Build

Rather than resolutions, for several years I participated in the movement that espoused choosing a single word to encapsulate my goals for the coming year.  It has been a while since I have mustered that kind of focus, but this is a year when I feel the need to hone in on what matters to me intently.

Reading Michelle Obama's Becoming this morning, I was struck by a passage she wrote about observing her husband early in their relationship.  He was working with a group of church women in Chicago urging them to band together in their efforts to make positive change.

He was there to convince them that our stories connected us to one another, and through those connections it was possible to harness discontent and convert it to something useful.  Even they, he said--a tiny group inside a small church, in what felt like a forgoteten neighborhood-- could build real political power.

In these words, I found my word.  Build.

The past few years in America and too many other places have been about tearing down.  Tearing down the norms of society and government. Tearing down the illusions of tolerance I thought existed in our country.  Tearing down civil discourse. Tearing down alliances.  Tearing down neighbors and people who don't look, live, or pray just as we do.  An influx of violence and addiction devastatingly tear at the fabric of family.  As a society we lack the patience to fix things and rely too consistently on wiping away altogether what is only in need of repair.

It occurs to me my life is about building.  My professional work is about restoration of lives.  My personal hobbies are about restoration of architecture, community, and beauty.  I long to see things, people made whole.  My motivation is to repair, restore, to build.

This year I resolve to build: my faith, relationships, healthy habits, community, and yes, political power.

OK, Oklahoma

OK, Oklahoma,

I am sending you my first born.

She has been dreaming of this moment since she was four.  Then together we have dreamed this moment would take place right there in the heart of Oklahoma City ever since laying eyes on OU’s dental school campus with its green spaces and down-home-friendly folks.

Being a Prairie Girl myself, I know there is more than dentistry she can learn there.  When the wind comes sweeping down the plain as it seems to with far too much frequency and voracity, she will learn resiliency.  When knocked down, she will learn to rise back up.

She will learn to find beauty in the spare.  Looking at the vast horizon she will see past herself and gain perspective of her place in the world.  Looking into the star filled night sky she will make her wishes, and dealing with a land that can be harsh she will gain the strength and wisdom to make those wishes come true.

I am sending her with confidence knowing you will be good for her and to her.  Knowing there is space enough on your plains for her to grow into the woman she is meant to be.  Knowing in Oklahoma she will be OK.

More of my look back to the back to school season five years ago.

Oklahoma, Here She Comes

Another look back to that back to school season that took the Dentist to her training in OKC.

A few days ago we loaded a mix of things passed down from family, found along the curb, or purchased for just this day into a moving van and headed into the new adventure that awaits our daughter as she begins dental school in Oklahoma.

The excitement was palpable.  Everything she has worked for has been leading up to this day.  What a joy that we were all able to help her out and be here to share it with her.  And yet that darned van full of her stuff lurking out front did seem to mock me just a little bit.

To me the hardest part of a move is always when you are looking at what you are leaving behind.  Once we got there and started pulling the place together it was good times!

We arranged an explosion of mirror bubbles over her bed.

And discovered much subliminal messaging in her art…a glittery golden Kansas outline, a reproduction of an architectural drawing of her high school signed by friends and teachers at her graduation, and a series of prints her father did in studio his freshman year of college documenting his own letters home.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

We found the perfect spot for this La Femme à la fête, a souvenir  from her visit to a winery in France, to send her off each morning with a toast.

Most of our time was spent hefting furniture and unpacking boxes.  I will include more shots of the assembled apartment next time I get to visit.  The place is tiny, but really wonderful.  And adventure waits right outside her door.

The Spice of Life

Back to school can be a very nostolgic time for mom's of adult children.  I find myself reading posts written as my kids were heading off on fall adventures all over again.  This one conveys the nervous excitement of sending my eldest off to dental school, and the desire to do what I could to be of some use.

Over the course of the next several weeks we will be helping our first born set up her first apartment.  The dental school has made it abundantly clear that their program is meant to be a full-time pursuit, and they don’t anticipate the students will be working jobs concurrently with their studies.  This means her living expenses will be covered by student loans for the next four years.

I hate debt, so the thought of borrowing just to live makes me shudder.  I have been looking for all the ways we can help her limit spending as she establishes her own little home.  After all, we really have more than enough.  So, we have been shuffling furniture, kitchen supplies, sheets and other sundry items her way.

