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Meeting Jake “Cray” Lazenby

November 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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I sat alone that night, on the edge of the river, picking old scabs off my legs an crying. People said there was gators who came outa the river at night, but what do I care?  They kin come an eat me any old time they like.  At least, that’s what I thought in my tortured ten year old mind.  I listened to the tree frogs singing their songs and the fish making splashes in the water.  The air was that lovely semi-salty smell that reminded me of our last house across from the mangrove trees.  They made the water black, you know.  Life was a lot better there with those mangroves.

Somewhere behind me, a soft porch light flicked on and a screen door creaked open.  I turned to see that it was our new neighbor.  He had a strange name and kept to himself mostly.  I peered over the tall weeds to catch a good look at him.  He seemed really tall.  He turned his head to look back into the house as he held the door open.  He gave a whistle and out came two brown dogs who seemed all too glad to be romping around at night. He talked to them in a kind voice, but I was too far away to hear what he was saying.  I watched him sit down on a chair on his porch and look out toward the river.  I crouched lower, hoping that he wouldn’t spot me.  I pictured myself like a lion waiting for its prey.  He just sat and watched.

Before I had a moment to react, one of the dogs had found me and was wanting to play.  He started tugging at the bottom of my shirt.  I sat up, “Stop that!” I scolded in a furious whisper.  “Let go my shirt!”  I stood to tug, and as I did, I heard the man yell, “Here, Pal!”  The dog turned his head and went running full speed for its master.  The man was standing now in front of his porch, closer to where I was.  The dog licked his master’s hand and nuzzled it with delight.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” the man said, stepping closer.  “You alright?”

I nodded, tugging on my shirt.  He could see me clearly, but I could still mostly only make out a tall shadow.

“He’s jus a pup, so he don’t know any better yet.”

“I’m fine,” I said, suddenly realizing that my eyes were probably still swollen from crying.

“You sure you’re alright?  You look like the dog gave ya a bad fright.”

“It’s not the dog,” I admitted.

“Oh, I see.” He said in a thoughtful tone.  “Well, it seems to me that when I’m having a bad time that a glass of sweet tea makes everything better.  Come on.”  He started walking back toward the porch.

I wasn’t thirsty, but I followed him, mostly out of curiosity.  The kids at school said that he had two entire walls of his house that were books.  And one of them was fake.  Rhea said that the fake one was a hidden door to get to a secret room.  I didn’t believe her of course, but if there was truth to it, what would be hidden back there?  I peered through the old screen door and saw that in fact, there were two walls of bookshelves.  Why would a man need so many books?  One of em’ had to be fake.  He must’ve caught me looking in, because he said, “You can come in too if you want.”  I stood still and probably looked nervous.  “Or you can just stay on the porch out here.  I’ll go bring out the tea.”  He went inside and I could hear him humming in a nice soft, low voice.  I don’t know what it was, but it sounded kinda like a church song.  My family only went to church when Jesus is a baby every year or when somebody dies (which isn’t often), so I only know a few church songs, but boy do they all sound the same.

He brought out two mason jars of sweet tea with lemon slices floatin’ around in the ice.  He handed me one and sat down on the chair closest to the left edge of the porch.

“I like to eat the lemon slices once they soak up the tea and spit out the seeds. This is the best place to do that.”

Now that he was sittin’ still, I could see that I was right about him being tall.  He was real tall.  He had really cool eyes too, like when he was born God spilled gold glitter in em’.  And he had some weird scars all up one of his arms.  They were big and a lot whiter than the rest of his dark skin.  I think he saw me looking at em’ because he said, “Never tussle with a gator,” and took another sip from his mason jar.  Things were pretty quiet after that, so I tried to think of something to say.

“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.

“Pal.”

“What’s your other dog’s name?”

“Same. Pal.”

“That’s weird.  How come their both named the same?” Momma woulda slapped my face if I’d been rude to her like that.  I shoulda kept my opinion to myself.  “Nobody wants to hear what a child has to say,” she’d tell me.

But he didn’t say that.  Instead, he laughed.

“You know, you’re the first one who’s ever asked me that.”  He smiled, his eyes seeming to peer back into time.  “I once had a dog I name Marie.  And then I met a sweet lady named Marie.  She got all offended when I had to say things like, ‘Marie, you quit drinking that toilet water.’ Or ‘Marie, stop draggin’ your nasty butt on the floor.’”  He slapped his thigh and let out a chuckle.  He had really nice teeth and a really nice smile. “I figure Pal’s a safe name.  Ain’t nobody gonna get offended by that.”

And I laughed too, despite my earlier troubles.  Our laughter died down and things got quiet again.  He seemed fine with the quiet, but I thought it felt like we were expecting something bad to happen.

“My name’s Ella May,” I said to fill the air. He held out a long-fingered hand to shake.

“And I’m Jake, but everybody calls me Cray.”

Filed Under: Short Fiction

Happy Vignettes: A Smattering of Joyful Moments From This Summer

October 8, 2014 by 2 Comments

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1) A young man walking down the road, alongside the farm growing corn and soy beans, singing an Irish song at the top of his lungs with not a care in the world.

2) A French Canadian family brushing their teeth in the Niagara campground restroom while listening to “Gift of a Thistle” from Braveheart.

3) A beautiful Japanese girl with long, loosely braided hair, holding a black umbrella and wearing a stylish blouse and long, pencil skirt that blew ever so gently in the breeze.  She looked as if she stepped out of a painting.

4) Two boys sitting high on a statue as crowds of tourist passed below them.  One playing a Gameboy and the other providing helpful instruction on how to beat the level.

5) A small Asian couple walking in the park together, hunched beneath a tiny scarf to stay out of the glaring rays of the sun.

6) Playing the piano while my Dad sings hymns in his beautiful soft baritone voice.

