Today's Answers

 

Today I am 59 years and 360 days old.  What have I learned before I turned 60?  I’ve been pondering that.  I used to think/know/loudly exclaim that I knew more than the average bear, and the older I get, the more I realize that any answer, advice, or wisdom that is shared, is only valid for that specific moment in time.  Another time, skipping a trip might be a bad idea, or moving cities or even just paying a bill.  So today’s answers to a few Big questions in life are:

1.       How do you know its love?  When the other person puts you before themselves.  Not 100% of the time, but it should be much more common than ignoring your desires and suggestions and favorites.  If he buys the kind of Oreos you like when there is only enough money for one package of cookies in the budget, there is a good chance he or she will not become a selfish bastard later in life.

2.       What is the meaning of life?  Wow, like no I don’t think I can answer that.  But per above, I can answer what my current meaning of life is, today.  Might be different tomorrow.  Current meaning of life is to squeeze something good out of every experience.  When I’m in a deep depression and my furnace goes out and my aunt falls in the nursing home and my 401k drops by 30% all on the same day, I try to (eventually) find something good, as in something to cling to.  That depression might lead to some insight into what started it, a new furnace I can afford now but not in five years I bet, my husband had some funny stories from the run to the hospital, and face it 401k or not, I’m going to be broke when retirement hits.  Might as well just call it like it is. Facing what seems like the worst usually results in realizing it isn’t really. The worst.  (Although nursing home falls are right near that bottom of my barrel if we were ranking worsts.)

3.       How do you find a job you love?    I think most people kind of like their job and some people hate their job and a few people love their job.  Life goes on if it is just ok.  I am thankful to be employed steadily.  Just remember you work to live, you don’t live to work.  It is a cliché for a reason.  When changing employers one time, they never called me once for all the supposed insight and knowledge I had obtained over my 17 years with that company.  They move on.  My best career advice is find a job where time flies, and you aren’t bored.  I’ve achieved that most of the time.

4.       How do you overcome anxiety and depression? I continue to do it the same way since 1991 – with good medications from my doctor.  

5.       What will you never regret?  For me – travel.  I highly value all kinds of travel, even when it meant opening a new credit card that I eventually had to pay off from my 401k back in the 80s.  Even when it meant taking a crappy job after hours at a mall counting inventory to save enough for a beach trip.  Even when it meant twisting arms and legs and elbows to convince everyone my plans were going to work and yes, we should ALL go.   Those experiences in that mountain, beach, camp, city trip are firmly in my DNA and I love that they are.

6.       What do you wish you knew at age 21 that you know now?  Well, I can’t remember yesterday’s breakfast so I honest to God don’t think I can remember what I knew at 21.  If pressed, I’d say…invest in cardboard manufacturers early because in 40 years there will be boxes delivered to your door three times a day.  Save the dingey retro Christmas ornaments you turned your nose up in your mother’s basement?  That’s all I can come up with.

7.       What do you tell new parents? (Also good for new graduates, newly marrieds, and new retirees) ‘Go with the flow.’  You can’t control everything and the sooner you figure that out, the happier you will be.  You can’t make that leak in the kitchen ceiling go away, or prevent the ear infection, or guarantee that the second-grade class will like your Halloween party games. Your carburetor will go out the same day your phone gets knocked into the toilet by a large dog.   It’s possible the dog just got hold of a dead mouse and will leave it in your favorite black leather boots. There is almost nothing you have control over.  Sit in that knowledge. It only took me to around age 50 to figure that one out.

I hope when I retire someday, I have time to contemplate the questions again, perhaps a little more seriously.  I wonder how my 40-something and 50-something self would answer these questions?  Maybe I’ll try it again in ten years.  

A Fragile Hope: Dear Grandkids

 As a writer, I have felt the pull to put down on paper what 2020 was like for me.  Just as you figure out your grandparents were in high school during the depression, your parents married during World War II or your instructor served in Vietnam, the year 2020 has been, seminal. Pivotal.  A before and after time point, like 9/11 or the Berlin Wall falling.  

As a person I have not felt any pull to write about this pandemic.  This election year full of vitriol and brokenness, the social justice movements.  I'm weary of the turmoil.  The idea of thinking even more about it for hours and hours to draft one of my blog posts, has been anathema to my peace of mind.  But this good old blog is where I write for sanity, and today, with fragile hope, I write. 

Here's why: my grandchildren.  I know I should be thinking of my adorable little grandson Ari who is five months old now when I write.  But what has been pecking away at my conscious for months now, is what I can do, one person, for my grandchildren when they are my age -- 57.  When I will be long gone, and we won't be discussing the sunshine (finally) or the apples on the table (so tart) or the soft, soft blanket he likes to snuggle into. No, this post is in hopes they will all look back and know that I did all within my power to do the right thing.  

The Pandemic

I have tried to educate myself and really listen to the science.  It changes regularly like all science does, as we learn more and more about Covid-19.  I have tried to enjoy life rather than complain.  I can still go for a hike, enjoy the color in the trees, kayak in my lake, talk to friends and family by phone, work full-time, binge-watch television series like The West Wing and Great British Baking Show, order a new footstool, try a new variety of pears, and on.  So many people are focusing on what they can't do during the pandemic and I find it wearying to listen to, and boring frankly.  I will need to rewrite this so I don't sound  holier-than-thou, but I'm tired of hearing about how hard it is to put that cotton face mask on to go inside and pay for your gas.  How lonely people are now that they can not shop the sales at Charlotte Russe and have coffee afterwards (you can, you just have to be creative).  