This week I hit the pantry and the spice cabinet to stock her non-perishable items and staples.  As I packed item after item into bags I had to smile at the thought of her using the things.  I mixed spices into old shakers to give her the blends she likes when her dad grills burgers or I make Grandma Susie’s spaghetti sauce.

 I sighed as I filled Boy Scout and Girl Scout tins with flour and sugar, and wondered how those Scouts could be heading out into the world so soon.  Has it been so long since they sold me these tins of popcorn and mints?

The spice cabinet was filled with several sugar sprinkle containers half to a quarter full of the same kinds of sprinkles.  When I worked at the church I had the children decorate holiday cookies for Ronald Mc Donald House, and the project called for many shakers  for all the helping hands.  I suppose last Christmas is the last Christmas for that tradition as well.  So, I combined like sprinkles into single containers, then washed and filled the empties with spices for the new apartment.

So many times in life the new brings with it an ending to the old.  In the pouring and filling of containers, I fought periodic waves of sadness at the passing of what had been.  For the most part, I felt the anticipation and expectation for what was about to come.  After all, I told myself as I measured the oregano and black pepper, change is the spice of life.

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Mother's Dreams

When this photo was taken my mother was young and single.   She had no way to predict that she would be granted ninety-three years of life on this planet or be partner in a marriage that lasted over fifty years, ending only with the death of my father.  She could have had no idea she would carry ten babies under her heart, but see only eight of them survive her.

She is so young in this photograph.  The slight smile on her face and the gleam in her eyes hint at a heart filled with dreams.  I will never know what those dreams were.  Never know how many of them came true.  I can guess that having grown up an orphan she was anxious to get out into the world to make a life of her own, but she never told me that.  She offered very few glimpses into the life she had led before this photo was taken.

On summer nights we used to sit on the front stoop and look at the stars.  She often talked about the dreams she had for my future.  The world was moving fast then, and she saw fantastic changes in technology coloring the world I would know.  She would make outrageous predictions, and we would laugh.  As the laughter faded and she grew quiet, her gaze would return to the stars.  We would sit quietly each lost in our thoughts.  How many of her thoughts were of the young girl in this photograph and the dreams in her heart?  She would not say, and I would never know.

What I Miss Most

(This is the home of my husband’s grandparents.  The photo rests on a quilt made my Grandma Olivia the lady of the house. )

I don’t have many photos of my childhood home or the people and rambunctious activity that filled it.  Still, I can picture that place as if I had been there only yesterday.  It was a two bedroom home–three if you count the unfinished basement occupied by all of the boys.  It was far too small for the hordes of people who lived there.  Under-insulated and heated only by two glorified space heaters, it was a meat locker in the winter.  Without air conditioning, we had ample heat mid-summer though.  On the face of it, my home should have been a miserable place to live.  It was not.

My dad was a short, stocky man of few words with a quick and wicked sense of humor.  His name was Elwyn– Ellie to my mom, but Woody to the rest of the world.  Few people really knew him, introverted as he was.  He loved to read everything from Popular Mechanics to the poetry of such extremes as Ogden Nash and Robert Frost.  He worked twelve hour days.  When his long shift was done, he came straight home to all of us.  I remember him coming through the back door at night. I would run to him and climb up on the steel toes of his size 13 EEE Wolverine work shoes, and tired as he must have been he would dance me around the kitchen.

He called my mother Bunny.  Her real name was Susie, though she was known to our teenaged friends simply as Suz.  My mom was as funny as my dad; I think that is one thing that kept their marriage strong.  She was old school,  waiting on him hand and foot when he was home.  My mom had quirky mannerisms and butchered metaphors mercilessly.  In turn, we teased her without mercy.  She never took herself too seriously to be able to laugh along with us.

The house where I grew up was loud. Stories of outrageous antics pulled by someone who lived there were recounted time and again.  It was filled with laughter, and it was filled to the rafters with love.  There are many things I miss about living in the home of my parents, but none of those things compare with how much I miss dad and mom themselves.

