Just Wondering

Well, well, well, Google has allowed me back into my account. Will wonders never cease!
The answer to that question is, "Not as long as I'm looking for them." And, I don't know about you, but I look for them daily.
Take today, for instance, actually EARLY today. Side bar of why early....a month ago Mike had an eye appointment at 8:30 am only to get there and it not be on their schedule even though it was on his card. So to make up for their mistake they give him an even earlier appointment for today, 7:45. Anyway, back to my looking for wonders. I am, by nature, a people watcher. I love watching people and listening to conversation, that are of course none of my business, but I do it anyway. So I'm listening to three "old" people talking about their eye surgeries and then about someone's child who should already be walking but is still crawling and I wonder.......in ten years will I be talking about things that either don't  matter or is a "who cares" conversation. Do we all get there eventually short of death?
Then yesterday Mike and I went to the new Chill and Grill Dairy Queen in town and I sat and people-watched as he ordered. Two "old" men walked in, one was shuffling and the other was using a cane. Instantly I could tell they were life long friends. Then I wondered if they had been voted most handsome in the class of '48. Had they played football together and won the state championship their senior year? Then it happened....they passed me to go sit down and one winks at me and I think, "yep, once a Rodney, always a Rodney." Rodney is one of my friends from high school. He played football and winked at me then too. Now-a-days, he calls me Pammy, and gives me good advice, and yes still winks at me.
Go find something to wonder about. You'll be surprised where you end up.

Morten's Salt

You know when you reach my age you are often caught between generations and their unique set of problems. On the one hand, you have kids and grand kids and on the other you have aging parents.
Let's take kids and grand kids; Mom, would it be okay if I used your (fill in the blank). "Well, of course it's okay to use my ( whatever you filled in the blank with). Make sure you return it and it's still in working order." Now that may be a statement that is often assumed instead of spoken. If this happens once, it won't happen twice. You'll remember to say it on each borrowing occasion.
Then you hear, " Meme, I hate my mom (the one you raised). Se is so mean and unfair. I wish you were my mother." Of course that's when you remember to be grateful for the small stuff like, you're not their mother. And this goes on for weeks and then the drama calms to a low hum. And you find yourself at peace and actually planning to do something for yourself. After a few days of day dreaming about the future, the phone rings......
"Pam, I have your mother here in the emergency room." So, day dreams aside, you make a mad dash to the ER to be by your mom's side and talk to the doctors and nurses and try to keep everything straight. After too many hours you are eternally grateful that God has heard and answered your prayer and everyone gets to go home with orders to see your primary care doctor the next day.
Then you have a few weeks in a row that everyone's problems and drama overlap and you find yourself examining everything you've done NOT to deserve this. Then in the midst of that examination you remember, "I'm the in-between generation. Life happens."
Now at this point I remember that I have a life of my own and I have friends with the same problems. So I call up some friends and we meet for lunch. We don't talk about those problems. I mean after all, we are trying to escape for a bit of time. So after a three hour lunch with my Diva Pearls (that's what we call ourselves) I am refreshed and rejuvenated. Problems are the same, but I'm not.
I get home five hours later, turn the ceiling fan on, sit down on the sofa for a rest and just bask in the refreshing time I just experienced. Then it happened. The fan started to growl at me. Then it sizzled, yep, sizzled at me. I get up and turn the knob to off. I call into the next room to tell Mike the fan has just died. He comes in and says, "So I'm guessing you have the Morten's Salt with you today?" I just have to laugh! Seriously, laugh out loud! I mean what else are you going to do? Because, when it rains, it pours.

