No Rescue

 Ever have something small at work shine a spotlight on something much bigger and important to you?

The other day at the library, I found myself talking to a woman sharing new research about a disease she had been beating the odds of for years--even while it exacted its cruel toll daily.  She was passionately intense, hopeful and heartbroken at the same time.  Why did she want to dive into the deep end with me, a stranger, about a difficult topic, possibly an uncomfortable one?

I'm not sure.  But I think when people sit with ongoing grief or suffering, sometimes the broken bits can sit right on the surface like shards of glass--making them prickly and difficult-- or sometimes, blindingly beautiful.  But one thing I've noticed, they don't waste a lot of time on small talk.  And for that, I love them.  People who share pain make me feel part of a larger story of our humanity: the way we all suffer, feel lost, betrayed, broken.  The way we all long for redemption, beauty, belonging.

So there I was, completely engrossed.  There weren't any other patrons in line, or even politely hovering in proximity-- waiting to be noticed but not wanting to commit to queuing up.  There weren't any materials needing to be shelved.  There was just this woman, our shared desk, and her profound wish to be heard.  Oh, and then a phone ringing.  How pesky.  I looked around for my colleague to catch it since I was occupied, but she must have been busy too, because I couldn't see her anywhere.

The persistent ringing demanded my response so I picked up,  preparing to ask the caller to wait a moment so I could properly conclude with the lady in front of me.

Instead, it was my colleague, calling from a back office with the equivalent of a "rescue call."  She might have even used that word.  Something about noticing I had been talking to this lady for awhile (five minutes? eight?!) and did I need to be rescued?

Did I need to be rescued?

From what?

Suddenly, strangely, I simply felt old.  Like I had stepped out of the past and into our present pace and perspective I can no longer match.  In a world where Facebook Likes (and sad faces, hearts and wow faces) is a standard form of connection, did my extended conversation seem like a lavish indulgence to my colleague?  She had good intentions of helping me, but I wondered why she thought I was too meek or passive to wrap up the conversation in a gracious way.

Maybe it goes back to what I've already said about suffering and shards of glass.  Maybe she just didn't want anything too messy at the workplace.  It's a fair wish.

The other night I went to dinner with two friends.  The food was secondary to getting a few hours of uninterrupted conversation.  It was a late night, one that we knew we'd pay for in the morning.  But we were investing in other important things.  We might each have felt a little scratched up from spending so much time with two fellow sufferers, but if we did, I think even that was worth it.  When I sit with true pain, it is hard.  Well, it is painful.  But when I stop trying to spin my life in best-case-scenario glimpses and show what a broken mess I really am, well, that's when the light gets in.  Then that light bounces around all my broken bits and shines back to someone else who needs it, too. And quite remarkably, though nothing is fixed, or even better, three friends feel a little more hope.  A little more love.  A little more sense that God isn't finished with us yet.

I wasn't once hoping for a rescue text or call from all that.

Sometimes, when we shed the small talk in spaces large enough to hold what comes next, the beauty of Real is what we feared and needed all along.

The Wild Side of Library Services

You know how much I love the random and unexpected.  I am often delighting in it and compelled to share it like I did here or here.

So here I am again, sharing what must be told, if only because I love the way it maxes out my random meter and makes me laugh.

I was subbing down at the Monument library and my coworker casually said that there was something alive in the book drop.

I thought that was so cryptic....something alive?  Are the books rustling?  Did she hear a squeaking?

This is what I peered in to see:

What IS that??!!

Can you appreciate how funny we thought it was that this creature was crawling all over the book Wild?  I love that so much.  I started laughing and shrieking and oh-my-goodnessing it in that hand-flappy way like I was 13 all over again.

So we had our coworker John take care of it.  Naturally.  And just as I turned my grinning self away from him he pretended to stick the little pincher on my back and made me scream like the easily startled teenager I always was.  (Who am I kidding?  I still easily startle)

John is probably close to twenty years older than I, but in these few moments of random hilarity, I felt like he was my little brother and I was the melodramatic older sister.

