seconds, minutes and hours

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robert and i drove down the road yesterday in the balmy carolina summer air. the kind that hangs stagnant without relief of breeze. we rolled the windows down and pablo stuck his head out, catching the sunshine and heat square on the nose.

and as we drove, we tried to remember last week. what we ate for supper, how we spent our evenings. for events that happened less than seven days ago, we had a terribly difficult time recalling their details. between the day-in, day-outs of how was your day, lie on the couch, bachelorette on monday, bacon and tomato sandwiches every evening on the porch, crash on the couch in that old blanket, lunch breaks at the grocery store, midnight trips to the water bowl with  pablo, thrift store perusing, etsy selling, sleepy, tired, exhausted workdays we just lost track.

but that's the glory of it, sometimes. the forgetting.

letting the seconds and minutes pass, but holding on to the hours.

i think it's one of God's greatest blessings and one of life's greatest kindnesses that some things we forget. at least, some things lose their momentum with the passage of time. a few months ago, i ran into the boy who called me a stutterer in front of the entire lunchroom in the seventh grade. it wasn't bad, and i wasn't mad at him anymore. that sinking feeling in my gut eventually rose. and i can look at the facebook page of my sweet friend who passed away in that awful car wreck in 2007 without my computer screen fading away behind blurred, watery vision. it doesn't mean i will become friends with that boy, or that i don't miss and think about my friend every single blessed day. it just means i forgot the initial shock, and for that i am grateful.

but then, there are things i can't hold onto tight enough. memories of my mama running down the hill behind our house. my day out with dad, when i got my first cast. the time against that old honda, when robert turned to me on my driveway and whispered that he loved me. my first job interview, and the letter that followed.

i want to get to the end of my life with a storage vault of such hours. an arsenal of time. that i can slowly unlock and resavor. but maybe, after all, it's the seconds and minutes we save (the good ones at least).

if we're lucky, we'll get to the end with one good, solid hour. of a million nanoseconds of love.

that's all i can really hope for, come to think of it.

where i have and haven't been

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i apologize for the silence in these parts lately. truth is, i've been super busy. so busy that when robert surprised me at work and asked if i could take a quick walk to the end of the parking lot with him i said no. and right there, at eight in the evening on a saturday in june, those words were the meanest things i've ever spoken to my husband.

because yes, i could have taken a break to walk thirty feet with him.

yes, i could have put my ipad down and sat with pablo while he ate supper. my back against the warm knotty pine cabinets, stroking his back as he dove headfirst into the red bowl, then to the blue one for a drink. but i sat in the office instead and he moped around until he finally got his courage up enough to go into the kitchen without me, gulping down fistfulls of food in a fit of nerves.

yes, i could have called my sister and brother instead of texting them goodnight, like i've done every evening for the past week. heard her voice on the phone and his music in the background. but it was past midnight and i figured they'd be asleep. so i shot off a quick message and sunk dizzily into the bed.

and i could have made myself breakfast. or coffee. i could have taken a minute to sigh into child's pose or downward dog. just a second of stretch.

i could have read my Bible and played my hymns. tended to the garden better or made robert a home-cooked meal. well, at least a meal in the crock-pot.

because as terribly busy, exhausted and sleep-deprived as i was, those things matter. those things matter more than anything in this entire earth and they are worth my time.

it's important to do things as you are called. and it was actually an honor to be tasked with the work i was this week.

but i have another calling too. a deep, sacred, privileged calling. and it's about time i picked up.

finding the still

it's just not going to happen.

the brownies will not get made for bible study. the whites will not get washed. and the noodles might be not be hot anymore once we bring ourselves to the table. my hair will be in a bun, one remnant of morning curls poking out the back. doggie belly rubs might  not occur until midnight, with the tree out back casting a shadow on the blanket.

tis the season of hustle. of bustle and movement. of late nights and early mornings, with a soundtrack of ripping wrapping paper and falling ornaments. some things must, some things inevitably will, fall to the wayside.

