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Twangy, Southern Drawl

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Masculine, brawny, deep. I’ve decided I want Sam Elliott’s voice to narrate my life.

If Siri had this option, I’d buy an IPhone. If an out-of-my-reach sports car had his husky tones in the navigation system, I’d make payments for the rest of my life.

I remember him most for his roles in Prancer and Tombstone. So naturally, now I want to live on a farm in the arctic and drink whiskey.

I want to ride sidesaddle in an ankle-length dress made of silk and lace that collects in a bustle in the back. 

I want to run a Dodge truck over boulders and through the mud.

I want to eat steak and wash it down with the Banquet Beer.

And I just think things like stirring oatmeal or folding size 3T underwear would somehow be a little more heroic with that twangy, southern drawl in the background.  

It Matters

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Tragedy.

An icy road that takes a parent’s only child.

The stroke that racks the body of a grandma loved by three generations.

Cancer that ravages organs of a husband’s true love.

Despair so deep it grips the soul of a teenager until their one relief comes with taking their own life.

A single defining day when our home’s soil was attacked, forever changing the lives of hundreds of people, and a great country.

Life lost matters; it is never easy. We remember with an ache because we know what once was. We know what used to fill the remains, the void, the dry bones of a building.

We don’t forget, and we stand tall. With courage, we fight to keep going. Because tragedy doesn’t define us.

“And Life Comes Back”

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She always says I’m so cute, but she’s the one with playful red curls framing her face.

I met her on a retreat last spring during a winter season in my life. Pacing the hallway of our hotel I demanded of myself to pull together, but her words had pierced me so deeply. As she finished with a couple other women I walked to her, in pieces. She held my hand and did not look away. She waited, quietly, for words I couldn’t say. Finally she filled the heavy silence.

“Sweet girl, I want to talk to you. But I think this is bigger than me.”
I slobbered. “Yes, you are very perceptive.”

Five months later I’m reaching for her hand over lemon pound cake and an old-fashioned chocolate doughnut. She looked weary, tired and told me for the millionth time, “He was so great, B.” I believe her, though I don’t know for myself. We sit there, crying together over the man whom she loved and is no longer here.

Mere hours after this, I am back to the driveling. The bus has left the school where my two older kids attend and I am unable to peel myself away from her words. I need to go, walk down the sidewalk, but how? Stuck in the first chapter of her book, the story that feels utterly real in the moment, I simply count each minute and get in as much as I can.
Not to mention, my face looks like I just had a run-in with a loving St. Bernard. No child should be greeted from school like that.

“There are no words to describe the hollow, piercing ache.”  -Tricia Lott Williford

This book, her writing will grab you immediately and it won’t let you go for long after you finish the last page. It is a story she lives, tells with audacity, and invites you to see.

It is two days before Christmas when this much-too-young woman takes the title widow. And she isn’t the only one he leaves. Two tender-aged boys journey this with her.

You will read how she navigates being there when her husband died, anger, memories, a double parenting duty, post trauma panic, and the hope for more. She, does, not, hold back.

“I am wordless, swept away by the long lost ideas of home and safety.”

“We pray for healing, but I wonder if we really know what we’re asking for. Is there greater glory in a pain free life, or in his people knowing and trusting him in the shadowed valley?”

“I was furious. Furious that they didn’t watch, furious that my heart spills into my lungs and makes it hard to breathe, furious that he isn’t here.”

–Tricia Lott Williford

The curls fly, her chin points up, mouth open. She laughs full and genuine. It is a great sound for someone with a great sense of humor and it’s evident in her writing. You will laugh with her, and find one of the most beautiful parts of her personality.

She is so authentic, this friend of mine. Her boys ask, and she answers…anything. The memories come, and she doesn’t hide from the hard ones. In fact, she dialogues a fight they had once. She talks openly about death and then dares to move forward.

“I have to let him go. The strings that keep us attached are the same chords that keep me tethered. I have to let go. This is the only way I can hold tightly to the memories, keep them sacred without taunting them.”