The Shared Bedroom

There is something to be said for sharing a bedroom with a sibling.  Negotiation skills are forged within limited space.  A person learns to share. Courtesy for another’s needs and feelings emerges in the give and take of how loudly music should be played and what time the lights need to be dimmed.

A shared bedroom is no place to nurse a grudge.  A person can only tolerate a line of masking tape down the center of the room for so long before realizing amends must be made.

Not only does sharing a room with a brother or sister teach a person to consider the feelings of another human being, it also gives ample opportunity to practice asserting your own needs in an appropriate way as well.  You must learn to stand your ground, or at least your floor space, effectively without flaring conflict.

Shared space encourages strong relationships.  Living in close proximity to another person you witness their ups and downs.  You’re given an intimate view of their dreams, successes, and failures as well as how they cope with each.  Before you realize it, you find yourself pulling for the person who has driven you mad for so long.  You feel real empathy for him when he is down and take real joy in his victories.

Our wisdom and our diplomatic prowess develop over time through what we experience in daily living.  One thing I know for sure, when the leaders of the world gather to make decisions that affect us all, I want to be represented by someone who shared a bedroom with a sibling growing up.


Written in 2013.  Even more pertinent today.

You Drown by Staying

edwin louis cole

I found this handmade card at an annual art fair this summer.  The words came at what must have been the precise moment I needed to hear them.  The message grabbed hold of my heart and has not let go. The artist's doodles appear like ripples reminding me that each life decision we make effects all those that come after.  This is a heavy message, but it comes with a reminder of hope.  When we are in too deep--when we are in over our head--we don't have to stay there; and in choosing not to stay, we choose to live.  

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Summer's End

Only one more day.  I am due back on duty at school on August 1st.  I am not ready.  I have not stopped moving all summer long, working my way through my to-do list.  I ended the school year really wiped out.  I was certain I was more drained than I normally feel in May and I looked forward to the respite the summer would provide.  Now that my summer break has dwindled down to a matter of hours, I am not sure how well I refilled my reservoir.  Ready or not, I am heading back.  

In reality I know it is true that as each summer draws to a close I feel the same sense of disbelief.  The break always goes too quickly having been filled with far too many commitments to be truly refreshing.  This time of year always brings with it a degree of letting go--a skill I am not particularly good at.  

Below is a wistful look at summer's end a few years back...

The calendar may not reflect it, but summer is nearly gone. I consciously will the pace to slow, wanting to hang on to each passing day.

When summer ends my girls will go.  One to Tennessee; one to Texas. Both too far.

I love when we are all home.  We work all day and play in the night.  We are up too late and the morning arrives too early.  And so it goes.  But summer will end and my girls must go.  Their life awaits.

My tempo will be disrupted. I'll be off balance.  I will wander through their rooms, summer's sudden end making my footing uncertain. My world will move in slow motion.

I wouldn't have it any other way. The girls will be discovering their worlds and discovering who they are within those worlds.  They'll have much to tell. Messages will fly in two different directions and back again from each. Rapid-fire reports of challenges faced and victories won.

In time my footing will become more certain.  My days will fill again.  A busy patter of activity will make the days fly by.

I'll wake one day to wonder where the school year has gone.  Summer will be coming and my girls will be on their way home once more.

July 29, 2011

The Gate

Too many people spend their energy building walls.  So much effort is put into separating “us” from “them”.  Race, lifestyle, religion, politics…each a brick piled one on the other until the wall finally keeps us apart, isolating us from the richness we could experience, robbing us of a deeper understanding of life.  I am bone-tired of so many walls;  oh, for the gift of a gate.

Although these words could have been penned today,  I actually wrote down these thoughts in 2015.

Security

I lay in the dark sifting through a thousand thoughts left over from the day, sorting them into the proper cubby in my mind.  I’m restless and realize I can’t remember if the back door got locked before we came up to bed.

My husband is snoring lightly beside me sleeping soundly.  I say his name three times before he responds.  I ask about the door, and he replies the same way he does each time this scene plays out, “Yes, it’s locked.”

He stirs, is still a moment and then wordlessly crawls out of bed.  In the dark he half sleepwalks down the stairs returning a moment later to report his findings.  Some nights we’ve left it open; tonight it really was locked.  Either way I sleep easier knowing for certain.  He understands this.  It is why he goes wordlessly into the dark.

