Little Things.

Little things.

They often get the short end of the stick when it comes to drawing attention.  They don't seek out visibility.  They don't scream "look at me!".  They are happy to just "be" and give a little bit of pleasure when they can.   I kind of think they are what hold us together on days when we might otherwise crumble.  Mostly they have little or no monetary value at all.  Usually, they don't make us over-the-top-crazy-giddy-screaming-at-the-top-of-our-lungs happy.  Rather, they touch and comfort us way deep down inside where there are no words.  They calm us. Make us see clearly when we're on the brink of losing it.  They save us from losing it. (I know you've been there!)

I have had a life of some really big wonderful things.  But mostly, a life of a whole lot of dear, sweet, little things.

A birthday note from my son, written on an old manual typewriter--just because he knew I would love that little touch.  A random text message of love in the middle of the day.  A 3-year old little girl telling me I'm her best friend (as she's eating the piece of chocolate I'd just given her!)  A note left on the bathroom mirror.  A little piano student pausing right in the middle of his song to ask me to come to his baseball game.  Holding a newborn baby duck.  A midnight "nighty-night" text from my daughter.  A song-sharing afternoon of music with a friend.  A hot bath at the end of a long day.  A gift of homemade mulberry jam from another friend.  Going for an impromptu, late-night ice cream with my favorite guy. A bear hug from a grown son. 

Little things.  Here's why they're on my mind.

Because Miriam ate an M&M.

This, of course, makes no sense without the back story.  So here it s.

For almost 15 years, there is this one thing you can always count on finding in my house.  A bowl of M&Ms. Peanut.  They live in a little, old bowl on a table at the end of my couch.  They are colorful and happy.  During the holidays they appropriately turn to the colors of the season.

Of course, eating a few of them each day is a sweet thing for sure, but more than that, I have come to love the sound of them being eaten.  Actually, it isn't so much the sound of them being eaten as it is the sound of them being "taken".  I can be in the kitchen and I can hear the sound of a hand reaching into the bowl--a sort dull jostling sound.  It makes me smile.

Many hands have reached into that bowl over the years.  Little hands.  Big hands.  Old, wrinkled hands.  New friend's  hands.  Old friend's hands.  American hands.  Foreign hands.  Rich hands.  Poor hands.  Happy hands.  Sad hands.  (Even a few non-humans that have no hands but have found other means by which to enjoy an M&M.  Not to worry-- I washed and disinfected the bowl!!)

After all these years,  I'm just now thinking about the importance of this little bowl of M&Ms.  It is one of those little things.  Sometimes, you don't even notice it's there.  But it would be missed if it wasn't.  I believe that in a silly, strange way it has blessed many, even if only to give just a moment of pleasure.   To my kids, it says "Welcome home.  We're always here for you".  To first-time guests, it says "You're welcome here. Come and sit".  To those who are drifting, it says "You can stay here as long as you like".  To those who show up unannounced it says, "We were hoping you'd stop by."  To my husband, it says "Always". 

But Miriam is the one who got me thinking about this.  Because she loves this bowl of M&Ms.

She came into my life through my son a few years ago.  A beautiful young woman with a beautiful heart.  She lives in Germany and we are blessed to enjoy extended visits with her a couple of times each year.  I know this little bowl of M&Ms makes her happy in such a simple way.  Last night, as we enjoyed a last visit before she returns home, I thought about that.  I know these days are bittersweet days for her....excited to see her family soon, but sad to be leaving my boy.  As I heard her hand reach into the M&M bowl, I thought how this tiny little thing, a bowl of M&Ms, might in some small way, give her joy as she goes.   I hope it says to her, "You always have a home here.  I will be sitting here, right in this same exact spot, when you come back".  Comfort in the little things.

Now I'm not saying that a bright,  red,  shiny little Volvo in the drive with a big red bow on it wouldn't make my heart go pitter pat for a second or two. But if I had to choose between that moment and a lifetime of eating M&Ms from a little, old bowl....well, I think you know what I would do.

little things.

Glittering still.

I really don't mind getting older.

Hang on a minute.  Let me grab my 2.75-strength reading glasses and re-position the heating pad in my chair.  Okay.  Done.  Now where was I?  Oh yeah.

I really don't mind getting older.

Sure, sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and with both of my index finger pressed against my cheekbones,  I ever-so-slightly ooch the skin up and back toward my ears.  Wah-lah.  Lines (which sounds better than "wrinkles") are gone just like that.  Alas, I can't hold that position forever--I mean have things to do.  So eventually I let go...gravity does what it does and things drop into the place where nature intended them to be.  Sigh.

It's kind of like the fabric used in so many fashions these days.  You know, the fabric that looks kind of slept in.  The kind you don't dare iron because it's supposed to look that way.   Well, I guess I kind of see myself like that.