There are parts that are hard, but a lot of them would be hard without the Coronovirus pandemic in our time.  A family member and a friend's daughter both battling cancer.  To do this with hospitals locked down and visitors not allowed, seems like an unfairness I'm not happy about at all.  One daughter's last year of college, feels like we should be and would be in a much more celebratory mood if it weren't the pandemic.  The college campuses are all struggling to stay afloat and give an education, but not add to the death toll.  It isn't the college students so much at risk, but the instructors and the parents if they go home to visit on a weekend.  Another daughter teaching 4th grade.  All staff and students wear masks and stay six feet apart.  It is better than the spring with no school at all, but it is hard to communicate emotion and energy with most of your face covered.  It is very, very different.  And the constant prayer, and hope, is that a cure will be discovered, a vaccine will be developed, and Covid-19 will be in those 4th graders' memories as a very odd couple of years that they will tell their grandchildren about.  That feels like a reasonable hope. 

Dear Ari when you are 57 and your cousins: here is life in a pandemic.  I work from home now, using my laptop in different rooms of the house to login to virtual meetings from about 7am to 5pm each day. I work in the healthcare industry, so Coronovirus affects not just my free time, but my work time at least 50% with federal laws changing, our hospitals opening or closing, filling or emptying. When I go to the grocery store I wear a cloth mask.  I have about a dozen now of different styles and fabrics, and some defogging spray for my glasses.  I don't visit your Great-Grandma and Grandpa Evans very often, but their two kids, Cathy and Chuck do every week.  Pretty much the grocery store is the main outing I experience besides your house in Congerville occasionally, and every once in a while Target for sanity, also with a mask.  We get pizza delivered, drive-thru or pick up at restaurants, and don't eat inside. It is basically not that hard, for us, as we have an income, insurance, and good health so far.  I don't know how bad it will get before the end, but on this day we have lost 234,534 of our dear Americans to Covid-19.  In the world 1.2 million people have died. 

The 2020 Election

I belong to many facebook groups such as "Christians for Biden/Harris", "Christians Against Trump", "Liberal Christian", "Nasty Lady" and others.  But on my personal facebook page I've been excruciatingly restrained about the election and all it means to me.  To me, it means we are chosing between eliminating evil and embracing freedom.  I feel very deeply that it isn't the Republican party that is a problem (your Grandpa Chuck has occasionally voted Republican) but D. Trump, the current president, who worships only himself, with no regard for the American people, precious freedom, or Christian values.  He is a bad, bad man.  

At the same time, I have family and friends who believe the opposite.  Because I care about them, I have chosen not to post about politics in recent months.  Not to comment on any Trump fan's posts,  not to argue, and not to debate.  I reached a very dark point in August where I felt that Trump was going to somehow brainwash America into four more years, and then, I got hope. 

Hope is fragile.  It is something I grasp like a brief fragrance on the wind.  It is something I have consciously, ploddingly, forced myself to feel.  Hope instead of hatred.  Hope instead of despair.  Hope instead of anger.  It has been hard.  But there was a point where I realized that both sides of the political debate were feeding off of their own confident hate, at the risk of everything.  Misery loves company as they say.  I decided a positive attitude was the only thing that might get us back on track, and so I started my #90DaysofHope leading up to the election in two days.  I guess I'm on day 88 today.  I have refrained from sarcasm (so hard for me) and negativity, complaints, or venting -- a favorite of mine by the way, and I'm very, very good at it too, grandkids. I've tried to post only stories of restoration, beauty, comedy or progress.  No politics, no anti-Trump or pro-Biden or pro-BLM or anything divisive.  

And now, at two days before the election, I feel I must write something while I do still have hope.  I know the election could go either way, and I'll find my way regardless of its outcome, but I want to write to my grandkids from a place of hope. 

Dear Ari and cousins when you are 57: I am going to be an election judge on Tuesday, which means 15 hours of greeting voters to a polling place.  Because I don't want you, my grandkids to think that their grandmother didn't do everything in her power to keep freedom alive.  I've prayed.  I've studied.  I've searched for hopeful signs.  I've also been worried at times, and buried my head in books or video games or bad movies.  I'm not perfect by any stretch.  But I am thinking of you, grandkids, as I donated money to every senate race that is up for turning blue on the last six paydays.  I'm thinking of you when I put the Biden/Harris sign in my yard even though on that day this past summer I was sure some alt-righter would come in the night to deface it or steal it.  I was wrong.  I admit it.  It still stands there expressing my views.  I've never put a presidential sign in my yard as I was raised to think that like how much you make, how you vote is your own private business.  That is how strongly I feel this year is different.  

The world will face more disasters and illnesses and forest fires and derechos, and hope is your only hope.  Try to make people smile.  Try not to alienate others. And try to represent hope, because hope is fragile inside us, but it is the only thing that will bring happiness, contentment, or victory.  And I've had two bald eagles who landed on our lake on the third day of the Democratic convention, when I began to feel a positive wave out there.  I named them Biden and Harris and I've seen them almost every day since.  I never dreamed they'd stay this long, all the way to election day.  For me it is my sign from God that whatever happens, there is hope to hold on to. 

