In darkness, but not gone

The lunar eclipse was mind-boggling, for those of you who didn't get to see it in person. I highly recommend you try to catch it next time, y'know, 80-some years from now.

And while I understand it was incredibly significant in it's own right, standing there staring into the heavens had a special intensity for me Tuesday morning.

My grandma was born on the 21st — the winter solstice, shortest day of the year. She used to joke it's why she was so short.

She died about a year and a half ago. We'd been losing Grandma as we knew her for quite some time, but the loss still left a gaping hole in my life.

I'm sure she told me stories my entire childhood about her thoughts and feelings on being a grandmother, making married life work, raising three kids and working. It's not that I wasn't listening, but as a kid you hear the events more than the truths behind them — or I did at least. And by the time I realized how much I needed to hear the truth of my grandmother's story from her own lips, that sweet, gentle woman was already in the grip of Alzheimer's.

I'm left to piece together what I can deduce of her feelings and reflections from the evidence —to figure out what fills the frame, made of the stories she told, by looking at what's left behind:

Her family. The sound of her voice in prayer. A giggle. A handful of special things I know how to do because she went out of her way to teach me. And the belief that every time we ate out we had to be celebrating something.

I sat there last night staring at the moon, thinking of my grandma in the silence and growing darkness. As the shadow spread across the moon and reached total eclipse, I was surprised that I could still make out a tiny rim of light around the edges, glowing red and a bit hazy.

Despite it being mostly enveloped in darkness, I could still imagine the familiar surface of the moon as I see it when it's full and bright. Despite it being veiled in shadow, I didn't have to see the moon to know it was still there.

Thanks, Grandma, I think I get it. Happy Birthday. I'll see you around.

As published in the Marion County Record, December 22, 2010.

Break out the Boggle

They didn’t come Sunday. They will likely come later. You know who they are, and they are not the most important thing happening in this community right now.

My husband and I attended the town meeting Dec. 8 with our precocious toddler who insisted on choosing her outfit herself: a bright turquoise dress over pastel pink velour leggings and a bright red coat. Oh my.

When we got there, the auditorium was almost full.

The discussion was important. The questions needed to be answered.

People expressed concerns, listened, agreed, and disagreed. There were cameras from TV news stations, police officers, city officials. There were also high school students, parents, business owners, and families.

And between the discussions of “what to do and what not to do” every once in a while somebody would raise their hand and say how proud they were of this community, right that very minute, as we gathered together to prepare for what was heading our way.

It kinda felt like the “family meetings” I experienced as a kid in our basement when tornado sirens wailed. Hear a siren, head for the basement.

Dad would turn on the TV or radio and get the facts about the storm headed our way. Sometimes we had snacks. Eventually we forgot our troubles and played Boggle. Sometimes, we’d stay down there for hours, even after the storm had passed.

It’s kind of the way I feel whenever any sort of bad weather blows through, no matter where I live. I have this sense that natural disaster brings people together to weather the same storm. Oddly enough, I find this comforting. Most days I’m so caught up in my own whirlwinds I forget that people I see every day are out there doing the same thing — doing their best to batten the hatches and weather their own storm.

On Dec. 8, my little family sat with many other Marion families (some I only knew by name) in one place and prepared for the gathering storm. It felt like a family meeting. It felt like community.

This storm has been a loud one and we’ve heard it rattling a few loose floor boards. The thing is, the mere threat of severe weather immediately brought this town together.

I can now put faces with more names. And many people will probably now know my kid likes to dress funny — but they’ll know her when they see her at the store. Our foundation is stronger, and the storm was just a lot of blustering wind.

Now, who’s up for snacks and some Boggle?

As published in the Marion County Record, December 15, 2010

Catch a falling star in the act

On the way home from a family evening out last week, I was staring out the car window, as I often do, and I saw a falling star. Such a sight has been a rare thing in my life, and it always makes me feel just the way I’m supposed to — I feel small and somehow special at the same time.

