bethsings

This Week

Fair warning. No pictures. This blog will be different but may very well be my most candid.

Two months since the last posting and news abounds. Sitting in my regular pew this morning I reflected on a promise I made to my friend Leslie that I would finish a blog by today, October 1. I don’t want to disappoint my first friend and blood sister.

Deleting the multitude of ideas and drafts over these weeks, we’ll call it writers block, my creativity has been dry as a bone . This morning it struck me, many times I write about the past, not because I believe in glamorizing or romanticizing yesterday but because I’ve needed to learn from it. We learn, we grow from history. Our choices. They become a part of our present and stepping stones into our future. The past can’t be changed. There are no mistakes or regrets waiting there to be repaired. It just is.

Wonderings

Without such growth we become self-absorbed, wallowing in our ‘what ifs’.

More than ever, this week I’ve experienced the grace of companions: family and friends, those who are present in times of joy and stress. Their presence is meaningful…they make joys sweeter, they are balm in times of trouble. Their absences are felt. Their love is unconditional. I hope I have been that for them.

For years I made this prayer by William Martin my own for my children…..

It became my prayer for a simple life after they grew up.

Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples, and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

This week my daughter said “yes” to the “touch” of another hand. Our family is elated that this young man will be joining our family.

This week I learned to an even greater depth that my son is a ‘wonder’ and has found the ‘marvel in an ordinary life’.

This week I reflected on the people I love. I don’t say “thank you” and “I love you” nearly enough.

“Sometimes” by The Carpenters

Having your Cake and Eating it Too

Nine weeks seems like a long time in May. It’s not.

Once, when little ones were under foot and summer days were filled with ‘what are we doing today, Mommy?”, days were adventures. Without our even recognizing it, days and weeks change. This summer’s delight has been spending time – quality time with family and friends.

Anthony DeMello

I’ve long said that social media is often twisted, taken way too seriously and could very well be the downfall of real conversation. Sometimes it’s the best we can do but I wouldn’t consider it ‘quality time’ although I do miss exchanging the occasional bon mot with a few people.

To keep focused on the present, I purposefully didn’t take my camera on three trips so that I could remember each adventure in my mind’s eye. I did take a few snapshots on my phone…. Boston 4th Only once did I wish I had my Nikon.

Last week I took it on a day trip then when editing those photos

Longwood roof compressed 2

I noticed that the last shots I took were on my birthday last November, nearly eight months ago. Good grief! Longwood long view compressed

It may sound odd but that camera had been a friend just as others have been, when I didn’t feel I had a voice. I discovered in these years the importance of listening over talking or singing, patience in letting go. Picking up that camera last week was similar to the visits I’ve enjoyed with friends and family this summer. Talks over delicious meals, coming home to a comfortable place where the conversation was just as we left it. Here’s to welcome change, new adventures and much more…..

Tea and Scone

Much More

Behind the Wheel

Sometime in the last century I got my driver’s license, not because I wanted to but because that’s what teenagers do.

The Summer of 1975 I took a driver’s ed class from the head football coach with two close friends, Patsy and Diane . Every Sunday that Spring, my father would take me to the long dusty roads near the airport to practice, patiently working on my driving skills. By that summer my grandfather had a no frills, white 1963 Ford Fairlane parked in our drive-way. Nothing fancy, just a safe vehicle to get me back and forth to school and rehearsals. Everyone on Lee Avenue was ready for me to get the license…..except ME.

For most teenagers a driver’s license was a sign of freedom, a step closer to adulthood. Maybe because my mother didn’t drive. Maybe because I didn’t understand cars. Whatever the reason, as my November birthday approached I became more nervous and reluctant. My parents encouraged me to take my time with the decision. Finally after the first of the year my father took me for the driving test. I passed with flying colors.

Funny thing. Now I do enjoy driving….especially long distances. It IS freeing.

I’ve been on several long distance journeys this summer….Last week I listened to a 70’s playlist I created several years ago. On it was Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide. The first time I heard that song was around the time I had been struggling with not wanting to get a driver’s license. At the time I didn’t understand the song, at least not in the way I do today.

Driving on this last adventure, listening to the music and lyrics for the first time in a while cleared the cobwebs for some letting go. Sometimes there’s sadness in saying goodbye but this time there wasn’t. This time there was certainty in being behind the wheel with the road ahead and some good memories tucked away for safe keeping.

It’s taken over 40 years to admit it but getting that license wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
‘Til the landslide brought it down

Oh, mirror in the sky clouds

What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above? Me and mother

Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder

Even children get older
And I’m getting older, too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m getting older, too
Oh, I’m getting older, too

Landslide

Unwritten – Outside the Lines

May. Graduations are bountiful.