With that said, I must be totally honest with you and tell you I do admit to a degree of vanity.  I realize that I do hope in some way to at least slow down the appearance of the aging process tastefully.  There are a few ways to do that I figure.  Here's an example.

With fashion--which is me attempting  to look youthful but in an age-appropriate way.  This can be risky.  I think sometimes the look I'm going for and the look I achieve might possibly be two different things.

Case in point.

 It's a cold winter day.  I'm about to go somewhere with my daughter.  I have tucked my jeans into my very hip boots.  Cute scarf and sweater.  We're about to head out the door and I say to her, "Does this look okay?"  She says to me, "Yeah, it's cute".   But I, being a most perceptive mom,  hear just a tad bit of hesitancy in her voice.  I say to her "What?"   She says, "No, it's cute".  I say "But what?  I can tell you're thinking something".  She says, "Well, it's just that those jeans are a little baggy to tuck in.  But really, they look fine".  So see, there's the thing.  If I had walked out the door would I have looked like I was trying too hard to look young and hip, therefore, actually making myself look older?  And slightly pathetic.  Hmmm.

Remember, I really don't mind getting older.  Even still,   I would prefer to call the age spots on my right hand "freckles".  Freckles is such a cute word.  Sometimes it is just a matter of semantics to make me feel more confident with the aging process.  So freckles it is and freckles it shall always be!

Recently two very specific things happened that sort of hampered my endeavor to age tastefully and seamlessly.  I got a glimpse of how this aging thing could possibly go down.  Here's all I can say.  Lord have mercy.  

I walk into the local coffee shop one morning.  I see a young, "thirty-something" mom that I haven't seen in awhile.  We hug and she says, "Oh you smell so good.  Like strawberry shortcake".  Strawberry shortcake?  What???  Do I want someone to smell of me and think of food?  Six-year-olds smell like strawberry shortcake, not 51-year-olds.  This is the part where I tell you that I have no sense of smell.  I never have.  I can smell nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Not flowers.  Not dinner cooking (or burning!)  And certainly not strawberry shortcake, for heaven's sake!  Do you think I would have purchased and used a hair product that smelled like strawberry shortcake on purpose?  Please tell me that you don't think I would have done that.  Because if you do believe that, then you also must believe that I'm trying to be young in a totally age-inappropriate fashion, which I most certainly am not.  Sheesh.

Remember, I really don't mind getting older.  Seriously.

But there's more.

I, along with a group of friends from my bible study, recently traveled to the city for a concert.  I had been looking forward to the girl's night for a couple of weeks.  Because I work mostly with children and dress super casually on a daily basis, I was looking forward to a chance to "fix up" a bit.  When I began putting on my make-up I realized I was out of the natural-colored eye shadow that I use.  So I ran upstairs to  what was my daughter's bathroom when she lived at home,  and  I raided the drawers for some she might have left behind.   Score.  I found several, and quickly chose one that would work.  Applying eye make-up is challenging as we age, because you really need reading glasses to see the finer details of the application process.  That's all I'll say about that right now.

Flash forward.  We attended the concert.  Our group is all over 50 except for one of us. (Bless her heart!)   We were undoubtedly the oldest attendees.  It was a relatively small venue, so this was glaringly obvious.  I saw a few people from out-of-town that I knew.  Plus my daughter and a few of her roommates.  I loved the concert, despite the fact that I couldn't clearly hear some of the lyrics.  Oh, they did have the lyrics on the screen, but I couldn't read the font from where I was sitting.  The room might have even smelled nice, but I wouldn't have known.  You see,  out of five senses, only two of mine were fully functioning that night.

Even still, I felt good about myself.  Content at where I am in life...happy to be at this place of wisdom.   On the way home,  my friend Jean and I treated those in our car to a song--a quite moving rendition of "Up, up with people, you meet 'em wherever you go".  We didn't miss a single lyric.  We reminisced about how we'd dreamt of joining this peppy song and dance movement in the 70's.  The fact that I can admit to that tells you that I'm comfortable in my own,  be it somewhat age-tinged,  skin.  No really.  I am.

I felt a little like a rebel when I walked in the door at 12:30 a.m.  I quickly got ready for bed.  I turned on the light in the bathroom to wash my face.  Even in the wee hours of the morning, my tired eyes could make out a few flecks of glitter on my face.  Hmmm.  Wonder what I brushed up against tonight, I thought.  As I practically put my nose up to the mirror  for a closer look,  I saw more glitter.  Then, to my horror,  I realized I had worn glitter eye shadow.  Glitter.  Eye.  Shadow.  All of the sudden it made sense why my daughter had left it behind--because she wouldn't be caught dead in glitter eye shadow!   But apparently, her poor pathetic mother, the one who tucks baggy jeans into boots in an attempt to look younger, totally digs it!

 I screamed, "NOOOOO!".  Of course, I only screamed it inside my head, because my husband was sleeping soundly in the other room. He wouldn't understand.