I love working in a job where you just never know what you'll find.  I love working with people who will make the fun stuff fun, and I love that these long-buried bits of our childhood selves come out like a burst of crazy string in the middle of an ordinary day at work.

Food Equals Love

Food equals love in my world.

Before you suggest a good therapist, let me explain. 

Umm....Food equals love.

Just kidding!  I realized as I was about to try to explain that it all seemed so self-evident; what could I possibly need to explain?  But then, believing that something is glaringly obvious is usually the first hint that it may be an opinion deeply particular to yourself.

So I'll try.

When people put thought, effort and energy into planning, preparing, and presenting food (of almost any caliber) I see it as an act of love.  When I eat food prepared by people I know, I feel a little bit more loved by them.

So when my dad prepared food to feed 50 for any party over 5, we all could eat from the bounty of his generous heart.  And when my mom got into "food ruts" and we enjoyed chicken burritos or stir-fried mixes from the red wok every week for three months in a row, we could all eat from the well of her deep love.  Food like that says, my love may not be fancy, but it will be here. Every week. In repeating themes. When my Aunt puts as much care into the way the table looks, with coordinating dishes and napkins, setting plated visions of beauty worthy of five stars, her food says, I honor each of you with royal treatment because my love finds you worthy.  This day, this family, this moment is worth my love and attention because some things are just meant to be special. My love celebrates you. When people send me food after babies, during grief, when I'm sick, we eat each bite in overwhelming grattitude, tasting the message, "Whatever it is, may this food give you comfort and strength.  We love you." 

Sometimes love tastes like a vegetarian pizza from Papa Murphy's that your sister has waiting for you when you get home from the doctors.  Sometimes it looks like the last bit of dessert that your husband left for you without being asked.  Sometimes love smells like breakfast being cooked while you get to stay in bed.  Sometimes it's the way fresh basil from your in-laws' garden elevates the deliciousness of everything you add it to.   

Holidays come around and we look for familiar favorites on the menu. Why? Because the memory of this special food, served with joy each year on these special days, is like singing the chorus to the song of our food stories.  Our food stories that tell the story of our lives and of our love.  All mixed up together in ways that I don't easily separate.

So yes, I know love is love in my world. 

I'm just saying that sometimes, it also looks, smells and tastes an awful lot like food.

What Must Be Acknowledged

You may not realize it, but librarians are "professionally trained" to avoid unsolicited comments on your books.  As in, it's considered bad form to remark in a personal way about your selections, no matter how much we want to squeal that we loved that book you chose and just-you-wait-til-the-end-it-will-blow-your-mind, or to ask you how your recovery is going from this, that or the other if you check out a book about it.

Intellectually, I understand this concept and generally follow it.

Sometimes though, my heart speaks up, and while I feel a twinge of professional guilt, I'm not sorry to bend this guideline once in a while.  Because I am dealing with people here-not an Amazon order that gets delivered in a bland manilla envelope after being "handpicked" by a souless machine in a cavernous warehouse.  A person stands before me, and even with the option to avail themselves of self-check (and thus greater privacy) they still have chosen to set a stack of books before me for checkout.

I don't pretend to believe that this act, by itself, is an invitation to converse about said stack.

But sometimes, it is.  Experience has taught me the difference.

A while ago it was a gentleman with a stack of books about grief, funerals and eulogies.  I checked out his books and paused with my hand on top of the pile.  "I want to tell you that I'm so very sorry that these are the books you are checking out today.  I'm sorry you have any need of them."

He looks up and straight into my eyes.  He's a little startled, I can tell, but he says carefully, "Thank you so much for acknowledging that.  My family and I are a mess.  But we will get through this.  Thank you for saying something."

I never say "You're welcome," to that kind of thanks. My voice is always cracked up somewhere in the back of my throat and I can't trust it.

Today I have want of a similar stack.  I'd want books if they could cushion the battering my heart has taken.  If a stranger acknowledged my pain with the slightest gesture, I might be a little startled, too.

