Random Childhood Snapshots, in no particular order......

I am so small I can barely peer over the keyboard of the battered upright piano sitting in the Kilitz's living room.  I am dressed in a skinny-strapped bouffant underslip and so is my friend Annie.  Her mother goes to the record player and places the needle down on the 78 rpm record and it scratches a moment before it gets into the groove.  And then the beautiful strains of "Swan Lake" begin to waft across the living room and Annie and I are transformed into prima ballerinas.  Her mother sits smiling delightedly at us, clapping her hands and laughing.  We are little sprites, spinning and jumping in shafts of golden sunlight spilling thru the window across the floor.

Father Murphy strides across the sidewalk from the catechism hall to the little Catholic church across the street from our house.  Our pink house.  He is kind and he seems so tall as he bends down to ask me how I am today.  I am fine, thank you.  And I am not Catholic.  But when the nuns open the front door to the church I try to peek inside.  I see candles burning and smell incense sweetly tickle my nose.  It is beautiful and mysterious.  Haunted, but not in a bad way.  I gallop across the grass of the church pretending I'm a horse.  So does Annie.  She is Catholic, and her mother goes in and cleans the church every day.  While her mother cleans, we snuffle and paw our hooves and race against the wind.

I have ridden to the hospital with my father.  We have come to pick up my mother and my new baby brother.  I am not allowed in the room.  I have to sit in the lobby and my father admonishes me to be a good girl...he'll be back soon.  And then we are riding home and I'm hanging over the back of the front seat of the car, staring down at my little brother, swaddled in blankets and cradled in my mother's arms.  I lose interest in him quickly when I get home.  I am, after all, 6 years old.  I have more important things to do.  But I become exasperated with his endless crying by the end of the day and I ask my mother, "When can we take him back?"  It's bad enough I've lost my place in the lineup as the baby of the family, but to this red-faced squalling baby?  Enough already.

I am still little enough to sleep in a crib.  It is dark when one of my older brothers comes into the bedroom and grabs the rails, shaking the crib, shaking me awake.  "Santa Claus is here!  Santa Claus is here!" he's telling me, and I am excited because we've been promised all day that Santa was coming to our house.  But it finally became late and I was put to bed.  My mother comes in and scoops me up in her arms and takes me out into the living room where our Christmas tree sparkles and there is Santa Claus.  In the flesh.  And his voice BOOMS and he terrifies me and I cling to my mother's neck like I'm drowning, my eyes as huge as saucers.   He tries to touch me and I shrink back away from him.   It seems Santa had been to many houses that day before finally reaching ours, and he had sampled a lot of Christmas cheer along the way.  He was drunk.  I didn't know that.  He was scary, and I wanted him gone.

My mother was always there.  I see her sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, a cigarette burning next to her in the ashtray.  She is playing Solitaire.  Endless games of Solitaire.  But I am outside most of the time.  I come in for meals.  I come in to go to bed.  I don't have many clear memories of her doing anything but playing those endless games of Solitaire.

We were going somewhere as a family.  I don't know where, but my mother had gotten us all cleaned up and ready to go, finally having a moment to brush her hair and dash on some lipstick.  My dad was standing out on the sidewalk, idly jangling keys and loose change in his pants pocket, waiting for her.  We kids were already in the car.  Dad yelled out, "Aren't you ready yet?"  as she came out the door.  He hadn't helped with any of the preparations.  Dads in the 1950s didn't.  And she is smoldering with anger and frustration and she takes the front door and slams it with all her might.  She was tiny but she was mighty because the huge pane of glass in the door shattered!  Glass fell to the porch floor, tinkling in a million pieces.  I'm sure my brothers and I were staring out the car window with our mouths in drop-jaw "O"s.  Our dad was stunned into silence.  And our mother came out to the car, opened the door, and slid in to the front seat.  Yes, now she was ready.

I loved making phone calls.  We had an old rotary phone and if we wanted to place a call we didn't even use the rotary.  We picked up the receiver and the operator came on.  "Number, please," she'd say and we'd give her the number and she would politely say "Thank you" and put our call thru.  And then we got new phone numbers.  Our town had grown enough where we'd run out of 3-digit numbers.  Now they were 7 numbers and we got to use the rotary to dial them!  And the rotary would click-click-click as it spun from number to number.  We'd hear the other person's phone ring.  Oh, it was amazing!  We were connected!  But I always wondered...what happened to the operator?

