Life according to Angela – Page 67

Offering

I have watched children place offerings on teachers’ desks: smudged notes of thanks, treats, and drawings. They hope that their teachers will be pleased. I have placed my attempts to write, make calculations, balance reactions, and identify terms and anatomy on many desks. I always hoped I would get an A.

Other offerings I collect for a different Teacher. I place before him my poor attempt to give food to a young homeless person. She didn’t want the food I handed her, and she asked for cash to buy organic food instead. “My body is a temple. I don’t eat crappy food,” she said with defiance, pointing to her cavernous waist. When I tried to talk to her, she turned her back on me and said, “You can’t help me. Go on and have a nice day.” Unsure, I left her without speaking again, the cash (Can I truly call it mine?) still in my purse, and the food still in my hand. Was it judgment based on a substance on her breath that made me leave? Was it her challenge to my motives and level of charity? Was it because I had my family with me that I felt enough courage to approach her? Did she read fear or judgment in my eyes? Was my attempt really more like the priest’s and Levite’s, even though I didn’t physically cross to the other side of the road to avoid her?

This was a mangled offering, bruised and imperfect. I didn’t feed her. She was right. As I am now, and as she is now, I can’t help her. Somehow, my efforts made her hate me. There are no grades given in efforts like this. Instead, I must wait to see what my teacher will make from my attempt.

As I allow his lessons from this event to rest in me, I feel tender, aware of my shortcomings, and awakened to more suffering in others. Maybe this new heart and the memory of her eyes will help me navigate better next time. Extending the parable, how many times did the Good Samaritan try to help people before he was successful? Was his process to become a selfless servant just as awkward as mine?

He had a good teacher, that is certain– one who could make him just what a fellow traveler needed him to be. I will keep laying my imperfect offerings at the feet of this teacher, and depend on his grace to make me equal to lifting my own wounded stranger. I want that, even if I never know I have done it.

Cherry Tree

Outside my kitchen window, in my neighbor’s yard is a large, mature cherry tree. In the spring, its white blossoms dominate my view. After a foggy winter night, I will awaken to its bare branches swathed in white frost. After the hush of a snowstorm, every twig carries a deposit of snow, highlighting the intricacy of its design. In summer, the filtered light through its leaves at sunrise and bright red cherries are my delights. In autumn, its leaves are some of the last to fall among the trees in the neighborhood.

Today there are green cherries all over the tree. In my view of so much emerald green, my mind struggles to remember the more harsh views of winter. My memory feels feeble and ungrateful as I try to remember what it was like to look out the window just a few months ago. Winter is beautiful, but when the leaves are out, it’s hard to remember that there was a winter.

I drive my truck around the neighborhood, with several simple birthday gifts for Relief Society sisters on the seat next to me. I could easily walk this route, but I want to finish my errands quickly. The more noble part of me wants to knock on the doors to give the women the carefully wrapped gifts and cards written with my heart. The shy part of me wonders whether I should just leave the gifts on the doorsteps and avoid knocking. After all, this week’s demands have been great. Perhaps I have given enough. But then I remember the tree outside my window.

How many times has this tree blessed my life? How many times has it provided fruit and shade in the summer? How many cold seasons has it weathered, to live to amaze us with its unrestrained display of white flowers? How many times has its presence been enough to inspire me, in frost, in heat, sunshine, and storms?

I knock on the doors. I can be like this tree.

Worth the time?

A pretty house near Weber State campus that I saw on my walk during Daniel’s SAT exam.

What is the value of a minute in a day? Some of the most important words and acts in our lives take less than a minute to accomplish. What is the value of a few more minutes, consistently given each day to a cause or a goal? An hour devoted to something every day adds up quickly to a good measure of who we are and what we accomplish.

This way of looking at time opens my mind to so many possibilities. Even if I can only give 10 minutes a day to something, over a week, that is better than not trying because I think 10 minutes isn’t enough.

We become who we are by the things we do. Our faith, fears, weaknesses, responsibilities, obligations, and bodies compete for attention as we make decisions about our time. I have learned the value of down time, of play time, and time for serious study and effort. I have also learned the value of morning hours for accomplishing big things.

I have given a lot of faith and time to allow people into our lives on this blog. Maybe it’s just entertainment to people, and not a means of feeling connected, as it is for me. As the years go by, there is less about the kids and more about me in the posts. They need their privacy as they grow up. I don’t blame anyone for giving up reading. I don’t need much attention, but I want to do something that matters to someone beyond myself. I am beginning to feel writing this blog is not worth the time it takes to do it. This post has taken an hour, interrupted by a conversation with Mark and some morning tasks. A really “good” post takes a few hours. Surely more things could have been accomplished if I hadn’t done this, but it’s not without value to me personally.

