This is not a test
This is your life
This is not a fail or fly but rather a fight for what is right
It’s right to be given a fair chance
It’s right to have a choice
Not because you’ve worked hard
Not because you’re nice
Not because you came to the right place at the right time
Oh Jesus
This is about obedience
Standing Up
Learning how to stand my ground when decency is threatened to be bulldozed out
There is a cavern in my mouth that screams in disbelief
There is a bayonet that sits inside my ribcage
How careful I must be
How ready now to wrap myself in full humility
And yet
How willing I must be to do the deed so foreign yet to me:
To fight and fight and fight for
my own justice
Monday, October 5, 2009
Continued... Pink Elephants
This one is especially for J.J.
I know I promised not to apologize, but I feel compelled to break my own rule and say, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry because I can’t write about my broken neck right now, even though I left you hanging in the middle of my story. I tried to pick up where I left off, but everything I typed tonight was as boring as plywood. I tried three times. So to those of you who don’t know the rest and are now left in a state of suspended curiosity… I owe you one.
Ahhhh. It feels nice to take the pressure off. The muddle in my mind is already un-muddling, now that I’ve stopped trying to force an ending. Perhaps there is a different tale wanting to be told, pushing on the doorbell of my mind. What if I just open that door and write about the first thing that strolls in when I get to the end of this sentence, like… (Drum roll, please)… pink elephants.
I’m remembering the time I saw some on the ceiling of my grandparent’s bedroom. My grandparents were living in Oregon at the time, and my sister and I had gone to stay with them for a few days while my parents vacationed. I got very sick that week, and couldn’t bear my own heat, so I was moved out of the steamy guest bed onto the cool, white sheets of grandma’s. They were fluffy like clouds. I felt myself floating up toward the ceiling. I was happy.
Then the elephants came, blowing horns and riding tricycles. The elephants were pink, and that didn’t seem right to me, so I called grandma in. I had to call many times, because my voice was echoing and weak, and the elephants were getting noisier. Finally I saw her, leaning down close, asking me what was the matter. I’m not sure exactly what I said, but it went something like this: “The elephants make me dizzy. Their horns hurt my head, and I want them to stop riding their tricycles on the ceiling.”
Clearly, I was not seeing too straight, due to the influence of my fever. But it didn’t help me one bit to have grandma explain that I was seeing imaginary things, nor to perceive that she was worried about my condition. It did help when she brought grandpa in, and he made a joke about the elephants, filling the room with his laughter. It also helped to know that my grandparents would stay with me until the elephants quieted down, bringing cool rags for my forehead and speaking soft words of sympathy.
What good advice this story suddenly gives me! I’m often sitting with folks whose reality has been bent by homelessness, alcoholism, or severe forms of trauma and rejection. Whatever the elephants on the ceiling may be—an immense inheritance that was stolen away or a wife who kidnapped their children—it doesn’t do a damn thing for me to reason away the pain. Nor does it help when I’m too worried about their sanity to listen. What does help are kind sighs and words of sympathy; cool rags of time spent sitting there together. Sometimes, after the stories get so noisy and pink they make me dizzy, a joke comes bubbling up between us, and we laugh together. That laughter helps a lot. It heals something inside them that I can’t fix. It can quiet the trumpeting elephants.
Of everything I remember from that vacation I spent at grandma and grandpas, nothing is as vivid as the memory of those elephants. The other images are fuzzy: going to see the strange doctor, then feeling well again. Before I got sick I played outside with my sister on a wonderful teeter totter my grandpa had made that also spun around in circles—even that memory is as gray as the rain. But the cool sheets like clouds, the tricycles and horns held by pink pachyderms, and my grandparents staying with me until the elephants left—these things are positively unforgettable. When I look back, I mostly feel like giggling at the absurdness of my comments to my grandma. The elephants look so harmless from this angle.
Harmless elephants. I want that for my friends who are constantly battling sickness of one type or another. I want to partner with a community of people willing to stick around long enough to be part of a vivid memory of healing. I want to have faith enough to believe that someone can overcome a 20-year meth addiction, and humor enough to laugh with them, even in the midst of it.
I want to tell stories about living, walking miracles—not just the one I carry around in my bones, but the others out there waiting to happen. I don’t want to miss my chance to be the one to see at last the x-ray that matters most. Brokenness needs protecting.
There is nothing wrong with a story that ends (or begins!) with a person becoming a paraplegic. But that wasn’t my story to live. I’m taking you out on a limb here (and you may believe that I’m seeing the world through crazy pink elephant lenses) when I say to you:
PEOPLE HAVE STORIES THEY’RE MADE FOR.