Please no!  I am not that woman.  I do not wear glitter eye shadow and I don't smell like strawberry shortcake.  Not on purpose anyway.  Please....I can explain.  Don't judge...for one day you too might experience sensory shut-down.  Literally.

The following morning,  as I was still snoozing from my late-night escapades, my husband came in to tell me goodbye as he was leaving for work.  Here's what he leaned down and whispered in my ear.  Honest to goodness truth.  He said these exact words.

"I want to tell you you're absolutely glittering this morning".  Are you kidding me? Apparently the stuff is waterproof.  I wonder what my husband thought as I lay there glittering in all my morning glory.  He's knows I can't really lure him with tasty dinners since he's a much better cook than I am.  Do you think he thought  I thought I could dazzle him with glitter eye shadow?  Oh no!  Do you think he was thinking, "Has our marriage been reduced to this?  Glitter Eye Shadow?  Really?".    That's kind of sad.  If he thought that.  I didn't ask.

Like I said, I really don't mind getting older.  I'd just like to do so in as tasteful a way as possible.

But it will take a village. This is your personal invitation to be party of my village. If you see me wearing glitter eye shadow, tell me immediately because you will now know I did not intend to wear it.  If and when you give me a hug, please remember I am challenged in all things olfactory.   If I smell even remotely like anything edible, I will want to know that because it is hard to age gracefully when you're walking around smelling like a five-year-old's  favorite scratch 'n sniff sticker.  Know what I'm saying?

P.S.  I turned on my computer a couple of days after writing this to read it one more time for typos before posting.   While the computer was starting, I ran in the bathroom to put on my jammies and wash my face.  This also included taking out my earrings.  In the left ear, a silver hoop.  In the right ear, a silver dangle.   Just dandy.   Oy vey. 

All who glitter don't mean to.

A Blip on the Radar.

The Mountain Laurel doesn't get to show her blooms for long.  Just a few weeks of regal, fragrant brilliance and then, just like that, her flowers are gone and she becomes just another green plant--just hanging out.  Her beauty is but a blip on the radar.

But for a few weeks, she is queen! 

Especially in my yard.   Where last summer's drought brought great devastation, her grape-like blooms seem to cheer on all the other plants that aren't sure they have the strength to wake up from their near-death experiences.  From her perch next to the porch, she overlooks her kingdom,  and I imagine her saying, "Okay girlfriends, work with me here.  Put on your big girl undies and BLOOM already!  I, like, cannot make this place look good all by myself!"

And yes.  I did just put words in a plant's mouth.  And I sort of gave her a valley girl accent.  Creative license at it's best!

In a similar way, God took some creative license with me regarding my Mountain Laurel.  He, of course, has every right to take creative license with me because---well you know why! Anyway,  He spoke his words in my heart this week.   I'm a slow learner, but He worked quickly to teach me, because, as I said, the Mountain Laurel's blooms don't last long.

So here it is.  The story of my Mountain Laurel.

We moved into our 100+ year-old-house 15 years ago, after two years of renovations.  By our own hands, we planted grass, shrubs, trees and flowers.  Over time, trees grew taller.  Flower beds filled in as plants matured.  In the summertime, butterflies swarmed our salvia.  The Crepe Myrtles flourished.  The Lady Banks roses and Jasmine grew thick in the arbor. Just down the hill, the river flowed clear and lovely. 

God's creation at its best.

On the southwest corner of our house we planted a Mountain Laurel.  It was small when we put it in.  In five years time, it seemed to have hardly grown at all.  We thought maybe we'd gotten a "dud" at the nursery.  It was always such a pretty green, but it never flowered.  Ten years passed.  The tree grew taller and fuller, but still no blooms.   We aren't really folks with green thumbs.  When we plant, we do so with a song and a prayer and hope for the best!  We wondered if perhaps we'd bought a variety of Mountain Laurel that doesn't flower if indeed such a thing exists.  You know, kind of like a "fruitless" pear tree. A "laurel-less" Mountain Laurel.

Year 14 in our house--last year--was the year of the great drought.  There was still water in the river, but it hardly moved at all.  Our water well was putting out an alarmingly small amount of water.  One by one,  our plants began to die. They were slow, painful deaths.  Not for the plants, but for us.  It had taken so long for them to mature.  So much hard work and expense.  All gone.

First the shrubs in the front and back yards.  Then  the jasmine that had climbed on our front arbor for years.  The Sweet Briar rose bush.  The Mexican Heather (that supposedly doesn't come back every year, but it did for us). Even the wildflowers that usually blanket the field in front of our house refused to show up. 

Brown.  That was the color of summertime in 2011.  Except for one thing.

The Mountain Laurel.

Her leaves were the most beautiful, deep green we'd ever seen.   As  everything else grew weaker,  it seemed that she became stronger.  As summertime turned to fall, and fall into winter, she held her own.  Actually, she more than held her own.  She flourished.

