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an everyday life

an everyday life

Tag Archives: Advent

Priming in Advent

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Janell in Home Restoration, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Advent, House Painting, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricanes, Lifetime Guarantees, Preparation, Safe-Rooms

IMG_0414What I recall most about those first months of living on the Texas coast was a lot of talk about hurricanes. Older residents spoke of past storms, like Carla. Younger ones kept eyes more on possibilities circling far away. But when a storm pointed itself in our general direction, everybody talked of little else but the need to make preparations.

I never got the hang of preparing for storms, in spite of living through twenty hurricane seasons. It’s not that I didn’t notice folks covering their windows with plywood. Or that I could ignore all that serious stocking up on gallons of bottled water and flashlights and batteries, while I was off wandering the deserted aisles of the local super store buying everyday groceries. I often felt the fool showing up at the cash register with a loaded cart of perishables while other patrons had theirs full of provisions that any Boy Scout would have been proud of.

I used to blame this shortfall on living too many years near Oklahoma’s tornado alley. Twisters, I imagined, had ingrained into me a different mindset, turning me more into a last-minute responder to warning sirens, of rushing around for the best shelter I could find at a moment’s notice. I suppose I never wanted a storm cellar bad enough to invest in one. And apparently I still don’t; wouldn’t there be a “safe room” in my garage if I really wanted to be more prepared?

But the truth is that I’ve always been a little out of step with the real world and its seasons. No need to look further than my latest home improvement project, where I’ve spent the last few weeks outside painting the trim of my new old house. It’s in terrible shape. By its condition, I’d guess it’s been painted twice in sixty years. At its worst, bare wood is exposed and buckled while the best is alligatored and chipped.

All this adds up to a lot of preparation. Had it been well maintained, I could simply have cleaned the surface and engaged in a little light sanding. Instead, I’m also scraping away failed paint and filling in huge gaps that I’d guess last saw a caulk gun sixty years ago. It’s dirty and exhausting work. Every inch of surface requires a fresh application of primer, before receiving two or three coats of finish paint with a “lifetime warranty.”

I’m not sure whose lifetime that claim rests upon, but I hope it’s close to mine. All that ladder climbing has challenged my knees, especially on days where the wind has whipped around corners going twenty-five miles an hour. The knuckles of my right hand are stiff and swollen. My neck hurts. My lower back aches. But while ibuprofen has met its match, none of the hardships matter. Nor does it matter that my preparation regime is increasing total project time by fifty percent.

It’s hard to explain my need of getting this right. Part of it, I suppose, has to do with my age and the condition of my joints. This may be my only opportunity to do the job myself. But also, it just feels so darn wonderful to paint over a properly prepared surface. The brush simply glides over primed wood. The paint adheres beautifully, while evening out bulges and dings.

Sometimes I wonder what the neighbors think about my unseasonal painting project, bumping into the days of Advent as I have. But oddly, what they think doesn’t matter either.  What’s more important is that I feel in sync with the spirit of this liturgical time, set aside by the Church to ready our spirits for Christmas, since I’m more attentive to my surroundings. I notice the sky beyond the roof, the birds flying south for warmer climates and the squirrels burying pecans in my garden. I catch colored leaves slipping from trees out of the corner of my eye. They fall around me like confetti in a parade. Everything, it seems, in the autumn world around me, is preparing itself for the season to come.

With days grower cooler and shorter, my outside painting is about over for the season. I’m only half-finished, but if I’m lucky, there’s always next year. I suppose another hurricane season must be over, too, though I can’t say for sure without conducting a search. No research is required for those living in areas of high risk. And this year with Sandy, maybe those living in lower risk parts of the country know, too.

The talk in New Jersey and surrounding areas on how to become better prepared is already off and running. Everyone there will be talking about Sandy for years to come, I imagine. It’s good to do what we can do. Though important to realizet we can never adequately prepare for another Sandy or Katrina or Carla. Or Comet and Donder and Blitzen. Or the coming of Christmas, even if Advent were to last from now to kingdom come.

Hear Ye, Here Ye

26 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Advent, Everyday Life, lassitude, Soul Care, Writing

For days I’ve thought about what I would say if not for lassitude.  And now that I’m actually saying something — now that I’m here — would you be surprised to hear how none of it matters?

Yet who can say what matters in the here after — or for that matter, in the here now — and who knows whether what I write today is really my true self talking or whether it slips off the tongue of lassitude?

Yes, with lassitude lurking about, it’s better I draw a few lines around facts — even limiting myself to answering the unasked question of where “here” is.  Describing my here and now is enough  — and unless I’m careful, too much to hear, should I slip and fall between the facts and talk of feelings and memories and all those things fuzzy soft, that change with perspective, with one’s value’s, or on one’s being there.   Or here.

So, keeping to hard facts, here at this very moment of time, I lie in my soft comfy bed with a laptop propped against my legs.  I’ve nothing I must do today.  No where I must go or be.  The  day is mine to spend as I wish.  On this second day of the season of Christmas, while the waiting within the season of Advent is over, I instead wait within the in-between days of my mother-in-law’s death and funeral.

To avoid falling into feelings, I skip to the next fact:  My sister-in-law, who stayed here ten days — and my brother-in-law who stayed two — are now gone to stay elsewhere.  Living with in-laws very different from me — who smoke cigarettes and/or depend upon drinks of alcohol to live — left me in a very un-Christmassy spirit, which is another way of saying, a very non-Christian frame of mind and heart.  Why, living with in-laws lifted my lassitude — if only for a bit  — to take charge of life.  These, I know, as facts.