I was a friendly and very gregarious little girl.  I loved making new students in the class feel welcome.  I loved to help the teachers.  I loved to play, play, play.  We had tons of kids in our neighborhood so there was always someone to play with.  We all had free run of the yards and we played rousing games of Hide 'n' Seek, Tag, Red Rover, and one that we created ourselves called Bat.  We had dogs named Homer and Punk and Pepper and Spook who followed us around.  I had a calico cat named Knucklehead who was a most prolific breeder...there were always new kittens around and my little girlfriends and I would dress them up in baby clothes.  There was a little boy named Chris who smoked cigars.  An alley that curved around the hill behind our house that I would take as a shortcut to the Safeway store to buy a needed loaf of bread or some milk for dinner.  We lived in a logging town and we had three amputees in our neighborhood.  Mr. Holloway didn't have an arm.  Old Dick didn't have half a leg.  And another neighbor man was missing an entire leg; he walked stiffly on a wooden leg that didn't bend.  There was an old Greek man named Louie who walked by our house every day, using canes to keep his balance.  He gave me a butterscotch candy once and when I showed it to my mother she became angry and told me never to take candy from strange men.  I looked at her in disbelieving outrage and said, "But, Mom...it's Louie!"  Harmless as a dove, one of the town drunks.  There was also Mrs. Miller, a little widow woman who was friends with Mrs. Kilitz.  I was only 6 or 7 and I was taller than she was!

My dad.  I can remember him always being late, or so he was according to our mother.  But I remember sitting up on his shoulders as he strode down the street...I was taller than him up there and I felt I could touch the sky!  I remember his strong hands gripping me and pushing higher higher higher on the swings at Lake Sylvia.  I can remember him whistling and it was so loud we could hear it a block or so away before he reached home...but it was beautiful.  I remember dancing on top of his feet at the end of  "The Lawrence Welk Show".  I remember the safety of his arms, his own particular smell as I'd cuddle on his lap and feel like all was right in my world.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. ~ George Carlin

The tornado warning sirens went off at 5 am this morning and no, this is not what it looked like as I peeked out of the curtains on my way down into the basement.  Whewwwwww!  Thank the good Lord for THAT!  I made sure I got a hold of all my kids to let them know they needed to be aware because my daughter can't hear the sirens at her apartment complex and I wasn't too sure how loud they are where my son's family lives, either.  When my daughter-in-law answered the phone she said she'd thought that was what she was hearing in the distance so she was glad I'd called to let them know that indeed the sirens were howling.  We're fortunate because our neighborhood siren is only a couple blocks away and we can hear it loud and clear.

So, how did I do on my first real siren?

I grabbed my pillow off my bed and took it down in the basement with me.

Why my pillow, you ask?

So I'd have something comfortable to sit on in the little cranny underneath the basement stairs.  It has a cement floor, you see.

"In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced." ~ Robert Sexton

38 years ago I married this man.  We were just a couple of kids.  He'd just turned 21 and I was 20.  We had no idea then just how young we were.  Yesterday I was at the library and I overheard a young lady tell her companion, "Michael, I'm 20 years old!" like she was old enough and smart enough to know her own mind.  It caused me to look up at her and I thought, "My word, how young she is."  Was I really married by then?!  But I thought then that 58, which is the age I am now, was like having one foot in the grave.  Hopefully, that isn't true yet.

Oh my.  The good times, the hard times we've shared.  Good health, ill health. Surgeries.  Times when we had no idea how we were going to pay our bills, but always having enough.  Raising two wonderful children.  Being blessed with a daughter-in-law who is like another daughter to us, and two precious grandsons.  Unemployment.  Feast.  Famine.  Grouchy moods.  Peaceful company as we read and listen to music together. Tons and tons and tons of laughter.  Days when we've looked at each other and not liked each other very much.  We know what we each look like when we get out of bed in the morning and haven't run away yet.

Besides children and family, we've had one other Companion for almost 36 of these 38 years.  The good Lord.  Making the decision to let Him be our Guide, our Friend, our Counsellor, and our Comforter was the best one we ever made.  So, thank YOU, Lord.  I don't even like to wonder where we'd be without You.

