Beach Vacation

I have friends who are leaving this weekend for a beach vacation. I love beach vacations. We were going to have one this summer, but since things have changed, we canceled it. So, today, we talked about how to have a beach vacation without the beach. We can still eat seafood everyday. We can still have drinks with little umbrellas in them. We can sit on lounge chairs by the pool. We can leave our bathing suits on all day. We can go to Kings Island's Soak City and play in the waves. We can watch sand volleyball. We can play Jimmy Buffett and reggae music. We can sit on our porch and watch the sunset and imagine the ocean just on the other side of the tree line. We can lie in bed at night and listen to wave CDs and fall asleep to the sounds of the water. What is a beach vacation?  Long lazy mornings, picnic lunches, bike rides, swims, naps, starlit dinners...we can do that here. We can do that with friends, and family, whenever the mood strikes us. We don't have to spend hours in the car, salty, sunburned, stuck in traffic. Of course, the ocean is not here, that beautiful blue body of power and wonder. But everything else is, and we are here, so we will do our best to bring the beach vacation home. Come along with us!

Memorial Day

Our relationship with Memorial Day is complicated. At once we despise war, but acknowledge our human inability to avoid it and the bravery required to fight it. My husband and I served for 4 years in the Air Force, during a period of peace. I often feel we did not really 'serve our country' during that time, because we did not endure any suffering and the benefits of the service far outweighed any negatives. We were young newlyweds, underemployed and looking for an adventure together. We gained independence, a VA loan for our first house, the GI Bill to finish our education, job skills and, eventually, due to our station in the Bible Belt, our enduring faith. That was what we received for our service, more than we could have ever hoped for. Of course, Memorial Day is to honor indeed that very liberty and privilege that comes from the freedoms we hold so dear in this country. Freedom to be independent, to get a good education, to worship openly. Along with us, my father, uncle, cousin, mother and father-in-law, sister, brother, and now son-in-law have all served in the Armed Forces. We despise war. We love our freedoms. It is complicated yes, but also simple. It is putting our love into action, feet to our convictions, and honor to what we hold most dear.

The Pond

There is a pond at my dad's farm. He had it dug out about 15 years ago, and there is a funny story about how he drove to someplace in West Virgina to get the floats for the dock and they fell off the truck onto the highway, etc. The pond was a dream, that he finally fulfilled, even though he already had dug a cement pool that was clean and clorinated most of the time. The pond was au natural, stocked with game fish and crowded with the kind of plant life that stagnant ponds like. I preferred the pond, really, because the water was always cold and the dock reminded me of other bodies of water I swam in when I was a child. The dock at the pond is greying and warped now. The storage box near the bank is full of aging life vests, sized for children, but unsuitable now for any child to wear. The box is also full of dried vegetation and probably scary things like wasps and snakes. It made me a little sad to remember when the pond was new, and the place filled with splashing cousins and laughter, the paddle boat was not filled with decaying leaves and my father was strong and in charge of everything. Fifteen years have changed the place, but not the memories. I can hear the laughter still, above the humming of the bees, not sad but full of life.

Each time we fall we rise higher

How does it happen that when you think you are in free fall, and all the odds are against rising again, the wind of God lifts you up and sets you back on the mountaintop? Oh yes, the ways to fall are many, and the way down is fearsome indeed. There are many ways to feel pain. Between the closing of the eyes, and sleep, there can be violence inside. When the bearing of it seems to be more that can be borne, again the wind of God moves the darkness aside, easing the pain. What mystery is this, beyond the pills and other human concoctions, that opens the windows of heaven with a moment of deliverance. Wings. Wind. We are renewed like the eagles. We are lifted and soar, rising higher each time we fall, until finally we might catch a glimpse of the One who loves us. The One who is drawing us to himself, who will wipe the tears from our eyes, and make everything wonderful. We stand back in our place, keeping our eyes firmly fixed on where we saw Him last, our gaze sure that we will see Him again, confident that our struggle to rise will find it's zenith in His land. In His time. There is a place for us here, and there. When we find ourselves face down here, we can know we will be face down, before Him, up there. O happy day!

In the garden

It is a lovely day to work in the little garden that borders our house. My daughter Mary is here. We got out the trowels and scissors and cut back the brown daffodil leaves, transplanted errant columbine and volunteer lilacs. Amid the heavy growth of utilitarian hosta and ferns are the flowers planted over past Mother's Days, popping up tall and strong. Orange wallflowers, violet monarda,  chocolate heuchera. We remember the years they were planted, times of transition when we were living together, repairing breaches, healing wounds. Each green thing, having survived another wintry season, starts again further ahead than where it ended the year before. A healthy garden takes on it's own life, making room for the new plants, shielding them from the heat of the day. The older plants fade away, barely leaving a trace until the new plants, finally mature, can hold their own. In the garden, there is life and death, memories, joys, successes and failures. There is always the close smell of the earth, the worms, the seeds, the hidden bulbs. We dig and remember and laugh and plan and hope the days reach all the way to where we are always happy.

Somewhat less than amazing

We can get used to striving to be amazing. We can have the best shoes, hair, job. We can walk into a room with the best dessert, the best wrapped present, drive the nicest car. We can get hit with bad news and continue to smile and wear lipstick and our prettiest earrings. We can keep striving to be amazing, but at some point the striving starts to cost too much. We start to make our amazing cake icing and realize we don't have the right sugar. We don't have enough birthday candles to decorate it. We can't find the matches to light the few candles we do scrape together from the bottom of the kitchen junk drawer. Each setback leaves us breathless and frazzled. We don't get the looks we are used to, we mumble "Sorry" and tear up when we think of what we could have done, but were not able to do. We stumble in this foreign land, the land of less than amazing. When the applause dies down and people drift back to their own lives and we are left with the lingering joys of having accomplished something we will probably never do again. This life has it's own pleasures, each amazing in it's own way. The effort to rise, and shine, to smile, to taste a little ice cream, all still amazing, even if somewhat less than it was before.

Chicago

Our latest RATs adventure took us to the Windy City this past weekend. We strolled the Magnificent Mile, had a toast on the 95th floor of the Hancock Tower, ate a Cheeborger at the infamous Billy Goat Tavern, lounged in the hotel's soothing hot tub and, of course, were too loud and too silly at all those places. We were seven, and besides enjoying the sights of the city, we also allowed each other to cry about things that needed to be cried about, tell stories that needed to be told, and gave gentle hugs when necessary. I guess we didn't need to go so far to do those things, and the emotions behind the stories can catch us by surprise, but we sometimes need to get far away from what comforts us to find the sticky place in our souls. How wonderful that we can show that sticky place to the ones who know us well, know what to say, know what not to say. We walked down a wet street and marveled at the artifacts cemented into the Chicago Tribune Tower, brought from around the world, momentos of nameless reporters, capturing a bit of history. Each amazing piece tucked into the wall reminded me of our friendships, our closeness, our joys and our sorrows, our stories all part of our wonderful lives together.