“The truth is, if and when the new daddy and I find each other, that’s a gift I intend to give him: he won’t have to fill a void. It won’t be his task to replace what has been lost, to heal my heart, to create my joy. There will be a new place that will be all his…”

–Tricia Lott Williford

You will read quickly, not because it’s a book you’ll want to hurry through, but because every page compels you to the next.

Read it. You will love her. As I do.

 

Let’s Talk Puke

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Guttural, from her core, one of my daughters got sick last night. As I write this and as you read it, you know. You cringe for her because you know. You’ve done it, you’ve cleaned it up for someone else, you’ve watched it happen.

I am phobic about vomit. No, let me be more specific. I am phobic about the stomach virus.

Fever? Come cuddle.
Cough? Let me grace your forehead with a kiss.
Heaving all night? Do not come within ten miles, give or take, of my breathing space.

I can be cool, calm, collected if my son gets carsick. There is hardly a chance that I’ll be doing the same in 24 hours so, be my guest. Let me comfort you. I’ll even pick it up with my bare hands. OK, no. That’s too far.
But if one the kids does the midnight whisper, “Mom, I threw up,” I am nearly in the fetal position trembling and diagnosing my own abdomen for any signs that I don’t feel good.

It may surprise you to know that in spite of this, I often am the parent who’s up with the ill, holds the bowl, cleans the mess (albeit with rubber gloves), because I am Mom. I run drink errands, wash and rinse, play movies incessantly. I am also the parent who most frequently gets the virus. When I do, it’s like I’ve been through war. I talk about it as if I’ve just gotten back from overseas where I’ve seen horrendous acts of violence and narrowly survived. I return from this dark place a hero.

But if I haven’t had it yet, I enter ritual mode. I walk the house armed in plastic, holding bleach water. Every touchable surface gets a cleansing, every fabric Lysoled. I wash my hands so much they crack. 
I try to control my fate. This is partly due to my genetic predisposition to panic disorder (which I’ve battled my entire life and will blog about another day). And what I’ve learned about the disorder is that its greatest defeater, its best cure, is to walk at with both arms swinging.

So let’s do this thing.   

Truly Rich

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Freshly picked, my youngest demanded to be held. She’d just finished a few hours of finger painting, picture book reading, rug time singing, snack devouring, preschool heaven. And I just finished being in heaven, elsewhere.

Through the heavy glass doors of the church, the heat came at us like a dog out of its cage. Intensely. But still less so than the meltdown my dear toddler would have if I forced her to walk. Often she has to deal with these kinds of injustices but when it’s just her and me, so close to another couple hours of naptime freedom, I oblige.

As we approached our car I saw a new, pearl white SUV stop perfectly between the lines in the next space. Leather. Limited. License plates that wore the pride of a Disable Veteran.

Luxury comes with silver linings, I thought. The kind after you fight for your country, or on your head, or after many years of work and service and life. Yes, please take the handicapped section. All of it if you like. You, have, earned it.

But luxury doesn’t always come with age. It is not a guarantee. I think of this as I turn the pages of my husband’s copy of his late grandfather’s book. I think of Grandma, still with us, happily driving her old Subaru. She was giddy when they bought that thing all those years ago, and I wonder if she’ll ride it up to Glory someday. For now it sits before her small home, with her old decorations, when she isn’t gallivanting to seniors groups.

I love the seasoned of our society. And I love her.

The beautiful sun spots on her arms shadow the tireless work beside her beloved at their ranch. A ranch they devoted to sharing with other people. The gray that touches her neck came from raising four riotous boys and one sweet girl whom I assume was worried over just a much.
She is not fancy, she does not flaunt, and if you asked her to pick the one thing in her house of the greatest value, she’d most assuredly point to the wall-sized (I am not even joking, it’s gigantic) family portrait in her living room.

And it makes me think, she’s the one that is truly rich.  

One Bite Feels Like a Dozen

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Don’t go outside wearing a neon shirt at dusk. Just don’t.

“Mosquitos will be out,” I thought and forgot in an instant. Cool, quiet air greeted my entrance onto the porch as crickets began to warm up their legs for the ballad we often get after bedtime. This was my clue. But I got cocky.

Coiled on the side of our house I took the hose from its hanger and sprayed my flowers, my babies, when the first one found me. I felt the pinch as he feasted, the brat. Minutes later, I’m scratching.

