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an everyday life

Tag Archives: Love

Fat Tuesday Snowflakes

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Birthdays, Lent, Love, Mardi Gras, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Gardening, Oscar nominated films, Relationships, Snow, weather

photoToday, a wintry mix of rain and snow falls outside my window.  But we might as well ignore that old news … because in the time it has taken my eyes to move from computer to window screen, the light gray sky has become full of fat, fluffy snowflakes.

So it goes with Oklahoma weather… and life and… well, I’ve been thinking of late… those relationships with whom we love more than words can convey.  All of them suffer droughts and seasons of moisture and gladness and sorrow and times when things just seem to sync and other times when we just feel walloped by our powerlessness to fix or make things better.

City officials — was it last week or the week before last?– began brainstorming on further water conservation strategies should our unwelcomed drought linger on and on into infinity and beyond.  Lawn and garden irrigation may be outright prohibited — and/or those of us who use more that what the city deems “their fair share” may incur a surcharge.  For now, we are under a winter rationing plan, following rules once reserved only for the depths of summer hell … which means, that all my big ‘ole spring gardening dreams have blown away in a cloud of dust.

There would have been a time, not that long ago, when I would have plunged ahead with plans of all sorts, come the proverbial hell or high water.  Why, by now, I would have already planned which new shrubs would be going where..and lined up contractors to break up old backyard concrete so that new paths could be drawn to enlarge and soften and fill in new garden lines.  So, I wonder: Is it age that causes me to listen to the weather forecasts and adjust plans, to listen more closely to what people say (or don’t), or to listen to the rhythm of my days in order to move more in keeping with their changing beat?

The local AMC movie theater is offering a 2-1 special for anyone who wishes to view the Academy award nominated film, Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Half of me wants to go, because I know this film would stir my soul and sprinkle in new seeds of thought, that only this particular piece of art has in its treasure box.  But instead, I’m sitting here in from of my hearth, in my Hemingwayesque, Havana inspired living room —  a decor, if you can believe it, that sprung out of last year’s visit to Key West, where we vacationed exactly a year ago today, while meanwhile, back at our OKC ranch-house, it was snowing and my youngest son was turning twenty-four and some of his siblings were picking him up for a birthday dinner of sushi.

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So… though half of me wants to go to the movies the other half — perhaps the better half of me  — prefers to watch the real-time show of falling snow outside my picture window.  Already, the trees are sugar-coated with snow.

I tend not to sugar-coat life — just ask my children — and too often, what I say is just more than they can take.  It makes me sad that I can’t do better… that I can’t share my thoughts in a way that is healing rather than hurting, where words spoken would fall gently, oh so soft and quiet and beautiful like this snow falling outside my window.  When I serve up too much truth… I tell myself I’ll do better.  And maybe, sometimes, I do.  But for better and worse, I am who I am, and I slip into old molds of living, often hurting those I love most without trying, and, often, without even knowing it.  Until days or weeks or months down the road, when I begin to wonder why I haven’t heard from this loved on or that one….

It makes me crazy.  So much so that I try to rationalize away the pain by telling myself that my children (and others whom I love) have many, many friends willing to put the best gloss on life… and that, well, they have only one me… who is willing to level with them… who is willing to share the unvarnished truth with them… well, at least, the truth according to Moi… but it’s poor comfort with no staying power, that melts as fast as an Oklahoma snow.

Today is President Lincoln’s birthday… and if you haven’t seen it… Lincoln would be another wonderful Oscar nominated film to catch today… if you are not catching, like me, a better reality show of snowflakes falling on a drought-thirsty land.

Today is also my youngest son’s twenty-fifth birthday… and I wish… oh, I wish for all those sorts of things that mothers everywhere probably wish for their children, you know, that all his dreams might come true and that life itself, everyday, will be better and more magical than the best dreams can conjure.

Today is also Fat Tuesday, which means tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and then Lent and a forty-day season of time for thoughts such as these.  What else can I say… but God, have mercy?

Love Sweet Love

15 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Prayer, Writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Everyday Life, Grandchildren, Love, Prayer, Writing

It’s a pity I had no time to unpack the week’s “unforgettable” moments.

Instead, my off-line journal holds four disjointed pages of thoughts, when in a normal week there would be twenty-one  packed full of  “don’t-wish-to-forget” or “wish-I-could-but-can’t forget” moments.   But all that deeper reflection must come later —  because I want to get down everything I can about this miraculous, love-sloshed week.

Like last night’s expressions of love that came by way of a fancy steakhouse downtown, in celebration of my future daughter-in-law Amy’s twenty-fourth birthday.  If only I’d had the presence of mind to snap Amy’s photo.  But perhaps with these words, I’ll remember how especially pretty she looked in her evening finery — how she bubbled with joy.

And like every single minute since last Saturday, thirteen minutes after Noon — as I’ve expressed and been privileged to witness other’s countless expressions of love to our family’s newborn parents and child — daughter Kara, son-in-law Joe and granddaughter, Reese Caroline.

Sometimes the love expressed  — like those that came out of dark, sleep-deprived moments in the middle of the night as I jarred myself awake to help a very tired and sore new mother and child — seemed more like expressing oil from olives.  Though I’m told there is no “second press” of olives — that all olive oil comes from the first pressing — at times, this week, I felt as though my expressing of love came by a second and third pressing —  until I thought I had nothing else to give.  But most the time, my love rose boundless to the surface like bubbles in a just opened bottle of champagne.   Whether bubbly or hard-pressed, neither vintage of love was better as both came from the same source.  Yet it amazes me that when it comes to love, when we think we have nothing else to give, we’re wrong.

But whether my own or others it makes no difference — deep expressions of love leave me weepy.  So forgive me while I slosh as I wonder in words —  on a night, mind you, when I should be sleeping, since I’ve come home to grant space  to others who wish to express love to my newborns –why we are so stingy with our love?  Why do we do things for any reason other than love?  Why is it that we too often do things merely out of a sense of obligation?  What weight does fulfilling an obligation carry — especially in eternity?

Living this week, as I have in a celebratory bubble of love, I see that only what we do out of love really and truly matters.  And as I write this, I see that everything we do traces back to love of someone or something.  And though I confess to not thinking so clearly in my sleep-deprived state, it seems we go astray those times when our love of things gets in the way of our love of people — whether the things are money or pride or whatever.  The ‘right thing” is always to love someone rather than something.  And even when the something is grandiose, like a desire for world peace, even then there should be people and their well-being standing behind it.

This old-song of Jackie DeShannon’s makes a good everyday prayer in my sleep-deprived mind tonight.  And with it, I’m tucking myself back in to bed.

You Who

30 Tuesday Nov 2010

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Soul Care

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Books, Dr. Suess Baby Shower, Everyday Life, Love, Soul Care, True Self

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.”

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

-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"

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