To be continued…
I know I promised not to apologize, but I feel compelled to break my own rule and say, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry because I can’t write about my broken neck right now, even though I left you hanging in the middle of my story. I tried to pick up where I left off, but everything I typed tonight was as boring as plywood. I tried three times. So to those of you who don’t know the rest and are now left in a state of suspended curiosity… I owe you one.
Ahhhh. It feels nice to take the pressure off. The muddle in my mind is already un-muddling, now that I’ve stopped trying to force an ending. Perhaps there is a different tale wanting to be told, pushing on the doorbell of my mind. What if I just open that door and write about the first thing that strolls in when I get to the end of this sentence, like… (Drum roll, please)… pink elephants.
I’m remembering the time I saw some on the ceiling of my grandparent’s bedroom. My grandparents were living in Oregon at the time, and my sister and I had gone to stay with them for a few days while my parents vacationed. I got very sick that week, and couldn’t bear my own heat, so I was moved out of the steamy guest bed onto the cool, white sheets of grandma’s. They were fluffy like clouds. I felt myself floating up toward the ceiling. I was happy.
Then the elephants came, blowing horns and riding tricycles. The elephants were pink, and that didn’t seem right to me, so I called grandma in. I had to call many times, because my voice was echoing and weak, and the elephants were getting noisier. Finally I saw her, leaning down close, asking me what was the matter. I’m not sure exactly what I said, but it went something like this: “The elephants make me dizzy. Their horns hurt my head, and I want them to stop riding their tricycles on the ceiling.”
Clearly, I was not seeing too straight, due to the influence of my fever. But it didn’t help me one bit to have grandma explain that I was seeing imaginary things, nor to perceive that she was worried about my condition. It did help when she brought grandpa in, and he made a joke about the elephants, filling the room with his laughter. It also helped to know that my grandparents would stay with me until the elephants quieted down, bringing cool rags for my forehead and speaking soft words of sympathy.
What good advice this story suddenly gives me! I’m often sitting with folks whose reality has been bent by homelessness, alcoholism, or severe forms of trauma and rejection. Whatever the elephants on the ceiling may be—an immense inheritance that was stolen away or a wife who kidnapped their children—it doesn’t do a damn thing for me to reason away the pain. Nor does it help when I’m too worried about their sanity to listen. What does help are kind sighs and words of sympathy; cool rags of time spent sitting there together. Sometimes, after the stories get so noisy and pink they make me dizzy, a joke comes bubbling up between us, and we laugh together. That laughter helps a lot. It heals something inside them that I can’t fix. It can quiet the trumpeting elephants.
Of everything I remember from that vacation I spent at grandma and grandpas, nothing is as vivid as the memory of those elephants. The other images are fuzzy: going to see the strange doctor, then feeling well again. Before I got sick I played outside with my sister on a wonderful teeter totter my grandpa had made that also spun around in circles—even that memory is as gray as the rain. But the cool sheets like clouds, the tricycles and horns held by pink pachyderms, and my grandparents staying with me until the elephants left—these things are positively unforgettable. When I look back, I mostly feel like giggling at the absurdness of my comments to my grandma. The elephants look so harmless from this angle.
Harmless elephants. I want that for my friends who are constantly battling sickness of one type or another. I want to partner with a community of people willing to stick around long enough to be part of a vivid memory of healing. I want to have faith enough to believe that someone can overcome a 20-year meth addiction, and humor enough to laugh with them, even in the midst of it.
I want to tell stories about living, walking miracles—not just the one I carry around in my bones, but the others out there waiting to happen. I don’t want to miss my chance to be the one to see at last the x-ray that matters most. Brokenness needs protecting.
There is nothing wrong with a story that ends (or begins!) with a person becoming a paraplegic. But that wasn’t my story to live. I’m taking you out on a limb here (and you may believe that I’m seeing the world through crazy pink elephant lenses) when I say to you:
PEOPLE HAVE STORIES THEY’RE MADE FOR.
To be continued…
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Cont. from Oct. 2: Surprised by Gratitude
Gratitude. It is the great magician in our lives. It can pull joy out of sadness, and laughter out of weeping. It can surprise us with hope when we think despair is winning.
When I broke my neck at age 19, I didn’t expect to be grateful. I didn’t think my active, super-independent self could survive such a drastic change of plans. Six days after my ill-aimed dive into the Okanogan River near Canada, I was lying in a hospital bed in Spokane, WA instead of riding my bike like the wind down Idaho back roads. I was pleading with nurses for early doses of pain medication instead of packing my bags for a study abroad in Latin America.
