Tag Archives: Everyday Life

Making Right Turns

22 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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I like it when what comes next doesn’t depend upon me.

Maybe that’s why I’d rather be a passenger instead of the driver.  When I’m not in the driver’s seat, I’m free to look at scenery.  Or rest.  Or read.  Or daydream and think.

I rest easier knowing I’ve done right by others.  But sometimes, when I’m merrily riding along some past indiscretion will catch up with me.  And whether or not I’ve done my best is not always relevant.

There are many times my best had me coming up short while trying to do the right thing.  Like last week for instance.  I did my best to offer comfort.  Yet I fear I did the opposite.  And I was absolutely undone for a few days, by the mere possibility that I might have caused another unintended harm.

Then there are those other times when I have intentionally done something wrong.  Sometimes it’s unvarnished no-two-ways-about-it  ugliness.   But other times it’s more subtle than that — like when I have wronged others by talking myself out of doing the right thing.  Two  times that I can count — countless others of which I remain blissfully unaware — which out of the clear blue, came back to keep me company a few days ago.

I wish I could explain why these memories are talking to me now, after so many years of playing dumb.  But all I can say is that they have sent me soul-searching for answers.  And so far, all I’ve come up with is this:  Rationalizing away what’s right and turning it into a wrong is easy to do in situations where there is no legal obligation to do anything different  — or, as in my case, where there is no personal accountability for a different outcome by the wronged party’s expectations or petitions.

But perhaps there’s still time to make restitution for these two wrongs.  Not because it will make things right, because I’m not sure  it’s ever possible to set wrongs right — a right can never erase a wrong, though it may lessen its sting.

And strange as it is, I’m not sure I would wish to erase anything.  Because in some mystical way, those weighty wrongs have shaped me into a person who strives hard to do right by others — even when it comes at personal cost — and these wrongs work to keep me grounded, from thinking myself better than I really am.

So this time, it looks like I’m in that uncomfortable driver’s seat with two ghosts taking up my favorite space in the front passenger seat.   And whether I make a right turn or end up somewhere in left field depends entirely upon me and my own internal compass.

Prayers in Progress

11 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer

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My son stomps around the second floor to ready for work while my husband sits quietly with his morning paper at the kitchen counter.  Meanwhile, I write away the hour, sitting near a window, in my lovely new PJ’s, robe and slippers my sister and aunt brought yesterday.

But it won’t be long before I head to Kara’s to finish up that last bit of painting — so that she and her husband can have their ‘home sweet home’ all to themselves — until the baby arrives anyway.

It’s been a year defined by sharing my Purdy paintbrushes with others — six months at Sis’s followed by a month now at Kara’s.  My painting skills  may be overrated but my price is right — it’s hard to beat free.  But next week I’ll use them at home, to paint my dining room for the Nth time — at the risk of husband-teasing that I’m reducing our square footage with every stroke.

If  one is inclined toward accounting, this dining room rendezvous with a paintbrush will make four times in four and a half years — if one doesn’t consider the six coats of my last go-around, in that all-out effort to get my white ‘just right.’

I have a hankering for a cinnamon-tinted dining room.  Or cumin-colored perhaps.  Something warm and brown for winter — yet dark and cool for summer.  And then there is this:  I always pray best with a paintbrush in my hand.  And there’s much to pray for these days — the new baby  that’s coming — Kyle’s new book on the eve of being published — my mother-in-law who’s trying a different cocktail of chemotherapy — my sister-in-law now back in AA who’s asked for prayers — my brother who will soon be marrying a woman with the same first and middle name as Mom — and the scary news for one diagnosed yesterday with breast cancer.

I fear my praying is no better than my painting:  I fear it too is overrated.  I do not have a hot-line to God.  No more than anyone else.  But when I’m asked, I do my best.  Sometimes I’m bold in my petitions — specific at laying out to God exactly what my wishes and hopes are in a particular matter.  But most of the time I just think the person’s name and imagine their face in my mind and let God fill in the blanks with my love and His.  Where a word is involved my favorite is ‘peace’  — I pray sweet, blessed peace and good sleep so that fears and worries don’t pick people apart to make them less than who they are.

