Greatness

{faith, hope, love}

Fall down seven times, get up eight

{Also, leaving your vintage bike unattended for years? Not good.}

Sunday, I chatted briefly with a friend. Both of her boys were born near the holidays, you see, and therefore get to celebrate their half-birthdays in the summer. When we ran into one another, the younger of the two was getting off his brand new bike. After offering appropriate admiration his eyes flew wide and a smile teased his lips. He then proceeded to tell me all about it–but the first words out of his mouth were not as you might imagine. He said nothing of the awesomeness of his ride, the training wheels that allow him to ride by himself, or the places he’s roamed.

I fell down, he said. You fell down? I echoed. Like a knight sensing a great conquest, he puffed out his chest, and continued, I fell down two times . . .

As we discussed the extent of injuries {my first thought when falling down} his brother sidled up. Well, I fell down six times! Six times, if you can even believe; with that, the younger had no recourse but to revise his exploits: I mean, I fell down three times–three times!

As if they are not ridiculously adorable enough, at that moment I could have grabbed them and gobbled them up. Cute, smart, and brave–wee knights, indeed.

I don’t know about you, but I could use a little of their unbridled bravery to rub off. To face life with little concern for the breaking of a leg or the injury to pride. To set my sights; to charge forward even when fear rears its ugly head–even when I could fail miserably, especially when I could fail miserably. For it’s only when we view ‘failure’ as part of of the adventure, that we’ll ever know just how far we can go . . .

The greatest heroes of all

{Grand-mama, to the left, ma-mama, middle (Mary) circa 1957}

It only appropriate the week that begins with National Teacher Day and continues on with superheroes, should end with the greatest heroes of them all: our mothers.

Ma, mom, madre, mor, mere, majka, mae, muter {seriously, I am totally going to start calling my mom muter}–it doesn’t matter what we call her, the heart remains the same. We may be born of her, or chosen–she may be our mother our whole lives through, or just when we need her, but the blessings are the same.

She’s the one throwing together costumes at the last moment {because we failed to tell her ahead of time}; the one standing in the wings at programs. She’s the one volunteering for school outings, running taxi service for myriad extracurricular activities, and cheering until she’s hoarse at games. She’s the one hosting birthday parties and sleep overs . . . baking mounds of cakes and cookies . . . giving hugs at the door and sticking notes in lunch bags. She’s the one taking photos ad nauseam at prom and telling us to “drive careful” as we go on our way . . . the one teaching us to brush our teeth, look both ways before crossing the street, and always, always wear clean underwear. She’s the one protecting us while in her care, giving us wings when it’s our turn to fly, and covering our days with prayer.

Yet we never truly outgrow her.

No matter where we may roam, there’s always something about a mother’s touch, the sound of her voice, that’s like coming home.

So to all you mothers–be you new to the job, or old pros–a happy weekend, to you!

To you who boast the best of moms–be she blood, adopted, or borrowed–let us not forget the gratitude.

To you whose mamas are but a memory, may your memories be sweet.

. . . and a happy Mother’s Day weekend, to you all!

Those who teach us

{Brains print on vintage algebra book page by Crow Biz}

Of all things, he taught 7th grade Algebra. Not for the faint of heart, such an endeavor requires stalwart nerves. He appeared to possess nothing of the sort. He owned but one suit, which he wore everyday (or so it seems): baby blue polyester, white dress shirt, brown striped tie, hanging slightly askew. A roly poly fellow, he carried an uncanny semblance to Wallace Shawn. He’d be up in front, writing equation after equation on the blackboard, standing on his tippy-toes to reach the top. His audience an unruly lot, there were times he could take no more. That’s when he’d stop, whip out the calculator from the inside pocket of his jacket, hold it to his mouth, and ever-so-seriously say, “Beam me up Scotty!” And we would laugh and laugh.

We laughed a lot in that class.

When we worked our own equations, he sat in the corner, at his big wooden desk, working on paperwork of some sort or another. Occasionally, my friends and I would get a bit out of hand. Glaring over the top of his spectacles he’d say, “Girls . . . ” followed by a ‘threat’ that struck us hilarious. He’d simply shake his head and continue on his way; once we managed composure, we’d follow suit.

But the funniest thing of all: I loved math in his class–me, the person who now, at the very mention of the word, gets light-headed and needs to lie down. Loved it. I even signed up to take Algebra 3-4 in Summer School. Summer School, people! (who does that?)

Unfortunately, in summer school, the powers that be decided a history teacher would make a mighty fine math teacher. And so began my rapid decline in mathematical skills–a descent that rivals the The Crash of ’29.

But I suppose, if we never experienced a bad teacher, we’d never appreciate the good . . .

So to all the good ones out there, thank you.