It was a nightmare, yes. It took me a week to get my x-rays for the very fact that I KNEW my life could drastically change in the instant I found out the facts; I delayed for five days in excruciating pain in an act of denial so great, my dad still shakes his head, amazed. To be told that the surgery I needed was serious enough that I’d have to wait three MORE days wrapped in IVs until the man who could fix me came back from vacation… that was unbearable, yes. Yet more than that, it was a miracle almost too large for me to grasp. I was not only alive, but I had the use of both my hands, and feet, and head. I had the ability to hear what was said by folks who visited a 21 year old boy across the hall. He had also dived awry (into a pool nearby), yet had not yet opened his eyes to complain about the bedpan, or all the ways his accident had changed his plans. The knowledge of the fact that he was lost in some place between life and death, while I was still able to talk and cry and laugh, was not lost on me. I grieved for him. I celebrated for me. I was overcome with a gratefulness I couldn’t help but have. I don’t like to take credit for the shift that happened then--my next six months of fearlessness and peacefulness and sense of good things happening amidst the bad--because I wasn’t using my willpower to choose an “attitude of gratitude”. I was grateful. Just that. I was grateful for the life I had.
In three days time the surgeon came to talk to me about the vertebrae displaced inside my neck. He explained about the way it could be linked (by metal plate) unto the strong and stable bone beneath. I did my part of fasting and of waiting for the surgery that never came that day because he was delayed by NINE emergencies. There were nine surgeries performed that day that couldn’t wait because they were not the same as mine--they were labeled “life and death”. While I waited for my turn the nurses brought me in to get more x-rays, (cat scans? MRI’s? I actually don’t recall the shot that saved the life I had....) They said the surgeon thought it best to use the time to gather evidence. Thank God. I still thank God.
The surgeon would have tried to seal my wiggly bone unto a bone that was not strong or stable, rather BROKEN. He probably would have sealed my fate as a quadriplegic on that day. Which may have turned out okay. But I am here to say that I am grateful for the night he saw that break and stopped the anesthesia.
To be continued…
When I broke my neck at age 19, I didn’t expect to be grateful. I didn’t think my active, super-independent self could survive such a drastic change of plans. Six days after my ill-aimed dive into the Okanogan River near Canada, I was lying in a hospital bed in Spokane, WA instead of riding my bike like the wind down Idaho back roads. I was pleading with nurses for early doses of pain medication instead of packing my bags for a study abroad in Latin America.
It was a nightmare, yes. It took me a week to get my x-rays for the very fact that I KNEW my life could drastically change in the instant I found out the facts; I delayed for five days in excruciating pain in an act of denial so great, my dad still shakes his head, amazed. To be told that the surgery I needed was serious enough that I’d have to wait three MORE days wrapped in IVs until the man who could fix me came back from vacation… that was unbearable, yes. Yet more than that, it was a miracle almost too large for me to grasp. I was not only alive, but I had the use of both my hands, and feet, and head. I had the ability to hear what was said by folks who visited a 21 year old boy across the hall. He had also dived awry (into a pool nearby), yet had not yet opened his eyes to complain about the bedpan, or all the ways his accident had changed his plans. The knowledge of the fact that he was lost in some place between life and death, while I was still able to talk and cry and laugh, was not lost on me. I grieved for him. I celebrated for me. I was overcome with a gratefulness I couldn’t help but have. I don’t like to take credit for the shift that happened then--my next six months of fearlessness and peacefulness and sense of good things happening amidst the bad--because I wasn’t using my willpower to choose an “attitude of gratitude”. I was grateful. Just that. I was grateful for the life I had.
In three days time the surgeon came to talk to me about the vertebrae displaced inside my neck. He explained about the way it could be linked (by metal plate) unto the strong and stable bone beneath. I did my part of fasting and of waiting for the surgery that never came that day because he was delayed by NINE emergencies. There were nine surgeries performed that day that couldn’t wait because they were not the same as mine--they were labeled “life and death”. While I waited for my turn the nurses brought me in to get more x-rays, (cat scans? MRI’s? I actually don’t recall the shot that saved the life I had....) They said the surgeon thought it best to use the time to gather evidence. Thank God. I still thank God.
The surgeon would have tried to seal my wiggly bone unto a bone that was not strong or stable, rather BROKEN. He probably would have sealed my fate as a quadriplegic on that day. Which may have turned out okay. But I am here to say that I am grateful for the night he saw that break and stopped the anesthesia.
To be continued…
Friday, October 2, 2009
Continued from Oct.1: Good Living
I ended yesterday's post with a quote of my own, "Good writing comes from good living." In my case this is true. When I’m not living well then my writing spells it out--stale sentences, cliche word choices, and insights that sound all too familiar. I find myself frustrated with the process of putting thoughts into words, instead of swept away by the magic of rhyme, alliteration, and metaphor.
But what do I mean by “good living?” What does it consist of? I’ve been mulling this around in my brain, and reflecting on the strangeness of my truth: good living doesn’t usually FEEL good in the moment. Quite the opposite. Good living often feels PAINFUL, SCARY, OUT OF CONTROL IN EVERY WAY when I am living it. I shall explain.
