Day Off Musings

Sitting outside Paper & Cup with a cappuccino and a rare "day off," watching professionals walk by and reflecting that I've never been a professional anything. Not really.

I'm just an English major wannabe with a smattering of part time work experience who's raised three stellar humans, can pull off a mean haircut after thirty years experience and no formal training, is adequate at a piano and mic, can toss out medical terminology well enough to be continually mistaken for a nurse, is a decent caregiver and amateur social worker, though I aspired to neither of those roles. Some say I can write.

I guess I'm good at absorbing skills well enough to fake my way through most things, self-taught being the kinder term. Forever finding a way to be whatever life needs me to be.

Will I ever be a professional anything? I don't know. Does it matter? Probably not. But what would I choose if I could? I have a few ideas. Will life ever grant enough breath and space to pursue anything? Will I be brave enough to go for the gap if I see one? Will I be too tired of being brave to care?

These are my day off musings.

My cappuccino is long gone. The petite professional in the cute black and white dress and sweet heels caught my eye as she walked by for the third time. We shared a smile. It's easy to imagine that her life is as amazing as those shoes, but I'll bet she has to be brave every day too.

Boundaries

Spent a few hours manually cutting an edge in the sod along the curb and driveway the other night. Dirty, sweaty job, that. But nearly every project and issue around here is evading closure, so I needed a visual of something completed.

Never mind the enclosed mangy, pale turf with its list of woes or the fact that it’s almost July and I’ve purchased nary a flower for bed nor pot... there are straight lines on the edges of my lawn and for now straight boundary lines around all that remains undone feels like a win.

To regain footing in the toss of the past few years, I’ve learned a lot about the value of boundaries - also hard work, messy, and ongoing. Though life may be eluding tidiness, today I can see where my yard ends and that is enough.

No Words

Yesterday my dad had what they're calling a stroke. He arrived in the ER unable to answer simple questions, his attempts to speak, indiscernible. Though unaffected physically, his speech aphasia remains some 32 hours later. Making slight improvements, then waning once more.

According to Wikipedia: "Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions... The difficulties of people with aphasia can range from occasional trouble finding words, to losing the ability to speak, read, or write; intelligence, however, is unaffected." 

I'm not sure how to process this, but these thoughts are the beginning.

It's so odd to see my Dad, the word man, without his words, yet still trying to speak. Sometimes giving up with a shrug or tossing up his hands, yet not overly flustered. That he remains content, is both mystery and relief. 

We often think we know how we'll feel about certain things, but I'd never really stopped to think about how it'd feel to be with Dad without his words. Speaking, writing, reading... these have been his greatest pursuits, his greatest joys. The crossword and the word jumble his daily challenge. 

Now it's his words that are jumbled and we are left to work out the clues of gesture and incomplete utterance. Can we discern the full thought he leaves dangling or decipher the nonsense syllables? And how the random full sentence becomes a moment of celebration! 

I am so connected to this word man. Even in my youth when my heart rebelled against our intersecting downs and acrosses, the words were woven in ways I could not see. His fascination with words planted in me. A gracefully ascending DNA of sounds, rhythm, syntax, imagery, poetry, and prose. 

Will he ever again toss a newly minted page of verse my way? Shaky handwriting adorning blue-lined paper. Phrases crossed out, re-rewritten once, even twice... 

"Try this one out. What do you think?" 

Well, Dad... right now I think I miss your words. 

 

Hands

What do you do when life’s been a little sideways? Sometimes I paint my nails. Because: painting, and colors, and a quiet moment to make something look finished... for a few days, anyway. 

And today I stretched the quiet moment while they dried and snapped a photo.

“Look at that perfect, frosty rose polish!” 

Then I was rocked by how old my hand looks. 

Truth is, this one, and its even more weathered twin, have done a lot, carried a lot, soothed a lot, scrubbed, and dug... a lot. They’re hands acclimated to heat. Shaped and misshapen by thousands of squeezes, pats, dings, scars, scalds, and abrasions. I don’t baby them. Forget to lotion them. And push them to the limit, even when they ache.

I’m sometimes startled when I actually see these old hands. Skin so beat up and wrinkly... and that pinky with a slight bump and bend at the knuckle.

I’d like to imagine myself physically young and untouched by life and time, even as I claim to embrace and elevate the marks of its passing. Guess I'm still worshipping youth, still holding fast to an ideal of no mars and scars... and no being dragged sideways.

I’d rather only see the pretty polish. 

But it’s not the truth. 

My hands tell the story.

To Have And To Hold On To

From today's Facebook post...

Before he became The Hubs, and I, his well-meaning wife, there was this moment...

Thirty-six years ago yesterday - and exhausted for reasons I'll not innumerate today - we stood rehearsing for the celebration of a covenant for which there is no adequate rehearsal. But pushing through while tired and stressed - and totally clueless to what the future held - was probably an accurate foreshadow of the gritty faith it would take to travel the years together.

We knew even then that the marriage out-ranked the wedding day. A single day of pretty does not a life make. 

Instead, the honeymoon leads to each day’s decision to love, to celebrate joys and victories, and to bear with each other’s flaws, sinfulness, and selfishness. To forgive seventy times seven... times seven... times seven. To hold hands no matter what, and to persevere when life grinds at the frayed edges of hope. To pray for one another even when faith falters and the season feels cruel. And, for us, to savor the moments after each child's wedding and the birth of every grandchild - not only in gratitude - but in sober reverence, knowing full well how many times we could have given up on each other and missed sharing these joys together. 

The pledge we made so many years ago - for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, faithful to one another always - remind me of God's promise to those He calls His own, a promise I have clung to time and time again, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5) He's kept that promise. 

But what of our promises? 

To have endured this long, you may think we've been lucky, perfectly compatible, or amazingly determined, but that is so far from true. We all have a story, and this ours: we know without a doubt that it was, and is, God's unwavering faithfulness to us, His endless grace, and the power of His Spirit in our lives that has enabled us to keep those vows. The only thing we determined was to follow Him, and sometimes that looked anything but pretty. 

So on this, our anniversary, we will celebrate our 36 years. We will reflect, be thankful, grab hands yet again, choose to keep following. And since, for us, a perfect date day always leads to a coffee shop, that's where we'll start. To us! Cheers!

Thank you, Jesus, for thirty-six years!

#tohaveandtoholdfromthisdayforward #happyanniversary #thirtysixyears#Godisfaithful

'Tis A Week Before Christmas

'Tis a week before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature is stirring
Except Mrs. Mouse

The stockings aren't hung
By the chimney with care
Santa Dude's in a box
But I don't know where

I don't own a kerchief
The Hubs sports a cap
What we wouldn't give
For a long winter's nap!

The bare tree is nestled
All snug in it's stand
Well, bare, but for lights
Deftly hung by the hand

Of a kind, handsome elf
Who just drove off to shop
So I've hauled up a bin..
Now a star sits on top

Soon I'll hang shiny orbs
Of green, red, and blue
And in no time at all
Be enjoying the view

Of my festive fake tree
With it's twinkling lights
And the window of snowflakes
They are quite a sight

Sometimes Christmas comes slow
To the outsides of things
But my heart holds it tightly
The Truth, and it's ring

For Jesus came quietly
In a Mid-Eastern cave
Left heaven to free me
Sin no longer enslaves

This is the garland
That hangs round my heart
All the rest are traditions
Not the whole, just a part

We deck halls with bright lights
For the Light who has come
He alone’s the adornment
I need in my home

B. DesChamps 2017