7) Hilarious Kid Conversation:

“Hey you!  Girl in the blue shirt,” a little boy called out to me from across the large playground.  He and a little girl that I assumed was his sister were playing on the slide.  I was swinging while waiting for my brother Nick to come out of the bathroom.

“Did ya hear me, girl in the blue shirt?” The boy called out again.  “On the swing, in the blue shirt,” he clarified.

“Do you mean me?” I asked.

“Yeah.”  He jumped from the slide, the little brown-haired girl followed.

“I thought that maybe you were talking to your sister,” I said, nodding to the brown-haired girl.

They looked at one another “Ew!” they said in unison.  “No way am I his sister,” said the girl.

“Gross!” the boy interjected.  “She’s just my cousin.”

“Oh, I see,” I said.  “Sorry about that.”

As they got closer, the boy exclaimed, “Oh, sorry!” He seemed startled.  “You’re not a girl! You’re a teenager.  I’m really sorry that I called you girl.”

“I told you,” the cousin said, elbowing him in the ribs.  “That was rude and she’s like 14.”

“I thought you were a kid,”  The boy told me, blushing.  Both he and the girl looked to be about 9.

“That’s fine,” I said with a laugh.  “It’s probably not too many people my age that you see swinging.”

The boy shrugged and climbed on the swing beside me.  He kept glancing over at me with a puzzled look on his face.  It was then that Nicolas came out of the bathroom and joined us on the swings.

“This is Nick,” I said

“Is he your boyfriend?” the girl asked.

“No,” I laughed.  “He’s little my brother.”  More apologies ensued and more puzzled looks came my way.

“If he’s your little brother,” asked the girl, “then how old are you?”

“Are you 14?” the boy asked, thinking he was right.

I was really getting a kick out of this.  “How old do you think I am?” I asked.

“Can’t you just tell us?” the girl asked.

“After you guess,” I said.

“I think 13,” the boy said.

“No, she’s probably 16 or 17, stupid,” the girl said.

I laughed again.  “Higher,” I said.

They kept going up one year at a time until they finally arrived at 31.

The boy jumped off his swing and looked at me with a very serious expression.  “You can’t be thirty-one.  My Mom’s that age and you don’t look anything like her.”

“Well, I am thirty-one.”

“Wow,” the boy said.

It was the girl’s turn.  “Are you really that old?”

“Yep.”

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , ,

The Importance of Being a Girl

September 3, 2014 by 5 Comments

How would you react if someone told you, “It’s your job as the woman to take care of the menial tasks at home so that [your husband] can focus on accomplishing the important things that he needs to do.” This is a quote from a conversation that I had not long ago.  It is one of many like it.  If you are a woman, it’s very likely that in subtle and not so subtle ways, you’ve been told that you are unimportant because you were born the wrong gender.

What I really want to discuss is my journey as a girl who never wanted to be a girl.  Don’t get me wrong, I love dressing up every now and again and feeling beautiful, but if God was giving out preferences, I would’ve chosen to be a boy.  Why?  No periods. Haha, no…seriously, let me take you the long way around through some of the more memorable highlights.

The first time that I realized that being a girl was not all it was cracked up to be was when I was 4.  My brothers and I were painting our “tree house” in our back yard.  My older and younger brother had their shirts off, so of course, being a hot day, I took mine off too.  Don’t worry, I was dragged in the house by my mother who was completely dismayed by my lack of modesty.  Modest what?  I was 4.  “Girls always have to wear shirts, Anna,” she said as she wrestled my shirt back over my head.  “But Jonathan and Andrew don’t have to,” I whined.  “It’s hot and we’re workin’.”  (Yes, I had a little southern accent back then.)

“You’ll understand when you’re older, but you always have to wear a shirt and they’re boys—they don’t have to.”

“That’s not fair.”  Oh how right I was as a little girl.

That was the first time I realized that there were rules which applied to me and not to boys.

My next foray into inequality came when my family first joined ATIA (Advanced Training Institute of America).  My first encounter with ATI was in Knoxville, TN.  Each year, there was a big conference where all of the families from the east coast and midwest would gather for “Biblical training.”  I don’t know exactly how old I was when we first joined, but I was forced to attend the children’s sessions.

To blend in, my parents bought us all regulation clothing.  Much to my brothers chagrin, they were forced to wear white, button-down dress shirts and navy pants.  For me and my sister, it was an ankle-length navy skirt (or as close as one find in such “worldy” stores such as Wal-mart), and an ill-fitting white blouse, to camouflage any feminine body part—such as knees, necks, shoulders, and chests—which might cause a brother to stumble.

“If anyone asks,” Mom drilled us before we arrived in Knoxville, “you dress like this all the time.  And Anna,” she said, “don’t mention that you wear blue jeans.  If they ask, tell them you don’t.”  I was given permission to lie!  I could handle this.  This undercover life excited my imagination.  I saw it as great practice for my later career as a spy.

However, the excitement vanished as soon as it had come.  Dressing in a long skirt meant that I could not do any of my favorite things without great difficulty. I learned quickly to distinguish fakers like me from the hardcore Gothard-ites.  The real ones wore red scarves tied 50’s soc-hop style around their necks.  It was also easy to tell by how gracefully one was able to sit on a concrete floor. The ones that were used to sitting on the ground in skirts, were able to sit down in less than a heart beat with the utmost grace and modesty: like a weightless fairy upon an enchanted lily pad.  I worked my way through several awkward positions, looking like I was wrestling a piranha that was caught in there before I had myself situated.  I couldn’t sit any of the ways I normally sat.

In the children’s program, we sang dumb songs (and as a kid who never stopped singing, for me to draw the line at these song says something about their poor quality), watched Mr. Andrew–our K group leader–do finger exercises and ventriloquy while we waited each morning for the bus, and heard stories about how animals, like the Indian elephant, could teach us character qualities such as perseverance, and hard work.