Love,

Grandma Toni House Evans

November 1, 2020, two days before the election. 

(Likely this one was Biden, based on the white hair)

Quarantine 2020

Notes from the quarantine we are in for Novel Coronovirus/Covid-19 worldwide Pandemic.

The first week
Even normal things aren't normal.  Everything feels like I am part of a movie script, one where something unpleasant is about to happen to the characters.  Every glance, every movement, looking for clues as to where the trouble is.  Even routine things like taking out the trash feel heightened, to have some deeper meaning, but I don't know what that meaning is.  I'm waiting.  Is my throat sore? I'm sure I caught it traveling.

The first month
The first month for me was mid-March to mid-April 2020.  A kind of haze seemed to surround things.  I spent a lot of time obsessing over news channels on my phone, reading scientific articles, trying to become as educated as possible.  Uncertainty is the flavor of the month and it doesn't taste great.  I heard about the COVID-19 malaise and I thought, even without contracting this virus, I have the malaise.  Lethargy set in.  I binge-watched The Good Doctor, New Amsterdam, 9-1-1, Doc Martin, and many others that now escape my memory.  I appreciate laughter so much.  Being stuck in one small space together is not easy.  But each time I hear the laughter this month, I think 'Is this the last time?'  It feels like the world is going to reach our front porch any moment.

Some silver linings to this time in-between
I notice the flowers in my yard, innocently blooming, unaware the world has taken a 180 degree turn.

My morning cup of coffee means a lot to me.  Another day with no one sick in the house.  A marker in the days that flow together. Will tomorrow bring illness?

The girls dusted off and set up the Wii and we dug out old CDs of Just Dance.  It has been a blessing.  We've played card games, the four of us in my circle of germ-sharing. Dutch Blitz, Ticket to Ride, Just One.  Four 1000 piece puzzles in that first month while the cold and rain and wind and snow continued.

For my birthday in January I got a sewing machine from the kids, and I got it out for its inaugural run to sew face masks for my family.  We tried out phone apps like 'Houseparty' and had better luck with 'Marco Polo'. We talked about teaching ourselves to play the piano (hasn't happened yet, but hey).  I study the 1918 flu pandemic and learn the word vaccine didn't exist for the average person.

The second month
I feel like I took a deep breath and noticed my surroundings.  We are all here.  We have a grandchild coming.  We did not have a traditional Easter but it is ok, not to have everyone together. So much better than ok.  I start feeling like so many novels I've read about WWII.  The victory gardens, the rationing, the black-out curtains, the obedience for a higher good than my own self-fulfillment.  My perspective turns, I realize this is a truly historical period, that will be referred to just as often as September 11th or other moments that humanity shares.  Everyone in my family is united in treating this 'stay at home' order with solemnity.  And in getting through it together. 

People talk about this being a time of mourning and it is.  It is so many things.  I try not to mourn superficial things like my gray hair that has grown out without my hairdresser.  But I do mourn that spring break trip Anna had to cancel and the baby shower we can't perceive of holding any time this year and feeling good about it.

So it turns out for me, quarantine is about having so many feelings, all in the same 24 hours.  I get depressed, I get annoyed, I get angry, I get sad, I get excited, I get a nap (yay), I get anxious, exhausted from overtime at work, tired of my pajamas, started watching the evening news again.  I'm not a worrier at heart, but so far this quarantine has felt a LOT like a movie script and I want to be one step ahead of the scriptwriter.  I want to be prepared.  That involves a lot of pseudo-worrying.

Here are some pictures of this time period that I want to save here.  What Quarantine 2020 was like for me, in pictures.

Remember how the whole world put hearts in their windows?  To recognize the nurses and doctors, the EMTs and police and fire.  The postmen and UPS delivery women, and everyone else who kept working, so we could #staysafeathome ?

Remember that year all salons were closed, and your gray hair grew out.  But there was no one at home who minded?  These pictures were both taken the same day.  My gray isn't visible at my hair line :)  Who knew. 

Nature doesn't know it is a strange year, 2020.  Nature just goes right along. 

Easter morning worshiping through YouTube.  Anna's first attempt at homemade croissant.

Visiting the grandparents from six feet away. 

Farm n Fleet parking lot for our safe-distance visit with Chris and Jenny.  She is 33 weeks along here.

We celebrated two birthdays 'in lockdown' as they say,  so far.  Julia's 21st and Anna's 25th.

A social distancing approved virtual baby shower for Baby Evans.  He is due June 2.  

Future self, these are all things that have really happened in March and April of 2020.  Restaurants (drive-thru only), bars, malls, non-essential stores have all closed.  Everyone is wearing a face mask in public and staying at least six feet from all other humans.  School has been closed since March 16.  A ten week-long 'snow day'.  After fighting so hard for years to get one 'work from home day' a week we now have 100% work from home at my employer.  Not everyone is finding it to their liking.  Zoom book club.  Toilet paper shortages.  Hand sanitizer at a premium. Lots of good memes. Porch drop and runs. Cruise ships.  Air Pollution disappeared.  Millions have been laid off or unemployed.  I can't go to the eye doctor or the dentist. I've had poison ivy for two weeks, driving me insane. No yoga, no hair salons are open.  There is an election in six months and no election campaign commercials. I wonder if a year from now, or ten years from now, any of us will believe this all really happened?