You get a car… and you get a car!

We learned very quickly that having four drivers, three jobs, and three schools was a real challenge in logistics for our family, so we bought another car. It’s like an episode of Oprah here. Not that I really watched that, but you know what I mean.

Richard finished work on our PUP trailer (notice my lingo) this weekend.

I re-shelved the school books on Friday through teary eyes. I will face the clean-out of elementary school books someday.

Daniel and Timothy have a penchant for finding funny YouTube videos to show our family, especially at bedtime when we all need to be doing other things.

Paige, the sous chef, is back and I love the company in the kitchen. Mark still excels at muffins and other breads. Timothy, growing tall rapidly, lingers at the stove each night, watching things simmer, pitifully hungry, asking when dinner will be served.

Timothy pines for a smart phone and refuses to carry his dumb/non-smart phone. No problem; every other human has one he can use to call home. Slight problem: we can’t get a hold of him. Timothy has always been very smart and determined. He will probably win soon. Don’t tell him that.

I am in the middle of reading 5 books again. I find this is the magic number of what I can’t handle. I look at the stack, can’t decide what to read, throw my hands in the air, and take a nap instead.

Memorial Day weekend was simply the most beautiful and perfect I have ever enjoyed. The weather, the neighbors’ yards, the flags at every house in sight, the memories, the neighbors’ children and grandchildren playing in the cul-de-sac, and good food made it wonderful. I spent an afternoon reading and napping beneath our trees. I love how our neighborhood comes alive this time of year.

Things I loved about last week:

going out for pizza with Mark and Paige
watching BBC’s War and Peace
discovering the Great British Baking show master classes
giving some time for a stranger and making a new friend
driving in a clean car
having a clean mud room and school room
helping my boys assemble furniture
planning adventures this summer

Favorite Things

Last week for a Relief Society activity, we did a modest gift exchange, keeping our purchases around $5. The gift was supposed to represent some of our favorite things. For the gift I brought, I included an extra fine point pen, some Jelly Bellies and some lipstick. Into the bag also went this paper with a few favorite scripture verses. I ran out of room before I could do much from the Bible. Trust me, there are lots of favorite Bible verses in my life.

Perspective

Perspective is almost impossible to have without stepping back and allowing light, space, and sometimes time to give us necessary wisdom.

Mark plays a console game on our television after his school and piano work are finished. It is a 30-minute reward for his efforts. He doesn’t sit as he plays; he jumps and dodges on one spot of rug, mimicking the moves of the game. The inexpensive rug in the room is starting to show wear on his spot. Exasperated, one day, I pushed my laundry baskets over the area and asked him to play on a different square of carpet. Days later, as I vacuumed over and over the spot, trying to pull up the fibers of the rug so they wouldn’t look so matted, I realized that I was being ridiculous. If Mark were to no longer be part of our life, I would treasure that square of rug because it was his spot. I would be sad that I had been more concerned about the rug than him enjoying his reward for hard work. No more complaining about the rug.

I have on loan two books which commemorate 25 years of our neighborhood church history. On its pages I see the portraits of my friends when they still had their children living at home. I read the accounts of their service in the church, doing the work I do now. Younger, more vibrant faces shine up at me from the pages, showing my now elderly neighbors in their days of deep service in the Church and the community. We are living the same story, 10, 20, 30 and 40 years behind our friends. I see ourselves in our friends’ faces in the book, taking our turn to serve with the youth and Relief Society. We will keep changing responsibilities, just as they did, and find ourselves back in Primary or Sunday School, and perhaps back again. What do my friends in this book teach me? That these days are fleeting. They are the adventures we will look back on for years to come. The stretching we feel now can help us grow to be a little more wise and kind– a little more like our friends.

I am tenderhearted this week as I finish the end of an era of teaching home school. The books on the shelf have served their purpose. What will I do with them now? I am not ready to give many of them away. They are a monument to how we have spent our days together. I gained a bit of perspective recently as I mourned this loss. I realized that what I have given my children, and the bond we have because of it, will not be taken away, even though circumstances change. As I step away from the books, papers, projects, and especially precious time together, I begin to see the fruits: our relationships and abilities rise up and take their place. I am so thankful for these years.