On the cusp of marking my 25th graduation at St. Aloysius School I find myself more sentimental than usual at these occasions, feeling both lucky and grateful to be included in the lives of so many students and their families over 33 years of teaching. It’s hard to believe that 40 years ago this week I was lining up between classmates Brad and Joy for similar festivities on the evening of my parents 28th wedding anniversary, wistfully gazing toward the future.

To the class of 2017 from a mother, teacher and fellow traveler from the class of ’77:

Some days will seem incredibly long while the years and decades slip past rather quickly.
If you haven’t discovered it, journeys are sometimes better shared with companions…Form them wisely. That includes yourself.
Be kind. Be grateful.
Money isn’t everything.
Respect yourself and others. Don’t confuse respect with entitlement.
Failures are a part of the journey. You can’t change history, only learn from it.
Never loose your sense of humor. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Be humble.
Dream big.
Love bigger.

“I hope your dreams take you…to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known.” Anonymous

Godspeed

Unwritten-Natasha Bedingfield

Witness

How does a moment last forever?
How can a story never die?
It is love we must hold onto
Never easy, but we try
Sometimes our happiness is captured
Somehow, a time and place stand still
Love lives on inside our hearts and always will.

Last week I woke up vividly remembering a dream. It was the kind of dream that seems real and lingers. I was 8 or 9 years old sitting in a circle, singing with other children at the community center my mother once managed. I was leading a song. My mother was there in the distance. I couldn’t see her face but felt her presence, comforting and secure. All of us in that circle were connected through the music. What was happening seemed right and important.

The dream was a memory.

Journey Window – St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Baton Rouge, La.

That recollection has been with me for the last week. I thought of it again today as I witnessed a mother’s sad farewell to her son, a seventeen year old with a sparkling personality who I had the honor to teach. A bittersweet day in a myriad ways. Countless really.

Sometimes our happiness is captured with friends and family, frozen in time with stories that will live on. We’re blessed to have them and remember them. Moments that last as long as we do…..and beyond.

For now I’m content to continue dreaming….teaching…and learning until I find ‘my corner of the sky’…..

Corner of the Sky – Pippin

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The Sky is Falling

Wordpress Chicken Little

My maternal grandmother was a gentile southern woman. Quiet. I admired her spirit and spirituality. We shared a birthday and a love of cooking. There were only two places I’d spend the night when I was a child: Mama’s and my friend Leslie’s. For the past several months one of Mama’s stories has been with me……it’s time to let go.

ONE day Henny-Penny was picking up corn in the cornyard when–whack!–something hit her upon the head. ‘Goodness gracious me!’ said Henny-penny; ‘the sky’s a-going to fall; I must go and tell the king.’

quote-the-story-henny-penny-has-the-best-opening-in-all-literature-the-sky-is-falling-cried-john-steinbeck-96-54-46 (1)

2016 called us to a place of soul-searching. What it meant to be family and neighbor. Ultimately, asking a moral question of who is my neighbor?

When the sky really is falling, a helping hand, a compassionate voice, a casserole….a boat….a sledge hammer, a bottle of water. It was a record-setting year….one that shaped characters and cities. For some, the sky fell when a ceiling might have been shattered conjuring images of a dystopian world: Lines drawn. Another piece of the sky fell. Fearful.

good-men

In these days of twenty-four hour news cycles and social media addiction have we forgotten intelligent discourse? Have we forgotten that the sky will not fall if we agree to disagree? That drawing lines in the sand is not always necessary…and that neighbors are not always next door.

2016 was tough, no doubt…..but if you asked my grandmother, who was born in 1901, so was 1917, 1929, 1941, 1959 and any number of other years, although she would never have talked about the difficulties.

The take-away is the sky didn’t fall because her generation figured it out without falling apart. While holding the sky up…they held each other.

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” —Cecil Beaton

Three months…..

“People always think that happiness is a faraway thing”, thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains – a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book when you’re alone – just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.” Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Three months since the last blog. Last weekend my oldest friend and forever ‘sister’, Leslie asked ‘what happened to your blog’? July seems a lifetime away. Several times I sat down to write and edit photos but the stories both in photosand words came at a snail’s pace.

In all certainty the Summer of 2016 will be remembered. . .

Lazy days spent with family and friends.

Sweet hellos, bittersweet good-byes. gary-and-rosemary

Undoing and and rebuilding.

Army. Navy.

A region and people figuratively and literally inundated by tragedy….swallowed by the blessings of those same people.

