cold weather more bearable for me.

Upon waking each morning, my first thought is to let light in. First it’s the blinds in our room with a quick glance, of course, out the window to check the degrees on the Harris Bank sign. Next are the curtains and blinds in Bauer’s room. I walk through the living room and pull back the soft white curtains that came with the house and finally, I finish up in the dining room/office area with the ugly heavy cloth blinds that also came with the house. But once they are up, I don’t even notice the ugliness. I only notice the goodness of let there be light.

There is no curtain or blind or shutter for the kitchen window, so the light is there before I walk in. My favorite part of our little house is the kitchen window because I get to be close to the outside as I cook and wash dishes and wash Bauer’s hands. I even like standing there at night, looking into the darkness and imagining whether anyone out there is looking into the light.

Light helps me get on with life. Even when I wake up tired and am slow to start, I open blinds and turn lights on and before you know it, I’m talking to Bauer about all the leaves in the front yard as we look out the window together. And on days when I’m grumpy or moody or bored or just want to be alone, I never want to close the curtains. I always prefer to sit by a window where I can see the outside and let the outside come in to me.

If you were paying attention that day back when I first blogged about this, you will remember that a few weeks ago I went to the Harris Bank near our house and asked them if they would mind changing the light bulbs that are out on their sign. My reason for this is that every morning, I look out our bedroom window to check the temperature on the bank’s sign, and it’s just plain aggravating to have to look at half of the temperature. I can usually figure out what it says, but still….you’d think the bank would care how their sign looks since the blinking of the lights between time and temp is what most attracts people’s attention as they drive by. Or maybe people have just gotten used to how it looks and nobody cares.

But I care, so I made my request 3 Wednesdays ago, and when nothing happened, I went in again last Friday to re-request (in an oh-so-polite way) that the bulbs be fixed.

Well, on Saturday morning I went for a walk with Bauer in the stroller (it’s been high 50s and low 60s this week!), and when I got back to our garage, I noticed a van in the parking lot of the bank with the name of some real estate/property management company and a man walking from that van with a big yellow ladder in hand. I stood and waited to see where he was going because I just knew it had to be the sign. And ta-da!

The bulbs, unfortunately, are still out, but I’m banking on the fact that the man was up there counting how many to order and they are on their way.

Earlier this evening I noticed a slight reservation within myself as I asked my friend Miska to do a favor for me. (I hope) I know she won’t mind. But why did I hesitate, even if only slightly?

I think we all would like favors to be asked of us more often, but it seems rare that people take that risk for the fear of inconveniencing another person or for simply just wanting to be in control and not having to depending on someone else to come through. Today my counselor told me that vulnerability is the opposite of control. How had I never heard that before?

So when I ask a favor of someone, I will have to give up control and admit that I can’t completely come through for myself. I need another person. I make myself vulnerable to being told no, the favor can’t be done as I hoped, or even if the person says they will do it, I am at their mercy as to when it’s done and how it turns out.

I think it would do us all a little good to force ourselves to ask for help. For instance, when we lived in Orlando, my favorite grocery store was Publix, and they were of the old-school “can I help you out with your groceries?” thinking. About 99% of the time, I would say no, I can do it. But that other 1% was on days I was feeling a little more vulnerable I guess. I would allow the guy to help me with my groceries, knowing that even as I said yes, it meant that I would have to chat with him as we walked to the car and that he probably wouldn’t put the groceries in the car exactly the way I would do it, making sure to strategically place each bag so none of the fruit got bruised and so the rest of the stuff wouldn’t slide around too much on the way home.

They never expected tips, so it didn’t cost me a thing except a little control. And by giving that up, I could engage in conversation (even if only for a minute) with another human being – and gosh, how we all need more of that! Plus, I could be reminded that the world won’t stop if the bananas do get bruised or if the Tide turns on its side or if the cans of beans come out of the bag and I find one a week later under the back seat. I need to be reminded of things like this as much as possible, so that probably means I need to let others help me more often.

We don’t have Publix here and that’s a bummer: first, because they have some killer vanilla cake with buttercream icing in their bakery, and second, because the grocery stores around here don’t offer to help you out with your groceries. So even when the opportunity to be helped isn’t presented in such a friendly package like at Publix, I still need to ask for help and find a place to let others help me. I would say all of us needy creatures could do a little more asking.

And on the flipside: Upon being asked for help or a favor, I would say it is a great privilege to meet someone else’s felt and expressed need. To know you are touching their vulnerability and engaging with them while their walls are down is a rare gift that few have the privilege to receive. I want to be asked to do more, I want to be called out from my own self-consciousness, and as Anne Lamott says in Plan B, I want to have “a stern talk with myself, about getting outside of myself to be a person for others.” I have a need to be needed.

I talked to my sister on the phone yesterday and she was telling me about a question she was asked recently by someone who cares, the question being something like what image comes to mind when you think about where you are at the moment? Her response was the image of being on a boat anchored somewhere in the middle of the ocean, where sometimes the boat just sits there calmly without much happening, and other times there are winds or waves that make the boat rock, but still it doesn’t go anywhere because there is an anchor. The anchor might be a good thing or it might not, depending on whether not moving anywhere is a better risk to take than letting the wind blow you somewhere that could be good, or could be bad. I liked her image a lot.

So after that conversation, I was thinking about the current image I had of myself and I knew right away I was like a raggedy old faceless doll that a dog was holding in its mouth, and pulling on one of the legs or arms while the human in the picture was trying to yank the doll out of the dog’s mouth by pulling on the opposite arm or leg. I have felt pulled in so many directions lately to try to be/do so many things.

Then today, I was praying and thinking about all those same things pulling on me, and I imagined myself taking each one and putting them in a basket one by one and giving the basket to God. There are many concerns in my heart these days and I need God to know about them and to take them from me and then, just as I need to think about each one or make a decision concerning each one, I need him to divvy them back to me at the right time and in the right place.

I named my concerns to God one by one, in no particular order. Potty training, physical therapy, meal planning, Connections group, work, Christmas, relationships, a medical concern, and the others perhaps I’ve forgotten for the moment. I don’t want to be so focused on all these things that I miss what else God might need me to be thinking about.

“Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, ‘Well, isn’t that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I’ll figure out what we’re going to do about your stuff.’” -Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies)