Continental Divide

I live a double life.

More than once a month, I zip across three time zones and transmute into an alter ego.

My East Coast life and my West Coast life are about as opposite as two lives can be.  Sometimes I feel slightly schizophrenic.

Here’s an illustration: I’m East Coast now. It’s after 9:00 a.m., and I am lying in bed sipping my second cup of freshly ground coffee. (Thank you, Husband.) I slept in until almost 8:30, then had my Quiet Time and checked emails and schedules. Watched a little Today Show. (Hey, we’re empty nesters. Give me a break.)

If I were West Coast, it would have gone more like this: 6:45 a.m.: Wake up and stumble to kitchen (area) to make some instant coffee. Get back in bed, pick up my Bible and try to see the words through bleary eyes. Read three sentences. Phone buzzes with a text: “Mom, James is crying to come over. Ok?”  Thirty seconds later, my little buddy arrives at my back door, a whirlwind of activity and love and disruption and messes and total adorableness. I’m worn out by 9:00.

The circumstances of my double entities (identities) are different in almost every way.

East Coast, I drive down a long, winding road past other people’s Dream Houses to reach our own. It is on a wooded cul-de-sac. A couple of acres with a pretty pond in the back yard. Each house in the neighborhood occupies its own “space,” both positionally and existentially. We exist together in a state of perfect climate-controlled privacy. Several of my close friends live just down the street, but we don’t run into each other by accident. No one hears anyone else’s business. 

West Coast, we live very close together, in houses that are wide open to the (generally) perfect weather. No central heat or air needed there. (At least, not in 1925, when my little cottage was constructed. No prob until the heat records exceeded 105 a few days ago. Global warming.) Backyards adjoin so closely that every private conversation is heard by one and all. Every fight. Every intimate conversation.

Privacy is pretty much an unknown entity in an urban setting. If I try to take a nap in the afternoon when James does, I am invariably awakened after 10 minutes by screaming sirens or loud teenagers on the sidewalk a couple of feet from my open window. I feel exposed, vulnerable. A couple of times, the whole street's been cordoned off by a battalion of police accompanied by the Canine Unit. I see people looking in the windows as they walk by my tiny abode on the way to a concert or theatre performance. It’s life in a miniature fishbowl.

My West Coast bedroom is smaller than my East Coast closet, if that helps you get the picture.

East Coast, I have Help. (Thank you.)

West Coast, I (mostly) am The Help. Bumbling my way through a newly-necessitated domesticity that does not come easily or naturally. But one that is strangely fulfilling and satisfying nonetheless. As I’ve said, there’s nothing quite like the smell of little boy clothes drying in the sun on a line in the postage-stamp back yard.

West Coast Backyard

East Coast Backyard

East Coast, I jump in my car for each and every errand, mindless of issues like fuel consumption or traffic.

West Coast, I walk to the grocery store. To Starbucks. To the Farmer’s Market. To every restaurant at which I choose to eat.

Not only are the living conditions disparate, the alter egos don't even look alike. Different clothes for different coasts. In LA, anything goes. I walk around on the sidewalk in my pajamas most mornings, without getting a single funny look. East Coast, I have to tone the wardrobe down. In Los Angeles, it is not uncommon to see a 75-year-old woman in the parking lot of Trader Joe’s sporting leggings with a leopard-skin top that doesn’t cover her fanny. (With heels or boots.) I kid you not. I’ve tried to sneak a few pix because I knew that no one back home would believe it. In Georgia, I’m always asking myself, “Will this outfit embarrass my mother? Will she tell me I’m not dressing my age?” 

I’m even going to Talbot’s with her this week.

West Coast, I’m usually too tired to take care of myself. East Coast is all about self-maintenance. At home, I won’t go to the grocery store without at least a smidgen of makeup on. West Coast, there are days when I’m bold enough to let all the world gaze upon my unmasked beauty. (I do try to keep sunglasses on.) Unwashed hair in a clip, the same dirty t-shirt 3 days in a row… but who really cares? I don’t know any of these people. In Athens, I run into 4 or 5 acquaintances every time I try to dash in and grab a loaf of bread.

West Coast, I don’t have a social life.  East Coast, there are more people I want to get together with than there are days in which to do it. I feel lonely one place; stretched thin the other.

It’s funny.

The two lives appear on the surface to be as different as night and day. Looking only at external circumstances, people might be envious of one and pity the other. 

One life is definitely more physically demanding. There are fewer creature comforts. I have less time “for myself.” I don’t get to do what I want to do very often.

But.

I have discovered that life circumstances have absolutely nothing to do with my happiness quotient.

Nothing at all.

Zero.

Actually, I didn’t just discover this. I’ve known it for some time. But to live it out so vividly and experientially has provided a unique opportunity for spiritual growth.

Please listen, people.

This is important.

It really, really, really doesn’t matter where you live or what you do.

…What you have or don’t have.

…Whom you’re with or not with.

Living a contented… joyful… life is completely independent of all of these external matters.

Because I take myself with me wherever I go.

As you take yourself with you.

Although I would not have chosen this lifestyle, our family's circumstances have given me the gift of living extremely disparate lives in two very different places. Neither one is perfect. Fortunately, there are many things I love about both places and lives. I am blessed to be able to savor the richness to be found in each experience.

But I know, in ways I’ve never known before, that while happiness is not to be found on either coast…in one lifestyle or the other…

it may be achieved in either or both.

As long as I remember that my true home is neither.

Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I can retreat to that secret sweet spot of the spirit.

Christ in me.

That’s the only place I really fit in.

***************

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Phillipians 4:11-13)

East Coast Across-the-Street Neighbor's Fall Porch Decor

West Coast Across-the-Street Neighbor's Fall Porch Decor

Vive la difference!

A Desultory Conversation About Reading

It’s pretty cool to have lived so long that the world of one’s youth has become the subject of (Ancient) History books. I feel a tinge of pride that I’ve retained a misty visual of that first American spaceship blasting off from Cape Canaveral. I get a thrill every time I watch Mad Men, frequently yelling things like, “My father had that ashtray in his waiting room!” or “My mother had that apron! (frying pan, toaster, necklace, purse)” or “I wore Sally’s dress in 3^rd grade!” Or “We had those curtains! The exact same ones!” The modern conveniences of my childhood have become the archaeological artifacts of today, providing a glimpse into the kitschy Moderne World of the early ‘60’s. (Side note to coddled offspring: No, our schoolrooms were not air conditioned way back then. Think about Georgia in early September. You had to unglue your legs from your seat before you could walk up to the board to try to figure out the terrifying math problem.)

Anyway, anyway. On Sunday, I had an opportunity to step back in time for a second. My childhood church had a big open house to celebrate a wonderful new addition. A while ago, the church had purchased the building next to it, a historic 19^th century structure. The addition is situated between the two, uniting them into one sprawling entity. We went on a tour, which was like following a labyrinth. I had flashbacks of myself (age 6? 7?) hiding in the dim regions that formed a kind of tunnel underneath the front steps of the church. Sneaking over an old spiked wrought iron fence to climb on the gigantic church bell that was too big for a steeple.

My husband and I tried to remember how things had been when our children were growing up there. Turning a corner, we went up an unremembered old stairway and found ourselves in the front hall of the house (formerly) next door. At one point, we'd had many adventures co-teaching the High School Sunday School class in that building. But a glimpse of the massive old carved handrail brought back an even earlier memory.

When I was a small girl, the house had been transformed into the town library. Even fifty years ago, it had acquired an olfactory patina of age. Old books crammed into old bookcases in old rooms. Sunday, even though the paint was still fresh in the beautifully redecorated house, the delicious musty scent of all those venerable volumes came back to me.

One of the most exciting aspects of the summers of my youth (and there were many) was getting to go to the Athens Regional Library. I would fly up those steep dark steps to the second floor, anxious to return a foot-deep stack of books and amass another. I have no idea how a scrawny thing like me managed to do that. Adrenalin, I guess. We got some kind of reward for each book we read. Was it little apples? We pinned them onto a board, I think. (Help me out, old Athens natives.) All I know is that, come September, I wanted to win the reward for having read the most books.

Of course, I realize now that the reading was its own reward. I am so grateful to have been given the privilege of a love of reading from a very early age. (I believe it is why I was able to fake my way through Emory University with all the smart kids.) I tried to teach myself to read before kindergarten, but, for some reason, it was frowned upon back then. (“Don’t want anyone getting ahead of the class”? “It’ll make them weird”?) Whatever. By third grade, I’d read Little Women seven times. I could quote the whole first chapter. (Much less, act it out with my BF. I always wanted to be Jo.)

Growing up, I read the way an alcoholic drinks. In secret, under the covers with a flashlight. In the bathtub. In my tiny closet. In a tree house I constructed out of cardboard boxes. In a moving car until I threw up.

I didn’t realize that this was strange until I had daughters of my own. In spite of the fact that I read to them in utero and for as long as they’d sit still afterwards, none of them developed the addiction. I found…gasp of horror… stacks of Cliff Notes hidden in their closets. I have one child who may have graduated from High School with the distinction of never having actually finished a single book. May have. Can’t prove it beyond a shadow.

In Junior High (the “Middle School” of my generation), I had read practically everything worth reading in the fluorescent-lit room that served as library. Bored and hunting around for something new, I spotted a pretty woman in 19^th century attire gracing a book cover. Thinking it might be some juicy historical fiction, I checked it out. It was Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

I was 12 or 13. It changed my life. It made me question the meaning of life.

Forty+ years later, it remains my favorite of all time.

One reason I treasure the privilege of reading so much now is because I was deprived of it for more than two years. (Complications from herniated disks in my neck.) We tried every device and contraption that’s been invented, including one with mirrors that enabled the reader to lie flat. Nothing worked. Finally, I gave up. A sweet friend brought me the New Testament on tape, and I lay flat in bed and listened to that. For weeks and weeks. (A story for another day…)

I was in the final stages of emerging from that dark and painful period when Katherine’s AVM erupted, radically changing everything in our lives. Reading became pretty much impossible for other reasons then. (With the significant exception of the most important Book of all. I hungrily wolfed down those words… chewed on them, sometimes swallowed them whole. It was how I lived…sustenance.)

Well.

Thank you for allowing me this long self-indulgence, those of you who’ve read this far without coming to a point. (Which actually is a point: not everything has one.) Sometimes desultory conversation is a nice thing. It also reminds me of my childhood, when people actually had time to sit around and chat about nothing in particular. Chew the fat, as we used to say in the South. Just for the pleasure of each other’s company.

But if this must have a point, I guess it’s this:

Walking up that century and a half old staircase took me back to the place of awe I felt as a child for the gift of the written word. That awe is becoming increasingly extinct. The radical advance of instant-gratification technology over the past 50 years has blunted our appreciation and shortened our attention spans. Life is faster and busier now. It’s hard to sustain a prolonged interest in anything.

 A recent report by the National Endowment for the Arts found that 53 percent of Americans surveyed hadn't read a book in the previous year. According to another study, 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. That stuns me.

Writes journalist Justyn Dillingham, “Reading, as the great critic Harold Bloom has said, requires us to "look inward," and our world relentlessly discourages us from looking inward. The franticness of our lives, the blaring exhortations of advertisements, the constant pressures of the social world - all are engaged in a loud, unthinking conspiracy, of sorts, to keep us from sinking into introversion and self-examination. Obviously, an America whose citizens all read for pleasure would not be a perfect America. But it would be a better country than the one we live in now, simply because the values instilled by reading - imagination, skepticism, the capacity for thought - are also the values of citizenship.”

I am so very grateful to be able to return, at last, to one of my first loves. It has enriched my life beyond measure.

***************

My trip up the stairs of Memory Lane has inspired me to turn in a Summer Reading List to you. May I have some apples, please?

So here it is… The Great, The Good, and The Everything Else:

Pride and Prejudice*, Jane Austen

Enchanted April*, Elizabeth Von Armin

Oblomov*, Ivan Goncharov

Ethan Frome*, Edith Wharton

A River Runs Through It*, Norman Maclean

Sonya, the Life of Countess Tolstoy*, Anne Edwards (after watching “The Last Station” with Helen Mirren)

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

The Prodigal God, Timothy Keller

Mennonite In a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen

Winter Garden, Kristin Hannah

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Alison Weir

Life After Yes, Aidan Donnelly Rowley

Imperfect Birds, Anne Lamott

French Women for All Seasons, Mireille Guiliano

Bleak House, Charles Dickens

Lit, Mary Karr

(* Re-reads)

If you’d like a recommendation for one, I’d pick The Prodigal God. Deep, deep liberating stuff, but you can read it in a day.  If you’d like two, I’d go with Lit, a raw, real story of addiction and redemption. Lushly written… no pun intended. I’ve just started her prequel, The Liar’s Club. I’ll let you know.  Mennonite had parts that made me embarrass myself laughing out loud. The Help was accurate and moving. Enchanted April is charming and beautiful, with a lovely message equally as pertinent today as it was when it was written.    

A note about the Classics listed…yet another benefit of the Expensive Gadget! Most of you probably already know this, but thanks to the Gutenberg Project, you can download over 23,000 Great Books for free. Almost anything worth reading, as long as it was originally published before 1923. You can even get them on your Iphone! I re-read Pride and Prejudice while going through the car wash, waiting in a doctor’s office… even while stopped in LA traffic. (Probably illegal, so I don’t recommend it.) But this is another way that I can make the technology a blessing instead of a curse. Right now, I’ve got Tolstoy, Dickens, Austen, Dostoyevsky, and the Bible… all on my phone! (IPad’s definitely better for aging eyes, though. I take it to the gym and balance it on the elliptical. Makes it somewhat more bearable.)

Are there any other bookworms out there? Anyone else want to share a Summer Reading List? Or recommend something wonderful? Reminisce about the Good Old Days? I love hearing from you.

And I do want to thank you for taking the time to read my words. Some of these posts are, notoriously, as long as a book. So you must like to read! (Or you’re very patient and loving.)

(p.s. I know I need to update the Books page. Soon?)

The hallowed library of my youth.

                                        

Text Books

If anyone could read my text messages, they’d think it was a script from Saturday Night Live.

Really.

Ask my son-in-law.

Every now and then, I need confirmation that I’m not totally delusional… crazy without just cause.

So I make him read the encrypted codes from his wife and her sisters.

He just shakes his head.

It’s a small taste of schizophrenia.

My three girls are about as different as human beings can be. (Although they would argue that point. And sometimes I agree with them.)

“Bwaaaahhhhhaaaahhhhaaaaaa,” writes one, in response to something I’ve advised.

 “What should I do about these zits?” texts another.

“Who do you think I should marry?”

“Mom, are you okay?”

“Do you like this bedspread, or the other one?”

“You’re a freak.

"At the DMV. Aaarrrggggghhhh."

“Mom, can you come help me?”

“Bwaaaahhhhaaaahhhhaaaaaaaa.”

“At the Viceroy now…”

“Can you buy me this, Mommy?” (Picture accompanies.)
                             
"Zuuuuuupppppp????"

“James loves his Mimi.”

“At the Fairmont now…”

“ Xxxxxx is so hot.”

“Bwaaaahhhhaaaahhhhaaaaaaaa…..”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Miss you Mommy.”

“You’re not so bad sometimes, Vivi.”

“xoxoxoxoxoxoxo”

(This is the G-rated version.)

I can’t reveal the actual text messages because

  a.) My husband would absolutely freak, and,

b        b.) I would get kicked off the internet.

So, usually, I just throw my (figurative) hands up in the air, and yell, “They’re your problem now, not mine!!!”

Relinquish, disengage, distance, step back, relinquish.

Relinquish.

Relinquish.

She’s yours, not mine.

Yours.

Not mine.

Not mine.

I love them all beyond reason.

But they’re not mine.

I was just the oven.

Still, I like to remind them all of this:

You are not your own, you were bought with a price…

I have a friend whose mother yelled this at her as she was walking into a cool, but bad, peer group situation.

At least one of mine loved this story.

(Thanks, Barbara.)

***************

Mother-daughter relationships are said to be the most complex there are. Does anyone have any observations on that complicated transition time when little girls become women?

Little Women... almost

Moments

I’m sorry it’s been so long since you’ve heard from me after the last couple of heavy posts.

I’ve been away from internet for a rather longish weekend.

(That was a good thing.)

We had a mini-family-vacay… the only one this year will all members of The Immediate present.

Even if it’s only a token vacation, I still think it’s important to go through the motions. To say, WE MATTER TO EACH OTHER… enough to take a few days off from work. To go somewhere special, even if it’s just an hour and a half away.

To set this (very brief) time apart for us to just be with us, away from distractions and diversions. And other people we know. And schedules and obligations and internet and work. (Of every kind.)

To rest.

And revel. (A bit.)

I had a magic moment.

They are very few and far between… rare and precious… these days.

To me, a magic moment is a sudden realization that, for that pinpoint of time, there is nothing left to want.

A moment where you feel completely full. Totally satisfied. Relaxed in an active way. A moment where you forget everything you worry about on a regular basis. A moment in which you live fully and gratefully, even while carrying an awareness that it will pass. But the acknowledgement of the transience of the moment only serves to make it more fulfilling and satisfying. A rare blessing… a glimpse of future bliss, where every single moment and millennium will be magical.

The moment came while strolling on a wharf with my husband and James.  The brilliant sunlight was warm and comforting, but an ice-tea cool breeze blew in off the sparkling water. For that moment…those few moments… all was well. Very, very, very well.

In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the narrator mourns that “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

I think our lives are measured in moments.

***************

Lord, help me to be aware that each and every passing moment is precious. Help me to live more fully in all of my moments… magical or not.

How do you live "more in the moment?"

***************

p.s. Thanks to those of you who responded to the last couple of intense posts with compassion. My goal was not to provoke sympathy, but to provide a clearer depiction of the new reality faced by those who have gone through injury or accident. I am sorry that I was not more aware before our family went though our "earthquake."

Katherine's response was to tell me that "I don't feel handicapped. I'm just grateful I get to go to the front of the line."

Sometimes, attitude is everything.

Handicapped, Part 2

On the train to our concourse, I sit down, mindful that I am to relinquish my seat for the elderly or impaired. I pull the stroller close to me, and whisper to James. But I’m not concentrating on our conversation; I’m staring at the motley collection of human beings crowding aboard, watching their interactions with each other. A kind look here; a rude scowl there.  Fascinating.

We get off, and our guide takes us to the special elevator. We wait and wait, but it’s evidently not working. He takes us down the corridor to another one, but tells us “It’s slow.” Luckily, we arrive there seconds before a long line of wheelchairs forms behind us. “It’s slow,” our Ethiopian gentleman reiterates to the other wheelchair attendants. We wait and wait some more. Finally, the door opens. A beautiful able-bodied young woman gets off, giving us a little shrug as she exits. “Lazy much?” Grace inquires under her breath. The other wheelchair-bound passengers sigh as our entourage fills the tiny space. They’ll have to wait some more.

Emerging onto Concourse D, our long-suffering helper sighs himself as he tells us, “It’s the last one.” I find myself apologizing to him, spewing stupid Southern inanities like, “I’m so sorry. I bet you didn’t know what you were getting into when they called you to help us.” He looks at me with the patience of Job and starts pushing to the last gate.

By this point, we’re starting to panic a bit. Outdoor Counter Man told us at the beginning of this saga that we didn’t have seat assignments. We were advised to get to the counter at the gate ASAP and explain our situation. And hope for the best in terms of sitting together. Actually, he told us that there were no seats together. So I start sprinting ahead of everyone.

Fortunately…providentially… generously… (or perhaps because of the adequately greased palm) O.C.M. has evidently called ahead and informed the airline representatives of our situation. They inform us that three of us may sit together. The fourth is right across the aisle. Gratefully, I drop another large bill on our guide and we God Bless him as he leaves.

The knot in my stomach begins to unfurl for a second until I look around and discover that there are no seats left in the waiting area. We have eight carry-on items (the allowed limit for four passengers), a wheelchair, 4-footed cane, and stroller. But there is nowhere to go with it all.

So we stay in front of the counter, virtually blocking the way for any other passengers. There are seats perpendicular to it, but not enough for our group. I look around. Then I walk around, beseeching people with my eyes.

But this is a tough and hardened group heading to LA. There are no men there like my husband, who would immediately jump up out of his seat to help a woman in obvious need. Instead, there are just blank stares and averted eyes. Virtually everyone in the area talks very loudly about personal matters on their cell phone. Some very personal matters. (Does this young woman not realize that I’m listening to her talk about her sex life? Does she not care???)

Evidently not.

There are two seats available on the perpendicular row. I try to jam the wheelchair and stroller in as far as they’ll go in front of them. Grace and I stack the carry-on in the seats. Two irritable and obese people occupy the seats to our immediate left. One, the woman, speaks no English. They stare at us without speaking…without a twinkle of acknowledgement that there’s an adorable little boy with us… as they morosely, but concentratedly, consume a bag of Burger King Whoppers and fries.  I almost want to wave my hand in front of the woman’s face to make sure she’s really there. That someone’s in there.

Leave it to my Pollyanna. As the steam pours out of my ears, I hear Katherine addressing the couple. “Excuse me. Are we in your way? I’m sorry if we are. I’ve had a brain injury, so traveling is difficult. I hope we’re not crowding you.”

I excuse myself to the Ladies Room.

But then I panic that we’ll be called to board. “Special Needs and Young Children” are boarded first.  As I wait in the Burger King line to order the fries for which my grandson has been avidly pleading since seeing them consumed with such vigor by our friendly neighbors, I text Katherine. She responds, “We’re boarding now.”

Mimi don’t run.

But Mimi ran.

Like I was in Chariots of Fire.   Big leaps. In a skirt.

Everyone is waiting for us to board first. Unfortunately, Katherine has requested that her sister go find her a Starbucks. The airline reps say, “Are we ready now?” “Yes, of course,” I say, as I start kicking the eight bags down the 100+ degree walkway to the plane, while pushing James’ stroller with one hand and texting Grace frantic, mean messages with the other. The other passengers crowd around, stepping on my heels, one actually almost tripping me.

A woman behind the desk comes out and offers to push James. Grace comes running down the Concourse, Starbucks splashing. We get to the bottom of the gangplank. Wobbly wildly, Katherine tries to board the plane by herself, as I attempt to get the wheelchair and stroller folded up. The roll-aboards topple over, obstructing the path of the other passengers who will not wait for us to board. (As if the plane will take off earlier if they push and step over us.)

Finally, we’re seated: Katherine in the window seat, James in the middle, me on the aisle. But we discover that Grace isn’t really directly across from us: she’s in the middle seat across the aisle.

I tell my daughters I will handle it. NO ONE in our family likes to be assertive. But by this point, my adrenalin is so high that I have no doubt that I will be up to the task.

We are in the bulkhead of Economy Class. Countless random types pass us by… each one a possibility. I try to guess which one might be my potential adversary.  Finally, a patrician-looking octogenarian comes up and looks at Grace. “You’re in my seat,” she announces regally.

But I am ready.

I stand up and get right in her face.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I must ask you a huge favor. I am traveling with my handicapped daughter and her two-year-old son, and I need for my other daughter to be next to me to help. Would you mind changing seats with her?”

I wait expectantly for a gracious, “Yes, of course,” which my mother, who is also an octogenarian, would give under even vaguely similar circumstances, NO MATTER WHAT. Totally inconceivable that our octogenarian would respond in any other possible way.

“No,” this one answers, “I’m 80 years old and I have a bad back, and I will not sit in the middle seat.”

Okay.

Okay. Breathe deeply. Think of something peaceful and beautiful. This is only a millisecond of Eternity. Use the “One Free Drink” voucher that your husband gave you.

Everything’s okay.

Everybody’s okay.

Except they’re not.

That 80’s book was a lie.

The truth is: I’m not okay, you’re not okay.

We are really not okay. None of us.

No, not one is righteous. Not even one. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

I sit back down in my seat, stunned by the violence of the day. I look at the faces passing by: the anger, the stress, the exhaustion, the feckless hope, the innocence.

I look at my first-born child, happily texting away as we await the final preparations for take-off, her son between us.

And I realize something.

Everyone on that plane is handicapped.

We might not all have a special blue parking permit, a wheelchair, or a sign on our heads, but we are handicapped, disabled, deformed, nevertheless…

By fear… or anger… or selfishness… or self-hatred…

despair… loneliness… perfectionism… prejudice… emptiness… pride… perversion… addiction…

or a lack of love.

And we are all deserving of compassion and aid.

***************

I go back to an old favorite quote of G.K. Chesterton: “We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”

The rest of the story: The octogenarian ended up being nice, and got up as many times as necessary so that Grace could help with James when I took Katherine to the ladies’ room, etc.

Getting off the plane was even worse than getting on, but a Good Samaritan finally intervened and helped us.

I always wondered about this before…when to offer to help. I think many of us are wary of offending those who must value their independence and are accustomed to dealing with the challenges of their situation. My opinion after this experience and others like it: When in doubt, do.

Handicapped

 Our cross-country expedition was really a trip.

And I don’t mean that in a good way.

My youngest daughter and I traveled alone with Katherine and James. It was the first time I’d done it without a man. (My niece and Katherine’s friend Sarah accomplished the feat from west to east, but they didn’t complain about it.  Guess whether or not I’m getting ready to.)

On a good day, traveling solo, airports are not a picnic anymore. Gone are the glamour days of being treated like a queen on royal expedition.  (Here goes Granny: Oh, the good old Wonder Years when aviation was new and exciting! ) When I was a child, we would dress up in our Sunday best for an airplane ride. I remember going to New York for the World’s Fair in about ’65. I wore a church dress with a starchy petticoat and white gloves. We were treated to a gourmet meal, delivered by a stewardess (no such thing as a “flight attendant” then) who looked like Barbie. They all looked like Barbie. It was a prerequisite for the job. The Barbies met our every need before we realized we needed anything. We were given little gifts of eye masks, refreshing towelettes,  and airplane socks…pillows and blankets…every thing imaginable for a comfortable flight. My sister and I received pilot’s wings for being such good little flyers. And a brilliant smile and a hug as we got off the plane.

Flash forward to now: Checking in, the man behind the counter says that one of our bags isn’t flat enough. It’s under fifty pounds, the limit, but he thinks it’s too puffy. Katherine tries to direct things from her wheelchair, while James runs away. I chase him and strap him, screaming, into his stroller. Grace is on the ground taking things out of the suitcase to make it appear skinnier. Finally Counter Man is satisfied. After an $85 baggage fee and some generous palm greasing to make sure everything gets there when we do, we’re off and running.

Thankfully, we have requested an airport employee to push the wheelchair. We are quite the entourage going through security. Our man from Ethiopia has to take Katherine a different way to be bodily searched in case she’s carrying explosives. James starts screaming like we’re in a concentration camp: kids this way, parents that way. Grace and I are stripping down, getting laptops and Ipads into their own separate bins, putting the plastic Ziploc with eyedrops on top of our purses. We are fast. We are frequent flyers. We know the drill. In spite of this, the man behind me is shoving my bins over so that he crushes my fingers between them. I pause and give him a look. He is undeterred. I am forced back into the frenzy as the security agent tells me I have to take off James’ sandals and fold up his stroller. Hmmm…you have to kick the hard metal lever a certain way to get it to fold up. I’ve already taken off my shoes. Everyone behind me is groaning and complaining as I bruise my foot trying to get the darn thing closed so that it can go on the conveyor belt. James loses it completely when I take his sandals off. I have to carry him sobbing through the metal detector. The crazy mean man behind me is even less generous on the other side. He’s messing with my bins again. I feel my heart rate elevating rapidly. I want to scream at him: “Can’t you see that I’m traveling with a two-year-old and a handicapped person, you idiot?? Give me a break!”

And with that angry thought comes a wave of sickening realization.

Oh. Dear. God.

My child is handicapped.

This acknowledgement, this ugly epiphany, this ripping away of the scabs of denial… leaves me physically weak with emotion. I feel as if someone has kicked me hard in the gut.

I try to gather myself together as I gather up our strewn belongings from the bins.

Studiously ignoring the stares of fellow travelers, I follow the entourage to the handicapped elevator.

Where we wait, as a rushing stream of humanity flows down the escalator beside us.

(To be continued…)

Things I Love

Katherine’s precious friend Catherine (comment #5 on previous post) has very wisely suggested that we counter yesterday’s little exercise with this one.

It is similar to playing The Glad Game, but more frivolous.

So, in random order, a partial list…

-Reading in bed

-Cecelia’s lemon cake

-Being on a boat

-Friends who love unconditionally

-Sleeping late

-Peanuts (My sister-in-law referred to me as a “Peanaholic” in college. Don’t take it the  wrong way.)

-My grandson’s kiss

-Sunsets

-Movies that make me blubber

-When God is overt

-France

-Night swimming in a murky lake

-A sense of timelessness

-Museums

-Reconnecting with an old friend

-The ocean

-When my husband makes me laugh in spite of myself

-Seeing my kids happy

-New clothes

-Massage therapy

-When the right words come

-No schedule

-Key lime pie

-Writing an uninterrupted blog post

-Wasting time

-When there’s nothing left to want

-Good dreams

-James in a swimming pool

-The right music

-Flipflops

-When the Holy Spirit lights.

Hmmmm…. Is there a theme here?

I sound kind of like Jimmy Buffet.

Maybe I just need to move to a desert island where they grow peanuts.




Now, you tell me what you love.

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 P.S. Yesterday I forgot:

-Pumping my own gas.

-Gigantic cold grocery stores.

If anyone else would like to vent, the polls are still open at “Debbie Downer.” Sometimes it’s healthy to let it all out…whether humorously or seriously. Obviously, people did both. I appreciated everyone’s honesty.

But it would be a great idea to follow it up with a list on this post so that you don’t stay down.

P.S.S. In the “God Being Overt” category: Minutes after typing this, a friend called to say that she had been trying to do something for us for weeks, but one thing after another had gotten in the way. She wanted to drop something by, as she was leaving town today.

It was the Cecelia Lemon Cake, the second item on the list.

God is so good.

(So is the lemon cake… and my friend.)

P.S.S.S. Please pray for traveling mercies as we switch coasts this weekend. And continue to share your prayer needs with us by clicking on the praying lady on the right.

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Learning to swim.