Checking the backdoor at night is only one of the ways that my husband makes sure I feel the security of his love.  Through his fidelity, commitment, responsibility, honesty and care he makes each of my days secure.

It only takes a minute or so for his breathing to shift back into the slow heavy rhythm of sleep.  I reach out in the darkness and stroke his cheek issuing a silent prayer of thanksgiving before joining him in peaceful slumber.

Circling Back

I saw this quote the other day and was struck by its truth…

Life’s journey is circular, it appears.  The years don’t carry us away from our fathers–they return us to them. ~Michel Marriot

Abutting generations.  Their issues, feelings, experiences may be too intense.   People pull away from one another to gain space in which to find their own footing.

They maintain distance.  When grandchildren come, they need their grandparents, and the generations are pulled back together.

Time allows us to see each other in light that falls less harshly on our choices and ways of thinking.

The line that once moved directly away bends and bows and encircles all once more.  Three generations; one family.  Individuals bound to one another through time by love.

Road Trips

1990- 2010 was the Era of Epic Road Trips for our family. We made multiple runs to the East coast from our Kansas home.  We thought nothing of buzzing up to Door County, Wisconsin with semi-frequency.  We loaded up our own wagon and traveled to every location where Pa Ingalls had settled the Little House gang.  From the Grand Canyon to the Statue of Liberty we saw the USA, and we did it while preserving quite a bit of the domestic tranquility.

We were blessed with three easy going kids which made the traveling feasible, but we also had a secret weapon…the little girl in this photo, Daughter #2 age five.  By this point she could out-pack me for the journey.  Those indoor/outdoor sunglasses are a tip-off that this young lady was ready for anything.  Wherever we traveled, she brought along a backpack filled with the most obscure items which we inevitably found ourselves needing.  Tape, chigger bite cream, a flashlight, a permanent marker, a bungee cord, all manner of safety items could be found in that red calico bag.  But she wasn’t merely practical, she also packed creature comforts.  Snacks, drinks, lotion, chap stick, stuffed animals, fuzzy socks, and most likely that set of Uno cards amusing her in the photo, all were things she could be counted on toting along as well.

The mere mention of an item one of us might find handy sent her riffling through her back pack.  Nine times out of ten she could lay her hands on the very item we were wishing for.  She wouldn’t say a word, but simply grin and hand it over.

She and I  make fewer epic road trips now that shuttling her back and forth between home and college not to mention our summer vacations have ended.  The last road trip we made was Kansas to North Carolina where she settled into her adult life.  Even on that trip she still thought of things we needed that I had forgotten, and still pulled them out of her bag with that same sly grin.  She is still a world class traveling companion.  In fact, the only that has really changed is her taste in sunglasses.

Mama Kat:Road Trip

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Sweet Corn

The father-in-law of one of the secretaries at my school has farmed his whole life.  Though he reached the age when many people retire years ago, there are parts of farming that he can’t let go.  Every year he grows sweet corn on a scale that must be considered more crop than garden.  Everyone at our school benefits from his efforts.

I decided to preserve the corn I received after finding food.com’s instructions for freezing fresh corn.  Step 1:Shucking the Corn is the kind of chore that can be done while your mind is  a million miles away.  My mind was on the back porch on a hot summer day in the early 1970s.  Sitting on the concrete stoop I happily worked through a stack of corn that someone had given to our family helping to stretch the food budget required to fill the bottomless bellies of so many growing children.

Corn on the cob was one of the best things about summer in my mind.  I could make a meal of buttery, sweet corn.  I loved pretending with my brothers that our corn eating was like fingers flying across the keys of a typewriter reaching the end of the page with a ding and returning to the other side for yet another line.

I took pride in my ability to remove more of the corn silks than my older brothers could.  No one would get a silk caught like floss in their teeth as long as I was performing quality control.  I often reworked ears of corn my brothers had deemed ready for the pot of boiling water shaking my head at their feeble attempts.