Last night, as that star blazed across the sky exactly where I was staring, I stopped mid-sentence just to watch it. By the time the star dissolved I couldn’t recall what I’d been saying.

One of our very first nights in Marion, my husband and I were sitting on our back porch with a dear friend who had flown out to help us move. He’s a very close, longtime friend of Michael’s — like a brother. 

The three of us had worked hard all day and the baby was finally asleep, so we grabbed drinks and headed outside for good conversation among old friends. I’ve always found campfires and fire pits to be good places for these gatherings, but we had nothing like that. We put a citronella candle on a stool and sat on camping chairs.

The conversation ebbed and flowed and warmed us all. At one point, a longer pause found us all staring up at the sky. And what a sky it was! So many more stars than I’m used to.

One of my favorite parts of living in a rural area is that a spectacle akin to those that were rare treats for me growing up, glows above me every night here in Marion.

And the thing about a sky with so many more stars visible is, usually, if I stare up into the night sky long enough, I see a falling star. 

That night with our friend we stared so long our necks were sore, but each of us saw at least three.

I’ve taken the time to stare up at night a handful of times since then, and I can honestly say I have seen a falling star every single time.

So, why don’t I do it more often? If something so rare and awe-inspiring is up there every night, why don’t I take the time to look? 

I don’t have a good answer. I have loved the night sky and the connection I feel with it since I was very young, and I even have a bit of an obsession with falling stars. I should look every night, but I don’t.

Maybe I get weighed down by the things that are harder than I thought they’d be when we moved from the Big City. Maybe I forget. Maybe I don’t like being cold. Like I said, I don’t really have a good reason.

When I stopped mid-sentence the other night, I was actually mid-yetanothergripe and pretty worked up as I recall — but I completely forgot what I was so upset about. That, alone, is reason to make an effort to catch more stars in the act, I think. 

If each one can make me forget my death-grip on worry long enough to see something spectacular, I should be camped out nightly on my front lawn with my eyes taped open.

For now, I can at least commit to looking up from my worries more often with hope of catching something rare and beautiful in the act.

As published in the Hillsboro Star Journal, December 8, 2010

Taking flight

I’ve tried to master a yoga pose, called Crane Pose, for years. Once four years ago, I even undertook months of preparation and study in an attempt to “take flight” in what was supposed to be one of the easier arm-balance poses. I never got past the part where I was crouched down, leaning my enitre body weight into my armpits with my elbows bent.

Yoga has since faded in my life, now that I balance work, daughter, dogs, home, husband, etc. Nowadays what used to be a daily, 45-minute "practice" looks more like two or three minutes of stretching while I’m loading the washing machine or chopping vegetables. Every once in a while I roll out the mat and get 10 minutes to do sitting stretches, but these are something my daughter considers “team activities.”

Today, when I had an unexpected morning to myself, I decided to forego productivity and do one small loving thing for myself, something I used to do when I had time. I cranked up the Rolling Stones. I rolled out my mat and lit incense and prepared to simply follow my very out-of-practice body into whatever series of poses it wanted to follow.

Watching me do yoga is pure comedy when I’m attempting to not look stupid. When I let go in the house by myself and crank up my shamelessly nerdy music, look out -- it becomes a disturbing mesh of yoga, beginner ballet (but only the arms), a bad Pilates tape I once tried to follow, and a few kick moves I don’t think really belong to any fitness genre.

I stretched and breathed and mouthed along “you can't always get what you want …" I did graceful arm-lifts and nearly toppled… I bent and grunted and remembered to exhale … I followed my mood and found myself squatting in preparation for Crane Pose.

I was alone in my house with the dogs so I figured "why not?". I steadied my mind and took a few breaths and leaned my knees onto my bent forearms. More breathing. I lifted my feet from the mat, and to my surprise didn’t fall on my face. I heard the Stones in the background “but if you try sometimes …” so I did. I pushed through my palms and extended my forearms and tucked my feet. And suddenly, in the middle of my living room, I was flying.