And this is, at heart, what prayer is for me: Prayer is less about hopes and wishes and dreams — and more about being who we are.   So my favorite definition of prayer is this by Thomas N. Hart, which I stumbled upon in his book, The Art of Christian Listening:  “Prayer is being yourself before God.”

In a year where I’ve been so preoccupied with understanding what it means to be true self, this definition of prayer becomes  poignant.   How appropriate that answers came this week while painting — with a stroke of a brush as I gazed beyond the light dividers of the window to the naked shivering trees — that being true self has less to do with occupation and more to do with love  — stark naked love.

When I paint for love alone, I am my true self and I am in prayer.  When I garden for self or others out of love (rather than obligation), I am my true self AND I am in prayer.  No matter what I am doing — whether cooking or housekeeping or writing — if out of love, I am in communion with God and, therefore, in prayer.

There is much need for prayer.  There is much need for us to be our true and simple selves — to express our love into the world however and whenever and wherever we can — even clumsily and even with over-rated skills.  Because love and our need for it cannot be overrated.

You Who

30 Tuesday Nov 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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Women do not like to share little-known facts about themselves.

I learned this while helping host Kara’s baby shower last Sunday.   And two days after the shower, I still can’t name the reasons for the reticence.

What I CAN say is that what seemed a good idea a month ago when invitations were mailed seemed foul by Sunday.  And to my way of thinking, it wouldn’t have been at all out of place — especially as our baby shower was themed around a Christmas tree at Who-Ville —  for me to yell these famous half-crazed Clark W. Griswold lines:

“Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f—ing Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.” — National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

A mere month ago I was thinking how good it would be to have a get-acquainted parlor game to help members of Kara’s five families get to know each other a little better.  So I invited everyone to send me a a fun, little-known fact about themselves.

Here’s my accounting: Of the 25 guests attending, three sent their facts in on time without complaint — a dozen arrived by hook, crook and gnashing of teeth over Thanksgiving weekend — once I sent out Grinch cavalry, who looked an awful lot like me and my two daughters.  Of the remaining 10, five were turned in at the shower while five didn’t participate — two guests “lost” their cards somewhere in Kara’s house and the other three — well, let’s just say I “lost” the desire for treasure hunting.

Funny thing is that by all appearances, the game appeared to be a rousing success — even the five hold-outs seemed entertained.  Everyone enjoyed guessing who said what  — stumping the crowd with their fun facts — and then finding out whether they were right or wrong.

And after all the prizes were handed out, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one to marvel at what had been revealed — and at WHO had been revealed.  All the females crowded together in Kara’s living room were wonderfully unique and special.  Kara was still talking about it this morning when I arrived at her house to paint.  And knowing how much I’ve thought of each fact and the woman who revealed it, I’d be surprised to learn the revelations hadn’t lingered in other minds too.

After all, how many times do we go to a party and walk away knowing something real about a person?  That this one had always wanted to be a nun, or that this one likes to travel so much she studies maps in anticipation of the places she will go.  And how about this one who won a poetry contest in middle school or that one who played in the Austin Symphony or how about the one who once learned how to roll her father’s cigarettes so that he wouldn’t have to stop driving while on a family vacation.

We don’t share ourselves enough  —  our real and true and best selves  anyway.  The stakes must be too high.  Maybe we play it safe to avoid being sorry.  So we end up sharing forgettable things that don’t really matter, that don’t go more than skin-deep, in words that roll off of our lips on automatic-pilot, words like “Oh, I’m fine — how are you?”  Here’s my confession: Sometimes after I’ve asked, I forget to listen to the answer.  So maybe we need to ask risky questions to get a memorable answer.

And as I ponder it more, maybe that’s what all that moaning and groaning before hand was about — folks we’re just plain rusty at revealing a piece of their truth.  We had to pry it out of them.  Or maybe — and I hope I’m wrong — maybe some mistakenly believed they didn’t have anything interesting or fun about themselves to reveal.  And if so, I hope they left believing something a little different  about themselves.  Even something little like this:

“A person’s a person no matter how small.”