But one bite feels like a dozen, have you noticed? I’m watering, and swatting, and I become paranoid. Before I know it I’m putting nails to my head, both my arms, the dip between my collarbone, my eyelid. I am a sight. The neighbors may be listing come Tuesday.

So take it from me, if you choose neon, wait until day.  

Gangly Legs and Crimped Hair

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It’s a flat of springs, a weave of cotton, a puff of air, a bubble of water. Sometimes it folds, deflates, or falls out of a wall.  

Ours is burnt orange and taupe, can be digitally changed for comfort, and is the heart of our home. 

Our bed.

Reign in your immaturity for a second and I’ll tell you why I love it.

It was the place I landed as a teenager, all gangly legs and crimped hair, talking with my mom. My mind would wander in as many directions as the stitching on her outdated comforter while she answered my deepest question: Am I worth your time?

It was where I’d hide when moonlight hit the side of my dresser, void of the outline of branches and I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was certainly coming through the window for me.

It’s what cradled my fevering, aching body, and what I rioted against during my toddler years.

And it’s just as valuable to me now.

It got me through three pregnancies.

It is a trampoline when I’m not looking.

It’s where our family assembles into a pile of arms and legs and stuffed animal friends that get us through the night, to embark on a handful of adventures before bedtime.

It’s the place my daughter tells me, with jagged trails of tears on her cheeks, of the shame she’s been carrying over how she treated some of her friends last year in school.

It’s where my son comes face to face with me on his daddy’s pillow and I remember that it wasn’t so long ago he was sucking his thumb.

Tonight it’s the place where delicate pigtail curls hover over sun-grazed shoulders, where a sequence of high and low-pitched voices dripping with childhood are followed by screaming laughs. It’s where there is an unending performance of somersaults, and tickling that will make you lose your breath.

It’s where the only kid at home is queen, and I don’t want this night to end.

 

“When did I stop thinking life was dessert?”

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Chapter four of Miss Voskamp’s life story is about food, and she is speaking my language.

“When did I stop thinking life was dessert?”

“It takes a full twenty minutes after your stomach is full for your brain to register satiation. How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full? The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction. The body and soul can synchronize.”

“Life is dessert- too brief to hurry.”

                                                                                              -Ann Voskamp 

“It’s more like walking around after you’ve had your eyes dilated.” (Two Parts)

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“Oh, it’s a fluffy novel,” I said to the man who’d gotten me to pull my face up. With a cup of sugar and cream, and a little coffee I had been waiting for my friend to slide into the booth with me. While I waited, I read. Mindlessly. Until I was interrupted.

His skin was as richly dark as the cocoa he kept with him, which he almost forgot.
“You’ll need this for tomorrow,” the waitress said with familiarity.
“Thank you.” And he turned to me. “Now this, this is my chocolate on one side and cinnamon on the other.”
A regular. A man with plenty of time and a keen sense of down-home, old-fashioned, save-your-soul food. I liked him already.

“I just read a great book called The Historian,” he said beneath the weight of his book bag. “It was on the bestseller list.” 

“Oh OK. I’ll have to check it out. So what do you do? Do you write or work while you’re here?” 

“Yeah I write. I learned when I was about eight or nine.” 

Huh. Retired, and losing it. But then he laughed.

“I’m kidding. No I just ride my bike and come here every morning to read. And I ride my bike. (He said it twice, which for some reason I need to note. It’s part of how he charmed me.) Sometimes I mow. What do you do?”

“Well I have three kids-” 

“You? You have three kids? I thought you were in high school.” 

Mr. Rudy, my new friend, I love you.    

*

That’s what I planned to write today. And though I love it, I need to get brutally honest. It is the best writing, isn’t it? The kind that’s actually relatable. Not to say that cute, retired men in hole-in-the-wall restaurants aren’t relatable. But it’s not what is really in me.

How do I say it? How do I start? These are the words that I penned in blue at the top of my journal this afternoon. “I’m speechless. I am without speech,” Elaine from Seinfeld would say. And it is where I rest right now.