At times, challenges hit with the force of a roaring, rushing waterfall. The true test, however, is whether you can put your arms up and enjoy the feel of the water. ~ Aviva Kaufman

I love my grandson Dylan.  I love both of my grandsons, but this post is about Dylan and what an amazing little boy he is.  I am going to share with you here the post my daughter-in-law put on Facebook this morning:

"I am beyond proud of my son right now. As many of you know, Dylan was a late talker (he didn't start talking until he was about 3 1/2). We got him into speech therapy through the school and he has improved dramatically! The speech report card came today and he went from testing at a 79 (below average) to 125 (superior!) And then in his word articulation testing he went from making 27 mistakes to only make 8 errors (which are developmentally appropriate mistakes for his age!). He is definitely surpassing all their expectations and proving to his previous doctors who classified him as autistic (and said he would need a lot of therapy) that he can do whatever he puts his mind to!"

I have been blogging for an eternity now, as far as the age of a blog goes.  Since April of 2005.  Dylan wasn't even a blip on the radar screen of our lives at that time.  When I found out my daughter-in-law was pregnant with him, I've been writing about him (and also Cooper) from that point onward.  It has been an amazing chronicle to look back on.  It will bring me to tears at times, how quickly it's all gone by.   How much of their lives I've been blessed to have a part in.  It tells of our daily adventures of their early lives in Portland.  It tells of our huge move here to Michigan.  But one thing I've never talked about because of respecting their family's privacy --  a lot of people we know read my blog -- is the fact that Dylan had been diagnosed with Autism.  Very high-functioning Autism, but Autism nonetheless.  There has been denial. There has been anxiety.  There has been a lot of watching and waiting to see how he copes and interacts with the world around him.  It took him what seemed like forever to talk.  And at times we'd even questioned the diagnosis.  Was he?  Wasn't he?  In all honesty I'd say yes, tho it's hard to admit.  We all want our children, our grandchildren, to be perfect as far as mental and physical abilities go.  And when they're not our hearts break for them.  Life is hard enough at times without having those obstacles to overcome as well.

But Dylan is such a great little boy.

He kind of reminds me of the tortoise in "The Tortoise and the Hare".  Whatever roadblock comes along he studies it, sets his mind to it, and methodically goes to work.  And by hard work, determination, and perseverance he knocks each block out of the way until he succeeds.  There is no room in his mind for "I can't do it".  His intelligence goes right up off the top of the scales.

He is so loving.  His sense of humor is as dry as it comes and he can be hysterically funny.  He hums as he works beside me in the flowerbeds.  He loves Nature.  He plays t-ball.  He's a whiz at video games.  He's protective of those he loves.  He's patient, kind, sympathetic, and empathetic.

He's my grandson, and I love him.

When nobody around you seems to measure up, it's time to check your yardstick. ~ Bill Lemley

Did you think this is a photo of our basement?

Nope.

This is.



We have been blessed with a very roomy 1100 square foot basement in our Michigan home.  Pictured here is the main part of the old-fashioned rec room.  Off to the left is another area that's part of the rec room, too.  It's empty outside of a hat rack on the wall.   There is a finished room that could be counted as another bedroom but I've designated that one for Dear Hubby's Rubbermaid storage bins full of hunting clothes and other paraphernalia.  He is doing a great job of keeping that in order.  No clutter, just bins stacked against the walls that he can rummage thru when he needs something.  I also have a big laundry room area where the furnace and water heater are.  There's a storage cubby under the stairs and a wall full of ceiling-to-floor cupboards.  I have never had so much inside storage space.  In the garage is another wall of ceiling-to-floor cupboards as well as a wall with triple-tier open shelves.  I never thought I'd see the day I'd have more storage space than I have stuff to fill it.

As to the first photo that I snitched off of Google images, that's pretty much how my Portland basement looked.  We had next-to-no closet space in that house.  No pantry and minimal cupboard space in the kitchen.  No linen closet.  Whatever needed to be stored was put in the unfinished basement.  Hardly any power outlets, for that matter.  Extension cords were my best friends.  Houses built in 1912 didn't need plug ins and closets.  There were very few electrical appliances and gadgets in the early part of the last century.  You had your Sunday-go-to-church outfit and a few other clothes and that was it.  No need for walk-in closets big enough to hide an army in.

I like organization.  I almost border on obsessive/compulsive when it comes to order.  Order makes me feel peaceful and less stressed.  Tranquil.  Chaos and messiness makes me feel anxious and uneasy.  I don't know why.  Does it hearken back to childhood issues?  Is it a control issue of some sort?   I'm "A place for everything, and everything in its place" sort of person.  I like knowing when I'm in need of a hammer I can go to a certain cupboard in the basement, open it up, and find the hammer there where it should be.  I like counters to be clean and uncluttered.  When I go to bed, I take dirty cups or glasses out to the kitchen.  I like waking up to a neat and orderly living room.  Does that make me obsessive?  Compulsive?  Or someone who just likes order?