A common theme I find when I reflect on the most profound times of “goodness” in my life is this: suffering. Also this: surprise. And of course… the ways I fought like dynamite to PROTECT AND DEFEND myself from what later became—you got it—GOODNESS.
For example, there are circumstances that I would not have prayed for in a zillion years, like that day I displaced a vertebrae in my spine, and fractured another one below it.
There are surprises that felt like curses, like the unplanned pregnancy of my first-born son. His heart is now a well of mercy so deep I am constantly catching my breath and wondering how it is that he can forgive me the way he does--how I ever got so lucky as to be his mother.
Conversely, I’m reminded of times of comfort, happiness, and predictability, and struggling to remember anything REALLY GREAT in them. I find that those periods of good and plenty aren’t impressively memorable. Maybe it’s just me, and I’m a drama junkie, or I struggle from emotional-historical amnesia. You can believe that if you need to, if I’m MAKING YOU UNCOMFORTABLE.
I believe something so much bigger is at work, and it has EVERYTHING to do with...
(to be continued tomorrow)
But what do I mean by “good living?” What does it consist of? I’ve been mulling this around in my brain, and reflecting on the strangeness of my truth: good living doesn’t usually FEEL good in the moment. Quite the opposite. Good living often feels PAINFUL, SCARY, OUT OF CONTROL IN EVERY WAY when I am living it. I shall explain.
A common theme I find when I reflect on the most profound times of “goodness” in my life is this: suffering. Also this: surprise. And of course… the ways I fought like dynamite to PROTECT AND DEFEND myself from what later became—you got it—GOODNESS.
For example, there are circumstances that I would not have prayed for in a zillion years, like that day I displaced a vertebrae in my spine, and fractured another one below it.
There are surprises that felt like curses, like the unplanned pregnancy of my first-born son. His heart is now a well of mercy so deep I am constantly catching my breath and wondering how it is that he can forgive me the way he does--how I ever got so lucky as to be his mother.
Conversely, I’m reminded of times of comfort, happiness, and predictability, and struggling to remember anything REALLY GREAT in them. I find that those periods of good and plenty aren’t impressively memorable. Maybe it’s just me, and I’m a drama junkie, or I struggle from emotional-historical amnesia. You can believe that if you need to, if I’m MAKING YOU UNCOMFORTABLE.
I believe something so much bigger is at work, and it has EVERYTHING to do with...
(to be continued tomorrow)
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Plan A revealed: Getting out of the Dead Marshes
I’m going to try a little experiment here from now until Halloween. I’m going to force myself to post a blog each day for the next 30 days, whether or not I like what I write, or think it is worth posting. I’m going to make my Draconian internal editor sit behind the soundproof window so that when she starts lecturing me about how boring I am, I can turn my back, start singing the lyrics from Peter Tosh’s “Get Up, Stand Up , For Your Rights,” while she pantomimes the “hand-drags-knife-across-the-neck” to her lonely heart’s content. For the sake of your reading sanity, I’m going to apologize now for making you read what may or may not be boring, tedious, repetitive, or offensive in any way... and then delete any future apologies that come flying off my fingertips (“limping off” would be more accurate, considering my typing abilities). I think the risk of writing dross is worth the taking, because I have been wandering in a bog of writing resistance for so long that I don’t even remember what the Shire looks like anymore. Soooo, even if I have to look up the lyrics to Hannah Montana songs and start singing them at the top of my lungs to gain compliance.... I’m going to start blogging again this month and keep blogging.
For those of you who are my loyal supporters, yet unable to accompany me through the Mordor of my psyche, I’m going to make one request. I’m asking you to participate in this experiment with me this month by reading my smorgasbord as often as possible (or staying up late on Oct. 30, letting my blog be the entertainment to justify your microwave popcorn and Milkduds ) and send me your list of the things you hate(d) and love(d) when we get to the end of the journey. I’m not interested in politeness here, just honesty about what is profoundly refreshing and immensely annoying to read. If you do this for me, I will be deeply grateful. I may also be feel obligated to serve up yummy morsels all November.
I’ll end today with a quote that has been running around in my frontal lobe: “Good writing comes from good living.” More on that, tomorrow...
For those of you who are my loyal supporters, yet unable to accompany me through the Mordor of my psyche, I’m going to make one request. I’m asking you to participate in this experiment with me this month by reading my smorgasbord as often as possible (or staying up late on Oct. 30, letting my blog be the entertainment to justify your microwave popcorn and Milkduds ) and send me your list of the things you hate(d) and love(d) when we get to the end of the journey. I’m not interested in politeness here, just honesty about what is profoundly refreshing and immensely annoying to read. If you do this for me, I will be deeply grateful. I may also be feel obligated to serve up yummy morsels all November.
