Walk in the Wind

     I had so many months of creativity constipation since my surgery, I began believing my ability to write resided in my replaced, right knee. Fortunately (or not), my brain is now fertile again, probably because of the constipation previously mentioned, and I am producing brainchildren at a prodigious rate. Hence the following.

                                                  Walk in the Wind

Today we must go for a walk in the wind,

out of the door we go.

and we must follow the path that it takes

wherever the wind may blow.

We are as free as the waves on the sea

riding the gusts so high,

coats spread out wide like the sails on a ship

watching leaf-boats blow by.

We feel as high as the clouds in the sky,

feather-light wisps of white,

over the mountains, not knowing the place

where will shall be tonight.

If you should see my granddaughter and me

out in the cool, March wind

you will not guess the adventures we’ve had

or places that we have been.

We have not hasted and rushed through our day

and surely must pay the cost,

but time that is wasted on walks in the wind

never is truly lost.

Secret at Blackbird Cafe

     The fun of a rhyme is finding out
     as I write line by line
     what the poem is about.

     That was certainly my experience with this poem, which is strictly a work of fiction that, I hope, does not resemble anyone's real life. All I knew when I started writing was that I wanted a certain rhythm, a secret, and a twist. This is definitely twisted.

      Secret at Blackbird Café

That’s Roscoe O’Toole and his favorite stool

is the one in the corner there.

He eats twice a day at the Blackbird Café

because home is too lonely to bear.

He had a good wife he will love all his life,

although she passed away years ago.

A drunk hit her car as he drove from a bar

and she died by the side of the road.

The law never did catch up with the kid,

but Roscoe found out who he was

and shot him down dead with a round to the head

like the sniper he’d been in the war.

I helped him then because I was his friend,

and that body will never be found.

I declare to this day that the boy moved away,

and sometimes, that I’ve seen him around.

No one would guess from Roscoe’s quietness

at his stool in the Blackbird Café

the secret we share and the stain that we bear

for the bloodshed that happened that day.

Say what you will of a man’s right to kill,

we believe justice was done.

And I feel no regret for my part in the death

of my worthless excuse of a son.

 

Without Words

     The older I get, the more I become persuaded as a Christian that the exhortation of I Peter 3:1 for wives to win their husbands to the Lord without words has a broader application.  I believe it also applies to mothers of grown children, especially sons.  One of the reasons I believe this is because the more I pray for wisdom in how to approach spiritual issues with my children, the more God tells me to shut up--in more sanctified terms, of course, but that is the gist of it. This is a shame because I think I have so much wisdom to share, but since I have noticed the Holy Spirit doesn't use any of my suggestions to change other people's lives, I will have to trust Him on this also. That is the heart of the issue--do I trust God enough to believe He can guide my loved ones without my words?
     I had 18 years of their childhoods to plant, pour and pound God's word into my children's hearts. We supplemented that with both church and school that taught God's word. Now I must do the same thing Christ did when He left the earth just weeks after his disciples finally figured out who He was, I must trust the Holy Spirit to bring to their minds what they have been taught. My job is to develop that gentle and quiet spirit that God values so highly. I have messed up enough myself to be gentle with those who struggle. Quiet is an ongoing project.
     Faith aside, having lived with my husband for 37 years and sons for 30, I have noticed that the way to a man's heart is seldom his mama or his mate's mouth. God typically uses men to challenge men. When I started going to BSF years ago, I told my husband how much I was blessed by it but, in a rare stroke of wisdom, I did not push him to go. I prayed for another man to invite him. That not only led to my husband joining BSF, but to him inviting other men. At a family gathering some time ago, a female relative was lecturing a male family member about church attendance in a fairly public setting. My husband told me, "That won't work. It will only push him away." I am a pragmatist. I want to do what works. Not only am I not my husband's Holy Spirit, but my words can actually obscure His. That is like a friend's story of their faithful dog trying to protect her husband from the paramedics that came to help him when he fell off the roof.  I am by nature that well meaning, but clueless, dog. I hope someday to find that winsome, wordless wisdom of a woman of worth.

Waking Up

    This afternoon I did something I have not tried for a long time. Alas, it is not losing weight. It is sketching.  I wear Sketchers, but I am not a sketcher. Art has always been frustrating for me. The pictures I draw are nothing like the pictures in my head. My medium is words. With words I can express my thoughts with accuracy, and occasionally, beauty. Nevertheless, I found myself sitting on our back deck with a spiral notebook, a well-used pencil and tiny stub of talent. My only goal was to draw what was right in front of me. After drawing the back fence, spindly sumacs and leafless apple tree, there was an uninteresting empty spot, which in real life was only dead leaves and dormant grass.  I decided to push myself further and write a poem.
     Despite what I said above about expressing myself in words, my writing brain has been as dormant as the grass for months now. I am beginning to think it will never grow back, which is no great loss to the world of literature, but still disturbing to me. Perhaps I have blogged a piece of my mind too many times and now there is nothing left. I decided that, like the drawing, I would simply try to represent what was right in front of me which was the coming of spring.