Life has also blessed me with two packrats.  My Dear Hubby and my daughter.  I think in 38 years together I've done a good job at compromising with my husband.  In 35 years with my daughter, I learned to cast a blind eye as much as I could.  They are not me.  I can't make them be me, as much as I'd like them to be in this one area of life.  If only I could make them both realize how easy it is to just put away what they use.  Then they could find things.  They wouldn't be tearing around looking for things they just knew they'd put on the dresser or stuck in a drawer or basket.  My way of compromising is just standing back and letting them stew and worry.  It is not my problem.  I know where my stuff is.  Where it should be!

Oh well.  The good Lord made each of us individually with our quirks and likes and personalities.  We are who we are.  And I'm a neatnik.

The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments. ~ Mad Magazine

I'm waiting for a carpet consultant to arrive so we can start the process of getting new carpet laid in our house.  Isn't it sad when existing carpet is of such good quality it still has a lot of life left to it but its ability to lie flat on the floor is gone?  The previous owners of this house, who were the original owners from when our house was built in the late 1950s, had the carpet stretched before we moved in here and there was just a slight hump in the living room carpet.  Now, after walking over it for a little over a year, the humps and bumps are everywhere.  So...since we have a friend from Portland due to arrive in two weeks, we decided it's about time we get some new carpet.  And time for me to get the guest room in order as well.  When we first moved here it was our daughter's bedroom.  When she moved out it converted into our grandsons' play area.  They have a big Rubbermaid storage bin in there with their toys and Cooper's legion of garbage trucks and box of junk mail he loves to play Mail with.  When they're here they spend time playing with their Star Wars light sabers and pirate swords in there.  Nothing to hit, nothing to break.  We have a big mostly-empty old-fashioned rec room in the basement large enough for them to play field hockey in but will they play down there?  No, not unless I stay down there with them.  It's "scary".   Well, once the guest room is set up and decorated there will be no more Star Wars or Pirates played in there.  Grandma is only so tolerant.

I Know What Jesus Looked Like....

I know what Jesus looked like.

I see Him in the faces of my grandchildren,

in a sun-drenched alpine meadow

filled with rainbows of wildflowers.

I know what He sounded like, too.

His voice is in the laughter of 

children in the distance,

drifting through my kitchen window

on a summer day.

I know where He walked...

through the valleys of life's trials

and beside me in 

the still waters.

I know what the hem of His garment

felt like.

There was healing in its hem.

There was comfort

in its warmth.

I know what His love is.

It has flooded my soul

and filled my heart with

peace.

And I know what His Word is.

Life everlasting.

Time is not an enemy.
Time embellishes and enhances.
It teaches patience
and produces wisdom,
nuggets of gold to pass on
to new generations.
It is the ebb and flow
of the body's rhythms.
It enriches,
it diminishes,
on tides so subtle
we are taken by surprise
as we look in the mirror
and see its
delicate etchings
in life maps
trailing down
 the plains of our faces.

Time is a gift.
It is one more sunset to savor,
one more flower's scent
on a hot summer morning.
It is one more snowflake
to taste on the tip
of your tongue.
It is realizing
with each passing day
we are not losing ground.
We are gaining
one step closer to
Home.

No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories. ~ Chris Sorensen

There is nothing like the death of a close friend or loved one as far as making us realize our own vulnerability and how little control we truly have over our own lives.  We received news this morning that a very dear friend of Dear Hubby's passed away yesterday due to ongoing complications he'd suffered since having back surgery a few weeks ago.  In the process he'd suffered a stroke, which is something Dear Hubby is morbidly afraid of in regards to his own family history.  Also, this friend and Dear Hubby are almost the same age.  When I got on Facebook and notes from friends verified the seriousness of a message Dear Hubby woke up to find on his phone this morning:... "I've got really bad news!" from a mutual friend...Dear Hubby went off in another room and cried like his heart was breaking.   This friend had called Dear Hubby just a day or two before he'd gone in to have the back surgery, asking for prayer.  The last time Dear Hubby saw him was last summer when he'd flown into Portland and G had come out to pick him up at the airport. 