And late in February, just a few weeks ago,  at the ripe old age of 15, the Mountain Laurel bloomed for the very first time.  After years of silence.  After drought.  After living a simple and quiet life just off the corner of our porch, she decided to step forward and shout, "I am here!  I survived, and I am more beautiful than you ever thought I would be".

Oh my!  No chance on earth that God was going to let this teachable moment be lost on me. It was loud and ever so clear.  Sometimes, when it appears that the period of drought will never end, it does. When it seems that all is lost and all the "color" in our lives is gone, it isn't.

For years, that Mountain Laurel had, in fact, been getting too much water.  If we had been gardeners with an education we would have known this.  If we'd thought about it, it would have made sense.  The Mountain Laurel is native to Texas.  She needed a good dose of drought!  She was not only created to  survive in dry, dessert climates, but to thrive there.  HELLO!

Me too!

Sometimes I need a good drought.  And just in case you know me personally and are thinking, "Yeah, she sure does", let me just tell you, so do you!!  We all do!  We have stored up enough sustenance in our roots to get us through the droughts in life.   We will not shrivel up and blow away.   Because even though  all of our senses tell us otherwise--we will survive to tell about it!  To everyone around us, it might look like a poor, pitiful drought.    In reality,  it is really and truly a time of rich, healthy growth beneath the surface.  It is a time where we ready ourselves for that big moment of BLOOM!

Drought makes the blooms, when they do appear, even sweeter.  If my Mountain Laurel had bloomed amidst the backdrop of all my other garden lovelies, it his highly unlikely she would have received quite this amount of attention from me.  It was the fact that she bloomed for the very first time against a backdrop of brown  after a period of drought that made her flowers the most beautiful I've ever seen!

Late in 2011 and early this year, the rains have come, bringing with them the promise of a beautiful crop of wildflowers.  The river has begun to flow again.   We will slowly begin to replant everything that perished.

From her perch next to the porch, the Mountain Laurel will watch it all, knowing, like me, that another drought is sure to come at some point.  But to be found standing at the end of the drought, and even more, to bloom-- well now that is really something.

first bloom fifteen years in the making.

The invisible line.

About seven years ago,  when I was a young 44 years of age,  my husband and I traveled to the city to take our oldest son out to dinner for his birthday.   By the time we reached the restaurant, our dinner party had grown to include about 10 of his friends.  Todd and I took our seats at the end of the large table.   The conversation was delightful as we heard hysterically funny stories about college life.  We laughed.  We smiled.   We ate.

Then I made the mistake.
 
I commented on something someone had said at the other end of the table.   I waited for them to be thoroughly amused at my comment.   I waited some more.  When it got really quiet and everyone just sort of looked at me in a sad,  awkward and pathetic way, I knew there was a problem.  At first I thought maybe the cheese from my enchilada, which can sometimes be a little stringy, might be dangling from my chin.  No... that wasn't it.  Eventually someone put me out of my confused state and let me know that what I thought  I'd heard at the other end of the table was not what was actually said.  This meant that the really funny comment I thought  I'd made was actually nothing more than a random statement that had nothing to do with the conversation at all.  There was a little stifled laughter, but don't think I didn't catch the innuendo in the glances those young people exchanged.  "So sad!"  That's what those looks said.  And that's when I knew it.  I knew that I had crossed than invisible,  ambiguous line that separates young from old.   Could it already be time to take my place at the head of the table for one purpose only--to pick up the tab?    Well that's just a bunch of Bologna!

In the years that have followed that little incident,  I have taken a slow little stroll across that invisible line that separates youth and all that is "cool" from....well, non-youth and all that is not cool!  I have dug in my boots in an attempt to cling to just a piece of my former youthful glory, all the while trying to maintain a level of decorum as I "crossover".   God has been gentle with me.  My children, not so much! 

Recently, after accomplishing some great personal feat ( I can't remember exactly what it was--which is a whole other story--- but probably having something to do with using a Smart Phone),  I proudly shouted, "Boo-Yah".  My daughter looked at me and slowly began to shake her head before she quietly said,  "Mom, no".  Her tone was the same as I used with her when she was little when she would burp in public.  I would pull her aside and say, "No, we don't do that".  That was the tone she used with me.  Now, I don't really know what "boo-yah" means exactly.  I just know it seemed to fit the occasion.   It isn't a bad word.  I've heard others have a lot of fun saying it.  People even smile sometimes.  So at what age can a person not say it anymore?  That's all I want to know.  Clearly I have crossed over into that territory, but when?  Still,  as sure as I'm sitting here all alone, I find it funny to say "Boo-Yah".  So there.  "Boo-Yah, Boo-Yah, Boo-Yah"!

Just last night it happened again.