Waking Up

Beneath the newly melted snow

before the grass begins to grow,

the promise of the coming spring

makes welcome, even common things

like dead grass, leaves and dog poop.

Rejoicing in the cloudless sky

the dog, the cat, the sun and I

enjoy the music of the birds

without the need for thought or words,

like leafless branches waking up.

Giraffes Again

   In the hilarious Jim Gaffigan video "Mr. Universe", he talks about staying at a Disney resort for a family vacation. There were giraffes (Giraffes!) outside the window of his hotel room, but after a few days he became bored with it--"(sigh) Giraffes again. Why couldn't it be a lion? or maybe a lion eating a giraffe?" Giraffes again has become my new expression for becoming inured to even positive experiences. We have been in Dallas for two and a half weeks now. There have been blue skies and temperatures in the sixties most of that time. I have not had to clean anything but laundry, or cook anything but my own lunch. I have eaten in my favorite restaurants like Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and Joe's Crab Shack. I have had ample time to rest, recover from knee replacement, and read. I am ready to go home, but I have not yet reached the giraffes again stage of being in Dallas.
     One of the perks of staying at a Residence Inn is the free breakfast. Of course there is the do-it-yourself waffle bar, toaster and cereal that most hotels provide now, but there are also scrambled eggs, meat, potatoes, oatmeal, muffins, fruit and yogurt. Yet, despite the abundant variety, I have reached the giraffes again stage of the hotel breakfast. To put this in perspective, my normal breakfast is fruit, toast and tea. I am hardly a gourmand. Yet somehow--giraffes again.
    As American Christians, it is easy for blessings to become blase (can't figure out how to put on the accent mark, but it's French.)  Sunny, sixties in January may be fairly normal for Texans, but it is an extraordinary experience for a Montana girl and I want it to stay extraordinary. I want to marvel at the giraffes God puts in my life again, and again.

The Day I Knew

     When my youngest son announced his engagement two years ago, I found out that not only would I be gaining a daughter-in-law, but a two year old granddaughter. I had wanted to be a grandmother for a long time. It seemed the least my children could do to repay me for the sacrifice of raising them. What I did not envision was that my grandchild would also be a stranger I had just met. When she and Amanda came over, McKenzie played with her mom and I sat there like some form of friendly furniture. I bought better toys for our toy closet, but I wanted to be the thing she played with.
     Months went by with this same grandma/guest dynamic and I wasn't sure how to change it. Finally Thanksgiving came, Tracy and company were at our house for dinner. I was taking advantage of some down time to visit in the living room when MacKenzie asked me if I wanted to hide with her under her blanket. So there we were side by side on the floor, Kenzie completely covered, me sticking out except for head and shoulders, both of us giggling because  mommy and Tracy couldn't find us. My granddaughter and I were going to be friends. That was the day I knew.
    

The Goodness of the Son

     As I sit here in the gazebo of the hotel soaking in the evening rays of the winter sun here in Dallas, it reminds me that two years ago about this time I was doing the same thing, except that I was in Boise where it was an exceptionally foggy winter, and brisk even on sunny days. Both times I had just had a knee replacement, although the knee I rehabbed in Boise was as problematic as the weather and this knee just needs a little fine tuning.  The weight of winter is lifting from my soul. My husband tries, but does not understand, the way the white winter skies of Kalispell affect me, though I have tried to explain it. I feel the emotional equivalent of having my head slightly under water, just enough that I cannot breathe, and the mental version of static in my brain that keeps me from thinking clearly until sundown when I can no longer see the white skies. Surgery, under the best of circumstances, is stressful on body and mind. Surgery in, or just before, winter is especially so for me.
     That is why I had planned to have this second knee replacement in the spring, but my knee had other plans. Halfway through a Labor Day trip to Missouri with my dad, my right knee would neither straighten nor pivot without the kind of pain that made me gasp and grab something to support myself. A cortisone shot helped, but I was afraid that if my knee spent more months in that bent position, I would have difficulty straightening it after the surgery. So once again God arranged for Reed's work requirements to get us out of cloudy Kalispell in the winter. That is why I am in sunny, 60 degree Dallas drinking in the goodness of the sun. That is why I trust God with not only my future, but with my family's. God has shown himself to know what I need and to be faithful too many times to doubt him.  My unspoken prayer is a heartfelt, if unoriginal, repetition of thank you, as I sit here in the hotel courtyard basking in the goodness of the Son.