He'd asked me to send G a Get Well card right after the surgery.  Usually I am very good about doing things like that.  And even tho it isn't an excuse, in the busyness of the holidays and everyday life here, I had forgotten to do so.  This morning Dear Hubby said to me, "I hope in the future, when I ask you to do something like that for me,  next time you don't forget."  He didn't mean it the way I took it but I was a bit offended by that statement.  I try to do the best I can with the limited free time I have...and why can't men just DO something like that for themselves?  But the heat of the moment passed and I know he was feeling badly because the card never did get sent to G.  I felt badly, too.  Dear Hubby made a very valid point, tho.  He said we all need to act upon feelings when we feel them.  That's very true.  Little did we know G wouldn't make it.   In one of the Wyatt Earp movies, where Val Kilmer played Doc Holliday, as he lay dying of consumption he made a remark about not having many friends in his lifetime but Wyatt Earp had truly been one of his.  That line has stuck with both Dear Hubby and I ever since we heard it.  I know I wrote a blog entry recently about people who are well loved and then die feeling like they have no friends.  I think that is the biggest vulnerability in all our lives, never knowing how many really do love and care for us.  If only we'd take the time more often to tell not only family but dear friends just how much they mean to us. 

Myself included.

They say that the eye is the window to the soul. But it is the soul that is the window. ~ Andrew Hamilton

I had kind of a strange thought the other day as I sat watching my oldest grandson playing a wrestling video game.  Video animation has improved to the point where, if you come in unawares to a room where someone is playing a game, you aren't sure if what you're seeing is real or created.  The body movements are so fluid, so human-like.  That is, until the face turns towards the screen and you look into the eyes.  No matter how talented the animators of today are there is one thing they can't create:  a soul.  The eyes are flat and lifeless.  I have been with people who've died.  When the soul is gone from the body, the eyes are empty.  Sightless.  Immediately.

As my mother died, she shed one last tear.  The hospice nurse told my sister-in-law and me that many people do that.  Regrets?  Pain at leaving?  I don't know.  But once the soul is gone, it's gone.

People argue all the time about what a soul is.  What it isn't.  Where it goes.  Where it doesn't go.  That souls create auras around people.  That photographs show them leaving the body. 

I will tell you what my soul is.

It is the thoughts in my mind that are never quiet.  The voice of me.  The essence of my conscience.  The inner me who gazes out at the outside me.  I know it is contained inside of me and yet it isn't anything finite that I can hold up and show you.  It is the image looking back at me in the mirror.  The part of me that feels joy and sorrow, peace and anxiety, love and pain.  Who communicates with the outside world thru words and touch and gestures.  It feels the wind and holds its face up to the warmth of the sun.  It heard the voice of God and recognized it when it did.  And it yearned for something more...all my life...some way to fill the empty void it felt until it found the peace that passes all understanding.

And people will argue with me, when I tell them my soul was touched by God.  And that's ok.

I know what I know.

At what fork in the road,

what moment in time,

do we lose the magic of childhood?

When do we realize

we no longer know how

to play?

That people aren't always kind?

That the universe can spin out of our control

and leave us shattered

and 

disillusioned?

When our rose colored glasses

fall away for the last time

and rainbows

don't end

in pots of gold?

When does Creation

become commonplace

and we no longer take the time

to see its wonders

with the eyes of a child?

Where does the essence of who 

we truly are

disappear to?

And why does it have to go?

When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood. ~ Sam Ewing

Neighborhood friends.

This is not a photo of me with mine, but it could be.  The time period is right.  The clothes and haircuts are right.  I found it when I Googled "neighborhood friends" and I loved it.  Hopefully I'm not abusing any copyright laws by using it.

In the years when I was around the ages these kids appear to be, neighborhoods in small towns across America were loaded with children.  Our neighborhood was no exception.  In my family I had three brothers.  One family had 10 kids.  Another family had 6 boys.  A few other families had two or three kids. Summer twilight games outside were amazing fun with so many playing Hide 'n' Go Seek or sandlot baseball or games we dreamed up on the spot.

My family moved away from my hometown in 1966.  We moved to the Portland, Oregon, area which was around 150 miles away.  On occasion we'd take a drive back for a day so my mom could visit one of my grandfathers in Hoquiam.  Most of the time we kids didn't want to visit him...we wanted to be dropped off with friends in our hometown.  I can not tell you how devastated I was by that move.  I can not tell you how much I missed my childhood friends.  And thru the years I lost contact with most of them.