I’ll end today with a quote that has been running around in my frontal lobe: “Good writing comes from good living.” More on that, tomorrow...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Squash Humor in Paradise
This one’s for Noelle. And Michael. And Ben.
I have been trying to pollinate my yellow squash for days now. The task is harder than it sounds, even for an Idaho farm girl. But I’m determined, because just as our garden was starting to look fabulous, and ready to burst with edible delectables, the squash started to shrivel, and that damn gopher found our corn. Two stalks have fallen, and the zucchini plant went from ill to cadaver in an eerie stretch of hours between dusk and dawn. But the yellow squash and pumpkin plant are far from the gopher’s haunt, so I think I have a chance with them, if I can figure out the pollination. I guess some more explanation is in order.
I got a new job. I feed horses, drive big trucks, and remind people not park on the rocks by the river (even if the parking lot was full and they had a lot of beer to carry and it made them tired). With my new job came a general realization in the office that I might be qualified for other prospective jobs in the future that had seemed a bit, well, out of my skill set to various co-workers (they didn’t know about my past life with A.I. training since they hadn’t read my March 20 blog post). All this to say, I got my rental contract extended, and my family gets to stay in Paradise. Yay! Among other things, we celebrated with various purchases, one of these being satellite hi-speed (relatively) internet.
How does this relate to squash pollination? Hold your mouses now. We’re getting there.
I had been told that over-watering could cause squash shriveling. So I let things dry out while my family took a 4-day vacation to the Phoenix area to be with relatives. I came back to plants that looked as if they’d taken a road trip through Nevada without air conditioning (believe me, I know first hand what this does to one’s looks). They had survived my absence—just barely. And yet, after all that sobering up, more squashes than ever looked like child toes just out of the bathtub. Since I studied a bit of investigative journalism in college, I decided it was time to put myself on a serious investigation of the problem. Thus, I went inside, changed into my pajamas, and sat down at the computer to google “squashes”.
Lo and behold! Within 20 minutes I had found enough reports of similar shrivelings to feel confident in my need to assist nature in one of her most intimate acts of procreation: pollen transfer.
So we have come to the part you have all been waiting for, when I began to discuss the birds and the bees of my recent endeavor. I’ve already talked enough about birds in past posts, (If you have been following my blog at all, you know we have a plethora of them here). But bees... not so much. Wasps yes, biting flies, affirmative, black widows, numerous, but good old-fashioned bee in your bonnet, bee in your pants, diligent busy specimens, I do not have. Or I have not seen. So the pollen that in a perfect world would get passed from “male” pollen flowers to “female” fruit bearing beauties is just accumulating listlessly. Poor male blooms. I suppose their perfect world scenario would enable them to move…
Now to part of the story where you begin to question whether I actually am a farm girl from Idaho, or just someone with a vivid imagination who takes large artistic liberty.
I can’t figure out how to get the pollen from one place to the other. I have dug up a small paintbrush from my art supplies, as was suggested, but when I catch the male blooms showing off, I find the female ones closed up tight. And vice versa. And on the cucumber plants—saw some shrivels there too so I thought I’d be proactive-- I can’t tell the difference between the pollen bearers and the pollen receivers (even when I run inside to compare them to the color images on my monitor). So I am a bit of a reproductive failure, with my poor timing, and my gender confusion.
What can I do? I resort to my tried and true backup for all of life’s failures: prayerful listening. I’m trying to become more attentive to the rhythms of the squash plant. Rather than expecting it to participate in my success plan, I’m trying to learn what it can teach me. There must be a reason for all the opening and closing of flowerheads, and just because google can’t enlighten me, it doesn’t mean I can’t find enlightenment.
Enough deepness. This is supposed to make your gut ache. So I’ll end by saying that I’m not giving up on my attempt to play the role of squash birth coach, but I’m turning it over to the ultimate mid-wife, the great God creator. I’m asking for bees, please, to come and do what I seem so incapable of. Not wasps, but those creatures who can see through even the best cross-dressing routine without batting an eyelid. And, before that damn gopher finds out he has missed the best feast this side of Paradise (Road, of course), I am hoping for fat bottomed men who will buzz in and take charge of my squash problem.
Unless, of course, you have other suggestions…?
I have been trying to pollinate my yellow squash for days now. The task is harder than it sounds, even for an Idaho farm girl. But I’m determined, because just as our garden was starting to look fabulous, and ready to burst with edible delectables, the squash started to shrivel, and that damn gopher found our corn. Two stalks have fallen, and the zucchini plant went from ill to cadaver in an eerie stretch of hours between dusk and dawn. But the yellow squash and pumpkin plant are far from the gopher’s haunt, so I think I have a chance with them, if I can figure out the pollination. I guess some more explanation is in order.
