Father's Day

On the eve of this Father's Day, I really need to take a moment or two to reflect on the fathers in my own life.......

Daddy.  Thank you.  Thank you for loving me when I was not so lovable.....when I snorted through my nose all the time, and keened "crocodile rock" in the car.  Thank you for loving me enough to call my husband "that boy" for a full five years after we married.  Thank you for all the times you told me, "Keep your eye on the ball, Lori", and "shine that flashlight right here"  I must have been the proudest girl ever....Thank you for taking me to the mall and buying me that sixteen dollar smock top that you said you would never buy "at that ridiculous price"...I still remember the print and the feel of the fabric.
Thank you for all the sugar cookies, cans of tuna and cheerios you bought for me and the kiddos over the years. .Thank you for showing me the beach, the mountains and the movies, places I would never have gone without you.  Thank you for trusting me enough to let me ride my bike all over South Arlington.  Thank you for never, ever forgetting how much Sundays meant to 4 little girls who missed their Daddy all week.  Thank you for wiggling my toe when you visited me in the hospital after Johnboy was born. Thank you for all of the Shirley Temple's you got us at Duffs in Winchester and every frozen custard I ever had.  Thank you for being my Daddy, the one mom blamed on me having a pound of cheese in bed with me when it was only gum, and the Daddy who sang "He's in the jailhouse now", and "Chewing Chawing Gum".  Thank you for the picnics and parties you took us to.
Daddy, my life would have been so empty and colorless without you, and I am everything I am because of you.  I am strong and loyal and loving and compassionate and sensible and hard-working and quick to laugh because of you.  When I felt ugly and clumsy, you were always the man in my life who loved me just the way I was, and that, Daddy, made all the difference.  Thank you.

To my husband....I am not sure I could be the mother I am if you were not the father you are.  When I want to run and hide and pretend, just for a few precious moments that I don't need to worry about the kids, you are the one who worries for me.  When I am the lamb, you are the lion, and when I need to shout, you keep your calm.  When the world is tumbling down around us and I don't know how we are going to feed these people, you always make a miracle happen.
You are as capable at changing diapers as I am, and as likely to buy feminine hygiene products for our girls.  Nothing shakes you, rattles you, or scares you and you make a mean roasted chicken, (thanks, by the way...dinner was great). You cook, you clean, and you cut hair.  When I need to feel like big Mama, you let me and enjoy it, and when I need to cower and shake, you hold me tight till the shivering is over.
You have been "team mom", chauffeur, and life coach, and on occasion, mother hen...when I need to work to feel good about myself, you keep our home running, and the dentist on time, and when I need to nest and be a home maker, you  keep the fires burning and the wolf away from the door.  You let me be whatever and whoever I need to be without ever losing who you are.
I love you, my beloved Michael.  You are everything to me and I am everything I am because of you, too. You are my best friend, and my yardstick for everything good in life...

So, to these two men, my past and my future, and everything right now..............Happy Father's Day.
I love you.

Saturday Observations by an old lady

or not so old....................everything is relative, right?

 

So, I wake up this morning with all the best intentions.  Planning my day, this luscious, early June morning, why wouldn't one want to clean floors, fold laundry and wash dishes?  Well, THIS one didn't.  want.to.  and so, like so many Saturday mornings before, my resolve rapidly melted and before long, not only was the regular debris on the floor, my intentions were as well.

I did manage to collect a trash bags (and I mean a contractor bag) worth of bills, junk mail, catalogs featuring thin pubescent girls modeling scanty swimwear, and old newspapers...(I know, I know, I need to recycle.....but when you are gone 12 hours a day the very LAST thing you want to do is spend a luscious June morning sorting paper goods)  but I digress..........

So, as I mentioned, I did manage to remove alot of junk off the table surfaces of at least one room.  I also threw away a variety of empty boxes, cartons, and plastic bags....Really, kids....is there even one good reason to return an empty box of cereal to the pantry.  Sometimes it feels like a dirty trick, quite frankly...I notice more often than not, it is never the raisin bran, it is that tantalizing, forbidden box of fruit loops on the top shelf that I have avoided for days, knowing that "no one can eat just one" (Yes, folks that is as true for sugary cereal as it is for Lay's potato chips).............

I'll look around, ascertain whether there are witnesses around, and then slowly, quietly reach for those fruit loops, and bam!, they are empty, and even worse, the box is sealed up like it just came off the shelf at the Safeway.

Hmmmmmmm.....A lesser woman would hide her fruit loops.....fortunately for you all, there is not enough room in my dresser drawers and living in a house that is  127 years old, there are no closets...

I did manage to "get my art on".....a project I am doing for someone I deeply admire, and though my husband laughed at it, (and laughed and laughed and laughed) I feel good about it...or maybe I don't..Sometimes I don't recognize my feelings, kwim?  Do I feel good about it or do I feel good about it being ugly?  Do I feel bad about it or bad that it isn't good enough?  Am I crazy or am I crazy to not be crazy?  (you see where I am going with this)  Think about something long enough and you won't know whether you are coming or going....and of course, everyone who knows me KNOWS I think too much.

Am I coming?  Or going?

But, what I most wanted to remember and to write were my observations tonight.  Sometimes I see things so beautiful that I feel them....I get lost in them, roll around in them, and my worst fear is forgetting them.... I have often wanted to wear a wire just so I could talk to myself so that I would remember later what I thought and said....Was I coming or going?

I am so grateful for this beautiful place that God saw fit to drop me....The dropping blue shadows that fall between the hills as the sun sets..............................the gentle mountains that frame this valley, that indigo ridge that follows me as I drive, golden sunshine warming them, and the dips and swirls of waving fields of bluegrass, and shiny fields of emerald green field corn.  It seems, when I think back on it, these are the props that have surrounded me all of my life, and for that I am thankful.

This same landscape, grey and misty on a November morning draws me to slumber, lures me into a sense of deep time and place, and reminds me that this is exactly where I am meant to be.

And so I wonder.....how can I forget this so quickly?  There are days and weeks at a time when I feel disconnected and far away, when I am unable to see that this place, this space is real life.  MY own real life. I think they say, "live in the now" for the same reason...I need to slow down every day of my life and look around.  See the glory in every tree, bush and bramble, and remind myself that while on any given day I may not "see" the glory, it is still there, always there....This is the place where my mom lived, where my Dad farmed.  This is the place where I learned arithmetic, music and first love.

This is MY land, and no one can take this history away from me.

And isn't it funny how life goes around and back and around again,and before you know it, you are back where you started, but a little older and alot wiser...

All of my roots run deep, and when I grow away, I come back and grow again, and oddly enough, in the same spaces and places....seeds spread deep into fertile soil.

Funny enough, I am teaching less than 2 or 3 miles from my old primary days....I live in the town where my children's father was a boy scout.....I am so far removed, and yet so deeply attached, and any detachment I feel is of my own doing. (although overpopulation by the newly arrived herd doesn't help)

I won't do it.  I will not give up my heritage, my poor man's working class love of the land,  and respect for the land that bore me, fed me, and nourished and nurtured me, body and soul. What I will do is love this land, in the moment, every moment, and stop thinking about it so much.  It is.  It just is.  No other explanation is required.

Now that I have reflected on my overactive and oft times hyper-stimulated thought processes, I am quite hungry.  Think I'll have some fruit loops...