Then along came the internet.  People searches.  Alumni sites.  All kinds of ways to find and reconnect with people.  And I've found a few of my childhood friends.  Or they have found me.  Even tho 46 years have passed since I lived there and many moved away in adulthood there is still some kind of bond there between us.  Shared memories, shared histories.  It is an amazing thing to sit down face-to-face with one and pour over what would've been my high school Senior yearbook if I'd still been there.  To find out who's died or found success and those who never moved away.  We could remember most of those kids all the way back to first grade. Most amazing of all was to actually be sitting across a restaurant table, spending time with one of those childhood friends whom I hadn't seen in 45 years.  We reconnected just before my family moved to Michigan.  I feel so blessed to have seen her one more time.

And now, here I am at 58.  2400 miles from home.  In a city where no one shares any history with me at all.  I have become friendly with many since moving here but at this age, at this stage, I don't know if I'll ever be able to form that intimacy that comes with really knowing someone.  How does one find the time, in the busyness of life?  But the lovely thing about friendship is it comes on many levels...from the acceptance and welcoming we've received from a small community church we've been attending to have some face-to-face fellowship with other Christians...from our neighbor Donna who is one of the loveliest people I've ever met...from all the people who cross my path in a day.  Friendship itself isn't what's most important, I've found...it's friendliness.  A smile, a shared greeting, a wave across the street.  Just knowing you're acknowledged, a part of the community...it makes all the difference in the world.

I have been thinking some lately about the things I will probably never see again in my lifetime.  When you move as far away as I have, you don't go 'home' every day.  But you know, it's not the physical part of being there that you take with you anyway.  It's the memories.  It's what you tuck away in your heart for safe keeping. 

Don't cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won't let you see the stars. ~ Violeta Parra

You see darkness

where I see Light.

You resist change

and I embrace it.

You see despair

where I see hope.

You cope

and I thrive.

You feel emptiness

where I am filled to overflowing.

You lack faith

and I believe.

You tell me my life is a pipe dream.

I tell you I have found joy.

You tell me you pity me

and I tell you 

you don't know what you are missing.

 Your eyes are filled with deep sadness

but mine shine with an inner

peace

I would share with you

But you are steeped in misery.

As I passed by 

You shut the door 

and wouldn't let 

me in.

.

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~ From the television show The Wonder Years

This is the house we left behind in Portland.

We celebrated 28 Christmases there.

I wonder if it's missing us 

today.

Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I was looking at some photos on a friend's Facebook page yesterday.  One that caught my attention was of seven women taken back in the early 1990s...a group of women who've been friends for several decades now.  At that particular time they were especially close...most of their children were good friends as well and they spent a lot of time together.  But what really hit me about the photo was what was written about one of them who passed away this year.  I had always thought she had the world by the tail and lived a happy life.  But someone had written a comment saying, "She was well loved and she didn't know it."

How many of us go thru Life and feel like no one loves us?

Funny how sometimes, even when we're surrounded by others, we can feel so isolated and alone. Is it because we're so afraid of rejection that we're hesitant to reach out? I know for myself that that's what holds me back at times. Or it did when I was younger. As I'm getting older I am so much more comfortable in my own skin. But it's been a long and winding road thru Life to get to this point.

Several years ago  someone I knew quite well died.  I remember one time when she'd come over to have lunch with me at my house and she began to cry and told me she never felt like she had any friends.  It nearly broke my heart.  She was such a giving person, selfless in so many ways.  Whatever task she undertook she put her whole heart in to it.  A brilliant seamstress, she spent untold hours working on costumes for Sunday School projects.  Her artistic abilities were amazing.  And crafty?  She could take nothing and make something beautiful out of it.  I know that she struggled for acceptance amongst her peers and I don't think she ever found it, at least not on the level she so ached to attain.

And yet, when she died very tragically and unexpectedly in the prime of her life, you should have seen the amount of people at her funeral.  Kids she'd taught in Sunday School.  So many people whose lives she'd touched.


Someone came up to me not long after her funeral and remarked on what a beautiful service it had been.  Someone who'd never been particularly kind to my deceased friend.  She said, "You know, she was so well thought of and loved by so many people.  But I'm sure she knew it," and I know she was waiting for me to affirm that yes, this woman had known it.  I stood and looked at this person and didn't say a word.  Which made her very uncomfortable.  Then, a little less sure of herself she said, "She did know she was loved, didn't she?  I'm sure she did."  And again I said nothing.


When I did, I told her, "Actually, no.  She didn't."