It's a rather steep learning curve for me.  I recently switched from a PC to a Mac, and I am trying to wrap my mind around iMovie for work purposes. At first, I relied on my kids to just do it for me.  But, they're busy and I finally decided I need to do it myself.  So last night, with a few of them still home for the Christmas holiday,  I had yet another tutoring session.  Without going into great detail, I will simply say these are the words that came out of my daughter's mouth at one point.  "Hey, Adam, let's tag team this.  It's your turn to help her now".   It's your turn!  Really?  It could be a positive thing if you're talking about driving a Corvette or playing Monopoly.  Sure.  "It's your turn" is a nice thing to say.  However, in this context the implication was the opposite.   She was practically begging to be relieved of the drudgery of helping me. "Her", the pronoun  for me, the mother, the very one who gave them life, was used in a less-than-loving manner.  I admit that in middle age, it can take me a tad bit longer to grasp a concept--the idea has to soak in for a minute before I can act on it.  I'm not doing it on purpose.  I'm aware.  I just need a minute.  Again, I don't know when I crossed the line into this, but all I ask is for gentleness.  After all, I told my daughter, how many 50-something moms do you know who use iMovie?  That alone should give me a tiny little bit of "coolness".  Shouldn't it?  I don't recall her ever answering!

I teach music to preschoolers.  On an almost daily basis I interact with their moms.  Sometimes those moms are pregnant.  As all expectant moms do, they sometimes discuss "being" pregnant.  And my temptation to join in is huge.  In my mind, you see,  I've just delivered my own babies.  In my mind, I'm thirty-ish and I feel like I can hang with their conversations.  In my mind, my experience is still relevant.  Then somewhere, just in the nick of time before I embarrass myself, a still small voice reminds me of these things.  Babies sleep on their backs now, not on their tummies.  Mister Rogers is out, Dora the Explorer is in.  Labor and delivery happen in one room now.  No need for the phrases "it's a girl" or "it's a boy" now, because the parents have already known the sex of the child for months.  Why?  Because now they have these things called Sonograms.  And not just plain old sonograms.  Sonograms in 3-D.  Wonder if the doc provides the glasses or if you have to bring your own?  Wonder if you also get popcorn and a drink when you watch?  I want to ask, but in the back of my mind I hear my daughter saying, "Mom, no!" So I don't ask.

But I want to.

I love speaking in accents.  I do a killer British Cockney accent, not a bad Aussie accent, a South American accent of some sort, an Indian (from India) accent and lovely southern drawl.  My most favorite accent of all, though, is a New York accent.  When my children were little, the were so amused!  I would even have them repeat lines back to me with an accent and we had so much fun.  Eventually, when their little friends would come over, I would entertain them as well.  We had a grand time. As my children grew older, they tired of my accents, although their friends would still request them.  The friends loved it.  My kids just rolled their eyes. Here's the thing about doing accents.  When you finally get warmed up, you just want to keep going.  It's as if you can't stop!  One of my children, who shall remain nameless for this story, will refuse to speak to me until I stop.  I know...ridiculous, right?  When did the entertainment value of my speaking in accents go down?  The precision with which I deliver them is better than ever!  It's that dogone invisible line.  Once I crossed it,  my accents are no longer funny.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I have exactly three people in my life who appreciate speaking in accents.  These are their names.

Todd.  Nat.  Harriet.   Todd lives with me and accents have become our "inside" joke.  I rarely hang up the phone with Nat when we don't say, "Good-boi", our New York version of "good bye".  Harriet and I always revert to our south-american accents at some point in our conversations.  It's just what we do.  We have all stepped over that line....no one really finds us at all amusing except ourselves.  And you know what?  That is enough.  Did you hear that kids?  We thought it would be lonely on this side of "the line", but guess what?  There are others here!   And we appreciate each other!


I couldn't remember the last time we'd attended a matinee together, but a few months back Todd and I found ourselves in a neighboring town in the middle of the afternoon with extra time on our hands.  There was a movie playing that we'd been wanting to see. So,  in the middle of the afternoon we grabbed a couple of tickets and diet cokes and settled in.  We were a bit early, so we people-watched as folks came in.  Lots of folks.  Apparently this was the geriatric showing--you know, the "dinner-at 4, movie-at-5" crowd.  Todd and I felt like kids.  The movie began.  The British accents were a bit difficult to understand in places, but I, being the accent guru that I am,  was managing just fine.   But then the talking in the audience began.  Apparently one of the abilities we lose  when we "crossover" is the ability to whisper.  At one point in the movie, after the British movie star had spoken a particularly poignant line, I hear from somewhere behind me in an "outside voice" these words. "What'd she say?"  And then an equally loud voice answered, "I don't know!"  How irritating is what I was thinking to myself just as Todd leaned over to me and said, "What'd she say?"  Oh my.  We leapt over the invisible line.