At the root of this it is all about the dying.  We've passed the 3 million mark for Covid-19 cases in the world and  the 60,000 mark for U.S. deaths at the time I'm posting this.  Everyone is talking about how it is more deaths than the entire Vietnam war. Lord, hear my prayer, that your will for us is to be past the worst of this crisis and able to move on to whatever is next. Give us patience.

I've been witnessing the worst and the best in human nature.  It is like a magnifying glass has been placed over our characters, and all those quotes I'm so fond of, they are all revealing their truths.  How you act when you don't have to is just as important as how you act when you do have to. Character is revealed under pressure.   The bad news is out there and I'm a better person for having read it. Even if less naive and sadder.   The good news is also out there and I'm a better person for finding it and reading it all.  Such a feeling of a common purpose, the world, trying to save themselves but also trying to save their fellow-human-beings.  Worthy.  We are worthy.

Mother of the Bride Impressions -- Part TWO

Afterwards

                           
Boy do my feet ache.  And my ankles, wrists, ears and pinky toes.  Weddings are physically exhausting. So many many thoughts.   Quite different than Mother of the Groom.  I would compare it to the difference in attending a commencement ceremony for your child (MOG).  Happy, smiles, lots of pride.  To holding the graduation party for 200 at your own home.  Responsible, brain-draining, expensive (ha) and cheerfully chaotic (MOB).  It is as 'hands on' as anything gets. 

Advice for future Mothers of the Bride: Get yourself two 'matrons of honor' for yourself.  Two more people who aren't brain-fuzzy from all the excitement and willing to run out for forks, run upstairs for the scissors, text the person lost in the country, thank the hairdresser when you forget, keep an eye on the time, trim the shaggy chiffon three times if necessary.  Someone to remember to confirm the nail appointment, figure out which nearby florist has baby's breath, and not order twice as much pizza as we need.  Someone who will know at all times 'Where is the father of the bride?'  'Where did the bridesmaids go?'  'Did the photographer get a pic yet with grandma and grandpa?'  'Where is the food?  Where is the saran wrap/the veil/the salsa?   Because me, I wanted to just sit and observe, and soak in all the happenings.  Of course I did, lots and lots, but I also felt like two more me's would have been so useful!

Funny (?...?) things that happened on the wind up to the wedding:

• Flowers. The flower delivery was scheduled for Wednesday morning.  The flowers were delivered but only the lilies showed up.  Thurs: the flowers didn't show up, long wait, finally an email that the plane didn't land.  Thurs 5pm: neighbor comes home from work and brings the flowers that were delivered to his porch and sat there all day.  blah. Still missing the hydrangeas (they came Friday, its all good)
• Directions. North main, south main, construction, CR 17 to CR 20 to old CR 17 to ???  Two chapels on campus?  Phone died?  Cakes are 45 minutes in the opposite direction of where you are? Father of the bride is 12 miles to empty and is lost in the country?  An hour before we leave for the church? Thank you Lord for Google Maps and the kindness of strangers.  Send all people in twos!
• Steaming.  Not really a mishap, but if purchasing the tablecloths is half the price of renting them, assume 20 minutes per table cloth to steam out the wrinkles.  Let's see, 30 table cloths x 20 minutes each = 600 minutes or 6 hours.  With breaks, the two steamers we had running out of water every 9 minutes, heat up time, switching peeps, it was about 10 hours on Friday.  
• Weather.  I knew this from Chris' wedding but all of these weather predictions are for May 18, 2019, for many days leading up to the big day.  We were planning an outdoor wedding in the back of a huge field of grass.  We needed a dry day.  It snowed two inches four weeks earlier.  We didn't know what to think but it ended up sunny and high of 85 degrees on this date.  I'll take it!

                                

• Random: the father of the bride's phone rang during the ceremony.  He was too rattled to figure out how to turn it off.  The silver bells we had tied two-hundred bows onto were nowhere to be found for the send-off moment (we just clapped and cheered).  They were in the groomsmen's dressing room it turned out.  I brought earrings.  One from each of the two pairs I had for the occasion, not matching.  I didn't wear earrings (gasp).

Things that went pleasingly well:

• Having too big of a house is never a bad thing!  Having a large whirlpool tub in the bathroom of the parents' master suite averts some muscle pain. Our airbnb saved the day many times. 
• Chuck and I (and my sister) shopping for cake plates for the centerpieces at goodwills and estate sales was a sweet way to anticipate the coming wedding. 
• Cake in the middle of each table meant no long line and fresh slices for everyone in just the size they wanted. 

                                     

• Having family come a few days early so we could eat pizza and watch the swans on the lake who we named 'Nat and Lily' and laugh together at Jim Gaffigan videos before the tension and nerves of the final day set in? Priceless. 
• If you can arrange a nice gentle breeze like we had it makes the bridesmaids dresses and the veil look pretty magical. Just sayin'
• Daughter things: Watching your youngest do her oldest sisters' makeup and it coming out perfectly. An amazing scrapbook Anna and Julia designed with pics of the five months and letters from special women in Lily's life to read on her wedding day and afterwards. Signs all hand-lettered by the artist-daughter.  Short-bread baked with love by Anna. 556 shortbread cookies to be specific :).  And two other desserts baked by Nat's sisters!