And I turned and walked away.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~ Lao Tzu

Dear Hubby and I have never been known for being the sharpest tools in the shed.  This photo is proof of it.  In this part of the country, when people travel to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, they go in the summer months.  They go there to enjoy the beauty of the region and the majestic vastness of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.  Truly, they are inland seas, as my blog friend Alaine described them to me once.  Being a West Coast girl all my life I believed  there were no other 'beaches', no other 'shores' than those of the Pacific Ocean.  After crossing over the Mackinac Bridge, I changed my mind.  My first glimpse of the Lakes had my jaw dropping down in awe and all I could say, over and over, was "WOW!"

Do we go in the summer like most sane and sensible people?  Why, no.  We go now, in December, when it was in the teens and ice heaves like these are forming along the northern shore of Lake Michigan.  When the wind is howling at 40 miles per hour and the wind chill factor has the air temperature hovering at zero.  Why do we do things like this?  Well, partly because we're a little bit crazy.  And partly because we like doing things unconventionally.  This way we had the highways to ourselves.  This way we got to see what kinds of conditions the native "Yoopers" - as residents of the Upper Peninsula are called - live with in the off-season months.  From what we could see, they hunker down with plenty of wood stacked out in the woodpiles.  They have snow plows hooked onto the front of their pick ups or standing ready, leaning up against their garages.  The land is rugged and wild.  There are huge sand dunes and the wind whips off the tops of them in stinging sprays across the highway.  There are rough cabins and spectacular homes sharing space along the shore.  You can look out across the water and there is no land in sight.  It is, undoubtedly, some of the most beautiful land the good Lord has created on this earth.

I know before we moved to Michigan I'd heard of the Upper Peninsula.  I hadn't heard much.  I couldn't even remember much of the American History I'd learned about Michigan in high school...too many other states to learn about as well.  But since we've moved here just about everyone we've met has asked us, "Have you been to the UP yet?"  They ask it with kind of an affectionate pride in their voices, like they're talking about their kid or something.  When we'd say "No" they'd say, "Oh, but you gotta get up there!  It's one of the most beautiful places on earth!" and we'd smile politely and say, "Yes, we hope to soon."  And we'd talk about it but time just got away from us and we never made it during the tourist months.

But we made it in December.  And if you ask me, I think we hit it at its best time.  In its wild state.  When it felt like it belonged to no one but Dear Hubby and me.

The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. ~ Joan Didion

This morning I was reading the post of a young friend of mine on Facebook.  She'd received some Final Notices concerning medical bills for her children she thought had been paid by her medical insurance a couple of months ago.  She spoke of how stressed she was.  I could so relate to her situation and her feelings.

Once upon a time, I was a young mother facing a mountain of medical bills.  And we didn't have medical insurance at the time.  I had given birth to my 12-pound son by emergency c-section.  He and I were in the hospital for almost a week.  There were the room costs, the nursery costs, the operating room costs, the anesthesiologist bill, my doctor bill.  Bills, bills, bills.  Dear Hubby was the sole breadwinner and made less than $5 per hour.  We had a two-year-old daughter.  We were young, desperate, and very scared.

Luckily a friend of ours worked at the small town hospital where I'd given birth.  She was able to provide us with some paperwork to fill out to help us with the hospital bill, as long as we qualified.  Boy, did we ever qualify!  On top of everything else, our son had picked up staph infection in the hospital and was a very sick little baby.  The hospital 'forgave' us our entire bill.

Which left us with all the doctor and anesthesiologist bills. 

As Christians we felt compelled to pay off those bills, even tho the amounts seemed astronomical, especially my doctor's.  We barely had two nickels to rub together but I sat down and wrote letters to the anesthesiologist's and my doctor's business offices, telling them we had no medical insurance but we would pay every penny owed to them because we were Christians, no matter how long it took.  This was back in 1978.  The anesthesiologist's amount was something like $275 and we got that paid off fairly quickly...within a year, I believe.  The doctor bill was closer to $1000.  Some months I was able to send $5, some months $50...$10 here, $20 there.  Slowly, slowly it dwindled down.  And finally I came to the point where I wrote out the final check and sent it off.  Our son was almost 5 at the time, and we'd moved from that town, eventually landing in Portland where we lived until earlier this year.  As we moved, I could've easily not sent my forwarding address to them.  I could've skipped town and never paid off that debt.  But pride and a strong sense of right versus wrong kept me true to my word.  It gave me a great sense of satisfaction, dropping that envelope into the mailbox.