But we are all members of the same small tribe on this tiny planet in unfathomable space. We must observe and acknowledge each other.  Our stories may be the faintest whispers in the universe, but if we lean in closely enough, we can hear them.  If we can hear them, we can treasure them. And in this way, we are held.  First by each other, and then by God, who gave us the ears in the first place and tunes them for a whisper.

May I not miss the whispers.

Reading Twin

We showed up to work wearing the same outfit, right down to the silver necklaces with teardrop pendants.  We had our own clothes, but chose all the layers and colors exactly the same.  We were even both reusing a venti Starbucks cup.

Two library girls with a matching sense of "style."

Ast it turns out, we really like Sense and Sensibility, both the movie and the book.  We love Emma Thompson and admire her many talents.  She likes Hugh Grant; I'm not a big fan.

"I like Hugh Grant, but I don't really think he worked for that role with Emma Thompson.  It never really seemed like the right match," she went on to clarify.

"EXACTLY!" I can easily forgive her liking Hugh for making an observation I have felt all along and not ever articulated.

"You know who I think she is a better match with?  That other guy in the movie who dumped her sister.  HE seems like the one she should have been with...not that character in the movie, of course.  Just someone like that guy," I tell her, in a mood to have opinions about people I don't know.
"EXACTLY!" she echoes with the same enthusiasm I showed her observation.

She looks him up to recall what he looks like.

Turns out, he's married to Emma Thompson.

Whoah, it's not often my random musings are *right*.  I think we both gained a notch more respect for the other's opinion for that one.

So we add a little stack of opinions to the table, each of us laying them down in rapid succession like two kids playing war: happy when they matched even if it meant having to concede a bunch of other points. Just like the card game looks pointless and boring to anyone watching, but is actually quite engaging to the players, that's how this conversation feels. I sense an outsider would wonder why we are talking about these people and plots like they are real.

I'm listening to an audiobook I will have to abandon because it isn't keeping my interest.  I've read stronger books in this genre (Cory Doctorow's For the Win and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, for example.) She looked at me with a little shock.

"You liked For the Win?  ME TOO.  And I loved Ready Player One.  So much!"
"But you like Sense and Sensibility."
"I know.  But I really liked those books, too."

I never would have pegged her as a Doctorow fan. His work and themes are about as far from Jane Austen as a reader could get.  I wonder if I seem as unlikely.

When I ask for audiobook suggestions for my drive home, we discover that we literally like ALL the same authors.  She is reading Ann Patchett's latest.  I have it on hold to get the next available copy.  Every author, every title, in any genre.

It was the most uncanny resonance. "At this point," I finally conceded,  "I will take anything you suggest."

My opinion cards had all been played.  She matched on every one.  She ended up taking the whole game and title as my Reading Twin.

Who just happens to dress like I do, too.

Fun, but kinda weird, right?

The Must-Read Memoir of 2014

What if you knew someone whose heart was shattered in one terrible night when her husband unexpectedly died in her arms?  What if you knew she had two little boys whose world crumbled right along with hers, even while they peacefully slept?

Pain like that is a palpable vortex.  It is dark.  It is scary.  It is overwhelming to feel your own heart break and know that the pain you feel is nothing, NOTHING compared to being the one for whom the light has been snuffed.

But what if from the bottom of the vortex your friend sent up a message?  Like a white-hot flare, she shoots up some words, "I'm down here.  It's unimaginable. And this is how it is." And every day, she blogs.  But "blogging" is no verb to describe the raw, jagged, heartwrenching, horrible/beautiful journey that she takes you on.  You read her very heart on the screen, and time after time, there's nothing for it but to cry.  Or sometimes, laugh.  And then cry about that, too.  You, who are not the crying kind.

And then what if, somebody who knows the right people and how to make things happen finds out about your friend's blog and it seems the next thing you know you are watching her sign a book contract under the twinkling lights strung by her dearest friends and a thousand prayers and heaps of love?

And there's nothing for it, but to cry.  But it's joy.  Mixed up with all that pain.  Because a miracle is being born.  One brave word at a time.  And your friend, she just lets you in. Not just you, anybody.  Everybody.  Open arms, open heart, this girl who needs to process it all alone and all together, in words.