I got a new job. I feed horses, drive big trucks, and remind people not park on the rocks by the river (even if the parking lot was full and they had a lot of beer to carry and it made them tired). With my new job came a general realization in the office that I might be qualified for other prospective jobs in the future that had seemed a bit, well, out of my skill set to various co-workers (they didn’t know about my past life with A.I. training since they hadn’t read my March 20 blog post). All this to say, I got my rental contract extended, and my family gets to stay in Paradise. Yay! Among other things, we celebrated with various purchases, one of these being satellite hi-speed (relatively) internet.
How does this relate to squash pollination? Hold your mouses now. We’re getting there.
I had been told that over-watering could cause squash shriveling. So I let things dry out while my family took a 4-day vacation to the Phoenix area to be with relatives. I came back to plants that looked as if they’d taken a road trip through Nevada without air conditioning (believe me, I know first hand what this does to one’s looks). They had survived my absence—just barely. And yet, after all that sobering up, more squashes than ever looked like child toes just out of the bathtub. Since I studied a bit of investigative journalism in college, I decided it was time to put myself on a serious investigation of the problem. Thus, I went inside, changed into my pajamas, and sat down at the computer to google “squashes”.
Lo and behold! Within 20 minutes I had found enough reports of similar shrivelings to feel confident in my need to assist nature in one of her most intimate acts of procreation: pollen transfer.
So we have come to the part you have all been waiting for, when I began to discuss the birds and the bees of my recent endeavor. I’ve already talked enough about birds in past posts, (If you have been following my blog at all, you know we have a plethora of them here). But bees... not so much. Wasps yes, biting flies, affirmative, black widows, numerous, but good old-fashioned bee in your bonnet, bee in your pants, diligent busy specimens, I do not have. Or I have not seen. So the pollen that in a perfect world would get passed from “male” pollen flowers to “female” fruit bearing beauties is just accumulating listlessly. Poor male blooms. I suppose their perfect world scenario would enable them to move…
Now to part of the story where you begin to question whether I actually am a farm girl from Idaho, or just someone with a vivid imagination who takes large artistic liberty.
I can’t figure out how to get the pollen from one place to the other. I have dug up a small paintbrush from my art supplies, as was suggested, but when I catch the male blooms showing off, I find the female ones closed up tight. And vice versa. And on the cucumber plants—saw some shrivels there too so I thought I’d be proactive-- I can’t tell the difference between the pollen bearers and the pollen receivers (even when I run inside to compare them to the color images on my monitor). So I am a bit of a reproductive failure, with my poor timing, and my gender confusion.
What can I do? I resort to my tried and true backup for all of life’s failures: prayerful listening. I’m trying to become more attentive to the rhythms of the squash plant. Rather than expecting it to participate in my success plan, I’m trying to learn what it can teach me. There must be a reason for all the opening and closing of flowerheads, and just because google can’t enlighten me, it doesn’t mean I can’t find enlightenment.
Enough deepness. This is supposed to make your gut ache. So I’ll end by saying that I’m not giving up on my attempt to play the role of squash birth coach, but I’m turning it over to the ultimate mid-wife, the great God creator. I’m asking for bees, please, to come and do what I seem so incapable of. Not wasps, but those creatures who can see through even the best cross-dressing routine without batting an eyelid. And, before that damn gopher finds out he has missed the best feast this side of Paradise (Road, of course), I am hoping for fat bottomed men who will buzz in and take charge of my squash problem.
Unless, of course, you have other suggestions…?
Friday, June 5, 2009
Gaga over Finches
My family is gaga over finches. If you recall, we lost one set of chicks to tragedy; this second set is like discovered treasure. The three who sit inside the nest have passed the roly-poly fluff-ball cuteness stage yet they have kept us wrapped around their chirping corn-kernel beaks of sleek attraction. They are not loud by any means, but when we freeze and listen hard the cheeping, tweeting, pleading can be heard in bedrooms down the hall. Two days ago I noticed that the wobbly elbowed arms had been replaced by feathered lengths of brown and tan and black. Their eyes are shiny ebony equipped to see the danger posed by ladder escapades and so we limit heavily our curious looks from inside of the glass. It’s all happening so fast....
We are in love with all that’s taking place. Tonight a baby stood where mother stands to feed his beak and flapped his tiny wings and looked as if he might consider leaving. We are excited for the flight that’s eminent. We don’t forget that mother nature took the life of former chicks or that our family is witnessing a sweet metaphor of life—hope after disaster. And yet, we are losing lovely friends and thus at times we sigh in premature depression. I must admit that though I want the chicks to fly I do not want to lose the mystery and company and constant entertainment of these birds we’ve come to love as pets.
