It was early July, 1995. My mind was filled with smoking cap sticks, black snakes and colored smoke balls, so I can be forgiven for almost overlooking the small child in the alley.
Barefoot and pudgy, the caramel-colored girl stood transfixed as I put punk to fuse, blowing up my children's future college funds with gleeful abandon. When I caught a glimpse of her peeking over our backyard fence, the "mother" portion of my brain finally kicked in.
"Eric, come meet your new neighbor, Dylan."
The rest, as they say, is history.
Next Thursday, Eric and Dylan will move into an apartment near the State Capital, just far enough away from the local prostitution ring to dissuade future distractions.
. . . or so I tell myself.
And, really, I couldn't be happier. Well, okay, I could be happier, but it would be that selfish kind of happiness, the kind that is wrapped in a white-knuckled kung-fu grip intended to preserve a present that really doesn't require or even qualify for preservation.
Even Allison, whose 17 years have caught up with her in a rather delightful and surprising way, unknowingly is prying my fat-knuckled fingers from her lithe, tanned arm.
Looks like "mom" is fast becoming an outdated term, much like "Space Food Sticks" and "8-track tape." Before I know it, I'll be swapping out most of my cookbooks for new ones whose recipes are formulated for one or two people. . . .
Ah, but there are so many reasons that this new phase is one to celebrate:
--Both kids possess a diligence that neither of their parents can recall ever possessing. I mean, my God, they knowingly sign up for challenging classes, even when they realize they will struggle at times. Hardly sounds like the mother who took Racquetball for three consecutive quarters, . . . .
--Both have (mostly) willingly taken on the role of financing at least part of their lives, quietly accepting that it's just easier (and maybe even better) to buy their own clothes and pay the rent themselves.
--Neither one appears to be a falling-down drunk or gambling addict. Or Internet porn star, for that matter.
--And, perhaps most importantly, both have a good nose for quality friendships, finding people who are solid, steady, reliable and kind. This fact alone makes me more willing--nay, almost enthusiastic--to step aside and unlock the gates.
So, run away, my Simbas! Run away and make wonderful lives for yourselves, ones in which you seek out your parents not for financial backing or bail, but rather for occasional doses of love, laughter and understanding, reminders that the ties that bind can also set you free to become yourselves.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Manufactured Moments
I've held three jobs in my life that would qualify as "line work," all of them in my teens. In one, I made waterbed rails for my friend's company, pulling foam and faux leather taut over pine skeletons, so that restless voyagers dreaming aboard their watery inland boats might not fall overboard between REM cycles.
The two remaining line jobs were in the kitchens of local health facilities, where I (mostly) made sure that I was assembling a medically-sound meal for the patients and residents. I say "mostly" because what teen who has been nursed on Cap'n Crunch and Cheetos really gets the importance of a low-sodium diet?
Although a person could make a pretty decent--if not cynical--argument that education now teeters on following the manufacturing model, my assembly-line days at work are barely visible in my middle-aged rear-view mirror, reduced to vague memories of pale chicken breasts cuddling up with low-salt green beans.
And yet, . . . .
And yet, there is ample evidence surrounding me that humans love the manufacturing model and lean heavily on it, even when not drawing an income from it.
Today, I wake to summer, not because the earth has tilted just so, but because a very-much manufactured and formulaic calendar tells me it is summer. Having fulfilled my work contract for the year, I woke today with lightness and a much more casual attire, my bare feet and pasty legs amply featured.
My Audubon Daily Desk Calendar may say "May 29, 2013" but I know that this actually is code for "WAHOOOO! I'm free! I'm free!" And, like any line worker worth her weight in gold, I adjust accordingly, easily switching gears from "Which brown pants should I wear today?" to "Is there enough air in my tires to hit the trails?"
These life cycles--whether manufactured or ethereal--are welcomed chapters in our lives' instruction books. Humans (and every other thing, for that matter) crave and need these rhythms, these signals that say "Today is different from yesterday. Take note."
Frankly, I could not survive--more or less thrive--without them.
The two remaining line jobs were in the kitchens of local health facilities, where I (mostly) made sure that I was assembling a medically-sound meal for the patients and residents. I say "mostly" because what teen who has been nursed on Cap'n Crunch and Cheetos really gets the importance of a low-sodium diet?