One of my sweet friends told me that there are moments in these middle years where she and her husband will look at each other and kind of shrug and say, "Well, here we are."

So it seems we, too,  have arrived.

Here we are.  Shrug.

Can't go over it.  Can't go around it.  Gotta go through it.

Well, okay then.  But wherever this road takes me, whenever I get the urge, if you listen closely you will hear my voice of rebellion.  And it will say this.  In a British accent.

Boo-Yah.

Granny.  Feisty until the day she died.  Boo-yah.

Christmas.

This morning is the same as all December mornings.  My husband rises a few hours before me.  He turns up the heat, makes the coffee and always turns on the Christmas tree lights.   This makes it nearly impossible to wake up on the wrong side of the bed!  So I'm sitting here this morning wondering  just how it is that this little setting--these simple little December moments-- can wrap me up like they do and warm me all the way to my soul.

Here's what I think about that.

When I was a girl, my mom made Christmas so special.   It all started with the arrival of the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Catalog, fittingly called the "Wish Book".   My sisters and I poured over the pages until we had them memorized.  We dog-eared the pages with our favorites on them.  I remember always wanting something unique that no one else would want.  A ventriloquist doll.  A unicycle.   Wishing for gifts was different than it is nowadays.  We didn't get things all throughout the year like kids do now.   So when Christmas rolled around, there was no shortage of things on our list.  The list had been forming since the Christmas before!!  From that catalog we shopped for presents for our parents, too.   I remember ordering my dad a penny that was inside a very small sealed glass dome.  Hmmm.  Yeah.  I don't really remember Dad asking for a penny in glass dome.  I was a different kind of kid.  My sisters will vouch.  Anyway, as I was saying,   we decorated the tree with silver icicles.  Now you and I both know when you put those things in the hands of three little girls and turn them loose you can wind up with a tree that looks....well, certainly not from the pages of Southern Living!

A few weeks before Christmas, presents would begin to appear under the tree.  My sisters and I couldn't wait to get home from school to see if there were more.  I remember Mom fixing hot chocolate for us and how she would sit with us and watch us shake our presents as we'd try to guess what was in them. It didn't seem to matter that the presents weren't arranged "just so" under the tree.  Presents were for shaking!  Johnny Mathis must have been playing in the background, because that music is permanently etched in my mind.  The vinyl record is on my stereo at this very moment!

In all our excitement, my sisters and I would all sleep in the same room on Christmas Eve.  We would whisper about what Santa might bring.  My stomach was always unsettled with excitement.  I would stay awake as long as I could, straining my ears to hear even a hint of what was going on beyond our closed door!  Christmas morning came early.  Mom and Dad would get up and we'd hear them say..."Looks like Santa came!"  We had to wait in our room until the coffee was made.  Mom and Dad would pour them a cup and call us in to the living room.  In two seconds the whole house dissolved into giggles and screams of delight and a mountain of wrapping paper.

 As a child I knew the story of the birth of Jesus,  but as children we don't connect all the dots.  What my parents did very well, though, was to paint a picture of joy and hope at Christmastime.  It was a time when everything was possible.  It was a time where my heart just felt different.  I knew that when I was very young, and as I grew older that hope had a name and the name was Jesus.

When we had children, I discovered that I had learned well from my mother.  So many of the traditions I carried on.  And we added a few of our own, like camping out under the tree a few nights before Christmas.  I gained a whole new admiration for what my mother had done to make Christmas a special and beautiful time. A million little things.

I loved every minute of having children at Christmas.  I loved the Christmas Eve service at our church and how we'd all circle the entire Sanctuary with the lights out and candles lit and sing "Silent Night".  I loved our pastor reading from the bible that the light of the world was born.  I looked at my children and saw their faces glowing with excitement in the candlelight.  And I saw hope.

I loved how after church we would head home and have yummy Christmas foods that we would make special just for that time of year.  Soon we'd say,  "The sooner you get to bed, the sooner Santa will come."  That's what my parents used to say.  I loved  how they camped out in the same room on Christmas Eve and how we could hear their whispering, giggling voices into the night!  I loved every single Christmas morning when the kids waited at the top of the stairs while Todd and I got our cups of coffee. I loved the quiet times that came later in the day, when we could sit with each of them as they showed how something worked or taught us how to play a new game.

So I'm sitting here this morning thinking how Christmas looks different this year.  It will be Todd and me until Christmas Eve, when two of our three will make it home.  Work has Todd on the rode a good portion of week...which means long, late hours.  He brought home a beautiful tree for us.  The next night, while I waited up for him to come home, I decorated the tree.  Johnny Mathis played on the stereo.  I fixed myself a cup of hot orange spice tea.   I pulled each ornament out and hung it on the tree...handmade ornaments with the kid's faces and hand prints on them...an ornament Todd and I bought years ago on a trip to Nantucket....an ornament that says, "now we are 'three'", symbolizing our first Christmas with a child.  I took my time remembering the significance of each one.  By decorating standards, my tree is  way overcrowded, but I can't bring myself to leave off a single one.  I can still remember my dad looking at our tree one year and saying, "That's exactly what a tree should look like".  And so it always will.