                            

• Bride and groom things: Having a daughter-bride with great imagination and event-planning skills and an eye for details made everything go better than expected. She was so patient with all of us. I think I kind of like her :)  Having a groom with such a sense of humor to lighten the mood and to calm everyone's worries, especially his bride-to-be. Good guy, that Nat. 
• Friends and Family things: a wedding is very different when you are hosting than all those weddings you've attended.  Having family and friends fly in from Texas, San Francisco, drive from four and five hours away, my friends Leslie and Sean with six kids on board drove from Iowa, that all touched my heart.  I'm going to try to remember it next time I get one of those pesky wedding invitations, lol. 
• New in-laws things: they welcomed us to their church and their family.  Their hospitality was genuine.  And they stayed long after the party to cleanup as church had to be held in that room the next morning.  They let me leave behind catered food that would feed dozens (we had a lot of leftover food), 15 or so 'half cakes' and even 30 dirty table cloths.  They work so well as a team!
• Son and daughter-in-law things: Jenny and Chris did the work of 12 x-men.  They were on everything.  From Chris driving up for the bachelor party to them both doing a majority of that 10 hours of steaming, to picking up the cakes (sounds innocent, not).  That is 22 cakes in separate boxes, across 20 miles of bumps and turns on ten different roads.  Then transferring them inside the church and onto the cake plates.  Talk about walking a tight rope!  This plus they did literally 5 dozen other tasks.  

                                           

• Husband things: watching him tear-up, watching him dance with his daughter, watching him walk her up the aisle, it was all just like in the movies, for once in my life (ha).  He worked way harder than me as always.  Such a great guy, Lily's dad. 
• Most importantly, all the things that didn't go as planned, that weren't quite as picturesque, weren't exactly on point or lined up or on time?  No one knows!  The guests don't know, the photographers don't know.  To everyone else it appears it all went as planned so no worries. 
• God things: the breeze, the very funny pastor Luis (Nat's oldest brother), the lilies of the valley that only bloom one week of the year, in full bloom, the guests and bridal party traveling from far away, the love and kindness in the air, a special moment, the group prayer. Of course, every little thing comes from above. 

                           
I thought I was seriously looking forward to the day after the wedding because of all the drama, tears, tensions, worries, details, details, details but instead I do feel a teeny bit like a popped balloon.  But mostly I feel very satisfied that we did our best, that people had fun, and that Lily and Nat have begun their marriage, the reason for everything we did.  The Godly man I prayed for every communion Sunday for my sweet Lily, is Nathaniel, and I can't wait to see what love and life brings them.

  Praise be to God!

Mother of the Bride Impressions -- Part ONE

 Before the big day

This is the sidewalk Lily rode her tricycle on when she was six years old.

These are the lily of the valley that have been growing there next to that air conditioner (and all over this 122 year-old yard) for decades before she arrived on this earth.  I picked some tonight.  I'm taking them to use in her bridal bouquet.  A little piece of home, lilies for Lily from the home she grew up in and played hard, fell and skinned her knee bad enough that her little seven year old voice screeched 'if its bone just kill me now dad'.

One minute, riding the purple tricycle.  Moments later braces, then college. Next minute going down the aisle with her dad.  Just like all the sappy songs, it is true.

So, Mother of the bride.  It was so much easier than I'd dreamed in the planning stages.   Actually I'm typing this five days before the wedding, but motherofthebriding begins from the moment of the engagement.  All kinds of fun.  Exciting roller coaster with well-wishes, dress shopping, my dress shopping, venues, meals, cakes, and much much more as any good pinterest board labeled 'someday' will tell you.  I was lucky enough to have a daughter-bride who was efficient, knew what she wanted, and frugal to boot.  My motto for five months has been 'The bride gets to decide.' and I've tried to live by it, and not explain how much better plum would look or daisies or chocolate cake.... I've mostly succeeded at this.  My tongue may be bleeding a bit.

With five days to go it feels like it is finally here.  Finally time to pack the bags, drive the miles, buy the flowers, cut the strawberries.  Hands-on time!  I've been looking forward to this part.  It won't be easy, but it will be memorable.

But like graduations, weddings it turns out, for me are about seeing that little girl again.  All grown up.  Or not? Maybe in dress-up clothes with the high heels and the beads.  Moved out of the house 8 years ago?  Or still cartwheeling across the front yard?  Still holding the perennial lemonade stand.  Still dancing a jig with her sisters to some cheetah girls tune, making a snowman, or directing her sisters in pretend commercials?  Still smelling like chlorine from her years on the swim team.

But it isn't any of those things, they happened yesterday, and now we're thinking about tomorrow.  When she starts a life with a great guy, one God planned for her and she for him.  The future is a big blank whiteboard just waiting to be written on, and the past is a million little memories and right now, we are in the few days between those points.  The tipping point.  The time in-between.

Loving two people

     You know with every wedding things go wrong.  Actually they just go differently than they were planned.  But in every sense, the way things went at my son Chris' wedding to his best friend Jenny this past weekend was better and more full of life than anything we could have predicted or planned.