Each year following, there grew more and more dissenters in our family.  The second year, two of my brothers had a contest to see who could get more “wisdom walks.”  “Wisdom walks” were ATI’s happy sounding phrase for punishment.  Only bad kids got those. It was some form of punishment that usually involved running laps around the large warehouse and a good old fashioned talking to.  And this was exactly what my brothers preferred, over sitting in this awful place.  They likely received spankings as well, but I really don’t remember.

The next year,  two of my brothers and I graduated into the teen program.  At first I was excited, but I soon came to realize that it was far worse than the children’s sessions.  We still sang songs, but we were graduated to actual hymns now.  I learned the hard way that there were some hymns that I, as a female, was not allowed to sing.  For instance, it was offensive for a woman to sing any hymn that featured the word “men” in the title.  Obviously, these hymns were written for men only.  Duh. So when, in a mixed assembly, we were told to stand and sing “Rise Up, O Men of God,” I did so, and while singing out with gusto, a girl tugged on my skirt and said, “Sit down, this is not for us.” I was embarrassed to notice that out of the 300 boys and girls there, I was the only girl standing.  It didn’t seem right.  With each passing day of that week, I became more and more aware that the brothers I had been equal to my whole life were no longer my equals.  I was a lesser individual who had to surround myself with rules and personal sacrifice to make their world easier.  While the boys were learning survival skills and repelling from water towers, I was stuck learning how to make ugly multi-colored braid belts that no one in their right minds would ever wear, and being forced to memorize Proverbs 31 with the Gothard interpretation.  His interpretation went something like this.  The part where she buys land and her husband trusts her to run everything is always skipped over.  The focal point is always the making clothes, the women’s work, and the sacrifice that the woman must make.  And really, as a 12 year old girl, this was my interpretation of what I heard. “The Proverbs 31 woman is basically a glorified slave who does everything (without complaining) so that her husband has a great reputation at the gate and can hang out all day doing whatever he wants with his buddies.”  That was the first time in my life, where I felt an anger that I couldn’t understand or put into words until many years later.

The more my family delved into Gothard theology, in the nifty little “wisdom booklets,” the more a seed of anger grew.  I couldn’t explain it and I constantly repented for it, but the more we became entrenched, and the more rules I was told to live by (as a girl), the more obstinate I became.  I’ll never forget reading in the wisdom booklet the interpretation of Tamar’s rape.  According to Gothard, the rape was her fault: she was leading Amnon on.  Another time, the whole last 10 pages of the booklet were pictures and detailed descriptions about how long a woman’s hair and skirt should be, and how applying too much makeup led men to stumble.  And college, was out of the question for a woman because that would mean that she would be out from under the authority and protection of a man.  Thankfully, my parents, although many times idealizing other “perfect” ATI families, never made me wear skirts (except on Sunday), and thought that the whole no college bit was overkill.

When I dressed up on Sunday’s, I only wore dresses that were extremely modest.  I was never embarrassed by my body like many women are, but I believed that somehow my body was inherently evil.  I was just about the cover child for modesty.  When my mom allowed me to wear a skirt that had a slit up to my knees one Sunday, I kept trying to sit so that no one could tell how immodest I was.  Long baggy shirts, long shorts (if I wore shorts), and once I was in high school, I wore mostly men’s clothing.  I was afraid that I might lead a man into sin accidentally.

At home, I was held to a different standard than my brothers.  I was expected to do the women’s work and my brothers were not.  Whenever I did something (usually fun and) immature, my Dad would say, “I’m disappointed in you, Anna.  You acted like the boys today.”  Being the kid who wanted to please my parents more than anything in the world, this was always a blow.  I would vow to myself that I would try harder.

As a kid and a teenager, I wanted to join the military and thinking that my Dad might be proud, I told him.  “No you won’t.  The military is no place for a girl.  I won’t allow it.”  As it turns out, because of a health issue, I wouldn’t have been eligible anyway, but it was the difference between the encouragement of my brothers doing it and me not being allowed that made it memorable.

At one point in college, I found myself being the only girl playing a football-type game with all guys.  That wasn’t too uncommon in high school, but when one of the guys took me aside and told me that it was inappropriate for me to be the only girl playing such a rough game with about 20 guys, he asked me to leave and, being completely embarrassed, I did.  I look back now and wish I’d ignored him and kept on playing, but I didn’t.

When I married Ethan, I started to believe that for the first time in my life, I was beautiful and that I didn’t need to go out of my way to cover up my body.  He liked when I wore skirts that were above my knees and tops that weren’t burgeoning on high Victorian collars.

My next step in the process came when we were trying to find a church to attend.  There was one church (Crossway), and for some reason, each Sunday that we attended, I would get the same angry feeling that I did in ATI.  So instead of praying it away or dismissing it, I began to take note.  First, I saw that on the Sunday’s where I attended church and Ethan was not with me, they did not hand me a bulletin because they only ever handed the bulletins to the men.  Then, I noticed that men would avoid looking at me or talking to me.  In fact, there was one conversation that stuck out in my mind.  A man came up to Ethan to ask if he would lead a small group discussion.  I stood directly beside Ethan and the man asked Ethan, “Would your wife be interested in assisting you?”  Ethan laughed, not giving it any thought. “She’s right here, ask her.”

He turned to me and asked and I said I’d think about it.  I was already a little burned by the fact that not only are women not allowed to lead any sort of Bible study where there might be men or boys over the age of 12 (is that the age of manhood?), but the guy had to have permission from my husband to talk to me.  There were other comments about the place of a woman from the pulpit, usually along the lines of if you’re married, you should be having and raising children.  I had no children, and thus, I was likely viewed as a threat by the men of the church.