but i promise this: i will lean into, body and spirit, everything sacred and holy and still about this december. i will sing from my gut and pray on my knees. i am determined to feel christmas this year. wholly. and that means letting things slide. like the pile of clothes in the laundry room. the books on the nighstand. the dust under the bench.

and i don't know how long i can make this last. this focus, this deep drive. january? february, maybe? but it's the striving that counts. the constant reach and try. one month, one prayer, at a time.

someone's got a dirty mouth

like mamas who stuff lollipops in their purse before church, we know all the right bribes to make pablo stay quiet. our go-to incentive is a little treat filled with peanut butter. perfect for those nights when we want to watch modern family, work on homework, or just  hang out without a pup on our laps, begging to play.

the only problem is, he looks so darn cute afterward. so cute that i turn off the television, shut the laptop and invite him into my arms.

and shows get missed. homework piles up and alone time isn't so alone anymore. but one look into those chestnut brown eyes and suddenly it doesn't quite matter as much as it used to.

learning a lost art

she had the couch reupholstered last year. the one right by the front door, in a pearly shade of white. clean, like a sno-cone before the grape juice seeps into the cracks.

but no one really comes to sit there anymore, except her husband, when he needs to see the television. or stretch his legs. except the woman who lives next door, with a son not much younger than hers, in his fifties.

but in early evening, when the day's baking is done, when her grandson has gone home for the night and her husband's head is drooped down in slumber on the recliner, dolores sits there. under the lamplight around seven thirty. bathed and in her nightgown, with a heavier scent of powder than she wears for the daytime.

and she embroiders. tea towels. baby bibs. his and her pillowcases. old iron-on patterns she's kept since the sixties. new ones she found on sale at hobby lobby. she has to go slow, and it takes her weeks to finish one pattern. she has the shakes now, she says.

and robert's grandma has offered to teach me. how to embroider. how to choose the right shade of thread to make the bear's belly brown and the flowers pale pink. to make loop stitches and knots. once we get back from our new england trip, a weekly evening jaunt to her warm little house in the city is on my agenda.

it's a lost art, this sewing business. this making pictures out of string. but like the woman who relaxes to it, i'm convinced it only gets better, gets richer and more beautiful, with age.

modern family, interrupted

pablo won't eat unless i sit with him. unless i'm rubbing his back and whispering that it's okay, that no one is behind him, that his kibble will still be there if he trots around for a bit. some time in the past, some long ago forgotten memory is lying latent in him. the awful idea that someone might take his food, hit him for eating, or try to nudge him out of the way of the bowl. i'll never know what happened to him those five years he wasn't mine.


but i do know how it is now. how i can't sit down to watch modern family without him nudging me, reminding me he is hungry. i've sat on the floral linolieum in that old farmhouse every single night for the past two years. i've learned the crevices of the squares, the intricate pattern of the sage green and buttercup yellow motif.


but it's a good thing, this being needed. being depended upon. even if it's just by a 13-pound ball of fluff. and when babies come to bless our days, as i pray they do, i'll feel just an inkling more prepared. it's ironic. all this time on the cold hard kitchen floor, and i've become softer.

the bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide

robert left this morning to spend a weekend with his cousin in virginia.

as i left the house, driving away on the gravel road washed me with a memory. back when he was in college and i was still in high school. he used to come home every weekend on the train, and every sunday around three, i would walk outside with him, kiss him goodbye, and prepare to face another week of being eighteen without him. i would envision his fabulous life in college, and in my head, all the girls in college were buxom  blonds in tiny shorts and tinier tops. it was quite an awful (and incredibly inaccurate) picture that i painted.

i felt that again this morning.

and it's not that i'm clingy. i love, trust and adore him enough to let him leave for a few days. i just don't prefer it, that's all. and i don't quite know what to do with the next few days. there's suddenly a whole weekend in front of me to fill, and, without the promise of our friday movie night and sleeping in on saturday and walking under the country stars, it just seems a little daunting to tackle it all by myself.