Can I invite you to go there?  To go to that dark, scary place with her?

The book will hit bookstores everywhere in 22 days on February 18.  Or today if  you are a preorder kind of person.  And then maybe, like me, you'll find yourself welcoming dawn with this book in hand, feeling gratitude to a person who would lead us all in...to the darkness and out again.

Because the book is called, And Life Comes Back.  
And so it does.

And when it does for her, a little of yours will come back, too.

• 9/26, 4:19am

Looking Back

A note comes along that evokes memories twenty years old and to my surprise, they are wrapped in sentiment.  Crinkly, and a bit fragile.  Don't overthink these, I say to myself, or they will crumble away and you'll wonder what the fuss was about.  But glance briefly into this past chapter of your life, and you'll find a smile.

In that chapter that was the transition between the little girl I was and the grown woman I would become,  I see that it was a season of the brightest possibilities, the purest friendships, the sharpest lines.  Nothing was known, and I was certain of everything.  Alternately, I second-guessed my every move while throwing myself into irrevocable trajectories.  The future stretched ahead long and promising, the past a rosy glow, the present a fleeting gift held tenderly in my heart.  I didn't want to grow old while I intensely wanted to grow up.  Anything seemed probable, possible, eventual.  My world was not defined by past choices; it was an open delta with a thousand paths, leading to any sea.

I love that bright-eyed, shiny-hearted, zealous girl-woman.  She is a girl who would not recognize, understand, or maybe even approve of the woman she became.

But this is ok.

How could she have known that cracks can be cherished, that a broken heart grows larger, that being thrown from her high horse would allow her to take her first shaky steps toward grace?

My friend put it well saying, "I find God can take idealism and forge a stronger alloy with mercy and compassion."

I may not be as bright and shiny as I was twenty years ago.  That girl might even call me a bit tarnished. (Yeah, she leaned toward negative labels like that.)  But I'm defining myself as an alloy: a mix of idealism, mercy, compassion, and a few of the broken bits that have gotten left behind along the way.

The First Scoop is Nothing

"Begin writing about nothing," she said, "and see where it goes.  Don't wait until you have something very specific to write about."

Sage advice for the girl whose blog is called "Along this Beautiful Path," don't you think?  I mean, don't paths meander?  Aren't the rambly ones with unexpected twists and turns the most fun to explore?

And just the freedom to not be profound is like opening the bulk bin at a whole foods store and being told to scoop away with no heed to the fact that the item is $18.97 a pound.  Go for it.  Who cares if you scoop up dry little mullety seeds that you'd only want to serve to the birds?  Just scoop away!

So write about nothing.  And if you get a bunch of random words that don't stick together into something cohesive....well, maybe they can be scattered along the path like seeds to help me find my way back to more meaningful trails.

And so I look in my raw materials bin tonight....and it's a crazy trail mix of things I could write about:

Do I dare scoop up the story of how my nipple was squeezed by a near stranger today to find out if I was nursing?

My latest Kindle read is begging to be given some good press.

And speaking of Kindles, am I convert?  A seeker?  A fence-straddling pragmatist?  Kindle has changed my life and I really didn't see that coming. I'd so love to hear from others on that topic!

Then my newest theory of housework has been percolating and I think if I tried to defend it, I'd be able to see if it is valid: it is actually harder to keep a home if you are a stay-at-home mom, not (as I originally imagined) easier.  And when I say "keep" I mean keep clean, keep organized, maintained, and even at times, happy.  My perceptions and reality have had a head-on collision since I came home fulltime with my second born, and we're all still filing our grievances before we settle up.

And what about the beauty of a friendship that can pick up effortlessly after being timezones apart for eight years?  (I do so love you, Shawna!)  How does one even stay properly grateful for treasure like that?

And what about the beauty of a friendship that will never fade no matter how far apart for how long we are? (I do so love you, Beth!)

And what about the beauty of one that gave me a never-to-be forgotten experience that only could happen because you said yes to something that asked you to be bigger, braver and more flexible than most of us want to be? (I do so love you, Ali!)