If you have a visual of a sad, lonely woman decorating a tree by herself in your mind, erase it immediately!  You know that feeling you have when you get in your car and it's so cold you can hardly touch the steering wheel until the heat kicks in and you turn it on high and let it blast you in the face.  Well that's the kind of warmth that wrapped me up when I decorated my tree this year.  God gave me the gift of a quiet evening to marvel at the years of Christmas blessings he has heaped on our family. And I, like Mary, "treasured these things in my heart".

The way Christmastime looks at my house changes every year. Sometimes it will be lively with family and friends, and I'm sure some years will be quiet.  But the hope that is at the very root of it all will never change.   And on those Christmas seasons that are more quiet than others, I pray God will remind me to be thankful for the gift of time to sit and marvel at his indescribable gift.

By the way, about the unicycle and the ventriloquist doll.  The unicycle was something I never mastered.  But let me say that had I really committed to the art of ventriloquism, I could have been the next Shari Lewis. I didn't want to leave you hanging!  Merry Christmas!

And she hung her memories on her tree.

Hurrying.

"Wherever you are, be all there".

This quote has been my challenge since I read it years and years ago.  It's been my challenge for reasons that I will write about in a minute.  First, though, I'm going to digress for a moment as I am sometimes prone to do!

For now, let me just say that it apparently was nt the challenge of Mr. Deer Hunter who nearly ran me off the road last night.  Where he "was", was on the highway behind me.  He was definitely not "all there" however, when he tried to zip around me so that he could then zip in front of me and go faster.  The only glitch in his plan was when he zipped around me the 18-wheeler in front of him decided to hit his brakes. That was when Mr. Deer Hunter, with the "call of the wild" whispering in his ear,  decided to just go for it and whip back in front of me, his trailer narrowly missing the front end of my Jeep.  As I said,  he was not all there.  Where was he, then?

Well I'm guessing he was already on his deer lease a few miles further west.  He was already smelling the  maple bacon sizzling on the skillet at his deer camp in the pre-dawn hours.  He was already feeling his heartbeat increase as a buck with a rack as big as Dallas approached the feeder.  He was, in fact, already picturing how that mounted deer head was going to look in his home above the fireplace.  He was already hearing his wife say, "That thing is not going in MY house"!  So quickly his mind goes straight to Plan B--how the mounted buck will look in his office and how all of this peers will marvel at his hunting skills.  Yeah, yeah, Plan B is better anyway! 

I rest my case.  Clearly last night where Mr. Deer Hunter indeed "was", he was not "all there".  I thank the Lord that I am here to tell the story!!

Digression complete.  We shall move on.

I have fought being "all there" my entire adult life.  Lets take this morning for example.  It's one of the first really chilly mornings we've had.  I have the day off from work.  I have a full pot of steaming hot coffee in front of me and my house is clean.  What more could a woman ask for?  Yet, I admit that it is a struggle for me to be here...in this moment.  My mind is traveling a couple of weeks forward to Thanksgiving and the preparations.  I'm feeling my pulse increase.  I immediately start a mental "to do" list.  I feel guilty sitting in the quietness. I'm feeling the need to DO something. Most times it doesn't occur to me that this tiny little moment in time is a gift from God.  I wonder what he thinks as I squander it away with my "hurry-up, always-doing" mentality.

Outside the window in my kitchen there is a tree.  In that tree many days there is a Cardinal. In my haste, I most often think, "Oh hey, there's that bird again!" It took me some time to see a pattern.  Usually the Cardinal appears in late afternoon.  He usually perches on the same branch.  It appears that he is looking in the window right at me.  In the midst of our drought, he sits in the one tree that seems to be thriving without the benefit of water.  As I watch, I think how I love seeing the contrast of his vibrant red feathers in the green leaves.  I find myself watching for him.  It's a thrill when he shows up.  He shows up when I slow down.  Oh, he's probably there other times, too, but it is when I'm "all there" that I see him.

Some days and some moments I'm better at being "all there" than others.  Here are what those moments looks like in my life.

When I'm all there and my children come to visit I notice how they make each other laugh and I'm well aware of how the sound delights me.  I love how when my daughter gets completely tickled, she doubles over when she laughs.  I notice how my son's hands, when they are working,  look just like my dad's hands did.  I notice the quiet strength and patience of another son and I think how he reminds me of my granddaddy.  When I'm all there, nothing soothes my soul like the sounds of my children playing music together. Then I don't worry about what we're having for breakfast tomorrow, I just enjoy the music.