Although a person could make a pretty decent--if not cynical--argument that education now teeters on following the manufacturing model, my assembly-line days at work are barely visible in my middle-aged rear-view mirror, reduced to vague memories of pale chicken breasts cuddling up with low-salt green beans.
And yet, . . . .
And yet, there is ample evidence surrounding me that humans love the manufacturing model and lean heavily on it, even when not drawing an income from it.
Today, I wake to summer, not because the earth has tilted just so, but because a very-much manufactured and formulaic calendar tells me it is summer. Having fulfilled my work contract for the year, I woke today with lightness and a much more casual attire, my bare feet and pasty legs amply featured.
My Audubon Daily Desk Calendar may say "May 29, 2013" but I know that this actually is code for "WAHOOOO! I'm free! I'm free!" And, like any line worker worth her weight in gold, I adjust accordingly, easily switching gears from "Which brown pants should I wear today?" to "Is there enough air in my tires to hit the trails?"
These life cycles--whether manufactured or ethereal--are welcomed chapters in our lives' instruction books. Humans (and every other thing, for that matter) crave and need these rhythms, these signals that say "Today is different from yesterday. Take note."
Frankly, I could not survive--more or less thrive--without them.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Newest Storytellers
Earlier this week, I read Joel Stine's "Time" magazine piece on the Millennials, the name given to this generation of teens and twenty-somethings. He's a funny writer, so I knew it'd be entertaining. Beyond the laughs, though, it was also spot on. I was especially intrigued by the idea that this generation isn't particularly rebellious, in part because they have no authorities against whom to rebel.
Why is that, I wondered. What has taken away the sting and stigma of authority for these young people?
And then it dawned on me.
Stories.
Millennials are saving themselves by telling stories. Tiny, little stories that, thanks primarily to the Internet, now move like the breeze, digitally whispered and shared across time lines and gender lines, party lines and money lines.
The Man has never been a big fan of storytelling, thus the reason that, throughout history, so many governments have preferred an illiterate citizenry over a well-read one. Thank God for missionaries, who smuggled their Bibles into gaping pockets of illiterate peoples, saving them, in the end, with words as much as with The Word.
Today's missionaries--amassed under the umbrellas of Google and YouTube, Twitter and Facebook--have less-ethereal motives than their predecessors. But their effects are just as far-reaching, if not exactly eternal.
With so many venues for sharing their stories, it is easy for the Millennials to bypass the authoritative, traditional channels offered by governments and corporations. Now unshackled, their stories are free to travel at will, no longer suppressed by fearful authorities.
It follows, then, that where suppression is absent, oppression is much harder to find.
These kids play so well with each other because they know each other's stories so well. And, in this atmosphere of free-flowing stories, there are no secrets anymore. Homelessness is not "out there." Rather, it is in the human form of Jonathon, a classmate whose family is staying at the City Mission. Race is an outdated term, pushed aside by friends whose blood courses with swirls of Africa and Asia, Hawaii and Mexico. This is a generation drawn with blurred lines.
Their stories have set them free, these Millennials. And they are not afraid to share them, even if us older folks still wince at the boldness of their plot lines.
Why is that, I wondered. What has taken away the sting and stigma of authority for these young people?
And then it dawned on me.
Stories.
Millennials are saving themselves by telling stories. Tiny, little stories that, thanks primarily to the Internet, now move like the breeze, digitally whispered and shared across time lines and gender lines, party lines and money lines.
The Man has never been a big fan of storytelling, thus the reason that, throughout history, so many governments have preferred an illiterate citizenry over a well-read one. Thank God for missionaries, who smuggled their Bibles into gaping pockets of illiterate peoples, saving them, in the end, with words as much as with The Word.
Today's missionaries--amassed under the umbrellas of Google and YouTube, Twitter and Facebook--have less-ethereal motives than their predecessors. But their effects are just as far-reaching, if not exactly eternal.
With so many venues for sharing their stories, it is easy for the Millennials to bypass the authoritative, traditional channels offered by governments and corporations. Now unshackled, their stories are free to travel at will, no longer suppressed by fearful authorities.
It follows, then, that where suppression is absent, oppression is much harder to find.