And who gave me permission to scoop into my empty head in the first place to sift around and find gratitude there?  (I do so love you, Laurel!)

It may be next to nothing to anyone else.  But to me, I'm pretty happy to be snacking on gratitude and good memories.

Chicken Little

Sometimes a proverbial acorn falls on my head.

Like a character from the classic children's story of Chicken Little, I conclude with sudden certainty that the sky is falling.  In the story, Chicken Little runs to the next farm animal in a flurry of drama to exclaim his distress. Henny Penny picks up the refrain until a whole troupe of animals is running around in a senseless panic until they run right into the jaws of an accommodating fox.  A serious emergency results, I'm sure.

So that was me-- in Chicken Little mode tonight.  Something small (in the relative scheme of things) upset my equilibrium, and I couldn't just pause and look up and assess that I was indeed standing under a tree kinda laden with "acorns" of mini-series drama.  We're not talking drama on a worldwide-epic-scale here, just enough to give me a clonk on the head.

And like Chicken Little, I had to get on the phone and exclaim my distress about my falling sky.

I'm so lucky that my Henny Penny essentially said,  "You know what?  You just need to stop standing under that tree.  Cuz' whether the acorns fall or don't fall, you don't need to be standing there."

Sure, she let me chatter on a bit about how it felt to have a falling-sky kind of day.  She didn't scold when I went completely tangential about an unrelated storm I saw on the horizon.  She didn't try to tell me that the acorn didn't hurt or that it would never happen again.

But sometimes my frantic Chicken Little self just needs a calm voice saying, "Get out from under that tree, silly.  Just as acorns fall from Oak trees, Drama comes when you own other people's business."

The sky really can come crashing down on us.  Our whole world can fall apart in the blink of an eye with one unexpected phone call.

But if yours isn't, I hope when you run to Henny Penny, she won't put you on a conference call with Goosey Loosey.

Let the acorns fall where they may.  Let's be scanning the sky for rainbows.

Fireflies

Yesterday (or early this morning, if you think of 1 AM that way) I posted about how my stir-crazy, angsty journey in motherhood led to an abrupt, if brief departure from my home and away from my kids.

It was a dark night.
And you, my friends, are the fireflies.  Facebook friendships cross such spans of years in our lives.  People who have known me since I was five are now sharing about their kids in high school or college.  Facebook friends cross such distances.  Mine are across the country and world.  Facebook friends are little glimpses of each others' lives, flickering in and out of each others worlds. We often share the best, occasionally the worst, and often the normal, mundane stuff that makes up a large part of of our lives.

But when I post about something close to my heart, and a bunch of people chime in that they have been there, (or are there), when they remind me of what is good about the season I am in, encourage me (and anyone else reading their comments), share themselves with a "like", a comment, a nod...

These people are the fireflies that light up my darker hours

And I find my way home.

My friend said the profoundest thing to me today about facebook:
It is like fire.
You can warm yourself by it's glow
And it can burn your house down.

It's all in how it's used.

So dear facebook friends,
You are the fireflies that wink in and out of my life
As I wink in and out of yours
With sparks of truth and encouragement and hope
And I'm as dazzled by your generosity now, as I was by real fireflies as a child.

Small connections made wondrous
Best seen by fading light of dusk, or maybe in the dark hour before dawn

Thank you for shining in my life.

All in the Same Boat

"How can I judge you, when this is my kid?"

This is what I ended up saying after Landon was a guest at one of my library programs.  My mom had very sweetly agreed to bring him, but he was being anything but sweet when he got there.

When it was time to pass out rainbow scarves, Landon went to the bin and took them all.  (I had not realized this was possible).  He gathered them all up to his chest, and clutched them with a fierce look on his face.  "These are mine!  I'm not sharing these!" he declared.  When another child tried to pull one free, they began the toddler dance of possession, with the accompanying territorial grunts and groans.
"Oh, buddy, we share the scarves.  You need to let this boy take one."
I am talking to a tyrant.  He is not softened by my gentle tone or the affectionate use of "buddy".
Instead I must resort to, "Landon, if you can't share, you'll have to go," which is a trigger for him to begin a loud wail that even picking him up could not comfort.
He had to go.
There was that awkward half moment when the rest of the moms are watching to see what I'll say.