Be you seemingly normal or weirder than a three-dollar bill, you’re the every day heroes of our lives. You teach, encourage, and stretch us. You make learning fun.

You change the world; you just rarely get the credit.

Earth and those who call it home

{source?}

Did you have a glorious Earth Day? Any festivities to honor the occasion?

Most of Saturday consisted of playing in the dirt–pulling weeds and digging out grass. Fun. Recyclables were thrown in the blue bin. Also fun. That’s about the height of my Earth Day Celebration.

Staying cool was the name of the game on Sunday; and while I may have faltered, I was brave in the attempt. Okay fine. That’s not at all true. I whined my way through the heat of the day and bawled like a baby in church.

That last bit could not be helped, I might add–it was a total setup.

The service was a bit different, you see. Rather than a traditional sermon, our friend got up and spoke about their adoptions. He and his wife have added four children to their family, through adoption–one little boy from Vietnam, and one boy and two girls from China. And they started when their biological kids were grown–it took that long for God to convince Ken adoption was the thing to do. 

Being we’ve been friends roughly forever, I was smug in my ability to keep it together. You know the drill: pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. The tears started falling with the first video of a little abandoned boy who lost his leg to gangrene; it was a regular waterfall by the video of my friends and their newest kids. Luckily, by the time we got to the music video of  Third Day’s “Children of God” there were more smiles than tears. 

Don’t you just love the way God brings families together? In God’s eyes, the world is one big canvas. He sees mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters–the wide expanse between them is nothing. 

Come to think of it, that just might be the best way to celebrate Earth Day. After all, we don’t take care of the planet for the planet’s sake–we take care of it, for those who call it home. 

It’s all in the revisions

At eleven years of age, I decided it was high time to write a novel. Before the age of personal computers, and being my family did not own a typewriter, there required some sort of system be put in place. Mine went something like this: I put pen to paper; with the end of one chapter, my mom would drive me to my grandmother’s house, where my grandmother would take what I had written, and type up a manuscript. I made it all of three chapters before losing interest–the loathsome callous that popped up on my middle finger, right hand, did nothing to help matters.

Both the handwritten copy and the typed copy were thrown in a box. And that was that.

Lately, however, I’ve been contemplating finishing that novel–for my grandmother. Even if she lives to be 100, she won’t be around much longer. As it is now, her mind sparks and shorts. There’s a good chance, even if the novel comes to completion while she’s still around, she’ll know nothing of the sort. But I’ll know.

So I traipsed out to the garage and began rifling through old papers. I found the manuscript; it needs a bit more finagling than originally feared. I also found a folder containing stories and essays from Mrs. Browne’s 7th grade English class. Last night, as I read through them, I laughed until I cried. Not that my younger self was intending to be humorous, mind you. It was very serious business talking about such things as dirty, no-good, rotten jobs:

Life is full of nasty jobs that people must do. For example, working at a sewage plant, being a mortician, or worse yet, being a Gynecologist (female doctor). These are just a few of the worst jobs that I can think of [. . . ] The worst job that I’ve ever done for money is babysitting. It, too, is boring. There’s never anybody to talk to except for small children, it’s exhausting, and nerve wracking. It doesn’t pay very well and is definitely not a full time job. One of the worst parts about babysitting is the recognition–there is none. You sacrifice your whole weekend for babysitting and who cares? Nobody.

Obviously, I was never really one of those girls who loved babysitting. I received an A on that one–for honesty, if nothing else.

They were all As, actually . . . with a minus or two thrown in for good measure. There were also many a note–and many a “was” circled.

Mingling with the papers from class lay a letter from Mrs. Browne, written to me upon the start of High School. She mailed two articles with the letter, present as well. In the letter she noted the Pulitzer prize winner–and how his essay began with “was.” I feel bad, she wrote, for haranguing my students all those years–life’s too short to be overly concerned with past tense.

Perhaps she’s right. At the same time, I look back on the worst offender–a paper so riddled with “was” it risked being confused with a connect-the-dot. Yet the revised version painted the perfect picture. Mrs. Browne agreed. See me, she wrote. See her to submit the paper to a student writing journal. I have that too.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, it’s been a year. I’ve cried more times than I care admit; more than once I’ve joked, if my younger self could see me now! But reading those papers, I realized she just might smile. Sure, I’ve faced sadness and disappointment; everything I’ve put my hand to may not have turned out as I had hoped. But I tried. And by George, I keep trying–that just might be good enough.

You see, after all this time I finally get it: a great life–much like great writing–requires revision. There’s no use bemoaning the ‘past tense.’ We just have to keep tweaking, here and there. For it’s in those small adjustments, those continued revisions, that out of scribbles, arises the masterpiece.