These kids play so well with each other because they know each other's stories so well. And, in this atmosphere of free-flowing stories, there are no secrets anymore. Homelessness is not "out there." Rather, it is in the human form of Jonathon, a classmate whose family is staying at the City Mission. Race is an outdated term, pushed aside by friends whose blood courses with swirls of Africa and Asia, Hawaii and Mexico. This is a generation drawn with blurred lines.
Their stories have set them free, these Millennials. And they are not afraid to share them, even if us older folks still wince at the boldness of their plot lines.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Warning! Contents Under Pressure
This past week, I was reminded of the time my friend, Cathy, loaned me her pressure cooker. I had 8 pounds of brisket to get ready for a 4th-of-July party the next day and she said this device would do it in a snap. If by "snap" she meant "in under 3 hours," I wasn't paying attention.
By the time I popped open that lid 4 hours later, the brisket had transformed itself into the densest, most delicious compressed beef cube on the face of the earth. About the size of a piece of toast now--and me without my Jesus Super Powers!--I wasn't sure it would feed the 50 or so people heading to my house the next day.
That's the first and last time I've used a pressure cooker. But, sitting across from my school friends at lunch this week, I was reminded of what must go on inside a pressure cooker. My friends looked haggard and shell-shocked, like extras on a Walking Dead set. I could feel all that weight resting heavily on everyone in that room.
Two weeks into May, a school becomes one gigantic pressure cooker, an asylum of fools collapsing under the weight of life bearing down on them. Smouldering under it all are a thousand different things--the pressure of graduating, the knock-knock of a final project, the drum roll of yearbook distribution, the state championship, the impending retirement, the stressed-out parents frantically fiddling for hope in the bottom of their purses, the rush to pack up rooms for the summer.
U2's "Running to Stand Still" must have been written one May afternoon, under the bleachers of a high-school gymnasium.
By mid morning Friday, I had reached up to snap off the top of my own pressure cooker, nearly a thousand yearbooks having passed through my hands in the past 18 hours. And finally, amidst dozens of empty boxes, handfuls of torn receipts and with the angry-parent phone call in my rear-view mirror, I felt light and giddy again.
The thing about pressure is that, when it finally lifts (and it always does), everything seems all shiny and new again. Not even the prospect of working my way through a dozen slices of graduation cake or reading 25 versions of that final essay will dampen my spirits now.
I have again made it out of the pressure cooker, all my happiness comfortably condensed within me.
By the time I popped open that lid 4 hours later, the brisket had transformed itself into the densest, most delicious compressed beef cube on the face of the earth. About the size of a piece of toast now--and me without my Jesus Super Powers!--I wasn't sure it would feed the 50 or so people heading to my house the next day.
That's the first and last time I've used a pressure cooker. But, sitting across from my school friends at lunch this week, I was reminded of what must go on inside a pressure cooker. My friends looked haggard and shell-shocked, like extras on a Walking Dead set. I could feel all that weight resting heavily on everyone in that room.
Two weeks into May, a school becomes one gigantic pressure cooker, an asylum of fools collapsing under the weight of life bearing down on them. Smouldering under it all are a thousand different things--the pressure of graduating, the knock-knock of a final project, the drum roll of yearbook distribution, the state championship, the impending retirement, the stressed-out parents frantically fiddling for hope in the bottom of their purses, the rush to pack up rooms for the summer.
U2's "Running to Stand Still" must have been written one May afternoon, under the bleachers of a high-school gymnasium.
By mid morning Friday, I had reached up to snap off the top of my own pressure cooker, nearly a thousand yearbooks having passed through my hands in the past 18 hours. And finally, amidst dozens of empty boxes, handfuls of torn receipts and with the angry-parent phone call in my rear-view mirror, I felt light and giddy again.
The thing about pressure is that, when it finally lifts (and it always does), everything seems all shiny and new again. Not even the prospect of working my way through a dozen slices of graduation cake or reading 25 versions of that final essay will dampen my spirits now.
I have again made it out of the pressure cooker, all my happiness comfortably condensed within me.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
The Common Thread
No one tells you about the secret umbilicus
the one that cannot be severed,
try as one might
Some days, it aches with the heaviness of
so much time and experience passed between us,
mother and son
daughter and mom
It is such work to stay connected
and yet
no work at all
--not with this cord that lassos and extends,
always without permission
I watch the sun-dappled clouds, like scoops of orange sherbert,
push southward this morning,
steady and sure.