     A lot of wedding planning is attempting to predict and solve for the unexpected.  Which by definition is hard to do.  But you think, what if it rains, what if it starts late, what if people get lost trying to find the venue, what if no one dances, what if no one rsvps a 'No'? lol. Post-wedding, I say embrace the unexpected.  Who do we all think we are that we can pre-plan every special moment?  God has it in his hands, people.  God has much better plans than any we can imagine.  Wait, isn't that in the bible?  I think someone said that before me.
     I wanted to mark a few memories down here before I forget them.  I barely remember anything from my own wedding day, 34 years ago.  But I can come back and read this and it will remind me.
     Remind me of the Lion King moments.  Off in the huge fields beyond the ceremony were a herd of buffalo to the left and a herd of elk (?) to the right.  Floating between them seemingly to the violin music being played during the ceremony were a large flock of birds swooping in harmony amid the buffalo.  God's creation all around, from the sweetest flower girl moments with their innocent and meandering path down the aisle to the fall weeds (you know I love 'em) by the split rail fence for the 'getting ready' photos to the mist that surrounded the hillside and the trees just starting to turn a bit for their fall splendor.

     Of the laughter had by all.  The jokes about the rain, the Rage Club (the house where Chris and Jenny met and fell in love), Jenny growing up, Chris' nerves.  Chuck wanting to stick a fork in Chris and call him 'done'. So much laughter.  The Merlin fathead....

     Of the mishaps.   I had heard a few frayed nerves. So serious to run out of ribbon when tying the candy apples, have the makeup and hair person out for emergency surgery, the chef in charge of MCing the evening quit three days earlier, the parents of the groom completely forget about the yard games they were delivering and apparently a few other stories the bride and groom plan to share when they return from 9 days of blissful honeymooning.




     Of new experiences? I am sure I had never opened three weather apps on my phone at the same time before and tracked the weather for 3:30 pm in Edwards, IL for seven days before an event.  It burnt up some of my adrenalin, keeping me busy doing that.  Predictors went from 30% to 90% to 50% chance of rain in the same day on one of the days I roosted there.  Weather, weather, weather.



     Of new experiences!  My first Jewish wedding!  The unveiling, the do-se-do, the chuppah, the blessings.  The stomping on the wine glass is a tradition I've seen in movies, but the explanation in person was much more meaningful.  This represents how fragile relationships are and how without trying you can break it into a thousand pieces so easily and quickly with the wrong words or actions.  So true and gives me goosebumps to recall this. 

     The reception was wonderful and hard.  Hard because you invite all these people who love you and your son, and then you get to spend about sixty seconds with each, if you are lucky.  I guess all the weddings over the years are how you repay them for their devotion and support, but I wish we could have talked to everyone more!




     Wonderful because with only two glasses of wine in five hours I felt high as a kite the whole time. High on the most amazing reception venue with glass on three walls looking out into woods and fields and sky.  

     High on love and joy, good food and wine, beautiful flowers and smiling faces.  High on watching my girls dance together and have fun at their brother's wedding.  High on watching adorable great-nieces and nephews at the photo booth. 

   

     There were several epic moments, including the hora or Hava Nagila dance where it seemed all 200 guests were on the dance floor while we circled the loved couple at a speed racer pace!

     Wonderful to see my firstborn as a mature, loving husband who truly cared about his new wife, who danced as much as anyone there to the amazing bluegrass music of New Cats.  Very impressed with he and Jenny's intricate, quirky, tightly woven group of friends who were so present all day and evening.




     Wonderful to stand outside on the rain-soaked deck in my bare feet, with Chuck and look back into the venue at 8pm with all the lights and flowers and flying dancers and know that everything was right with the world in that moment.
     Do I feel ten years younger now that the responsibility of all that is involved in a wedding in 2018 is accomplished.  Yes, yes I do.  Before this weekend I might have been overheard saying "I've got to go through this three more times as the mother of the bride."  Do I still feel this way? No.  Life is simple and beautiful when concentrated down to this.   I now feel that if I'm really, really lucky I might GET to go through it three more times and experience the overflowing joy, all clearly focused on loving two people for a time.














 


*PhotoCredits: courtesy of the hashtag #roomies4life on Instagram and Facebook!

My work is done...

The Eleven Stages of Moving House

Stage 1 of moving: Excitement -- a new house!  Will they accept the offer? They did.  Oh. My. How. Wonderful.  Life is amazing. A new house to love!


Stage 2 of moving: Enthusiasm -- clean those cabinets, paint those doors, place those casserole dishes just where they will live into eternity in just the right spot. 


Stage 3 of moving: Hard Labor -- fill shopping bags with books, towels, doodads, books, paintings, shoes, blue jeans, and more books.  Carry to new house in 12-16 SUV loads.  Do again.  My route: Fill car, run to Goodwill. Run to storage unit, empty rest at new house.  Return.


Stage 4 of moving: Confidence -- Two men and a truck moved our fridge and piano and beds and other very heavy items.  We are sleeping in the new place.  Halfway there, right?  Wrong.


Stage 5 of moving: Disbelief -- stuff.  so much stuff.  why?  WHY?  Make it go away.  Twenty-one years in the same house turns out to be over 1000 weeks of adding stuff, one little item at a time.  We are moving from 3000 square feet that doesn't count the creepy basement and antiquated unfinished attic that are also full of "stuff" to 1400 square feet. From 5 bedrooms to 2 bedrooms. Do the math.


Stage 6 of moving: Decision-making Burnout -- The notes from every conference ever attended, keep?  No. No definitely not. Well... No. Yes! No.   The first clay pot your daughter made? Keep!  The seventeenth one you run across?  In the trash.  The curtains that one of my adultish children had in some apartment but who knows who?  Give away.  They'll never know unless you blog about it. Where will the trailer, bass boat, and two extra cars GO?  There is no place for them.