Being 62

The events in my life for the past 6 weeks and especially the past couple days has been a "growing hill" for me. Let me explain: I used to teach kindergarten. From time to time a child would just go weird on a parent and they'd ask, "what happened?" I would explain that sometimes for us to grow "up" we have to get knocked down so we'd, in essence, have to climb back to the top of the hill and learn all sorts of lessons along the way. That's what I call a "growing hill".
My hill has been one of soul searching this time. I'd like to think I learn lessons everyday, through friends, through Gods Word, through experience. But sometimes I think I just get too big for my britches and God knocks me down so I can learn deeper lessons as I climb back up.
I have for years been a non confrontational person and truth be told I still am but I can speak my mind better than I used to. In this effort of non confrontation I keep a lot of stuff to myself that would be better communicated. And then I grow so weary of trying to tend to stuff that is other peoples responsibility that I do eventually blow! Oh not with words, you understand, but with attitude towards my husband or my grown adult children. Let me just say right here, my husband is a saint and my adult children have made a good life for themselves in spite of me.
I have come to the conclusion that I am in fact two different people living in one body. At 62 I have been accused of being a "free spirit" and I'd love to think that's what I am. I can even pull off acting like that for a time. And oh how my heart wishes I could live there. But I can't. At least not all the time. I have been accused of creating my own world and living in it! And that is partly true as well. I have a whimsical back yard with a vintage trailer that I turned into a studio for sewing, writing, reading and sharing. You see, I can control what goes on back here and that's fine with me.
Back to the events of late; part of my family is reeling from divorce right now. As I and other family members try to understand this person we see a pattern. A pattern that was in fact set upon from childhood. Could it be my fault? Could I have contributed to this pattern when in fact I could have at the very least voiced my concernens and issues? I think so. But I'm not confrontational. I bottle up things in an effort to.......to what? Keep peace, albeit false? To control events....even if it means trouble and suffering in the future? And where did mine begin? In childhood where I believed the lies of keeping quiet.
I am guilty. I have sinned by not communicating. At 62 I am learning hard lessons about communication. At 62 I am learning that it doesn't matter if I'm agreed with. What matters is that I speak truth, in love. What matters is for eternity.  I've asked God to forgive me for trying to do his job of keeping peace and harmony. My job is to love and encourage and to pray like never before for those I love. We are at war for our families. Only truth and love will prevail. Fortunately, God is both.

Mothers Day

Today marks the one year anniversary of my husband's mother's death. Upon her death I became the matriarch of the family. I really thought about that a long time. I came to the conclusion that I simply could not replace such a woman. She was fiercely independent, and yet was a wife of submission. She was a radical woman. She was a stubborn creature! She loved her family with the love of Christ and the heart of a lion. She would do anything in her power to make sure you knew you were loved.
I miss her today especially. She loved sitting on my back porch in a wheel chair, watching kids and grand kids play and laugh. It was one of her greatest joys to be called Granny.
She often introduced me as her daughter because she never thought of me as a daughter-in-law. It was an honor I never took lightly for 45 years.
As I sit on my back porch this morning thinking back over the years of my life I am reminded that first I was a daughter, then a daughter-in-law, then a mom, then a Meme, then a great Meme and wonder what has been my favorite gift from my children. And it is in fact a gift from my mother-in-law. It was that look in her eyes one day as she sat on my back porch in her wheel chair. That look that I would finally grasp the truth and depth of.  She would call each child by name, making sure she had eye contact, and tell them she loved them. As the days past as she no longer could use words, I still saw that look in her eyes, love and pride for her family. The greatest gift to her was her family.
Yes, the packages with ribbons and bows are nice but to know your children are people of character, people who belong to Christ, people who share their heritage with their own children..........that is the best gift of all.
Happy Mother's Day.