Now that the fear of eggs un-hatched and chicks unfed has passed, we are noticing the nastiness of feathers gooped in bird poop in the window. It is clinging like cement to wood and glass around the nest built right above the place where we eat and serve our guests. My children do not mind but Jason and I are tempted to make plans for how to clean up all that mess… tempted to move on to the next task and miss the miracle of waiting now with baited breath for the chance to see a lift-off. How amazing will that be to get to see the chicks take off into the open, sun-drenched sky? I want to be a witness.
But the time! There are so many items scheduled into my agenda! There are so many cheeping, tweeting, chattering demands to cloud my vision of the place I ought to be right now. Or the way I ought to be right now. Or the one I want to please right now. It is a sacrifice divine when I take the time to watch the house finch parents raise their chicks… I am reminded then that I have the time it takes to raise my kids. I become convinced that rather than postponing all my dreams, I am watching my own mystery unfold in all the craziness of daily feeding.
I make it sound so simple and appealing. Don’t be deceived: “watching and waiting” is the hardest thing of all to be achieved. I feel the tension of the wait as I resist the restless space inside my head that pesters me with questions like, “What’s next? What is your plan? When do we move? Where do we get to land?” I am impatient for the answers to such things and sit sometimes as if I had the quills of porcupines under my ass. To pass the time I worry and work and talk to my friends and hike and write and boss around my husband and my kids.
I’m hoping to grow out of the worry and bossing, because it is so horrible for everyone concerned. The antidotes are numerous: reading, sleeping, eating well and evening walks into the woods with Jason. But the time! It is hard to schedule in between the bills and TV shows, 4H record books and end-of-year school talent show rehearsals. The list of all that’s left undone can squeeze me into full anxiety, and then I start to boss and worry....
Thank God for morning finches! They bring me back to humbleness. This life I live is a risky, crazy gift that changes every day I live it. Nothing can be completely planned on or predicted. But certain things can be trusted. Certain things can be obeyed. Like Sabbath time: to breathe in trees and birds and stroll down wooded paths with my dog Louie. He likes to play a game of “tiger in the grass”, stalking water bugs in river holes. He makes me laugh and let go of all delusion. I am not the one who’s sent to save the world. I can then resist the tyrant voice inside my head that says, “worry, hurry, worry, hurry”.
All I have is now. Now contains so many griefs I cannot name for you, but also this: a home on National Forest land with a window full of finch song. I have a heart that’s healing from so many broken dreams, but in their place I have a family raised on prayer and tears and laughter. Mostly I have been the prayer and tears; I want to learn to be the laughter.
So I start small today, with deciding to stall on the responsible task of arranging to get that ladder back to my friend Jamila. I continue by not standing demurely aside in model-mother-sacrifice when the chance comes to argue and shush and fight for my turn to scramble. I decide to feel proud, not foolish about the comment I made yesterday that made the whole family laugh. I was watching that chick that stood on the rim and considered the window ledge beneath him. He was flapping his wings so hard and fast they were a blur of brown against the sun-lit screen. I gasped and said, “Look at him! Look at him! We are watching history!”
We are making history. Maybe you have a dead-end job, a crushing mortgage, a messy divorce, or a 20-year addiction. Maybe you feel as if you can’t stand one more day of cheeping, pleading mouths to feed and hands to clean and hearts to fill with model-mother-sacrifice. Maybe you need some finches.
Maybe you are jealous of me with all my simple, daily pleasures. Maybe I am I succeeding in my plot to start a chain reaction from your heart to make you look above your normal line of sight....
Are you, like me, tempted to make plans for how to clean up all that mess… tempted to move on to the next task? Will you, like me, try to bear the tension of the waiting?
Left to our own means, we are the ones who vacillate between extremes of impulse-driven “win” and fear-induced “I quit”. But if we schedule in the time to be amazed by nature’s metaphors of life, we can stay brave enough to stand up to the tyrants in our head that whisper things like, “worry, hurry, worry, hurry!”
I’m telling you that more than half the time, the wait is where it’s at. It is the place where we can fill our time with business of heart and mind or watch until we catch our breath in pure delight at hope that’s hatched where it’s least expected. The wait is where we see or miss miracle coincidences we could never dream of. To bear the tension of the in-between is to learn to see through poop-smeared panes and screens into a space where dreams are bursting at the seams and can’t help but stretch out necks and wings in impatient anticipation.
That’s where I’ll be, whenever I can swing it. For the sake the sake of my mystery miracle life I have to live, I want to be a witness....
We are in love with all that’s taking place. Tonight a baby stood where mother stands to feed his beak and flapped his tiny wings and looked as if he might consider leaving. We are excited for the flight that’s eminent. We don’t forget that mother nature took the life of former chicks or that our family is witnessing a sweet metaphor of life—hope after disaster. And yet, we are losing lovely friends and thus at times we sigh in premature depression. I must admit that though I want the chicks to fly I do not want to lose the mystery and company and constant entertainment of these birds we’ve come to love as pets.