The funny thing is, a week or so later I got a card from my doctor's office in the small town.  A Thank You card, from the office manager.  She wrote and told me how the whole office had been aware of what a struggle it had been for us to pay off that bill.  And when they received the final payment, how good it made them feel.  She said it restored their faith in people, a person who actually kept their word and did such a thing.  She said it didn't happen like that very often.  She wished us the best, on all their behalf.

I sat and stared at that card in amazement.

You see, we go about our lives making simple decisions, to do what's right.  And we go about our business and faithfully send off that money, figuring it's just going into the doctor's bank account and the amount due is a little less each time the bill shows up regularly in the mail month in, month out.  You have no idea what kind of an impression something that seems so mundane to you such as paying a bill might be making on someone else.  An entire doctor's office, for instance.

And then you sit there with the proof of what it has meant to those people held in your hand.  And you feel very humbled, because it is a testimony to them what God has done for you in your life.  Made you honest.  Made you a person of your word.

And 33 years later, it is a memory that is still very precious to me.

Where thou art - that - is Home. ~ Emily Dickinson

Home.

Sweet home.

I had Dear Hubby take this photo of our house this morning.  I am feeling too sick to venture very far from the comforts of the living room.  This was taken just as the sun was coming up, casting its golden glow over the bricks and rock on the front of the house.

It came to me recently just how much this lovely little house has truly become "home".

On Thursday Dear Hubby and I had dinner at a restaurant out of town.  And not even half an hour later I was beginning to feel quite poorly.  To make matters worse, we were several miles from home.  All during the ride back all I thought was, "I can't wait to get home!"  To my bed.  To my pillows. 

And as we were driving along it occurred to me.

There was no thought of Portland as home any more.  Not even remotely.

Here is my home.  

My comfort zone.

The only place I wanted to be.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. ~ Virginia Woolf

I was going thru my archives of about a bazillion different photos and graphics when I came across this one.  I was looking for another photo for today's entry but when I came to this one my whole train of thought shifted and I decided to use this one instead and save the other for another day.  If I ever find it, that is...I really do have a lot stored away, considering I've written close to 2,000 blog entries the past 5 years.

This photo is one my Dear Hubby took a few Christmas seasons ago.  He'd gone hunting at his cousin Ed's house which is just across the road from this one.  This house has special memories for Dear Hubby...it is the farm homestead of his maternal grandparents who originally emigrated from Austria in the very early 1900s.  They settled in Canada, to begin with, then came to Oregon City.  Dear Hubby's mother, the last of 14 children, was born here in 1929.  When I married Dear Hubby in 1974 only a handful of the children had passed away.  As I write this, my mother-in-law and two of her brothers are still alive.  But one is terminally ill with cancer and may die within days.

Dear Hubby spent a good portion of his early years in this house.  His mother worked so his grandmother took care of him and one of his sisters during the day.  His grandma never learned to speak much English.  When they moved to Oregon this house was far enough out in the country that she rarely went to 'town' so there was little need for her to speak anything more than the basics.  Dear Hubby tells me he never spoke German but he could understand it when his grandmother spoke it to him.  This house was the Sunday gathering place after church when everyone who could would come over for dinner.  Dear Hubby had something like 60 first cousins so I can just picture little ones frolicking all over the yard, the porch, the fields.  They were a big, boisterous group.  I don't know if the accordions and the spoons were brought out on any of these Sundays but I've been to wedding celebrations where they were and the family would dance polkas and the Schottische.   There was a lot of life lived in this house.  But, like with all families, parents aged and died.  Sadly, the house was sold outside of the family tho Cousin Ed still lives across the road in the house he grew up in, and family still lives scattered all over the nearby area.

I don't exactly envy Dear Hubby for this rich heritage but I often wonder what it must have been like growing up surrounded by so much family.  He had cousins who were as close to him as siblings.  So, as he took this untouched photo that day, I wonder at the memories that must have been moving at lightning speed thru his mind.  Picturing his parents as their younger selves, seeing his long-gone grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Picturing himself, a skinny little dark-haired boy playing in the yard.  Eating all the wonderful food prepared and served in that house. 

I never had that, growing up.

Maybe...on second thought...I do envy him after all.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. ~ George Carlin

Our first sticking snowfall.

There's something I'm just not getting.

Why don't people like snow in the midwest?

To me, it's almost magical, coming from a region where in the low-lying valleys snow wasn't something that came too often.  But as everyone here has been telling me I'll be sick of it by the end of February.

Between you and me...I think not.