that last line i just wrote reminded me of celine dion's classic rendition of "all by myself," which is exactly the wrong type of song to have in my head right now. alas. at least there are no buxom blonds where he's headed.

a case of me

the other day, mama handed me a tupperware container and said, "i want you to have this." she had taken it from the attic and, with the help of my dad, brought it down the flight of stairs, where it sat on the hardwood floor. inside were mementos of another life. my childhood. from report cards to pictures of my first days of school, it was all there. all preserved. as if only a few days, maybe months had gone by since my sticky fingers put too much glue on the diaramma.

and i went through it with robert. read aloud the funny, often hilarious, things that were jumbled in my mind at seven years old. the letter i wrote to a non-existent modeling agency detailing every part of my face down to the length of my eyelashes and how beautiful i thought i was. my favorites. my hobbies. my likes and dislikes.

and it got me thinking, when's the last time i filled out a questionnaire that revealed nearly as much about me as the standard elementary school "student of the month" one? i swear, one can tell a lot about girl by her favorite food, favorite holiday and favorite day of the week.

many of those answers would be the same. i still love pasta. still cherish my fridays. still idolize my parents.

but my likes? oh boy, have they changed.

i like hot baths at seven in the evening. i like blueberries coated with fine sugar and tart blackberry jam. i like the way pablo smells in the morning and the way robert's white t-shirts feel when i reach across the bed at night. i like the way joni mitchell sings "oh canada" in the beginning of a case of you. i like the way sunshine weaves through open blinds and spills into rooms around four in the afternoon.

and as sweet as it was to look back, i'm even more excited about looking forward. as long as the future holds lots of pasta on fridays, i'm certain i'll be just fine.

when you break down, i'll drive out and find you

there are things you can't admit anywhere but a midnight highway. things you can't let your heart feel until trees past by in blurs of ebony, wheels thump methodically beneath, and staticy radio waves sit stagnant in the passenger seat. like he's really gone this time. or where did the time go.

but the beautiful thing about the highway is its continuity. you can hop on i-40 in winston-salem, north carolina and take it straight to santa fe, new mexico. and you remind yourself that you should sometime. and let the crooks and turns, roadside diners and mom-and-pop grocery stores scattered like tumbleweeds along deserted, sunny roads, have their influence on  you.

because the highway does eventually stop. and the wheels become bald with time and sand. and maybe you stop along the shore. maybe in a crowded parking deck. maybe along the sidewalk of your hometown, strangely familiar yet only as a photograph. either way, you stop. because the heart can only take so much realization. and the soul so much clarity, until little by little the breaks become as deep as the pavement crevices beneath your feet as you open the door to home.

hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

baby flower buds are one of my favorite things in the world. stretching their little faces toward the sunshine. there are few more innocent, simple things. and i always watch for it. wait for green leaves to open and reveal their treasures. that's why monday night was disheartening.

i was walking behind our house, picking up sticks from the storm, when i noticed it. at first, it was only a glimmer. a tinge of magenta against brick. then i walked closer and saw it. our azalea bush. pregnant with beautiful blooms. the bush that was here when this house's original owners were. the one they planted in the ground. and i missed its opening act. and it's strange, but something so beautiful stirred in me such a sadness.

that life's going by like a movie, and i'm stuck in the theater holding stale popcorn. sometimes it just hits me. how breathtaking, achingly beautiful this life is. and how often i'm indoors. how the azalea put on a show for me and i missed all but the finale.

so i went to the store. i bought some little red begonias. with tiny buds just starting to bloom. i planted them and put them on the windowsill, where i can watch them every morning.

and morning by morning, the soul returns.

let's go on an adventure

i reached for his hand across the stick shift.

lets go on an adventure, i said. where to, he asked.

anywhere. i looked out the window at the field beside our house. the blades of grass were swaying in a rustic harmony on the tails of a sunday morning breeze. the window was down and the sun was warm on my closed eyes.