We Bought a Backyard

Six and a half years ago my husband and I lived in a 41 ft coach. We lived wherever we parked. We were on the road for a while with some dear friends from our. Navy days in the 70's. We all worked at Disney that last winter we were on the road. We worked 6 hours at a time and did that for 2 days so we could play the rest of the time. Free reign of the parks and parking. So we left the road with, "Welcome to Magic Kingdom. Have a magical day" playing in our heads.
My dad became ill and we felt we needed to come off the road for aging parents. So we did.
When we got here we lived in a local RV park while we looked for a house. Did I mention the coach was 41 ft.? We looked for that perfect last home, because at our age we figured it would be the last move, until Jesus comes to get us. We looked and looked and finally one February afternoon my mom calls me on the phone. "Pamela (that's how I know she means business), I have found y'all a house. It's just 5 houses from me on my street." Yeah, you're right! A neighborhood? Five houses from mom? On her street? But we went to look anyway.
Mr. West had just put a For Sale by Owner sign up 2 hours before we arrived. We knocked and were invited in that very moment. We bought it that very night. Now let me just say, we didn't buy this house for the house, we bought it for the backyard. Yes it was the dead of winter. It was almost dark when we saw the backyard.
We've done a lot of cosmetic work to the house itself. But we literally transformed the backyard. For some reason, we saw the backyard as it could be that February day. As I sit on my back porch (added) in my swing bed, I am looking out into a bird sanctuary. The beds are full of a mix of bedding flowers and wild flowers. There's a small picket fence that divides the 60ft deep backyard in to 40/20 space. We have 2 arbors, one open and sunny and one covered in wisteria with bottles and tin signs. The beds are lined with plates of every color and a few bottles in between. There are red roses and purple butterfly bushes. Black-eyed Susans and cone flowers. There are handmade wind chimes made from bottles and old jewelry. This vision turned into reality is the reason we bought the house.
Now, let me go into the house, in my one butt kitchen, and make some supper.

Memories of Ireland

This being, March, and with St. Patricks day just past it has really made me miss Ireland. I am of Irish and Choctaw descent. Both earthy, both stubborn, both resourceful, both spiritual, both strong, and both always right.
My first trip to Ireland, was quite frankly, a trip of need. I had an overwhelming need to go to Ireland. I can't explain it except to say, I had an overwhelming need to go home. I was so homesick I was miserable. No, you didn't misread that, it was my first trip to Ireland. You see, I believe in inherited memories. That's the only explanation I could come up with. I had memories of a home I had never been to, a home I had never seen or felt.
So off to Ireland my sweet husband took me. We landed in Shannon, rented a car, and hit the road. Never a plan, never a care of what if. We loved it. I treasured every moment of it. On the Cliffs of Moher, I had a very spiritual experience. I can't explain it, but if you've ever had one of this kind, I don't need to. It just was. We visited many tourists things as one would do. But for me, just feeling the ground, touching a wall or a stone or walking through a graveyard was very comforting. I felt loved by this place as I have never felt before.
My great grandmother was from Ireland. My biological father's people were from Ireland, Kennedy's. Someone, that came before me, that wanted to go home to Ireland so badly, left that memory for me. Just like my whiskey colored eyes were inherited, so was this memory of home. It was my pleasure to fulfill this desire. It was an honor to be given the gift of knowing the belonging of such a place as Ireland.
One day I'll tell you the story of being accidentally locked in a castle. It really happened to Mike and I on our first trip there.
American by birth. Irish by heart.

Magic

Do you believe in magic? Last Tuesday night on NCIS, Abbey told a man, "I believe in magic, prayer and logic equally." A couple days went by and my daughter texted me and said, "I have just heard the mantra for my life." Then she told me what Abbey had said. I told her that I had indeed heard that. Now let me explain here; my daughter is her fathers child. By that I mean she is highly intelligent and logical to a fault. So to hear this from her I was a little curious as just what she meant by that. I get the prayer and logic part, but what did she mean by the magic part. So I asked. And I'm proud to say, she is, after all, her mothers child as well.
You see, I'm not talking about black magic or slight of hand magic, no. I'm talking about the magic that happens when you are chosen to witness an otherwise, perfectly normal,  act of nature, or hear an otherwise perfectly normal sound or experience a perfectly normal course of events, and you realize it was made especially for you at this perfect time as you do nothing more than breathe. A gift, as it were, from a loving a God, with your name on it. Let me be more specific and share with you some of my magic moments:
A pair of cardinals on the back fence kissing...The sound of a hawk that draws your attention heavenward... The giggle of your child giving away a hiding place...A silent prayer answered that makes your heart smile...Sitting silently in the presence of a dying parent or grandparent. It's a time, a moment made just for you by your Heavenly Father. This, my friend is real magic. It's called grace. It's called love. It's called....peace.