Stage 7 of moving: Mishaps -- the fridge was too tall for the new opening. Fixed.  The new basement where I want a media room gets water?  No problem we will deal with later. Put it on the list.  The hose, the furnace vent, the floor joist, the wall behind the washer, the floor in the pantry the poison ivy, the ants.  Fixed. Fixed. And...yeah...f.i.x.e.d.


Pause for dump of things that are not mentioned in these stages.  Utilities. Cable-man, geese, muskrats, hummingbirds, garbage can decisions, mail, rummage sale, estate sale. Marketing our house by owner, showing house (ugh must be pretty), while moving. 409 asphyxiation while cleaning post-move.  See two daughters off for summer, worry about two daughters. Wedding plans. Starting a new job and over 3000 miles of business travel. Oh, and all the wonderful but time-consuming remodeling work on the new house. Waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. It has already been 8 months since we found our new abode.  Molly-the-dog's moving anxiety. Annoying little bank, mortgage, insurance, roofing and electrical issues.  April snow-showers. June 109 degree heat indexes/indices.


Stage 8 of moving: Weariness-- there is no way to empty this house. The thousand cans of paint, the endless piles in the attic of dusty and grimey (now) camping supplies and old hard drives.  One thing, one thing I know for sure -- moving is serious business, not to be taken lightly.  Just say No whenever you can. 


Stage 9 of moving:  teeny, tiny Light at the end of the tunnel -- without landing ourselves in the hospital, (but with a lovely head cold for me) we have reached the day we hand over the keys. We are like abused and jaded golden retrievers, afraid to be excited or happy, afraid we will open a door and find yet another cache of (face it) junk that we forgot about.  We are bleary-eyed, and barely here, but, the day has arrived. 


Stage 10 of moving: Gratitude.  I thank God for my husband.  He has been a solid rock through all this.  He has been a maniac repairing, and dealing and dealing some more.  I am grateful to face each crazy week with his can-do attitude while I just face-plant at yet another obstacle.  Gratitude to God for helping find our new place, find buyers for the old place, and reasonably good health throughout this ordeal nightmare experience.


Stage 11 of moving: Excitement returns!  Oh. My. How. Wonderful.  Life is amazing. A new house to love!  As soon as we figure out how to keep that basement dry...

Love Letter to my House

      We are in the process of leaving behind a home we've lived in for 22 years, so far.  Only one baby was born here, but the other three barely remember our previous house.  They were something like 9, 6, 2 and not here yet when we moved to this 1898 Victorian.  It has five bedrooms, two baths, two stairways, and much more.  Most people walking through my house would probably think 'Charming but a bit lived-in perhaps?'  But I see below the surface level of newspapers and ankle boots and dog toys.  And as I look to moving from this house to something much smaller and a good 50 years newer, I want to document what I will miss about our Park Avenue house.  Leaving out the broad expanses of dog hair and dirty dishes that we all have, right?
     First, there is the address.  Wherever you go people take a second look when you say 'Park Avenue', I assume because of NYC and the songs.  Second is the boulevard down the center.  Who gets to live on a street with trees and flags down the center?  Not many!
     Then there are the friendly dog-walking neighbors at all time of day or night.  Reliably looking up at the architecture or porches of many more illustrious houses than my own. 


But my house, the things I want to document so I can look back some day, is in the details.  Details like the front door knob. 

Details like the trim around every window and doorway in this place (I think we have 25 windows).

Details like this broken finial (?) that I have refused to fix so it reminds me of my wonderful life, just like the movie. 

The fact the house had a lily carved in the newel post and we had a daughter named Lily probably has something to do with us taking this on and gutting it 20 years ago.

     Going back outside, there is the sidewalk that runs all the way around the house in a big oval that all the kids could ride their bikes or trikes or scooters around.  I didn't grow up with that, but it is a great thing for a family. Details like a porch swing and spindles and this bright red door that came to us this way.  Its always the perfect color once a year at Christmas-time.

Details like the windows, some of which I've written about before more eloquently in the past, but nothing is the same.  It is all unique.  That's how they did it in 1898. 

Some things I always wanted in a house include this pocket door that is still in great shape, never refinished, because it is usually hidden away.

My next house is so much smaller, I'm pretty sure it wont have a 'Christmas-tree room' like we have now.  Or two stairways, one with room for many more stockings than the 9 we have  hanging this year. 

Or this nook at the top of the stairs I've always been in love with because of its utter impracticality.

     love this picture because it represents our marriage so well.  Chuck built this pantry the first year we moved into the kitchen.  But one year for Christmas without me knowing it he added a light inside.  Something I'd waited a good 18 years for, lol.  The pantry was something we added, and are leaving behind for the next owners:

     Don't you look back and childhood photos of birthday cakes, and really, what is fun to see, is the counter behind everyone with the pencils and phone and the notepad to take messages on (no one ever used).  Or the crazy rec room carpet pattern on the floor.  It is the details that bring back childhood, and even though this house doesn't represent my own childhood, it represents my own children's childhood.  As my friends know, I'm not particularly sentimental.  About pets, or kids going to college, or empty nests.  But I am sentimental about leaving this house.  I feel good about it.  It is time.  But I do feel nostalgic for all the impromptu tumbling classes we had in the long front rooms, the coat closet at the back door I would literally throw my weight into to close with all those snowpants and snowboots and mittens.  Our chandelier that I once broke, using it as a life ring as I fell while cleaning it.  And paid a hefty penny to restore, or so it seemed at the time.  I've never made that mistake again (of cleaning it haha)...