we decided it was too soon, only a month after our last vacation at the coast, with family beach trips coming up and weekend commitments the rest of the month. i let out a sigh of discontent.

then i looked down at the hand i was holding, and followed it up, past the cuffed church shirt and to the face of the man i love. and i smiled. because this, this very moment, was an adventure. driving to church with summer just ahead of us made me feel alive. and later that day, napping on the couch with the window open and birds chirping.

we'll go on another adventure. we're suckers for road trips to kitschy destinations like the world's largest display of pork (nahunta, n.c.). the northeast is next on our list, but it won't happen tomorrow.

no. tomorrow will hold another early morning alarm, my same white coffee cup, and the same daily grind of phones, papers and people. but if i'm lucky, tomorrow will also hold a doorstep greeting, with evening settling into the bones of our house and pablo itching to get out the screen door. i will put down my pocketbook, pull my shades off my head, and collapse into robert. maybe we'll take a walk to mama and daddy's house. or maybe we'll stay in and watch netflix with cheap popcorn. we'll talk about our days over a crock-pot creation and revel in all that is ordinary, natural and satisfyingly simple.

either way, i'm sure, it will be a most spectacular adventure.

i'm thinking i want some treats

  xxx

 
sometimes it's not enough to cry. or to vent. or to talk about it to my dog. sometimes it's not enough to think positively, read inspirational quotes or call up mama.

there are days when i just need a little pick me up. something special for only myself. a time of prayer, closed eyes and deep breaths.

last night was one of those nights. honestly, i just needed butter. i needed to soak my bread in its juice and let it run down my chin. to laugh at robert reaching for more paper towels and smile as pablo lapped it up off the floor. so i made the most succulent steak sandwiches i could find, with a butter sauce to end all butter sauces.

and today, with rain looming in the distance, it was cafe mochas. in a little coffee shop near my the post office where my dad works. with the room bathed in noon light, and shade trees beside the window. my bible spread open on the worn wooden table, my hands wrapped around a hot paper cup. whipped cream on my nose after each sip.

we're worth it, you know.

worth those extra treats. those sinfully delicious concoctions. because the truth is, they're not sinful at all. they are blessings and, in moderation, perfect.

so last night i indulged, and today as well. i might or might not tomorrow. but i believe that God met me there today, in that room, and smiled as i leaned my head down toward the foam and prayed, whispered up an offering beside a chatty group of women and what i believe to be a couple on their first date.

i looked around, with only minutes left on my lunch break. at everyone doing the exact same thing as me. chilling out. reading. playing music. drinking tea and crumbling muffins on their plates.

taking the moment to release, before picking back up on their day. finding a minute of recluse to recharge. a multitude of angels in the middle of the afternoon. reminding me that work is good, but so is play, and both are right. so, so right.

rain and remembrance

i thought time would take it away.

that after 10 years, i wouldn't hear the voice of the boy across the lunch table telling me, in tone loud enough to cause tears to rise from my gut, that i was nothing but a stutterer. the  moment after that big presentation, when the sea of relief was replaced by anguish and a faceless whisper from a boy in the back of the room. "that was g-g-g-great." the teacher by the whiteboard, asking me, while my classmates sat in stale, cold silence, to take a deep breath and start over.

i ran into that lunchroom bully a few months ago and we exchanged the kind of formalities that old high school acquaintances do. a quick side hug and quicker duck out the door. by his wide smile, i could tell he didn't remember. and how could he? but i did. that teacher, the one who also taught my mama, passed away a few years ago. i haven't heard from that whispering boy in ages. last i heard, he got married and lives nearby.

everyone, everywhere, has forgotten. and that's fine. and you know, i forgive them.

but there are days i remember more than i want to. when someone at  work raises an eyebrow as i explain something, or a phone call to my family goes silent for a second when i'm trying to catch my breath. when the glottal blocks give way to giant insecurities that make me want to take a vow of silence.