"I could be mortified, but I'm just....not."
And they laugh.

Collectively, we share the knowledge that we try to shape these little people, but we cannot control them.
We can set reasonable boundaries and they stomp over them.
We can model good behavior, we can practice it, we can expect it, we can ask for it:
and not get it.
And at inopportune times they can make it seem like we have no parenting "skills" at all.

So really, dear friends whose children are as mixed a bag as my own sweet boy,
how can I judge you?

The Resonance of Children's Books

Do we all have one?  A children's book from our childhood that holds a special place in our memories.  Something semi-iconic (if only to us alone?)

I'm curious about this. I'm wondering if everyone has such a book.

I have a few.  And snippets of them come back to me at such random times, it is like their memory is woven through several layers in my brain.

Hello.
Hello.
Do you like my hat?
I do not.
Good-by.
Good-by.


Puppies Are Like That
Frog and Toad
A book on colors whose title still escapes me
I Can Read
a book about a spider named Helen who lived in a zoo...Be Nice to Spiders (pity, the advice didn't stick)
Are You my Mother?

What are yours?

I'd love to know!

No More Words

What do you say when the words run out?
When every little phrase rings hollow and trite?
What do you say when your soul aches, when the happy ending isn't in sight, when band aides on a severed limb are just absurd?
What do you say?

Sometimes there is simply nothing left to say.

The questions pile up like softly falling snow.
Chilling and heavy,
Silently amassing crushing weight.


You lie awake,
And I lie awake,
And we join the multitudes who share the knowledge
Of the dark night of the soul

Before the light comes
When there is simply nothing left to say.

3k for my Birthday

Isn't that a catchy title?  Kinda forces you to say "birthday" with a weird inflection doesn't it? : )

Anyway, the 3k is not money or kilometers or cheapo 3 karrot gold. (is there such a thing?)

It represents the 3,000 page views that I've gotten on this blog.  I just hit this number today, on my birthday.

And that, my friends is a true gift to me.  One you have been giving since January.

Yes, a good two thirds of those page views have to be from my family (they are generous that way), but that still leaves a fair chunk of page views left to people unrelated to me.

Your interest and remarks have both fueled and rewarded my efforts.

I have felt daunted on and off by the fact that there are so many examples of excellent and amazing blog writing one click away on the internet.

I have thought of this quote when I've considered stopping:

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best.    ~ Henry Van Dyke

 In my very first post I wrote,

CS Lewis said, "We read to know we are not alone." I have lately become convinced that we often write for the very same reason. 

Thanks for joining me in this forest and listening to this song.

I hope you'll stick around for the next 3k.  : )

I am DAZZLED by this free online photo editor!

You just never know what gem the internet is going to offer up for the polishing.  So much nothing is on there, that I usually don't bother digging around at all.  (That or my computer runs so slowly that my patience runs out before a page completely loads)

My short-attention span troubles aside, I found a link to this free online photo editor with a youtube video to explain how to get started and wah-lah!

fotoflexer.com

I'm officially using layers!  And obvious captions.

Well, it's a start.

An Author Worth Reading

Less than a month ago our friend lost her husband abruptly, unexpectedly.  A mom with two sweet little boys.  A wife who adored her husband and had recently celebrated an unforgettable tenth anniversary.  But she is also a writer, and has taken everyone who knows her near the heart of her grief with her words.  With facebook and a blog and by speaking at his funeral, she has expressed herself so beautifully and powerfully.  We mourn with her.  With her and for her and beside her, with no answers, only love.  She continues to write.  The number of people following her blog and facebook page continues to grow.  It's a journey of epic proportions, and to get to follow any part of it at all is a sacred honor. 

I'm entirely new to blogging, and just trying to find my way.  Tricia is an old pro, doing what she does best, and doing it with a brave transparency that you can't miss.  She has already touched so many people; I invite you to let her story speak to you, as well.

Her post titled "Final Hours"