Lamott Inkshed

Yesterday afternoon I lay in bed for a while reading Anne Lamott’s book, Plan B- Further Thoughts on Faith, amazed at how someone could both eloquently explain Jesus and use an F bomb so freely in a sentence. I liked her aplomb and the fierce, unapologetically introspective look at her life. It made me wish that I had the pluckiness to drop more cursing in my own writing every now and then; it really seems to get the point across. Not, that our writing is on the same level at all, but I suppose I could up my cursing and see what happens. My favorite section was titled, O Noraht, Noraht and as I read, I realized that often, complete frankness makes me uncomfortable. When she talked about her mother, and her Ahlsheizmers and what a terrible mother she was, I thought, “ugh, I really don’t want to know this” because mothers are not supposed to be terrible. They should always nurture and protect and give inspiration and hope. I know that everyone doesn’t have a mother who does, but no matter where I read it, fact or fiction, it always pains me to think that it’s true. But I realized that even though Anne was disappointed in her mother, she couldn’t help but admire and love her, and when the time came, she couldn’t really say good-bye. Feeling blue, I finally had to put the book down and come downstairs to my own little slice of heaven and be glad for my own dear family and the fact that at present, none of us were bitter or angry or facing horrible disappointments in each other. The story reminded me that each time I think that I understand God and how he moves on this earth; I am shown a new facet to his love. The things  I consider terrible and unfair that I have experienced would pale in comparison to parts of Anne’s life, yet she has found joy and peace where she is, just as I have. My quest for acceptance and my desire to know my place in life is no less valid than a former addict because I have not been in recovery. We all need to know where we are headed and it seems that no one has an easy road to get there. I felt thankful that God chooses to repair things that are broken and shower love on the unworthy and forsaken, for if he didn’t, I’m certain that I would be in trouble. In my moment of sweet revelation, the faces of my loved ones seemed brighter and dearer to me, and I watched from the back deck as my daughter shimmied up her rope swing, her face almost ethereal. Laters.

Enter Sandman

I have weird dreams. Often they involve terrible, faceless things that I can never see and they chase me mercilessly through dark alleys and empty rooms. And it never stops, and I never see their faces. After a while, it is more like a never ending game of Duck, Duck, Goose; more aggravating than scary and this is where I usually wake up. Once while having a massage, I fell asleep and dreamt that someone was chasing me. Using my ninja skills, I screamed, “hii-ya” and delivered a hearty round house kick to the terrified masseuse’s midsection. Yes, I did have to tip extra. Most of my massage time these days is spent trying to keep myself awake and lucid so I don’t get a bad name in the spa community. Another time, while sharing a bed with a fellow bridesmaid the night before a wedding (we were all poor and economizing on motels) I woke to find her pushing me to my side of the bed while saying, “Can you please just sleep on your side?” We really didn’t know each other well and I couldn’t tip her so we just tried to avoid each other for the rest of the wedding. I suppose my dreams had led me to seek some cuddly solace and she wasn’t biting. I slept a lot this week and my dreams were exquisite, full of majestic leg kicks, random jerking, finger twitches, and waking with my heart pounding. The frustrating thing is that I can never exactly remember the dreams and I did spend quite a bit of time trying. What is scaring me? What am I running from? I still don’t know. My consolation is that by now, with all the kicking and exertion, I figure I am nearing a black belt level in dreamland, so pretty soon, I will be doing the chasing. Laters.

A Sad Story

 I have a hard time keeping my writing consistent and interesting. I tend to post from the heart-my posts being something that happened to me during day or a cherished memory that I am thinking of. Lately things have been off and I feel like I have been off, so my posts have decreased. I am trying to hold myself to posting at least once a week and this “interesting” story about my thoughts while I ate a smashed sandwich was all I could come up with. Pray that my muse finds her way back.

Being a good hausfrau and an economical saver and all that stuff I try to take my lunch to work, but the conundrum is always, “in what?” How do I transport it? It might seem like a question with an easy answer, but it is not. To take it in an actual lunch box would cost me and I put “lunch box” on the list of things that I never want to pay for, like nightgowns and checking accounts. Why buy a silk teddy when you can sleep in the t-shirt you got for free at summer camp when you were twelve? I personally don’t know why anyone would.

Most of the time, I stick with the grocery bag theme and they vary between Wal-Mart and Stew Leonard’s, the latter being the most sturdy, but then I am faced with the disgrace of a cheap lunch box and so I always just shove the bag down deep in my purse and end up with a very squished sandwich. Squished or pay? Pay or squished? Please, don’t worry; this post has no deeper meaning than my sandwich and me not wanting to pay for a lunch box. Laters.

Deep Thoughts 44 1/2

I remember the trip we took one summer to Colorado. At that time, it was just me and K and the boys; two little brown nuts in the backseat. Those were the days of sippy cups and binkys and I remember driving alongside a river with the windows down, Kev’s hand on my leg as the radio blared and the boys napped in their car seats in the dying summer sun, all of us sunburned, but blissfully happy. I thought to myself, “Life could never be better than this.”  And it was, better, I mean. But it was worse too, and sometimes the worse went on for miles and miles before the better ever came to town.  It was both, good and bad, happy and sad, the perpetual juxtaposition of the way things are.  I came to realize that life is the thing that puts the grey in your hair and the ache in your back, but it is also the thing that crinkles the corners of eyes into laugh lines, bringing depth and dimension to the once unmarked face.  I begin to see that life had happened to me, that things had changed me, that I am rearranged; I am different, things are different, things are new. And then I wasn’t nostalgic for the old times, I wanted these times, the present, the life that is here and now.

 K resigned from his position a few weeks ago, and just like that, I was footloose and fancy free. Church and the Sunday service have been the focus of my every weekend for as long as I can recall and I confess, I hardly know what to do with myself, but I am giving it an honest effort. Where was I this week while the holy hullabaloo I know as church was happening? Swim suited-lying on a lawn chair in my backyard, eating watermelon, making daisy chains with my daughter.  Who had a better day; those with the three songs and a sermon option or me? It’s hard to tell, but I was certainly enjoying myself.  God truly abides in those places where we least expect him.

Life seems determined to bring me the delights that I never anticipated. In fact, it is safe to say that so far on the journey, nothing has been what I expected. But as “they” say, (man, don’t you just wish you knew who “they” was? I’d sure like to smack them) life is a beautiful ride. And it has been and continues to be. Why, if my life weren’t so crazy, I would be bored and I would hate that. Laters.