Droplets of water, come together long enough
to make something larger, more beautiful than themselves
I get it.
I really do.
--This life is larger than me.
Larger, more beautiful, more complex
and always--always--in motion,
even when I cannot sense it
The cord will hold, I suspect,
having done its job so well
up to this point.
This I know--
We will always be connected,
despite the 1,038-mile-per-hour
ride we take each day,
our lives spinning
the arc widening
the cord holding, holding, holding.
the one that cannot be severed,
try as one might
Some days, it aches with the heaviness of
so much time and experience passed between us,
mother and son
daughter and mom
It is such work to stay connected
and yet
no work at all
--not with this cord that lassos and extends,
always without permission
I watch the sun-dappled clouds, like scoops of orange sherbert,
push southward this morning,
steady and sure.
Droplets of water, come together long enough
to make something larger, more beautiful than themselves
I get it.
I really do.
--This life is larger than me.
Larger, more beautiful, more complex
and always--always--in motion,
even when I cannot sense it
The cord will hold, I suspect,
having done its job so well
up to this point.
This I know--
We will always be connected,
despite the 1,038-mile-per-hour
ride we take each day,
our lives spinning
the arc widening
the cord holding, holding, holding.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Chain of Fools
"It's very unusual to find one of these in Lincoln," said the woman, who very much wanted to sell her house to us. "The guys at Campbell's said this isn't even the right zone for it."
Yeah, whatever . . . .
I mostly zoned out during her arboreal rapture, utterly disinterested in the history behind this pile of sticks, thinking, instead, of closing costs and Zesto mixins, not necessarily in that order.
When we finally decided to plunk down the change (a quaint turn of phrase that really means "go into debt until we wear Depends"), our decision had nothing to do with that tree. In fact, one of the first things we discussed was cutting it down, since it had little appeal to us and seemed to possess the propensity of a piggish Lilac, always sending out annoying, woody feelers to extend its grasp.
Thank God we were too lazy or distracted to follow through on that thought.
Turns out that the former owner was actually telling the truth, because, that next Spring, when enough cool rains had leeched into the ground, accompanied by great swaths of warm sunshine, the thing exploded like the final firework at a Fourth-of July extravaganza. I can practically remember the very day when the Chain Tree's thousand wormy feelers transformed into stunning, citron flowers that dangled off each lithe limb, smelling like honeysuckle and sunshine.
I'd like to say that, every time I teeter on a rash decision, I think of honeysuckle and sunshine, but I don't. However, I have learned the value of sleeping on it, the wisdom that comes from letting the seasons unfold before leaping into the next big thing.
I have learned that, sometimes, the ugly duckling's just sitting on his secret, and, if I give him time, the two of us might become fast, fabulous friends.
Here's to believing in a bit more honeysuckle and sunshine this year, despite everything that we may see.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Scents and Sensibility
It all started yesterday with a little lunch-time mystery that I had presented to my peeps.
"I just bought something that I've never worn before and I'm going to wear it tomorrow."
When a person whose hairstyle hasn't changed since Kennedy was president says she's going to wear something new tomorrow, people pay attention. [Did she say Kennedy? I think she meant Taft.]...Note to self--don't walk away from blog while daughter is in room.
They guessed a variety of things, finally throwing out the seemingly absurd and ridiculous: "A purse?" "A dress?" "Perfume?"
That's right. I bought some perfume. So I guess it didn't really all start yesterday. My "fancy" transformation started about a week ago, when my library bud Roxi came to school with a light jacket of "MMMM!" tossed atop her shoulders. I kept whiffing her throughout the day, making up excuses to get close. Finally, when a few students mentioned how good she smelled, I made my move, knowing my nose really did have good taste (can a nose have taste?).
I asked Roxi what kind of perfume she was wearing and if she would care if I showed up one day smelling just like her. She gave me the name as well as her blessing to go forth and smell better.
I went to Walgreens that day and asked the lady at the cosmetics counter if she could point me to the perfume collection. She pointed to the counter I was leaning on and--lo and behold!--there was the perfume. When she finally found the bottle of Armani Code and told me the price, I thanked her and immediately left, stunned that something not called "Columbia Gold" could cost $65 an ounce.