The most obvious example of the gender segregation was the Men’s prayer breakfast and the church workday afterwards.  Ethan went to the men’s prayer breakfast where the women made, served, and cleaned up after the men’s breakfast.  Afterwards, Ethan brought me back with him to work.  Out of the 500 people in the congregation, how many women do you think were there for the work day?  One.  Me.  So the whole time, I got comments like, “You work like a man,” and “Wow, you look like you’ve done this before,” and my favorite, “you know your outdoor work, but can you cook?”  At that point, and with my hands covered in wood chips and mud, I refrained from slapping the man.  Before that point, all of the things that I had noticed had gone unnoticed by Ethan.  It wasn’t happening to him, so he was oblivious to it.  I told him about these things that I was noticing, and slowly, he was starting to see things for what they really were for himself.  It was not long after the church workday that we left that church.

Is this what Christian fellowship is supposed to look like?  Is it supposed to be driven by fear of our sin natures?  I should hope not.

Not long ago, a Christian speaker asked, “How do I teach men how to be men?”  I would ask instead, what does it mean to be a man?  Most father seminars run along the lines of teaching men to “lead their families,”  using words like “leadership, decisive, strong, protection, etc…”  Is that really what a man should be?  What about the men who are nothing like that?  Perhaps they have no desire to “lead” their women.  Great.  What if the man and woman fall naturally into those prescribed roles?  Great.

What would happen if that concept was to change?  What if men were held to the same standards as women?   What would the world look like if men were taught to be kind, generous, thoughtful, loving, and serving?  What if women were taught to love themselves for who they are, tomboy or girly girl?  Would it be so wrong to embrace every part of each human?  And would we then be able to view gender roles as safety nets for our sinful natures?

Filed Under: Faith and Religion, Personal Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Jars…

June 28, 2014 by 1 Comment

The Jars of Truth

This summer, I decided to do an experiment. I’m calling it the “jars of truth.”  One is a jar with a label stating “Jar of Thankfulness” and underneath there is a verse “Give thanks in all things…” (1 Thess. 5:18).  Above the verse is a smiley face.  On the second jar, the “Jar of Ungratefulness” (frowny face), the verse “Out of the heart the mouth speaks…” (Luke 6:45) is written.  For the Thankfulness jar, there is a dish of white stones in front of it.  For the Ungratefulness jar, there are black stones (we got them for some sort of Chinese board game that we never learned how to play).  One stone for each noticed thought or word that is thankful or not.

There are several reasons for these jars.  The most important being, there was far too much complaining going on in the house.  In my family of origin, complaining is its own art form.  It goes hand in hand with the other practiced family traits of pessimism, skepticism, criticism and cynicism.  Negativity central.  And having two brothers here for the summer and my own self, I knew that ungratefulness would rob us of a truly enjoyable summer.  I was also noticing a trend of what I like to call “pre-complaining.”  That is complaining about something before it’s actually occurred.

Example: 

Me: We’re going camping this weekend.

Brother who shall not be named: *whine* It’s going to be hot and I don’t like sleeping outside, etc…

Reality: It was chilly and he slept on an air mattress in the truck.

The next reason for having these jars is to see that being thankful makes us see the good that God has for us in everything.  Giving thanks not only helps us to see the good things, but also builds trust that God wants to give us these things.  Complaining robs us of joy and the actual experience itself.  Negativity taints the perception of reality.  Not that there isn’t a time to admit that everything is not ideal or perfect, but it takes more work to notice the good sometimes—and that is work worth learning to do.

At first, I thought of just having a thankfulness jar, but that didn’t seem enough.  I wanted us to be aware of reality.  And being mostly boys (or a tomboy in my case), I knew we needed to make it a sort of competition.  So, at the end of each week, we look to see which jar outweighs which.   So far, there has been much less complaining.  Even though I contributed several black stones last night for my attitude, this week’s thankfulness jar still won out.  Yay us!

The personal why of the jars…

Earlier this year, I was (finally) diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and this practice of mindfulness in thankfulness really goes hand-in-hand with other things that I’m working to learn: setting firm boundaries for what I will and won’t do for others, admitting that I can’t always accomplish something physically or mentally (depending on the day or week or month), and that I need to be fine with just being and not always doing.  This is tough since most of my life, I’ve been completely reliant on myself and accomplishing goals is how I’ve defined both myself and success.  And yet, if God had not forcefully slowed me down from my sprinting through life, I would not have learned many of these important lessons.    Thankfully, because I’ve tried to be very careful with how much I extend myself this year, I am (physically) feeling like a different person than the one I was a year ago 🙂

So I suppose that these jars are a physical extension of what I’m trying to learn: to notice and be grateful for the moment instead of always looking to the next thing.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: ,

Standing in the Shadow of Mother’s Day

May 13, 2014 by 8 Comments

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Please don’t ask mothers to stand, please don’t ask mothers to stand, I thought over and over this past Sunday morning.  I would not stand, even though I’ve been like a mother most of my life.

When I was young, and my mom only had five or six children, I remember looking forward to each Mother’s Day.  At the time, we attended a very large southern church and each year without fail, the pastor would ask mothers to stand.  To make things interesting, he would say something like, “If you have more than three children, please remain standing.”  This continued until there were only one or two women standing; they were usually in their eighties and had between twelve and thirteen children.

Every year, my mom would proudly stand and wait as the numbers of women standing dwindled.  As a kid, I felt so much pride that this was my mother.  In my eyes, she was a super hero.  I loved the gasps that swirled around us as she continued to stand.  It wasn’t lost on me though, that the admiration for five turned into incredulity of her sanity by six.  The blessed “quiver full of arrows,” came to be seen as being placed in the hands of mad men.

