Autumn

"Nostalgia~that's the autumn,
Dreaming through September
Just a million lovely things
I always will remember."

Jacquiline Bouvier (Kennedy) 1943

So this morning Grant asks me to go on a bike ride with him.
My mind reels off silent excuses. I haven't ridden a bike in a decade. I have 6 loads of laundry to do, plus sheets. School starts tomorrow, last minute planning looms. I don't have a bike that's ride-able. I am wearing a dress.
So, of course, I say yes.
I hopped on Avonlea's bike scorned the offered helmet (I had my hair up) and we took off. The wind blew across our faces as we pumped our legs side by side and I felt this unbelievable sense of camaraderie with my son. As we criss-crossed in the parking lot I threw both hands up high! I got the attention I was hoping for, "Mom I can't believe you can do that!"
It takes the autumn's nostalgia to remind me that life is more than laundry. To remind me that one autumn, long ago, on the day before school started, I pedaled down Alaskan roads. The wind in my face was colder but the euphoria was the same. And where I was lacking a comrade then, I now have a really cute boy by my side.
I am so thankful to be able to embrace another autumn.
God is so kind.

What a week can do

The kids rode their bikes to the park today. I walked, my pace pedestrian matching Rose's training wheel speed. Last week the park was this jumbled mess of people, kids screaming and running, parents chatting, bikes whizzing by, and swimmers spilling out the pool doors chlorinated and damp.
Today, it was just us. We went to the pool and looked at the empty rectangles that were drained of fun and kids and splashing. The five of us, we stood and gaped.
Grant, as usual, commented, "I would have never dove into the deep end if I had known it was that deep!"
Ahhh the grace of oblivion. How many things I would have never attempted had I known how deep the water which I was diving into was.
We walked/rode the park paths and I couldn't help but think that soon the crunch of leaves would be under our feet. The air would smell of apples and the wind fresh scent of summer's rooms blown clean; aired.
I put my hand on Rose's bike seat as we went down the hills. She looked over her shoulder to make sure I'd got her.
"You got me mama?"
"I won't let go until you tell me to Rosy."
Ahhh the grace of being needed. I'll hold on for as long as you'll let me baby. I'll revel in the purpose of my life right now: to steady, to guide, to help.
We head back home, four little hands wave thank-yous to drivers who let us cross.
Ahhh the grace of gratitude. These little ones are learning to appreciate thoughtfulness.
The three older ones get ahead and call back, "Can we go on without you?"
I nod my acquiesce and tarry on snail pace with Rose, and I think, yes go on, just as you've learned, in grace and in gratitude. Pedal hard and fast and fearless. The seasons will change but He will remain changeless. You never need to look over your shoulders, He's there, and He will never let go of you.

A verse a day...

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5

"In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-for he grants sleep to those he loves." Psalm 127:2

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work; If one falls down, his friend can help him up." Ecc. 4:9,10

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Galatians 5: 22,23

"The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." Psalm 126: 3

"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." Psalm 16: 6

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" Isaiah 30:21

"The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death." Proverbs 14:27

"Ask it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matt. 7:7

The Shallows

I know that those of you who don't know me well and read my musings must think I'm a little crazy. I go from posts about pianos parked on sidewalks to wrestling with angels to mating cats at an alarming rate. And that's kinda me. I swim in the depths and revel in them and then I come up to the surface for air and find that very enjoyable as well.
So I emerged today and found laughter waiting for me.
Dave's birthday was a day to thank God for the blessing of a wonderful husband and father.
My sister and the kids' cousin, Summer, came for a visit. I think Summer is getting to old for dancing (however I'm not sure how that's possible because I'm not too old for dancing).

Rowan fell asleep like this and I found it very amusing.

Posy's face makes me laugh. She's wistful and naughty and little.

Here is what's been cracking me up lately. Our cat's fur was matted so we decided to...

Shave him. Doesn't he look hilarious. He's frightfully self-conscious which makes it even more funny.

Except thou bless me....

Genesis 32:24-26
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till day break. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

These verses have always intrigued me. Wasn't Jacob the little guy who "stayed among the tents" while his big brother went hunting? Wasn't he the son-in-law that fled terrified, with his wives and belongings, from his father-in-law? Where did he get the audacity to wrestle with an angel of God and demand blessing?

I just finished the book Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. Isak's real name was Karen Blixen-Finecke and she was a Danish baroness. Upon her marriage to her cousin in 1914 the family gave them a huge coffee plantation in Kenya (I got a few vases and some picture frames???!!!). After 7 years of farming her husband left her and moved back home. She stayed on alone 10 more years until the plummet of coffee prices left her bankrupt. This little spunky baroness stayed and fought and ruled. Her writing is intriguing and full of literary allusions, she wrote the following about the farmer's fear of drought:

"But it happens in the middle of the rainy season that in the evening the stars show themselves through the thinning clouds; then he stands outside his house and stares up, as if hanging himself on the the sky to milk down more rain. He cries to the sky: 'Give me enough and more than enough. My heart is bared to thee now, and I will not let thee go except thou bless me. Drown me if you like, but kill me not with caprices....'."

There it is again....that audacity!
That determination to lay your life on the line for the blessing.
How bad do I want the blessing?
Bad enough to limp the rest of my life?
Bad enough to drown in the wake of it?
Bad enough to wrestle with my own sin and selfishness and seek God unabashedly?

Yes. That bad.

Hmmmm........

I find it humorous that five days after I write a sentimental post about mom and Rowan, he took their intimacy to a new level.
He was missing for quite a while this morning and that usually means he's down at grandma's being fed cookies at 8 in the morning. So I called my mom and asked if she had seen him. She said no, but she'd been in the shower, and the back door had been locked.
Now locks mean little more than a challenge to Rowan as Dave found out several months ago, when he got out of the shower to find all means of covering himself gone.
I finally found a gleeful Rowan who told me that he had gone up to mom's house and found it locked. He came back to our house, found the key to her house and let himself in (did I mention he was armed with his rifle?). To his annoyance the bathroom door was locked so he just hid and waited for her... with his rifle. According to him, he watched her walk around in her towel until I called, then he beat it for the door when she went for the phone.
Mom was scandalized and I told her, "If you have any sense of privacy at your house, it's an illusion."
Rowan was thoroughly pleased with himself and told me with twinkly eyes, "Don't worry mommy, the towel covered most of her."
Really, there are some things I'd rather not know............

Disguised

There is no birth without the death of something. I realized this for the first time on my wedding day. A new life of marriage and maturity and independence was given birth to as I crossed the threshold. But there stood my family, who had loved and laughed with me for 22 years, I was no longer theirs, and the pain of it took my breath away. But only for a moment. At that moment I understood, to gain anything, we must lose something.

Fast forward 8 years.

Rowan was born 3 months before my Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. The first time, of many, that I walked down the long, sterile hospital corridor, Rowan was with me. I held him tightly in front of me, shield-like, as I walked past the moans, the sobs, the breathing and beeping and voices. When we got to the room I offered him to Mom. He was the only thing I had to offer. Hope personified.

Dad was sent home to Mom's care and we visited and tried to encourage. Through months of exhaustion and emotions and monitoring, I would come and share and be. And I would bring this babe who would inevitably reach fat arms for my Mother. He seemed to know that he could somehow, somewhat, alleviate the suffering. And he did.

So there is this love between them, this child that thrived in her arms as her husband weakened.

And this is life, the joy and the sorrow and the death and the birth, all jumbled into one Holy mess. The pain of it takes my breath away on a daily basis. But only for a moment because..."the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Rev. 7:17) forever is on the way, and death, after all, is really only birth in disguise.