The in-laws departed Christmas Eve, the very day I ran away from home myself, seeking refuge with my sister, who thank God, is always good at taking in strays who show up on her doorstep, no questions asked.  There we visited and watched movies and make fried bologna sandwiches and watched more movies and ate popcorn in a room heated by a big lovely fire in the hearth that we shared with three other strays Sis had taken in over the years — a chihuahua named Taco, a schnauzer named Eve and a large ragdoll cat named Sophia.  Until my arrival, Sophie was the newbie.

I’ve never run away from home before, though I ended last year wanting to and, if I’m being honest, have thought about it many, many times since.  But never have I given in to the urge to do so.  But two days ago, on the morning of Christmas Eve, I knew if I stayed, I’d end up having ‘words’ with my in-laws — and that those words would become words of regret not long after their speaking — and sometimes — maybe always, though I can’t say for sure since this is not fact — I think it’s better to flee rather than fight.

My plan was to come home right after the funeral, after the in-laws had departed for their next visitation.  But something happened Christmas Eve which caused plans to change:  My husband called to tell me they’d departed early — that the house was quiet in a good way — that my house and life were ready for me when I was ready to come home.

I returned the next day.  And then, as if none of that running away or any of the departures that had come before had happened, we dressed up in our casual-but-festive finery and drove down to the home of my son and new daughter-in-law.  And there, we dined on food that was a pleasure to eyes and palate.  And some drank wine, while others had water or iced tea.  And long after we’d consumed creme brulee, we stayed gathered around the table, doing our best to be merry and make light conversation with members of Amy’s family.  And in spite of all the year has wrought and wrung out of me — in spite of that lingering lassitude within me — it wasn’t hard at all to eat, drink and be merry.

And isn’t this just what another long ago writer expressed, when suffering from his own bout of lassitude?

“Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun”  — Ecclesiastes 8:15 KJV

Advent Already

28 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Soul Care

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Advent, Aging, Death, Everyday Life, Parents

Beyond my big picture window, the world dresses in blue shadows, as it does every clear day before the sun rises to yellow its world.  I sit in my same comfy chair with a cup of coffee beside me and pen and paper in my lap.  I’m suppose to be writing, but instead my eyes bounce between the view outside — to the view inside, where with help of man-made light, lives a tiny world of my making on top my coffee table — a table-scape where fake pumpkins have just given way to flickers of a winter candle.

The year revolves around the dance floor, each turn coming faster and faster, making it a struggle to keep up.   Then, just like that —  the dance slows down.   The music stops.  And I look up —  I look up  to see it’s Advent?   How in the world can Advent already be here?

Well, it is.  I know because I went to church for the first time in two years yesterday.  And to top that, I went for the best reason of all:  I wanted to.  For me, for now, It was time to wake up.  Time to crawl out of a warm bed into the cold of a morning.  Time to resume everyday life with church being part of the picture window.

And how wonderful to do just that.  To wake up to the sounds of a beloved husband snoozing.  To dogs snoring and sprawled all over the bed as if they owned it.  To listen to the swooshing heated air falling out of ducts hidden within my walls.

It’s Advent.  Advent, as in, ‘coming.’  As in Christmas is coming soon.  As in, all is well. All is calm, all is bright.  Sleep in heavenly peace.

And what’s not all calm and bright — well — Advent grants us time to prepare ourselves — to put our best faces on, so to speak —  sort of like putting a dash of red lipstick on in the rear-view mirror of the car, while waiting for a traffic light to shine green — or for some, less mobile, while sitting in a wheelchair waiting for death and two tacos from Taco Bell to come.

Still alive, though a far cry from her everyday self, that’s what my lovely mother-in-law did during yesterday’s daily visit with my husband, her son.  She put on a dash of lipstick and a few other cosmetics to make herself feel better while waiting for a couple of fast-food tacos.  Perhaps she did it to make herself feel more like her old self  — maybe to reclaim a small fragment of an everyday life she no longer owned.  Or leased.

And who knows that maybe the gloss did the trick for a while, since she and my husband enjoyed a leisurely visit for a change —  instead of one truncated by sleep, like others this past week.  But by nine o’clock, the shine must have worn off because nothing was calm or bright in Janice’s world.  We know because — completely out of character — she called my husband on the telephone to fix it.  And after failing to do it, she asked for me.

Hello.  That’s all I remember saying before she launched into a series of short whispers.

She needed to find a place to stay for a couple of days.  Her husband needed a break from his around-the-clock care-giving.  She knew her husband hated her.  Stuck in bed, she wasn’t tired.  She couldn’t sleep.  She was desperate.  Needed to get out of there.  Tonight.

I listened until she grew too tired to talk, until she had said her piece, until she wound down enough to fall into what I hope was a peaceful slumber —  in a world far removed from heavenly peace that — well better to face it — doesn’t even try to put its best face on most of the time.  Unless it’s running for office.  Or posing before a camera.  And then not always.

The call left me unsettled.  It left me feeling powerless.  It left me feeling blue.

How strange that blue skies denote happy times while feeling blue is anything but.  There is a heaviness to blue.  But thank God, not so heavy to keep the sun from climbing the sky to lighten life up a bit. For the calendar to chug along its way to the light of Christmas Day.

Real light, true light — why it’s enough to warm a soul from the inside out —  to set a face aglow.  No lipstick required.

Advent Already?   Yes.  Advent Already.  Amen.  Amen.

Come what may.

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“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

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