And each year, my mother scanned the large congregation for her personal rival, Mrs. Merriweather.*  It began with child #5 and continued through until Mom eventually took the lead at #9, nine years later.  Looking back, Mrs. Merriweather may never have known that their birthing of children was a competition, but in my mother’s mind, she not only knew, but was a bitter rival.  Sneers, slights and unkind looks were reported by my mother on a regular basis.  But I digress.

It was between child #6 and #7 that pride for my mother on this day, turned to one of conflicted shame.  It was the shame of a partial lie.  It really began with Mom’s depression that began before the birth of my sister (child #5), but being only six years old myself, I did not fully grasp the situation.  I remember making the conscious decision that Mom needed help, but did not realize until later that she needed much more than that.  By child #7, my innocent understanding of life had crumbled like a sandcastle in the tide.  My eyes were wide open to reality.  Mom was so busy trying to cope with her own deep depression, that she was unable to be a mom except to the babies.  She loved and cared for the babies because they fulfilled her need to be completely needed, but as soon as they became remotely independent, they became my children to take care of.

I remember wanting children when I was really young, but after basically raising my younger siblings, I realized that I never even wanted to marry, much less have kids.  These are the things that I thought about as my mother stood so proudly each year on Mother’s Day.  I loved her and I knew that she was trying, and yet, I couldn’t help feeling sick to my stomach that she was not the only mother.  It felt like a lie.  Mom birthed them, I took care of them. I sat silent, covered in the shadow of her standing figure.  I never stood.

So this year, as Mother’s Day came around, I thought back to those days; especially now, raising Nicolas.  When I mention that I became my brother’s guardian and I am back in the role of raising him, most people are very supportive.  However, there was one particular woman who took me back to my shadow days.  She vehemently told me, “You’re not his mother.  You’ll never be his mother.  It’s not the same, so don’t try to compare yourself to one when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”  I was stunned to silence.  It took me back to one of my most painful memories as a teenager.  Most painful because it was the quintessential example of how adults who didn’t know my situation, viewed me.

Mom had 9 kids by this point, and she had just had her second miscarriage in a row. She was devastated.  The house was a wreck and as usual, I was doing my best to keep everything under control.  An older, well-meaning couple from our church came over to bring words of comfort to Mom.  After the wife prayed with my mom in a caring tone of voice, I showed the husband and wife to the front door.  With a child on one hip and a laundry basket on the other, I thanked them for coming.  But instead of leaving, the husband turned to me and said, “Your yard is a wreck.  You really should get a handle on the poison ivy outside.”

“I know,” I was embarrassed. “I’ve tried but I’m really allergic, and it keeps coming back, so it’s difficult.”

“That’s no excuse,” he said.  He proceeded to tell me how to do it.

At that point, the wife chimed in, stepping close to my face and sticking an angry finger a few inches from my nose. “You’re lazy,” she said.  Her gentle tone of voice she’d used with mom was gone.  In it’s place was a hard, steely one.  “You need to help your mom.  This place is a mess.  She has taken care of all of you, and what do you do when she’s in need?  Nothing, from what I can tell.”  With that, they turned and left without looking back.  Every time I think back to that moment, and even now as I write, I shake with how ashamed I felt.  It was being told that my sacrifice of my life up to that point was nothing.  It was not good enough.  I understand that they had no idea, but it still cut deep.

So as these memories and thoughts came back to me, I was relieved that although mothers were thanked and acknowledged, this Sunday, there was no standing involved.  I don’t ever want Nicolas to think that I’m trying to replace Mom.  I’m not.  I will always be his sister and I will always love Mom.  So thank you to the thoughtful people who whispered a happy Mother’s Day to me when he was not around.  It meant so much to me that you were thinking not only of me but of him as well.

Filed Under: Personal

The Forgotten Element

April 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Accompanying this man was a blast. He was a professional.

Accompanying this man was a blast.  He was on loan from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.

A few years ago, I took a little job accompanying for a Suzuki strings studio.  It’s challenging, but learning so many new pieces, and polishing my accompanying skills is so much fun.  So this week, as I’ve been practicing for hours each day in preparation for the big recital, I remembered my own accompanists from years ago.

In college, I never truly appreciated how much an accompanist does.  Being a typical singer, I would forget to count half way through the long notes, and fudge a bit (for breath-sake) on the odd rhythms.  Tricky entrances were my worst fear.  I also chose the songs with the most difficult accompaniment because they were the most beautiful.  And somehow, they kept up with me and never complained.

Little did I realize the possible headaches and eye rolls that my poor accompanists held back for my sake.  And now that I am the one sitting at the piano most of the time, I have learned a few things.

  1. Turning pages is hard and sometimes impossible if you don’t have a nifty assistant beside you.  Although frowned upon, I use the spread out copies method for the most difficult, long pieces.  I’ve also learned the folded corners trick and the memorize-the-first-measure-of-the-next-page trick.  Who would’ve imagined that practicing flawless page turns sometimes takes more practice than the actual song?
  2. A good accompanist must be all-knowing.  Your part, the soloists part, everybody’s part and be prepared for them to mess up.
  3. When they do mess up (not if), you must use mind-reading techniques to decide how they’re going to react before they do it.
  4. You must learn the piece at every speed imaginable.  Child A studied diligently and learned the piece at the perfect speed, Child B takes it a bit too slow because the fingerings are tricky, and Child C thinks that this is a roller derby (fast, lightening speed, and haltingly slow).
  5. You Tube can be your best friend.  Are you bad at multi-tasking on those more tricky pieces and humming over your piano part doesn’t work?  I am.  That’s why I type it into You Tube and listen to 3 people butcher it before I find a decent recording.
  6. Trying to convince a parent that his/her child is not perfect is not a good idea.  I have one parent in particular, that each year, while I’m accompanying for her child, thinks that every mistake is mine.  Not a big deal until she refuses to pay me because there is no way it’s because her daughter hasn’t learned her piece well enough.   Again, if I could mind-read her child, this would be no problem, but alas, I cannot.
  7. If you do make a mistake, everyone will notice and likely remember.  If you don’t mess up, few will notice that you played at all.  It makes me laugh, but it’s completely true.