Some would call it a fog, a black cloud, a sheet covering, depression. I think it’s more like walking around after you’ve had your eyes dilated. It’s like being in the bottom of an empty gravesite and looking up without a clue how to climb out. It’s blah.

I haven’t been able to shake it for more than 24 hours, and I don’t often come to this place, though I recognize the décor. I have been here before.

I don’t know how I came, what pushed me in, but it sucks. And if you’ve visited, you know.

I could eat. If I do I’ll go for carbs, and sweets. Lots of them. Chips (my weakness), chocolate (my other weakness), peanut butter with chocolate (wait a second…there’s a pattern here), pasta, or anything else that would fill the void between my fingers and not in my heart.

I could check out with movies. Seinfeld, always Seinfeld. In good times and bad it is eternally a good choice. Ever After, Twilight, anything Jack Black, a multitude of Nicholas Sparks, What About Bob, The Princess Bride. I would be distracted, it would work. For a little bit.

Undoubtedly, I would still come up empty.

So I stay in it. I accept that this is where I reside.
And I wait, because God never lets me suffer forever.

Why is it so dang hard sometimes?

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A little less hot, it still smells like rain when the bus pulls to the end of our street. McKenzie doesn’t see me, only her neighbor friend. Kyle looks at the ground as his shoes clunk down the black steps. His face is taut and I know he’s holding back. It isn’t until dinner that he finally breaks.

“No one sat by me on the bus.”

Like a lioness I crouch in protection. “Oh I’m sorry, Buddy.”

“Did you try to sit by someone?” asks Dad.

“Yeah. He moved away.”

His name. I want, his name.

“And then the bus driver yelled at me to sit down.” This, like a tree root that won’t stop, is all it takes to make him crack. Before I know it his daddy’s arms are around him.

My boy, the little one, he is tender-hearted. He loves full, and fierce.

School friendships are the cornerstone of our education. It is my unprofessional opinion, of course. But I’ve watched the way my children become fickle about learning, and it’s often based on how their relationships are going. When I think back to my own elementary career, I don’t think of those stacks of numbers I had to multiply or the words I read aloud when it was my turn. I think of how it felt to win dodge ball in front of everyone, of notebook paper with stupid drawings from my friend that would literally have me in stitches for an entire day.
Or my awful fourth grade year. There were three of us, which meant that somebody was always on the outs. “I’m friends with you again but don’t tell her.” “She’s so stuck up. I’m mad at her. Don’t, say, a word.” As you can guess I was often the her, the she. And I’m pretty sure I was the one saying it on several occasions.

It is hard to make good friends. It is hard to keep good friends.

And not much has changed. Sometimes by default. People move, grow in different directions, or just lose touch. It isn’t mean-spirited or intentional. It is life. Sometimes.

 I’ve had friends never return texts or e-mails. Just silence. I’ve been left with the lonely, one-sided wave while someone pretends not to see me in the parking lot. I’ve even had a friend move without a word.

It’s been said that women are relational, emotional. Women need other women. Really? Then why is it so dang hard sometimes?

So I rack over what I did, what I said. I think, “Ugh, am I clingy, needy, high maintenance, hypersensitive?” Probably. I’ve caught myself lately saying “If there’s room in your life…” Or, “Do you have time to hear this?” I’ve been burned, and in a culture that barely lifts its eyes from ten million devices, that must be unceasingly entertained and thus isolated, it isn’t easy. Have you walked through the airport lately? It is daunting. I’m guilty of it myself. 

But I want more. I want to do life with somebody. Lots of somebodies. I want a friend who can handle my ugly as well as my beauty. Who will share five dozen cookies with me in secret. I want to share a secret. I want someone who will walk barefoot on my floors to ransack my fridge because they are so at ease in my space.

I’m a pursuer, to a fault. I don’t let one unanswered text go lightly. (Five, OK I get the hint.) I fight. I lay myself vulnerable. I take the risk because it’s required if I’m going to have any real friendships. There are moments I’m left reeling after rejection (and then the 5 dozen cookies become all mine for enjoyment). I start to wonder why I keep trying. Why put myself out there at all?

Because dear Kyle boy, the world needs your kind of fierce. And it needs mine too.