When I'm all there, my heart  melts when my husband of almost 30 years kisses me when he comes home at the end of the day. When I'm all there,  in the midst of life's hardships, I still lose myself in hope as we dream about next year over Saturday morning coffee.  When I'm all there, I like to bake an apple cake just for the moment he will walk in the door and tell me how good it smells.

When I'm all there, I soak in an entire day in the company of a sister. I'm reminded of one of the things I love about her---how she makes everything fun! I'm amazed at her creativity and how she enjoys just about every moment of her life.

When I'm all there, with the radio playing in the background, I enjoy a long soak in a hot tub until the water turns cold.  I like how moving one piece of furniture can make me enjoy just walking into a room.  When I'm all there I take notice of how much lighter my load feels when I do something as simple as clean out my purse!  When I'm all there, I just close my eyes and wait for the moment my little eight-year-old voice student will hit a high note at the end of "Silent Night".  She hears it, too, and we just smile at each other.

When I'm all there, I love sharing a cup of coffee with my mom.  I love that even though I'm 51, when I go to her house I feel instantly relaxed and kind of like a kid again!   I love how she always has cookies to eat!   I love how she is so full of life and active and independent and I'm thankful she lives nearby. 

When I'm "all there" I get a glimpse of a beauty that is so simple that it almost brings me to tears.  I feel like I'm seeing things from God's perspective instead of mine.  When I'm "all there", tangible things lose all significance and real living begins to happen.   It is where God says "This is where beauty lives and it is my gift to you.  Go ahead....drink it in.  Splash around in it!"

When I'm "all there",  I have no wish to be anywhere else.  

"One must never be in haste to end a day;  there are too few of them in a lifetime".  -Dale Coman

Something I saw when I was "all there".

Things reclaimed.

     I'm drawn to old things.  I cannot remember a time when I wasn't.  Actually, I come from a long line of women who are drawn to old things.  Mimie, my grandmother on my mother's side, collected beautiful old things that she gathered when living all over the world.  Her old things were fine things.  Sideboards.  Pitchers and bowls.  Chairs.  Tea carts.  Clocks.  China.  Figurines. Mimie's beautiful old velvet chaise sits in my little office alcove upstairs.    Then there is my mother.  Mom was a junker when junking wasn't cool-- long before "American Pickers" were on the hunt!  I'm fairly certain that my sisters and I furnished our first places with Mom's finds. In fact, one of Mom's greatest finds had to have been an old table, which lived at one time or another in all of her childrens' homes.  I have done the same for my children. An old school bus seat that I found has been repurposed in my son's living room. A beautiful old armoire was brought back to life with a little elbow grease and paint and now lives at my daughter's house.   Another of my sons is building a fine collection of old classic books.

So, you see, the love of old things is in my blood.  My heart beats much faster as I approach anything that resembles a yard sale.  It is the thrill of finding something wonderful beneath a pile of things not-so-wonderful.

This is the story of what I found one day under a pile of not-so-wonderful stuff.

A small stained-glass window.  I hardly recognized it for what it was at first.  It was caked in years and years of dirt.  Before I rescued it from the pile for a closer look, the lady told me she would take five dollars for it.  When I pulled it out, I saw that it had a few cracks, and a small triangular-shaped piece of glass was missing.  But hey, for five bucks, why not?  I bought it.

I took it home, put it in the storeroom, thinking I would clean it up in a few days.  It was a few months when I remembered it.  When I fetched it from storage, I began to clean off layer upon layer of dirt.  Slowly, the simple design began to emerge--a single red tulip with two green leaves.

I wondered where the glass had lived in its better years.  I wondered whose hands had gently cleaned the fragile panes.  I wondered how it was broken and who had discarded it when it became imperfect.  Though there were no explanations for all my "wonderings", I was glad I had decided to reclaim and rescue it.

That beautiful little piece of glass I purchased for so little now lives in one of my windows in a room I spend time in every day.  The morning sun shines through it,  creating the most lovely shapes and colors despite its imperfections.  It's hard for a window to go through life without some of those.

It's the same for us.  We just cannot live this life without imperfections.  Like the glass, there will always be those who see us as "less" because of them.  As humans, we won't end up on the bottom of a pile of rubble, but we do end up in lonely houses with shades drawn thinking we'll just live out our days collecting dust, feeling as if we are of no use to anyone because we can't be perfect enough or because we've been damaged.

But then there is this One.  He digs through the rubble for you and me.  He never even asks "how much for this one?"  He just pays with everything he has.  When he looks at the cracks in us and when he finds us with pieces missing, he still wants us.  Imagine that.

He still wants us.
With years of soot and dirt on us.

Just take a minute and let that soak in.

I believe when He looks at me and when he looks at you, He sees something completely beautiful.  And He reclaims me.  And you.  No one else can see me that way.  No one else can see you that way.

We are His pieces of broken stained glass.  And I believe He takes great joy in the light that shines through our broken and cracked panes.


lovely imperfection.