This is my heartfelt thank you to my accompanists (Tim, Tim, Dishon, and Roy) for not killing me during college.  You really showed me the grace of God.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , ,

2013: A Year of Unexpected Gifts and Blessings in Disguise

January 16, 2014 by 3 Comments

Hiking

Gift #1—Keeping Hope Through Disappointment

2013 was a trying year.  In May, I began to feel as if the mono, that I had been dealing with for 2 1/2 years, was finally subsiding.  For the first time, I felt well. I was so happy and relieved, that when I started feeling badly 2 weeks later,  I was just thankful for the window of respite.  This time around though, the illness was different. There were similarities (fever, headaches, and fatigue), but this one was scarier because it involved my heart and intense pain at unexpected times.

In August, I was assigned a heart monitor.   Let me just take a moment to describe to you what it’s like to wear a heart monitor.  First, there are two parts to the heart monitor.  There is the one part that is worn on a lanyard and hangs where most women would have issues with cleavage and is attached to five wires.  The five wires are clipped to the diodes (these sticky little circles on the body) in five specific areas.  The other part is an ancient looking cellphone that must be worn close to the monitor.   At the end of the month though, I was sorely disappointed and frustrated to learn that the heart monitor only worked part of two separate days in that entire month.  Every “episode” that I tried to record, didn’t go through.  After it was over, the red, itching, and raw circles on my skin from the diodes took two months to heal. There was no way I was doing that again.  The ordeal was…unfortunate.

Next up was an infectious disease specialist who sent me for chest x-rays, CT scans, and a cornucopia of blood work.  After months of testing and nothing showing up, he ended by saying, “We’ve done everything to find the source of the fever, but I have a feeling that you may be the 1% of that people that have an extremely rare form of an infection in the heart.  Knowing your history,” he said with a laugh, “you might be someone that is featured in the medical journals.  However, the only way to know that for sure is to do a somewhat risky procedure that I don’t want to do unless your fever is higher and stays that way.”

So, it’s the next year and I am back to where I started.  Only this time, I have the nifty catch-all label of “Fever of Unknown Origin.”  I am currently feeling much better in many ways. I still run a fever most days, have headaches, and am tired but less often, and overall, I don’t hurt as much nor as often.

I know this was a long way to say that through all of this, I’ve learned that it’s okay to just let other people help you carry your burden.  I’ve always been such a fiercely independent person that it is very hard for me to even ask for prayer from others.  My family, church family, and friends have done this for me and I am so extremely grateful.

  I’ve also learned that sometimes, it’s okay to trudge when you can’t run.  I mean this both literally and figuratively.  Sometimes when I ran, I felt okay as long as I ran slowly enough.  Other times, I would barely be running and feel as if I was dying.  Now that I’m feeling mostly better, I’ve been able to run faster and feel better than I have in nearly 3 years.  I don’t know why this is, but I am so thankful for it.

Gift #2—Becoming a mother without the title (again…sort of)

After making the promise as a teenager to care for my siblings if needed (see previous post), it finally happened.  My youngest brother came to live with us.  He was having trouble at home and at school, and Ethan and I both knew that God wanted us to have Nicolas come and live with us.  We became his legal guardians in September.

Since he’s come to live with us, I’ve come to know what a special young man he is with so much potential, but with so many old bad habits and heartaches that are difficult for him to face. (I know that I’m biased because I think that all of my siblings are the most wonderful people in the world, but trust me, they are).  At times, like the last 3 weeks, I’m reminded of how human we both are and why I need to be in constant prayer.  I’ve come to learn just how difficult trying to teach a 15 year old how his actions affect others is, when he has been in survivor mode his whole life and self-protection is all he knows.  It’s very much like adopting a 15 year old orphan.

And yet, there are those random moments when he opens up and I can see how beautiful a heart he has.  He is creative, has a great sense of humor, is kind to people who are having a hard time.  During Advent, he was my secret buddy and helped out with all kinds of chores because he knows that one of my love languages is service.  These are the moments that I try to remember when, in months like this one, he’s letting out years of hurt and frustration on those closest.

I’m so thankful to have him here in our lives.  I’ve learned so many things about myself, Nick, and how Ethan and I work as a team.   Life is pretty different now, but I’m glad.  I look forward to what 2014 will bring.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , , ,

The Best, Worst, and Most Thought-Provoking Books of 2013

December 12, 2013 by 1 Comment
Picture by tubagooba CC Some Rights Reserved

Picture by tubagooba CC Some Rights Reserved

Have I ever told you how much I love fiction and memoirs?  I love them very much.  Why? Because fiction (as well as memoir) is like seeing reality portrayed in a stain glass window.  The story is condensed into its most poignant scenes, but the more subtle elements are there if you know how to look for them.  It’s colorful, the characters are complex and sometimes exaggerated.  But what makes this stained glass mean anything is the light of truth that shines through it.  If that truth isn’t there, then the story is useless and if it has no different color, its a plain realistic window.

The best of books are able to do this without obscuring the truth too much, but the worst books are the ones written by authors who are either unsure about how to tell the truth or not out to tell truth at all.  They are there to sell books.

So, as I’ve read quite a few in 2013, I’d like to share with you my mixed bag.  Suggestions of things to read, things to avoid.