I couldn’t have done it four years ago. Back then my arms were not tested daily by the weight of a 2-year-old pulling the “jelly legs” routine when she doesn’t want to go somewhere. Back then I hadn’t had to work really hard to get flat(ish) abs after a C-section. Back then, physical ability wasn’t something I had to work for. Today, my body earned every inch I rose off the floor and my heart floated way above me because of it.

And then I fell.

But something monumental happened. Usually when I look for ways to take care of myself, I think back to what I used to do when I had more time (before the baby, the dogs, the husband, etc.) and just end up feeling really bad about myself that I don’t have the energy or the means to do any of it anymore. Then again, when I used to have time to yoga or write bad poetry, etc., I never really felt successful at any of it in a way that made me feel good about myself.

Today I found time to try and, while I didn’t get what I want (a daily yoga practice) I got something I needed – I got a small success!

And that success made me feel so good I wanted to pass it on! I made treats for my family and called a friend who is having a tough time, just to listen to her. And that kinda makes me think maybe I'm better off than I was four years ago. Now, when I get the chance to fly, it doesn’t take much for me to feel like I have enough to share. I like that better.

As published in the Marion County Record, December 1, 2010

Point me toward the leaves

I gripe and complain about the stresses of mothering, but those who know me know my daughter is the love of my life. Children were not in any sort of plan I had for my life, but when she came along I couldn’t say no.

I won’t lie, everything I feared about having kids has come true — the amount of sacrifice, the work, the poop. It’s hard and I expected it to be.

What I didn’t expect was that parenting would be so rewarding (most days) I’d forget about the other stuff. 

Forgetting can be tough this time of year, at least in our household, with the economy still lackluster, the holiday stress building, and so many things to do around the house.

My husband was attempting to tackle items on that lengthy list of household to-dos Sunday while we had a break in the weather. 

He’d raked all the leaves from the front yard into a massive pile while I was trying to nap off a cold. Our daughter recently turned 2 and, as you might expect, is opposed to everything. We thought we might try to coax her into letting us throw her in the leaf pile at least once.

I was wallowing in self-pity, thinking how unfair it would be to be sick on Thanksgiving, when I heard squeals of glee in the front yard. Michael came running into the house, “Get your camera, you’ve GOT to come see this.”

I threw on a coat and did just that. Michael told me as soon as he put Lyla down in the front yard she’d made a mad dash for the leaves and lunged in, face first.

And there she was when I came outside, jumping and falling and throwing leaves, laughing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. I forgot my runny nose and dived right in with her — haven’t done that in many years. Michael and I laughed and laughed and hugged our little girl until we realized the sun was setting.

Despite the fact that Lyla is every ounce as challenging as I feared she would be at this stage, today I am thankful that she is in our lives because nobody has to point her toward the leaves. 

Nobody has to tell kids how to make the most of a warm fall day and the beauty of the season. Having a toddler in my life does make for some frustrating moments, but it also helps point me toward the giant pile of leaves, and for that, I am deeply thankful.

As published in the Marion County Record, November 24, 2010

Light rain and small steps

I have a good friend who has spent a large portion of his life doing a lot of deep thinking about what it means to love well, what it is to do good loving.

He is intentional on a daily basis about seeking out small, simple things to notice that bring him joy in the “daily daily” of life. One day it was rain in the midst of sunshine. He wrote about it: “Yesterday morning as I was walking into work from my car, it rained a bit. The sun was out, and it lit the sky brightly like it does when it’s hiding behind and illuminating the clouds. It was a light rain, but it wasn’t drizzle; it was big, full drops, falling slowly and sort of sparsely. Every moment of the few minutes I stood there enjoying it felt like it was the first moment of rain …”

My friend pointed out that, while the rain was lovely, what mattered in that moment was taking the time to actually stop and enjoy it.

His story reminded me of something I’d noticed a million times that week (while darting from house to car and back with baby, dogs, grocery bags, and other trappings of life) but hadn’t really stopped to enjoy.