I bought a little sampler of it online and spritzed myself this morning on my way out the door. I had a date with my lunch bunch and didn't want to let them down.
You see, after I told them I bought some perfume, the rest of the conversation turned to the scents they've loved through the years. It was--surprisingly--absolutely fascinating to me, despite me knowing nothing about perfume. Even Chuck, the lone man at the table, talked about colognes he loves and the remaining bottle of his mother's perfume--complete with a wax top--that still sits in his house. Finally, it was decided that, tomorrow, we would all wear our favorite scent (or, in my case, the only scent I own that isn't Arrid Xtra Dry).
And so, we spent the day giggling and sniffing each other. At one point, Chuck and Yulia stood in the library, leaning into each other's shoulders, breathing in each other's scents. The fact that our principal was walking through the library at that very time only made the moment more memorable.
I don't know if my scent was a hit. It smelled so strong to me the moment I sprayed it on this morning that I immediately went to the kitchen sink and soaped up. Still, I was giddy to get to school and breathe in the exotic smells of my lunch mates, our memories flashing to olden days when Calvin Klein was obsessed and grandma had White Shoulders.
I'm pretty sure it was my favorite lunch of the year.
"I just bought something that I've never worn before and I'm going to wear it tomorrow."
When a person whose hairstyle hasn't changed since Kennedy was president says she's going to wear something new tomorrow, people pay attention. [Did she say Kennedy? I think she meant Taft.]...Note to self--don't walk away from blog while daughter is in room.
They guessed a variety of things, finally throwing out the seemingly absurd and ridiculous: "A purse?" "A dress?" "Perfume?"
That's right. I bought some perfume. So I guess it didn't really all start yesterday. My "fancy" transformation started about a week ago, when my library bud Roxi came to school with a light jacket of "MMMM!" tossed atop her shoulders. I kept whiffing her throughout the day, making up excuses to get close. Finally, when a few students mentioned how good she smelled, I made my move, knowing my nose really did have good taste (can a nose have taste?).
I asked Roxi what kind of perfume she was wearing and if she would care if I showed up one day smelling just like her. She gave me the name as well as her blessing to go forth and smell better.
I went to Walgreens that day and asked the lady at the cosmetics counter if she could point me to the perfume collection. She pointed to the counter I was leaning on and--lo and behold!--there was the perfume. When she finally found the bottle of Armani Code and told me the price, I thanked her and immediately left, stunned that something not called "Columbia Gold" could cost $65 an ounce.
I bought a little sampler of it online and spritzed myself this morning on my way out the door. I had a date with my lunch bunch and didn't want to let them down.
You see, after I told them I bought some perfume, the rest of the conversation turned to the scents they've loved through the years. It was--surprisingly--absolutely fascinating to me, despite me knowing nothing about perfume. Even Chuck, the lone man at the table, talked about colognes he loves and the remaining bottle of his mother's perfume--complete with a wax top--that still sits in his house. Finally, it was decided that, tomorrow, we would all wear our favorite scent (or, in my case, the only scent I own that isn't Arrid Xtra Dry).
And so, we spent the day giggling and sniffing each other. At one point, Chuck and Yulia stood in the library, leaning into each other's shoulders, breathing in each other's scents. The fact that our principal was walking through the library at that very time only made the moment more memorable.
I don't know if my scent was a hit. It smelled so strong to me the moment I sprayed it on this morning that I immediately went to the kitchen sink and soaped up. Still, I was giddy to get to school and breathe in the exotic smells of my lunch mates, our memories flashing to olden days when Calvin Klein was obsessed and grandma had White Shoulders.
I'm pretty sure it was my favorite lunch of the year.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Turning the Tables
When I attended East Junior-Senior High in 1974, there was a cookie-cutter feel to the place, although I didn't really notice that fact. I think that's what happens when you are surrounded by the same thing you've always known--in this case, white middle-class people. Somehow, you cease to recognize what you already know, at least until something or someone new comes along to provide some contrast.
Enter Chris and Charlie Black, the only black kids at East Junior-Senior High that year.
I'm not so forest-for-the-trees that I can't see the irony in their last name, as though we pasty whites needed a word to go along with what it was that made them different. Chris and I became fast friends, maybe, in part, because he was exotic and new. Mostly, though, because he was funny and liked the Pointer Sisters, too.