Best Fiction

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

What can I say?  I’m not quite finished with this book and I already love it.  As with his previous books, it’s full of artistic stories with plenty of reality mixed in.  It reads like someone telling you a bedtime story, and that’s exactly how the book begins.  Warning: I was cautioned ahead of time that because there are so many intertwining stories, one needs to keep a character cheat sheet handy.  I haven’t needed one, but it might be because I knew in advance that if I didn’t pay close attention to names, I might get confused.  So since I was warned, I figured you should be too.

 

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

It took me a bit to really get into the lingo of this book, but once I did, I could not put it down.  It is a story about a very dysfunctional family.  For me, this book hit very close to home, and many times, I had to set it aside because it made me so angry at the predictability of some of the character’s choices. Warning: If you’ve lived a relatively charmed life, you will find this book terribly disturbing.  If you can relate, read it.  It might help you understand your childhood a little more.

 

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

There are three authors that I love for their writing styles: John Steinbeck, Cormack McCarthy, and Jack London.  They have the unique ability to use as few perfectly placed words as possible to tell a very powerful story.  For a long time, I avoided reading this because its…about a dog or wolf or something.  But let me tell you, this is so beautifully written, and is such a good story, you can’t not read this.  And in full disclosure, this book actually made me tear up in one part (I rarely cry, so I know it’s a moving story if I do).

 

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

I enjoyed this book.  It was highly imaginative and fun.  And at several points, I kept thinking, “He must’ve done a lot research.” Warning:  If you listen to it as an audiobook as I did, make sure that you are not running a long distance in the heat of summer while listening to the part where he is thirsting to death.

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card

This was a fun sci-fi/fantasy book.  It turns time travel on its head and really is just a fun, quick read.  I enjoyed how it begins with a small story, and begins to unfold into a huge story by the end of it.  It’s great for teenagers and young adults.  Warning: It is part of a series of which the second book is not as good, and the third book is not out yet.

 

Best Memoir

Night by Elie Weisel

For many schools, this book is required reading and rightly so.  It’s the brief and gripping firsthand account of one Holocaust survivor who lived to tell his story about life and death in Auschwitz.

 

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

I checked this one out of the library on audiobook, knowing nothing about it. Warning: This book is laugh-out-loud hilarious.  I began listening to this while at the gym and kept bursting out laughing.  I’m pretty sure that the man next to me was about to call the paddy wagon.  If you have a parent that idealizes growing up in the 50’s, this will make you laugh all the more.

 

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

This one makes me smile every time I think about it.  This is a book for which the word nostalgic was created. If you’ve never read it, you must.  It will make you laugh, smile, and wish that you too could ride in an unreliable car in jolly old England.

 

Thought Provoking

This is the category I’m using to say that although I didn’t love the book, I’m glad I read it.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

For years, I’ve seen this on the best of sci-fi lists, but since sci-fi isn’t generally my favorite, I kept putting it off.  Heinlein is creative, preachy, and highly opinionated.  Spoiler Alert: It was interesting, and the Christ-like death of the main character was predictable from midway through the book, but it was interesting.

 

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

This book really stuck in my head.  After being sorely disappointed by the cliched and angsty treatment of Greeks gods in The Lightning Thief, I was really looking forward to this one.  It did not disappoint.  It was not predictable, the characters were fascinating, and the story drew me in.  Warning: There are several “uncomfortable” scenes in this book, if you know what I mean. *clears throat*

 

Dune by Frank Herbert

I really don’t have too much to say about this book.  I was told that I would love it, but I didn’t–I liked it.  I found it interesting with some wonderfully creative ideas, a wonderful plot, but I think I just really disliked the authors writing style as well as all of the characters.  They all seemed completely devoid of hearts.

 

Worst

This is Our Faith by Michael Pinnock

Other than most chapters beginning with old e-mail forward jokes and stories, the book was as thrilling as staring at a blank wall.  I’ll take the wall.  I’m not ragging on this book because it’s a Catholic book, just to keep it clear.  It’s just that it’s terribly written.  It’s for those who have grown up in the Catholic church, and not for Protestants wanting to know more.  So, to really learn more about the Catholic faith, I bought the Catechism–it was much more informative.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Let me begin with the one positive thins about this book: it was very well written.  Okay, now to save you some reading time.  There are four things to say about this book: drugs, alcohol, arrogance up the wazoo, and poor choices.  The characters were all rich jerks, the narrator wanted to be one of them, and they all killed people.  The end.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riorden

This.  This was awful.  Perhaps it’s because I’m not 10 and I’ve read other books and I have an imagination.  There was so much potential, but every time that an exciting turn could be taken, nope.  Riorden had to keep it as boring as possible.  How do you make a book about a boy finding out that Greek gods are real and that he’s one of their sons, boring?  Honestly, I would think it would take more work.  And if an impressionable 10 year old did read this, they might come away with a terrible attitude problem like the main character has.

There you have it.

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: ,

Conversations with a Teenager

October 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
July 4th with Daniel and Nick.

July 4th with Daniel and Nick.

It’s been a few months since my last post.  Life has become a bit more busy since becoming an “insta-parent” to my 15 year old brother Nicolas.  He has been living with us for about 2 months now.  It’s been wonderful to see how he’s constantly evaluating things and figuring out what he believes.  And because he’s constantly questioning, it leaves me in the spot of giving parental sounding reactions that I never thought I’d give.  Here are a few such conversations on the important things in life.

Religion:

After Nick told me that he identifies himself as an agnostic, he asked what I thought.

“I think that is fine. Because even though you’re not sure if God exists, he’s sure that you do.  And I think that at some point in your life he will make himself known to you.  It might be years from now, but he will.  Eventually, you will have to make that choice of whether or not you will deny His existence.”

 

Politics:

After hearing a short piece on the radio about immigration reform, Nicolas said, “I think that we should help the people who are immigrating to the US.  They just want to work and make a better life.”