Step 2:  Cook the ears in boiling, salted water for four minutes.  The steam rising above my huge soup pot as I drop in each ear causes my glasses to fog over.  I think of my mother in her hot kitchen.  Our house was cooled–on those summers that it was cooled at all–by a single window air unit positioned in the living room at the farthest point from the kitchen possible.  Standing near the steaming pot in my own comfortable kitchen I suddenly remember that there was at some point during my childhood a unit in the window by the kitchen pantry.  I don’t recall it ever being there, but a memory of my dad removing it floats through my brain.  I am peeking at him from inside as he works outside the window.  Normally, he would grin at me but in this memory he is discouraged.  Why had I never made the connection between this memory and the many memories of my mother’s flushed face as she stood working at the hot stove?

Step 3:  Lay the ears on a clean dishtowel to drain and cool.
Step 4: Once cooled to the touch, stick the end of an ear into the opening of the center tube of an angel food or bundt cake pan.  Using a paring knife cut the kernels from the cob letting them fall into the cake pan.  Going through the motions I can’t help but notice how much my hands have come to resemble my mother’s. Her hands are the things I remember most vividly about her perhaps because they were always moving, always delving into some project that would directly benefit me.

Step 5: Melt butter (1/3 cup was perfect for a dozen ears) , drizzle over the corn and toss.  Place corn in an airtight container and freeze.

I tasted the corn before slipping it into my freezer and smiled at the same buttery goodness I remember from my childhood.  I started this project with the idea I was preserving corn, but came to understand I was really preserving memories.  Memories of childhood summers with simple pleasures in a family who surrounded me in love.

Certainty and Reaffirmation

Settled in contented bliss,  I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Suddenly all I have known and carefully built was challenged from without.  The temptation to challenge in return, finding fault with my nemesis was compelling.  Yet aware my defensiveness could rob me of growth, I blocked my mind from slamming closed.  I struggled to convince myself that if only I looked more deeply, investigating the depths of my own heart, I might discover opportunity in place of threat.  This unbidden exercise in self-reflection has been arduous, but in the end I have found certainty and reaffirmation of all that is good in my world.

Six Sentence Stories:  Investigate

Sending Out a Ripple

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Excerpt from Bobby Kennedy's Ripples of Hope speech

One of my earliest memories outside things that happened to me personally is the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.  The images of him first at the podium and later on the floor live in the recesses of my brain.  They launched for me an awareness of the nightly news and a world in turmoil beyond my front door.  From that time on I have been an obsessive news watcher.  This news story was my gateway drug to a lifelong habit of consuming far more news than is probably healthy.  Current events leave me weary.  Hearing snippets of Bobby Kennedy's encouraging and wise words this past week lifted my spirits and restored my hope.

Ripples of hope that make me thankful...
The vegetables currently growing in my garden
The flowers that fill the yard
The light of long days
The chance to relax and restore the soul
My son who is a good man and is spending his "year off" working at a residential treatment center for troubled adolescents
My daughter who is a gifted teacher
My daughter who improves people's health and self-esteem by caring for their smiles
My husband who is faithfully by my side
American history which reminds us we have been through turbulent times before and emerged battered, but not broken

Ten Things of Thankful

It Matters

I rediscovered this piece I wrote five years ago before I had taken my job permanently.  Even when I thought I was only there as a substitute, the kids had worked their way into my heart. I still try to make connections with them daily.  I still hate the paperwork and often dodge it in an effort to make more time with the kids; and still, it matters.

I continue to spend part of my week with middle-schoolers.  The maternity leave coverage I agreed to provide through January grew to a part-time commitment for the rest of the school year.  I’ve been asked if I would consider signing on next year, but to do that I would lose my substitute status.  The beauty of being a substitute is that it excuses me from some of the report writing that staff has to do, and I have been having the best time using that paperwork time with the kids instead.

The administration emailed us a video clip created by PBS on early warning signs a student is likely to drop out of high school.  Research has shown that sixth graders who fail one or more core subjects and have frequent unexcused absences are on the road to becoming a drop out.  It is alarming to realize the dye is cast for some kids as early as sixth grade.  It is horrifying to realize it when you have real live faces to attach to that warning.

So began my latest passion.  I scan attendance records each time I am at school.  I have a list of students I am concerned about.  Once I discover they are present I head off to their lockers where I slip a note, some candy or some sort of small token through the vents in their locker.  It is a sweet nothing, but its message is significant.  It says someone noticed I was here today, and it matters.