I cannot imagine how much courage it took for those two to show up at East each morning.
Even now, when East High is a much more diverse place--both racially and socio-economically--I often find myself looking lovingly at those students who cannot help but set themselves apart from everyone else, hoping that they have managed to stuff enough chutzpah into their backpacks to get them through another day.
East, however, cannot hold a candle to Lincoln High, at least in the category of diversity.
I think that this is one reason I really wanted Eric and Allison to go to Lincoln High. (Granted, another reason was so that I didn't have to drive them anywhere--not exactly something I would like to include on my "parent of the year" resume. . . . ).
At Lincoln High, it is statistically possible for Eric and Allison to be in the minority, to feel that awkwardness of not quite fitting in. Certainly, I don't want to make it a parental practice to push my kids into uncomfortable situations, but I do want them to "get" what it means to walk in another's shoes, preferably first-hand.
The richness of Allison's experience as a Link--being one of only a handful of whites on the volleyball team, befriending and working with students whose skin color, family life, first language, and food security differs from hers--will serve her well in her future.
And, frankly, it gives me great hope that this generation of teens--aside from the usual posse of small-minded idiots--seems to have moved so far beyond Life, Circa 1974, that they cannot fathom why old people are still freaking out about all the beautiful colors, contrasts and ways of living and loving that make up Life, Circa 2013.
Indeed, us old folk could learn a thing or two from those young whippersnappers.
Enter Chris and Charlie Black, the only black kids at East Junior-Senior High that year.
I'm not so forest-for-the-trees that I can't see the irony in their last name, as though we pasty whites needed a word to go along with what it was that made them different. Chris and I became fast friends, maybe, in part, because he was exotic and new. Mostly, though, because he was funny and liked the Pointer Sisters, too.
I cannot imagine how much courage it took for those two to show up at East each morning.
Even now, when East High is a much more diverse place--both racially and socio-economically--I often find myself looking lovingly at those students who cannot help but set themselves apart from everyone else, hoping that they have managed to stuff enough chutzpah into their backpacks to get them through another day.
East, however, cannot hold a candle to Lincoln High, at least in the category of diversity.
I think that this is one reason I really wanted Eric and Allison to go to Lincoln High. (Granted, another reason was so that I didn't have to drive them anywhere--not exactly something I would like to include on my "parent of the year" resume. . . . ).
At Lincoln High, it is statistically possible for Eric and Allison to be in the minority, to feel that awkwardness of not quite fitting in. Certainly, I don't want to make it a parental practice to push my kids into uncomfortable situations, but I do want them to "get" what it means to walk in another's shoes, preferably first-hand.
The richness of Allison's experience as a Link--being one of only a handful of whites on the volleyball team, befriending and working with students whose skin color, family life, first language, and food security differs from hers--will serve her well in her future.
And, frankly, it gives me great hope that this generation of teens--aside from the usual posse of small-minded idiots--seems to have moved so far beyond Life, Circa 1974, that they cannot fathom why old people are still freaking out about all the beautiful colors, contrasts and ways of living and loving that make up Life, Circa 2013.
Indeed, us old folk could learn a thing or two from those young whippersnappers.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Adjusting My Timing Belt
Most days, I am reminded that timing really is everything. What I struggle with is who to assign the credit to. Do I really believe that God has penciled me in for a 2:45 walk with my neighbor, who just happens to mention a master-naturalists workshop she'll be attending this summer? Or that He has nudged from my yearbook editor's lips these very specific words: "Hey, Holt. You ordered those nameplates for the books, right?"
As self-centered as I can be--and I do have pre-Copernican tendencies--I still hesitate to believe that God gives two hoots about my daily dealings, especially considering what else is on his celestial plate each day.
So, I tend to credit impeccable timing more to the act of paying attention than to anything larger or more mysterious. And I think that even the more religious part of me is okay with this explanation. After all, if God really is in the details, then we'd best be paying attention.
Regardless of how we end up explaining such events in our lives, it's hard to ignore the upside of those serendipity-dipped "aha!" moments when we just can't believe our luck. And this Spring--this most strange, menopausal season--has been rife with moments in which timing seemed to be on my side.