Yesterday morning I woke up, disappointed, thinking–“Today the family was supposed to be in Boston”. Life sometimes changes our plans for us, but as Francie points out in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn contentment can be found embracing the “simple things”. We have much to look forward to….

Floods wash away tragedy. Friends move to be closer to family.

And so on this October 7, 2016…..Fall break…..here’s a thought:

“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.” Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

old-state-capitol-bldg

Yay family…..shake a little love….

Hear that old piano…

FullSizeRender (19) Like many people, last Saturday evening I gathered around a radio, computer, iPad or device of choice to listen to Garrison Keillor’s final “A Prairie Home Companion” broadcast. He became a Saturday evening staple when I first moved from Shreveport. His stories were like keepsakes of childhood family gatherings at my grandparents reminding me of my grandfather’s story-telling. I’ll miss those stories, that calm voice and music. Traveling to Lake Wobegon each week reminded us of the possibility to live a neighborly life.

My children were 3 years and 3 months old when I left behind my first adult job, a community and people I had come to love to move to Baton Rouge. With the exception of a few, Baton Rouge was slow to welcome. I haven’t been alone in that observation.

I grew up in a small North Louisiana town in the 1960’s with parents that worked to develop employment and educational opportunities and better living conditions for all people. It was not an easy task nor was it easily accepted but it was the right thing to do. I grew up believing that all people are neighbors. I still believe that.

Alton Sterling’s fatal shooting by two local policemen early Tuesday rocked our community creating division and discord as events such as this have created in so many other communities. Sorrow in families. Grief in the community at large. Anger for some. Fear in others. Emotions run high.

Yesterday I wasn’t fearful but wanted to hear a calm voice, a balm. There was little here in this city I’ve called home for most of my adult life. The last thought before I went to sleep last night were these words from Psalm 30: At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with the dawn, rejoicing. The rejoicing will be slow for families or communities who have suffered tragic losses until we’re able to look into a person’s soul find common ground then ask who is my neighbor.

Over the decades I’ve witnessed this city’s citizens’ indifference and intolerance as well as an immense capacity for compassion and mercy . Unity. Calm. Compassion.

Hear that old piano….

Mahalia Jackson- His Eye is On the Sparrow

No Labels

What can I write that others haven’t already written or said!

After watching the news reports Sunday I did what many did, checked in on family and friends. It seemed important to feel their pulse, for them to feel mine. Life in the midst of such a senseless act.

Orlando. Newtown. Lafayette. Charleston. Boston. Columbine. 911. Connected. And not. These incidents have become a part of the fabric of our lives making the world a far more complicated place.

It’s become easy to point fingers, to blame others, to name call. Sunday I turned off television and social media…enough.

My mother, my grandmothers, great-grandmothers faced an uncertain world with faith, finding common ground and love. A long line of women who were not always so big into labeling, meeting their neighbors and the time in which they lived with arms open, often with a casserole and flowers.

It served them well….

maybe our generation could start there….

An Open Letter to My Son On Turning 30

Thirty years ago today, the final journey toward the reality of motherhood began. My son was still a few days from being born. I had been diagnosed with preeclampsia in early April and put to bed shortly after hoping that the baby would come on his due date, May 11th. On May 28th I was admitted to the hospital to induce labor. Patrick has always arrived on his schedule; he was born Friday, May 30th at 3:50 p.m.

A few thoughts for Patrick. Yeah, I know I’ll see you in a few hours to begin the birthday celebration but in looking through pictures (and not finding some baby pictures) I thought I’d write this. If you’re going to stop reading now, remember that birthdays are only a number. Celebrate them and be grateful. Mother's Day 1986

Other memories will surely fade but I will never forget the moment they placed you in my arms for the first time. That moment and you were both miracles. There was a purpose in my life beyond anything I had ever known. For that I will always be grateful.
As ‘the guinea pig child’, by now you’re well aware I haven’t had all of the answers and still don’t. You’ve learned that if you don’t know something, ask for help. I haven’t always been a good example of that….single mom syndrome.
Life is about discovering who we are by learning…we make mistakes. Try not to blame others for them. Most of the time those others aren’t giving us a second thought and the blame or regret only hurts us. Evaluate then move on.
Travel….see the world, read books, do it with friends, family, go alone. It’s the greatest education there is.
Thirty is a new beginning. . .and there will be lots of new beginnings. Life is chock-full of ups and downs. Don’t linger too long on the mountain tops or wallow too long in the valleys.
Candle for Patrick’s cake since 1987
Surround yourself with good people. Friends and family who are solid, that you can count on. You come from ‘good stock’. Choose wisely.
Take time for you. . .laugh every day.