I sent him back a picture of helicopter seeds, which were gathering by the millions on my front porch. Many of these whirling bits fall head first, lodging the heavy seed portion in between the wooden boards of my porch with the crisp blade pointing skyward so that when I walk to my car, the sound of my shoe tread dragging across the tops sounds like tiny, papery dry applause for each step.

I like that idea. Little applause for each step I take. Lord knows some days I feel every step is a feat more than deserving of applause.

At the very least taking the time to think about it made me feel a little more loved, a little stronger, which in turn made it easier to take a few more steps.

As published in the Marion County Record, November 10, 2010

Getting lost in the shuffle

My sister sent me a text message as I was trying to eek out both productivity and me-time while my daughter “napped”. I put down the laundry soap I was making and read the text message: “It has taken me an hour and a half to empty and reload the bleepin’ dishwasher. So … How’s YOUR day going?”

I texted back: Well brown recluse spiders (plural!) are lying in wait around my front door, my wee dog was attacked in the back yard, insomnia, the other dog shredded the new linoleum, and the baby refuses to nap—so, normal. What does it all mean?

She came back with something incredibly insightful that kinda just made me want to slap her. I really wanted the ‘meaning’ in all my suffering to be “Though I suffer mightily right now, the universe has a plan for me, a plan that involves Tahiti, a hammock, and a lifetime supply of vegan chocolate.”

Actually, I don’t really care about those kinds of indulgences. What I really want, most days, is to treat myself as nicely and lovingly as I treat everybody else. Yes, it would be nice if the world would stop so I could take care of me, but that hasn’t happened since it began as far as I know. Sounds like I probly need to just go ahead and learn how to do it mid-chaos.

It seems like remembering to treat myself gently would be easy to remember. But I think a lot of us (moms, dads, wives, husbands, teachers, students, bosses, employees … people) forget ourselves. Forget what there is within us to take care of and to treasure until we feel so neglected we find ourselves weeping bitterly as we grate Fels-Naptha instead of doing yoga (again!) and being pretty cranky in general.

There’s a passage in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio that I meditate on daily. I blame that habit on a good, dear, loving friend of mine. In the chapter “Paper Pills,” about an older doctor named Doctor Reefy, the speaker says this about him:

            “Winesburg had forgotten the old man, but within Doctor Reefy were the seeds of something fine.”

My friend, Lynda, has a knack for seeing the seeds of something fine in everybody and a foolhardy passion for those who need help believing in the good within themselves.

When I read Winesburg in high school, I was not very good at believing that I, too, have the seeds of something fine within me. Lynda saw this. She made me read that chapter aloud to her one day and then we planted seeds in a pot with a marker that reads “Amanda has within her the seeds of something fine.”

I held on to that crusty old pot until it cracked, then I pulled the marker out and put it in a box of special things I keep on my dresser. It’s a mantra I have held on to, clung to some days, whispered under my breath hoping I’d believe it later some days -- and some days I’ve gotten angry at it.

Today I’m thinking I haven’t treated myself like I have the seeds of something fine in me in a long  time, and perhaps that’s why it feels like I’m having a panic attack when I can’t squeeze in a little “making it up to myself” during naptime.

Today, my sister told me she thinks days like this come along to remind us how easy it is to forget ourselves, even in the most precious of seasons. To keep us diligent even in something as simple and basic as seeing our own self-worth.

That sounds a little more uplifting than my idea (remember, Tahiti?).

For me, seeing the seeds of something fine in me comes more naturally when I’m being intentional about seeing the seeds of fine things around me—in people, in situations, in the town, in everything.

I’ve been asked to write this column. Weekly (gulp!). And I was given leeway to decide what it will be about. So, in total selfishness, I’ve decided this column is a great opportunity to search for the seeds of something fine around me every week. And if I can pass those along in a way that helps even one other person stop and remember those seeds are in them, too, well, all the better!

As published in the Marion County Record, November 3, 2010.