Tops, for me, was that walk with my neighbor, in which she mentioned the naturalists' workshop slated for this summer. It was one of those rare, warm March Saturdays, so my attention already was razor sharp. Her description, though, peppered with words like "Spring Creek Prairie," "birding," "Pioneers Park,"--those words were like a welcomed slap to my face, waking me up to opportunities I hungered for. Not more than ten minutes after we parted ways, I had happily shared my Visa-Card information with the Nebraska Master Naturalists program, signing up for that week-long workshop.
Still to this day, I shake my head in happy disbelief that such welcomed news had found its way to my ears.
And then there was that nature show Allison was watching one March Saturday morning, when I returned from grocery shopping. I barely had time to refrigerate the milk before she insisted I meet her in the living room. "I want to be a marine biologist," she sputtered, her enthusiasm uncontainable. "I love nature. I love being outdoors. I'm good at science and I don't mind working hard or getting dirty. . . ." What sane parent would nip that kind of talk in the bud?
This idea of studying biology--or some form of it--has only grown stronger since then, helped, in part, by a chance encounter with an Ideal Grocery customer this Wednesday. Allison had seen this customer before, noting the woman's easy presence, her preference for comfortable, outdoorsy clothing. What she hadn't known, though,--at least not until Wednesday, while packing the customer's groceries--was that this woman had studied marine biology at the University of Alaska, and was now a scientist studying the natural world in Nebraska.
Voila! Another happy synapse fires on an otherwise grey Spring day.
Both Allison and I were lucky enough to be paying attention at the right time. It makes me wonder how many magical encounters have slipped by me, for no better reason than because I was fretting about a future unknown, or distracted by a pile of papers that awaited me at home.
As for all those things that lay before us, just waiting to be noticed, it might be prime time to start referring to this moment as the HEAR and now.
As self-centered as I can be--and I do have pre-Copernican tendencies--I still hesitate to believe that God gives two hoots about my daily dealings, especially considering what else is on his celestial plate each day.
So, I tend to credit impeccable timing more to the act of paying attention than to anything larger or more mysterious. And I think that even the more religious part of me is okay with this explanation. After all, if God really is in the details, then we'd best be paying attention.
Regardless of how we end up explaining such events in our lives, it's hard to ignore the upside of those serendipity-dipped "aha!" moments when we just can't believe our luck. And this Spring--this most strange, menopausal season--has been rife with moments in which timing seemed to be on my side.
Tops, for me, was that walk with my neighbor, in which she mentioned the naturalists' workshop slated for this summer. It was one of those rare, warm March Saturdays, so my attention already was razor sharp. Her description, though, peppered with words like "Spring Creek Prairie," "birding," "Pioneers Park,"--those words were like a welcomed slap to my face, waking me up to opportunities I hungered for. Not more than ten minutes after we parted ways, I had happily shared my Visa-Card information with the Nebraska Master Naturalists program, signing up for that week-long workshop.
Still to this day, I shake my head in happy disbelief that such welcomed news had found its way to my ears.
And then there was that nature show Allison was watching one March Saturday morning, when I returned from grocery shopping. I barely had time to refrigerate the milk before she insisted I meet her in the living room. "I want to be a marine biologist," she sputtered, her enthusiasm uncontainable. "I love nature. I love being outdoors. I'm good at science and I don't mind working hard or getting dirty. . . ." What sane parent would nip that kind of talk in the bud?
This idea of studying biology--or some form of it--has only grown stronger since then, helped, in part, by a chance encounter with an Ideal Grocery customer this Wednesday. Allison had seen this customer before, noting the woman's easy presence, her preference for comfortable, outdoorsy clothing. What she hadn't known, though,--at least not until Wednesday, while packing the customer's groceries--was that this woman had studied marine biology at the University of Alaska, and was now a scientist studying the natural world in Nebraska.
Voila! Another happy synapse fires on an otherwise grey Spring day.
Both Allison and I were lucky enough to be paying attention at the right time. It makes me wonder how many magical encounters have slipped by me, for no better reason than because I was fretting about a future unknown, or distracted by a pile of papers that awaited me at home.
As for all those things that lay before us, just waiting to be noticed, it might be prime time to start referring to this moment as the HEAR and now.
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