These kids are going to know me for five months of their lives.  For some of them I am a bandaid on a hemorrhage.  Will my efforts make a long term difference?  I don’t know.  But today-for this very day-some young people experienced school as welcoming.  Today I saw smiles where there had been none.  I noticed, and oh, yes! it mattered.

Corning Ware Hand-me-downs

Anyone who has closed down the household of elderly parents can relate to the walls of boxes that encroach on your own home during the process.  Things that have sentimental value or that could be useful add up until both the experience and amount of stuff become overwhelming.  A few years ago we were closing down the homes of my parents and my in-laws simultaneously.  We were inundated with stuff.  As boxes came into the house they were opened, and each of us chose the things that we wanted to keep. Things were reshuffled into boxes marked for each of the kids.  We repackaged as we went along which didn’t always lead to the most efficient organization of items for storage until the kids were ready for them.  

As things were finally reorganized and distributed I discovered an abundance of Corning Ware containers.  Suddenly, I had a cost-free solution to the large number of our plastic food containers that were wearing out.  I had been following the stories online about the potential hazards of using plastic for food and water storage.  Depending on which article you read plastic is either harmless or lethal.  Either way, it didn’t make sense to purchase new plastic when I already had so many glass containers in an array of sizes.

Corning Ware from three households now in one.

It has been a while now since I cleared the plastic container cupboard to make room to store Corning Ware.  I don't know if my body is any healthier for steering clear of the potential hazards of plastic, but I am sure it does my heart good each time I transfer something nourishing I have prepared for my family into a vintage Corning Ware container that was once used to feed my family or my husband's.

Patience

Prompt: Select a picture from a previous April

I have been so frustrated with the spring that just won't spring this year.  Winter clings for dear life when all I want is a lawn scattered with colorful tulips and blossoming trees.  I had nearly come to believe that we would never see spring this year when I came across this post which tells how I felt these same feelings in 2013.  The good news is that I wrote another post about a week to ten days later celebrating the flowers that filled my yard. Maybe spring 2018 really is just around the corner.

Wiping sleep from my eyes I grab my phone and pull up Accuweather.  The screen displays a temperature barely above freezing and the words, “It’s much colder than you’d like.”

I am so ready to feel the dirt in my fingers, to breathe in its rich smell of life. I’m ready to stroll the neighborhood and linger under the blooms of the crabapple on the corner.  I dream of the heady perfume from the row of lilac bushes on 19th Street.  I want to see the promise held in the blooms on the fruit trees out back.  Instead, I satisfy myself puttering amid the potted plants and seedlings which line the countertop of the mudroom.  I look through the windows and imagine the beauty waiting to emerge outside knowing spring would still my restlessness.

My mind drifts to other potential things waiting to blossom in my life.  My temporary job has been offered to me permanently.  I didn’t anticipate the offer and am not at all certain yet what my best response would be.  All three of my kids are sifting through options and potential plans to determine where they will be this fall.  Their decisions will affect the courses of their lives and might take some as far away as Paris.  So much potential lies waiting to make itself known in our lives.  Anxious to know the answers, I fidget through days that feel suspended in time.

Every season brings its own lesson if we are willing to learn.  The lesson of Spring 2013 would appear to be patience.

Surely Goodness and Mercy

This was a weekend for reflection.  I came home Friday ready to relax my mind and body.  Instead I was greeted by the news that a neighbor and friend from church had died suddenly this week.  Two doors down and I had no idea.

I didn’t find his death shocking because of his age or general health.  I find it shocking because I hadn’t even considered it happening.  Because it was yet another death in that generation that separates me from death. Because he leaves a wife who loved him and shared his life, and her pain makes me wince.  And so my weekend began with a funeral, a farewell to a wonderful person.

Afterwards, I met with a friend to create a gift for another friend.  I took individual strands of silk and marino wool and through the waft and the warp, through friction and pressure and the saturation of water that reminded me of the tears of a lifetime, I coaxed those fibers into a silky woolen scarf that will warm my friend.

Sunday afternoon I met my sister at an estate auction where a lifetime’s possessions of a man she knew were being sold.  Table after table told the story of a life.  A love of photography. A well traveled, well read man.  A long marriage.  His life had ended and was on display for all to place value on.

On the way home I considered how brief life truly is, and how grateful I am that goodness and mercy really do follow me each day.