“I agree,” I said, “but I also think that they should work towards citizenship so that they can vote and pay the same taxes as everyone else.”

At this he frowned.  “I think that when I turn 18, I’m not going to vote.”

“Okay,” I said. “But never complain about who’s in office and how you don’t like what they’re doing.”

“I just don’t think it matters.”

“That’s exactly what a ton of other American’s think too.  And guess what?  Even though most people show up to the big presidential elections thinking that it is the important one and that every vote counts, those votes don’t count nearly as much as in the local elections.  I work the polls every election and know that it’s the 40 people that bother to show up that control this township and the however many die hard voters that control the county.  No one thinks that those elections matter until their property taxes spike or their school district is failing them because they’ve got a crappy school board.  Then the non-voters start complaining and that’s just a waste of perfectly good air.”

“Oh.”

Filed Under: Personal

My Brothers Keeper

August 28, 2013 by 9 Comments

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I’m going to be honest.  This post is not humorous or uplifting, because I’m in the midst of a wrestling match:  my selfish nature vs. God.  This post is real with nothing to sugar coat it.  So if you were hoping for something light and comical, read one of my fiction pieces and steer clear of this one.

“Yield your rights to God.” This was a catch phrase of a fundamentalist group that I grew up in.  In theory, it means that you are giving up your own selfish desires so that God can work through you.  A good thing, right?  In reality though, it many times meant that if you felt violated, angry, or taken advantage of, it was really your own fault.  You needed to confess your selfish desires and repent and “yield that right to God.”  This made it easy for people to take advantage of those who really just wanted to do the right thing.

As a child and teenager, I was one that let people take advantage of me because I thought I was doing the right thing.  I thought that being used and abused by people was okay.  I refer mainly to the relationship with my parents at that time.  I know that it is frowned upon to speak ill of the dead, but it’s true.  And in defense of my father, he is a very different man now than he was then.

My mother suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar.  The best way to describe her is to say that she could be the most kind and caring person one moment (and I think this was who she really was) and immediately turn verbally and sometimes physically abusive the next.  It was as if two people were constantly warring within her and no one knew what would set her off.  Accidents–like spilling your bowl of cereal–in our house meant spankings, yelling, and sometimes a good hard slap.  At other times, she would laugh.  You never knew which it would be.

As a child and a teenager, I thought that I was doing the right thing by becoming the buffer between my mother and my siblings.  I would work from morning to night, caring for the kids and the house because if I didn’t, it meant very bad things for them.  Whenever something bad would occur, I was the one who comforted people and picked up the pieces.  I remember many times finding a quiet room to cry in after taking some sort of brunt for something I didn’t do.  I wrongly thought that I was being heroic and yielding my rights to God.  I firmly believed that to “forgive and forget” was the way to love the offenders.  And if I purposefully put things out of my mind for long enough, I did slowly forget.  I didn’t realize then what I know now; that even if the details of a situation are forgotten, the remnants of the feelings that you felt then, still haunt you.

At the time, my father was not much better. I was about 16 at the time, and was working a part time job, working through high school, homeschooling my siblings, and caring for the 3 youngest who were still toddlers and babies. One evening, I made dinner and both parents came home from work (my mom took a temporary job) to eat.  I set the plate in front of my father who took a bite and spit it out, pushing the plate away from him.

“This is disgusting,” he said. “Can’t you make anything other than chicken and broccoli?”

It made me angry, but I didn’t say anything (yielding my rights…).  A few minutes later, Mom was yelling at my brother who was a toddler at the time.  He wouldn’t obey her, so I told him to do what mom was asking and he obeyed me without a second thought.  At this, she became irate.

“How dare you usurp my authority!” she yelled. “Who do you think you are? You’re not their mother, so quit acting like it.  Stop trying to turn them against me!”

I don’t remember if I said anything, I just remember thinking, “That’s it.  That’s the last straw.”

Up to that point, I had in the back of my mind that I would run away.  I had read about an island of wealthy people off of the coast of GA.  I had saved up enough money for a train ticket.  I would buy a train ticket to somewhere in south GA, and because I knew that trains went very slowly through Savannah, GA, I would jump off the train there so that my parents couldn’t trace my destination.  I would go to the island and apply to be a housekeeper.  I had my resumes ready.  While I was marking up my map, God stopped me in my tracks.  “If not you, then who will be your brothers keeper?”

I had plenty of reason to leave, I told him in my head.  The first being, they’re not my children.  The second being, I had taken care of them since I was their age.

“What more do want from me?” I roared aloud.

A similar dialogue went on for three days.  At the end of three days, I stopped fighting.  “If not you,” God said, “then who will show them that they are loved?” I knew he was right.

“I will be my brothers keeper,” I said, and meant it.  That was my vow.

From that point on, I remained true to my vow.  I didn’t think that I would ever go to college or have my own life.  As things turned out, though, I did have the chance to go to college, to get married and live my own life for nearly 7 years now.

So what has this to do with a wrestling match now?  Well, as a side note, I will say that for nearly 3 years, I’ve been sick with different ongoing illnesses, the last underlying illness of which is yet to be identified, and I’m tired, literally. Physically, mentally, and spiritually, tired.  I feel like I have nothing left to give.  That is where I’m at.

And now, my vow has returned to me in the form of becoming the legal guardian and caretaker of my youngest brother.  I love him and am excited that he is coming to live with us.  Our plan was to begin the adoption process this year (of some kids internationally), but that and other plans will have to wait.  Putting my life on hold, brings back my old feelings of losing my freedom.  And if you don’t know how it feels to give up your freedom, it feels like you’re grieving the loss of a dear friend.

I know that God gives the grace we need at the moment.  It’s just not an easy moment.

Filed Under: Personal
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