Now that the fear of eggs un-hatched and chicks unfed has passed, we are noticing the nastiness of feathers gooped in bird poop in the window. It is clinging like cement to wood and glass around the nest built right above the place where we eat and serve our guests. My children do not mind but Jason and I are tempted to make plans for how to clean up all that mess… tempted to move on to the next task and miss the miracle of waiting now with baited breath for the chance to see a lift-off. How amazing will that be to get to see the chicks take off into the open, sun-drenched sky? I want to be a witness.
But the time! There are so many items scheduled into my agenda! There are so many cheeping, tweeting, chattering demands to cloud my vision of the place I ought to be right now. Or the way I ought to be right now. Or the one I want to please right now. It is a sacrifice divine when I take the time to watch the house finch parents raise their chicks… I am reminded then that I have the time it takes to raise my kids. I become convinced that rather than postponing all my dreams, I am watching my own mystery unfold in all the craziness of daily feeding.
I make it sound so simple and appealing. Don’t be deceived: “watching and waiting” is the hardest thing of all to be achieved. I feel the tension of the wait as I resist the restless space inside my head that pesters me with questions like, “What’s next? What is your plan? When do we move? Where do we get to land?” I am impatient for the answers to such things and sit sometimes as if I had the quills of porcupines under my ass. To pass the time I worry and work and talk to my friends and hike and write and boss around my husband and my kids.
I’m hoping to grow out of the worry and bossing, because it is so horrible for everyone concerned. The antidotes are numerous: reading, sleeping, eating well and evening walks into the woods with Jason. But the time! It is hard to schedule in between the bills and TV shows, 4H record books and end-of-year school talent show rehearsals. The list of all that’s left undone can squeeze me into full anxiety, and then I start to boss and worry....
Thank God for morning finches! They bring me back to humbleness. This life I live is a risky, crazy gift that changes every day I live it. Nothing can be completely planned on or predicted. But certain things can be trusted. Certain things can be obeyed. Like Sabbath time: to breathe in trees and birds and stroll down wooded paths with my dog Louie. He likes to play a game of “tiger in the grass”, stalking water bugs in river holes. He makes me laugh and let go of all delusion. I am not the one who’s sent to save the world. I can then resist the tyrant voice inside my head that says, “worry, hurry, worry, hurry”.
All I have is now. Now contains so many griefs I cannot name for you, but also this: a home on National Forest land with a window full of finch song. I have a heart that’s healing from so many broken dreams, but in their place I have a family raised on prayer and tears and laughter. Mostly I have been the prayer and tears; I want to learn to be the laughter.
So I start small today, with deciding to stall on the responsible task of arranging to get that ladder back to my friend Jamila. I continue by not standing demurely aside in model-mother-sacrifice when the chance comes to argue and shush and fight for my turn to scramble. I decide to feel proud, not foolish about the comment I made yesterday that made the whole family laugh. I was watching that chick that stood on the rim and considered the window ledge beneath him. He was flapping his wings so hard and fast they were a blur of brown against the sun-lit screen. I gasped and said, “Look at him! Look at him! We are watching history!”
We are making history. Maybe you have a dead-end job, a crushing mortgage, a messy divorce, or a 20-year addiction. Maybe you feel as if you can’t stand one more day of cheeping, pleading mouths to feed and hands to clean and hearts to fill with model-mother-sacrifice. Maybe you need some finches.
Maybe you are jealous of me with all my simple, daily pleasures. Maybe I am I succeeding in my plot to start a chain reaction from your heart to make you look above your normal line of sight....
Are you, like me, tempted to make plans for how to clean up all that mess… tempted to move on to the next task? Will you, like me, try to bear the tension of the waiting?
Left to our own means, we are the ones who vacillate between extremes of impulse-driven “win” and fear-induced “I quit”. But if we schedule in the time to be amazed by nature’s metaphors of life, we can stay brave enough to stand up to the tyrants in our head that whisper things like, “worry, hurry, worry, hurry!”
I’m telling you that more than half the time, the wait is where it’s at. It is the place where we can fill our time with business of heart and mind or watch until we catch our breath in pure delight at hope that’s hatched where it’s least expected. The wait is where we see or miss miracle coincidences we could never dream of. To bear the tension of the in-between is to learn to see through poop-smeared panes and screens into a space where dreams are bursting at the seams and can’t help but stretch out necks and wings in impatient anticipation.
That’s where I’ll be, whenever I can swing it. For the sake the sake of my mystery miracle life I have to live, I want to be a witness....
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