but then there are days like yesterday. when i saunter in to an executive's office and present my case, in a fluency that is altogether alien but more and more familiar to me. with a slow, deliberate message and confidence rising with every fully pronounced syllable. and again, the cycle of doubt recedes.

and isn't that all we can do? to hope that little by little, those moments of exhilaration join like water molecules until one day they bring forth the most beautiful, healing rain. one that will wash away all the bullies, taunts and lingering fear.

yes, a rain deep enough to cleanse away the past and rush me, on its raging ocean, into a happier future. that's all it would take. and i'm almost there. because after the rain comes the rainbow, and you best believe i'm not missing that.

playing nurse

 robert is home sick. for the second day in a row. with an ear infection, at that.

the last time i thought about ear infections was when i had one when i was nine and mama took me and my sister to wal-mart to get our pictures taken in our christmas dresses. it was super classy, and what made it even more spectacular was the horrified look of pain sprawled across my face, just below my fluffed and teased bangs and fresh chicken pox scar.

and now, 15 years later, i am in my own home nursing my sweet husband back to health.

and spending time with him, just sitting with him, talking. it's funny how things like sicknesses force everyone to slow.down. to just take a breather and relax. on the other hand, i have been busy too. i've been cooking more, scrubbing the sink more, and folding laundry more. and it feels so incredibly organic and good.

to be needed, that is. to feel required and responsible.

and as i folded robert's 1,865,424 work shirt, i breathed it in, and hugged it close. because this man, this blue-collared, strong willed, independently awesome man is eternally linked to me, and will need me, just as i need him, as long as we walk this earth.

in sickness and in health.

homeward, with heaven above me

whether they are a part of their home or home is a part of them is not a question children are prepared to answer. having taken away the dog, take away the kitchen--the smell of something good in the oven for dinner. also, the smell of washday, of wool drying on the wooden rack. of ashes. of soup simmering on the stove. take away the patient old horse waiting by the pasture fence. take away the chores that kept him busy from the time he got home from school until they sat down for supper. take away the early morning mist, the sound of crows quarreling in the treetops. take away all this and what have you done to him? in the face of deprivation so great, what is the use of asking him to go on being the boy he was. he might as well start life over again as some other boy instead.

so long, see you tomorrow

i drove home in the snow yesterday. it wasn't much. not enough to make the roads dangerous. just a little powdery cascade, dusting my front porch rocker and daintily dancing upon my sidewalk.

and as i drove, i thought (because that's when i do my best thinking, you know). 

about driving home. calling home. walking in my home.

there are things i know because i am taught. because i spend time to learn them and engrave them into my mind. the alphabet, multiplication tables, how to sew a button. my favorite song lyrics.

and then, there are things i know, because i can feel them. in my bones. somewhere that memory doesn't reach. somewhere inside the infant part of me. the part i can't recall.

i can't remember when i first memorized the shape of my home. the rooms and their placement. the corners and unexpected turns. the locations of all the light switches, tabletops and little step-downs. it just happened. and unlike academics, work, or anything else i learned through a teacher, i will never forget it. 

because i still have to bring my calculator to the grocery store. i look at directions when i sew. i write down lyrics so i can repeat them later. i forget grammar, history, and science sometimes.

but i still remember the path to my childhood bedroom. the room with white walls at the top of the stairs. and i still remember the shape of calling robert's old cell phone number, mama's car phone from the 90s, and my best friend's home number, which i haven't called in ages.

because things like that can't be unlearned. because home is me. i am home. what am i if not the accumulation of little moments associated with that structure of brick and vinyl siding, sheet rock and stucco?

the shape of home has changed, yes. now i have two homes. my childhood one and my new one with robert. but both are the same. i still run to them every afternoon. mama used to be at the stove, making homemade vegetable soup in the winter. now, i come home to robert, on the couch with pablo, watching the evening news. 

it's a different scene, but one that is wholly familiar to me.

i remember. i understand. i feel.

not because i was taught. because i already knew.