Snowy morning, a Great Explore, and a Pilgrimage

The sounds of rain stopped sometime after 4:30 am and several inches of snow, silent in its descent, fell on our new plants and young tree foliage. The Sistine Chapel blue of the sky reveals itself between the retracting clouds, and I can hear the thaw begin. Clumps of snow fall from tall branches and the roof releases the water held in crystals, water vapor rising, and liquid water falling, adding to the chorus of dripping water sounds that I hear when I step outside for a photo. There are several accidents on the roads on the way to work and school. The roads aren’t slick, but the snow seems to have shifted capacity for patience or reaction time. Mark may never forgive Nature if the snow is here for his birthday tomorrow. Richard carefully applies the blow drier to his new tomatoes to release them from the weight of snow. I stop at the store and pick up a movie, War and Peace to put on while I fold laundry this afternoon. Richard leaves a little later for work after his garden resuscitation effort.

Earlier this week my sister stopped by after a dentist visit with her children. Excused from public school and home school for a few hours, the children went on an “explore” through the neighborhood without their mothers noticing. Worthy of anything written in a Winnie the Pooh book, the children and baby left the backyard in search of Mark’s favorite hill. I should come with a warning: If you get into a deep conversation with me, you are likely to get lost driving (accidentally drive to Wyoming instead of the family cabin, ’06), burn your dinner (bread caught on fire in the oven, ’04), or lose your children for a while (the great explore of ’17).

We reserved our tickets to the Tucson Temple open House in June. I am so excited about it that I told my sister about it twice while she was here. We will see old friends and take a trip to the Desert Museum; we will eat at La Placita and take a drive to our old haunts. My heart will ache when we drive by our old house which sheltered precious childhood years. We will try to glimpse into the backyard full of lizards and the brick retaining wall that little feet ran across every day. I will be too warm there, but I am grateful to visit the place I was so anxious to leave and give it the proper thanks for all it was to us.

Did I mention we are going to Tucson in June?

A light switch kind of person

I am up before the sun, finding an ability focus in the early hours that I don’t have during the day. I am a light switch kind of person with my abilities. If I have a high-intensity day, the next day I make sure that I am “off” in terms of expectations. Sunday was an “on” day, with many demands. Monday was an “off” day, where I rested, cleaned, and prepared a big roast that could be eaten for a few days. Tuesday I was “on” again, working on a funeral luncheon, with all of the details and interactions and laundry that come with it. You get the picture.

I think that people often wear being busy like a badge of honor, and use the word “busy” as an excuse not to do the important things. I am trying to avoid the word busy in my vocabulary. Instead of “busy,” I say “full,” because my life is full of choices for how I will spend my time, and I choose a full life. When I hear the word busy, I think of someone who is a slave to their commitments.

Even though I like the “on” and “off” formula for living, it’s not always possible. Sometimes I have to be “on,” day after day. I have seen a healthy dose of grace enter my life this week, allowing me some emotional, physical, and mental stamina that I don’t normally have. I have also felt some profound love and acceptance from my Heavenly Father through prayer that gives me more strength than any plan or formula for living that I come up with.

Acceptance and love are powerful motivators. By this, I don’t mean they are incentives to keep going, they are the fuel. We are loved by God, not because we did a good job; We are loved because we are his children. I have felt his paternal joy that comes from seeing me accept his help to climb a little higher.

Come walk with me

The annual bouquet in our front yard tree is in bloom, and as I sit in the living room with it right outside the window I think there couldn’t be anything more lovely. We celebrate our anniversary this weekend. What has the past year brought in our lives?

Places we have been together: Fish Creek, the Weber, San Diego, Sparks, St George, Moab

Recreation: Scuba diving (Richard), racquetball, walking, hiking, skiing

Projects: garden, 4-wheelers, wiring, humidifier, furnace, painting, quilts, dolls, books

Disagree about: piano lesson times, entertainment, the allure of rock shops

Agree about: most things

Difficulties: watching children go through trials; sometimes feeling disconnected because of full lives

Happy things: watching children overcome challenges; annual family Christmas video; trips with the family; watching our children sing, draw, paint, dance, excel in school, and show responsibility at work and church; dinner dates

Things we need to improve: temple attendance; time together

Things I admire about Richard: he is a faithful, regular blood donor; he enjoys being Scoutmaster; he always has a project; he kisses me goodbye every morning; he drives a terribly uncomfortable car with only a tape deck to work, over an hour a day, and doesn’t complain. He is married to a sometimes aloof, always sensitive, high-strung person and is still standing. I try to make up for my faults by occasionally baking brownies, lemon bars, and cookies.

May is bigger than December

May has arrived. Our children are expected to be in 3 places at once sometimes. Baseball, extra piano rehearsals, church activities, work, school concerts, and performances pull them in many directions. With 4 drivers and 3 cars, we are just scraping by. But wait. Richard and I have to be in all of these places and more. I take it back. It is impossible. Last night there was no dinner. We just ate cereal or whatever we could scavenge. Someone said that she felt May was busier than December. It really is, but there is little baking required. No wonder it feels so difficult. May is December without the carbs.