Manners Lesson

 The entire state of New Jersey is invited! Please come to my class, White Gloves and Party Manners. All are invited. I cannot wait to see you. Here is what you will learn:

1--No, absolutely, no, flipping off at ladies. Ever. Under any circumstances. Especially when they have the right of way when driving. You should be a gentleman at all times, yielding to them even when they are idiots (see Rhett Butler).

2--No accelerating to cut off other people. When merging, you should yield to other traffic. Not because you want to, but because it is the NICE thing to do.

3--No F%*# words. Ever. Especially in the grocery store. I heard one dropped the other day, followed by "she is such a bitch." What? In the grocery store? You need to wash your mouth out with soap (will be provided at class) and take a sugar pill. Your life is not difficult or complicated (see Somalia or Kenya for examples there).

4--When there is a lady behind in you line, and she's holding a baby, a gallon of milk and a cup of coffee (during a state-wide power outage because of a natural DISASTER), and another line opens up in this packed gas station check out, let her go first. Do not, I repeat, do not, cut in front of her to get to the register first. That. Is. Rude. And makes that gallon feel like a small elephant.

You know when you feel like you've been behind an 18-wheeler all day, going 17 mph? That's been today. I've just been stuck.

"Take a broader look at your life and recognize that you are a spiritual being having a human experience."

Confession

I don't mean the Catholic kind. I mean the everyday kind. The kind you hate to do, but feel better after you, in fact, do it.

I don't always wash my hands after I go to the bathroom. But I feel pressured to when I'm leaving and there is a lady at the sink, powdering her nose. I give in, take a sharp, but not too sharp looking turn toward the sink and act relieved to get to run that warm soapy water over my hands. It's so un-PC to not wash your hands every 20 minutes. I do wash them. . .after I handle raw chicken. But if no one is at the sink rooting through a purse, I walk right out and pick up that book in Barnes and Noble I was perusing before I went in.

I don't shut the stall door, either. If I'm alone in the bathroom, I prefer to leaving it dangling. I don't know why, I just don't like to bother locking it. Why, if no one is in there? And, after having a baby, I don't really feel the need to close it at all (except that it would, again, be un-PC and maybe weird). We're all doing the same thing in there, and if you've had a baby, there is nothing the world doesn't know.

That's the truth.

"God is working miracles through you so be still and listen."

Gathering the Handkerchiefs

Before we'd set off into the great unknown of the Dogwood Trail, we'd gather our handkerchiefs. Tie them in knots and pierce long sticks through them. They would hold our precious necessities for the journey--rocks we wanted to share with our cousins, gum and crayons. We would not consider entering the Trail without our pack, our carefully prepared little handkerchief blob.

Hurricane Irene should hit us today, so we're gathering our handkerchiefs. Steve, Nick and Jacob lived through Katrina--in a parking garage of Charity Hospital. They know the exceptional, so they prepare for it. Jacob wants to know how high the water will come into our house (their home flooded while they were playing Gilligan's Island with Daddy). Nick is concerned about our dog, Bonnie, and where she will go. Steve, like for Hurricane Katrina, is on call, so he will be available for assistance via remote satellite (mobile phone if working). The boys cannot think about hurricanes the way most of us do. It is not just rain and wind and an exciting time to eat poptarts for a week. For Nick and Jacob, it's real. People die. People lose homes and dogs and innocence.

We'll build a palet party on mats in the basement, and have a candlelit book party. Maybe we'll call each other Huckleberry and Scout and Harry?! Ellie, God willing, will be sound asleep in her pack and play, dreaming of sugar plums. Somehow, I'm not imagining that with real confidence, but I'm trying!

With our batteries, bananas and peanut butter, toilet paper, bottled water and candles, we are ready for Irene. Though we did not invite you, per se, we'll meet you!

"Make a commitment to look for joy everywhere." I think I saw it this morning, while watching Ellie feed Bonnie. She's not supposed to do that (ruins our carefully placed "ladder of power" :)), but there they were, Ellie handing off her scrambled eggs and slippery waffles.

With a baseball team's worth of patron saints for storms, I think we'll hit all the positions with prayers and see how fun this handkerchief packed party can be.

The Little Big Things

It's true, I think. It's the little things. But don't the little things become your big things? A professor once taught us to "mind your big rocks." Put your big rocks into your bucket first, then you can fill it with the little pebbles. If you mind your pebbles before your stones, you won't have room for the big rocks.

The little moments, mundane afternoons and monotonous activities are little things, but they have become my big rocks. I never thought I'd see God at a football practice, but He was there. He was there in Jacob's patience, in his genuine joy teaching Ellie to walk. And He was there in her face, her little prancing feet and the peace I knew watching their trust grow. She's a whole soul who is beginning to love another soul. And I'm privileged to watch it happen. At a football field. Who knew?!

Jacob once told me he'd never want to be a superhero. "Why, Jacob?" "Because, they have all the time for the world, and no time for love." (He was watching a making of Spiderman and felt sorry for the poor guy who couldn't keep a girlfriend!) Jacob, though, is a superhero to Ellie. Because of a little thing that is really a big rock.

"To know that love is all there is is all there is to know."

Ruston

We grew up in Texarkana but we were from Ruston. We were transplants, or that is what our mother said. "God's Country" was Louisiana, and we could smell it each time we drove home to the peaches and hush puppies and tire swings of our grandparents' backyards. They were connected, the backyards, by a trail. It was magical, miles long, treacherous and deep. You had to walk with a brother or sister or cousin--you would never brave it alone. It was mysterious and familiar, somehow, and we loved it. It led from the Brown back porch to the O'Banion back garden, and we felt as if we broke into different bubbles each time we entered into the green light out of the woods. 


Of course, it was only a 5 minute walk, brightly lit, usually dewy and lined with acorns, the occasional snake and a forgotten metal trash can we liked to imagine was the vacation home of Oscar. It was, truly, made of dogwood trees. The forest was thick with them, so every spring, the trail would burst into light, this beautiful bright, pure white and it made the whole world happy. 


My life has followed that trail, and it led me to this eastern netherworld called New Jersey. I didn't know dogwoods lived here, but, of course, they were here to greet us, when we moved late spring. It was like they were saying "hello," and I actually felt comforted, like I was seeing an old friend. Or like my mom was hugging us, and I could smell her Ponds cream and knew this part of the trail would be safe. 


This blog, this expression out into the void, is a thank you. A love song. A prayer.