     This is where Santa visited with a vengeance and backpacks were tossed and tossed, and tossed as they all arrived home from their respective schools to turn on Rugrats and drink their capri suns :)

So many moments here, and I'm just hoping I can remember as many as possible for safekeeping.  On to the next adventure (eventually).  We don't do anything quickly!
     Of all the houses we've had or will have, this is without a doubt the best one for Christmas-y feelings.  Last year for it!

Yearning for natural light

At the moment, I'm considering a job change.  One of the factors I have to make peace with is that instead of walking six blocks to work, many of the opportunities right now involve traveling.  Quite a bit of traveling over many miles in a car. 

Yesterday I had one interview and I drove about three hours through the country-side to meet with the interviewer, a midpoint between our hometowns.  I was prepared, but I accidentally left my list of questions at home.  Today I found them, along with many pieces of writing, some of which I just published.  A notebook tossed aside in my clothes-closet, until now.  And in this notebook is a very interesting piece to me, today. Transcribing here...

     She could feel it, a gentle breeze on her soul whenever she drove by a field.  A meadow.  Some trees on the edge, deep shade, a few bees, wildflowers: purple clover, yellow black-eyed susans, white (?) that spilled behind that rusty mailbox. Those soybeans are a brilliant lemon-yellow, then rusty copper, then soft brown.
     She sat in her cubicle with the stale air, no natural light, only light from artificial sources -- an overhead fluorescent bulb, under-storage bin desk light and a small lamp from home.  Endeavoring to recreate the feeling and mood of natural light.  Endeavoring to make the best of a ill-fitting, square-peg-round-hole thing.  Making the best of it is what she excels at.

OK, gets a little sarcastic from here, but interesting that my musings from maybe 18 months ago are answering a question I have today.  I don't recall writing it, but it is all about how I don't like working in a cubicle and wish I could get out in the natural light more.  Hmmm.... interesting. Universe? 

And I do love, love, love the road-side weeds.  I have often wanted to find out who is responsible for the natural plantings on the interstates in Illinois, in the gulley between the cars driving in opposite directions.  To thank them for not mowing but sowing. The natural wave of purple, and blends of gold and beige have seemed like a painting to me more than once.  I've never met another weed-lover but there must be one out there.  It actually endangers my driving abilities as I stare at the ever-changing, never the same combinations nature has planted.  Traveling might have its perks.

I wasn't brilliant enough to stop and take a picture yesterday, but this is the idea, courtesy of google images. Your weeds are my art...

Part 3 & 4 -- Completely judgment-free zones

Goodwill.  You don't have to dress up.  It is cathartic because like a garage sale you can spend very little or nothing and still feel entertained.  Unlike a garage sale, it is air-conditioned, has bathrooms and everything in one stop.

Goodwill is a good-familiar, and out of town today, guaranteed anonymous. No one knows I'm here.  No one is waiting on me in there to return a call, answer an email, or fix a problem.

I can move slowly or quickly.  I can feel my tension easing, like a good meditation.  Used books.  Forks.  Crazy outfits. Restful to me.  Today I find a book called "Seeds" by Thomas Merton.  Lots of sticky notes, tabs, highlighted passages. Someone has done all the work for me.  Inside front cover a jotted note to look at page 115.  Where I find "Our vocation....Work with God in creating our own lives, our own identity, our own destiny."  Not subtle, God.

Books. Bookstores. The beauty of.
No one tries to make eye contact in a bookstore.  People casually browse knowing the protocol.  Bookstores are not for chit chat.  Not for phone calls.  Not for laughter.  Bookstore-lovers follow these unwritten rules.  I am pleased.  I feel safe in bookstores.  No judgment. Obviously bookstores have a thousand facets to their wonderfulness, but for today, I'm just claiming the white-noise-like quality that soothes the brain.

And, they contain, b o o k s.  That is all.

Part 2 -- Walmart
As you pull it the parking lot it looks pretty much exactly like any other Walmart.  Except I'm not at home.  So I will not bump into anyone from high school or church or work or the neighborhood.  I can wander from 17cent spiral notebooks (too flimsy, I like hard backing) to $5 pajamas to $22 phone chargers that are out of stock.  I can browse every book in the book section.  I can buy deodorant and get back to my car without revealing anything. To anyone.

I am relieved to get outside my head for 35 minutes and to sit in the parking lot writing for five more.

Babies, young adults, flip flops, electric scooter, heavy white Velcro tennis shoes.  Fifteen SUV type vehicles of approximately similar shades of gray are in my site.  Am I the only person who doesn't own one?

An elderly man gets out of his shiny red junker, all four windows down, shirtless.  He grabs a  shirt from the back seat and finishes dressing.  Slowly, casually, like he's done this before.  He saunters inside looking suitable. A bright orange shirt with black writing on it.

Someone pulls over just to remove a flier for a local fundraiser from their windshield.  A retiree in a mint-green golf shorts and a Hawaiian shirt places his cart is the cart farm cautiously.

Lots of top knots of messy hair. It is 3pm on a Wednesday.  Why are they all here?  Why aren't they stuck in a windowless cubicle?