Hula-Hoops—and Yeast Is Alive

Cracked Grace

Hula-Hoops—and Yeast Is Alive

“Thanks” for the Memories

Instant-share Thanksgiving is today. In moments, we can show people near and far—even continents away—our food, family, friends. But we can’t photograph a feeling or Kodachrome a memory.

Put down the camera and savor what’s meaningful to you this day. Instead, press what’s precious like a dried flower in the memories of your heart.

* * * * *

Thanksgiving came eleven days early for my family this year. I took few photos, but have memories that delight my senses and put the twinkle of a smile in my eyes:

Hula-hooping in the backyard with my sister, daughters, and friends. The youngest trying her hips at hoops was twenty-three. Hula-hoops—not just for kids anymore.

At long last, someone else in my family understands that yeast is alive. My nephew helped me shape the warm, risen dough into rolls this year. I can’t easily explain the yeast-dough-life connection. You pretty much get it—or not. He gets it.

This day of thanks, choose a moment to savor, to deposit in your heart’s memory bank. Enjoy, be thankful, be there.

Will Work for Inspirational Interactions

Cracked Grace

Spiritual Glue

Inspirational interactions are the glue we use to hold our souls together.

You need “inspirational interactions,” he said. I replied, “What do you want me to do, stand on the corner with a sign that says: Will work for inspirational interactions?”

On reflection, I realize it’s a better plan to stop at each corner of my life. At those corners, I am likely to meet someone with whom I can have an inspirational interaction. All I have to do is open my spirit to theirs. Sounds easier than most day jobs.

Artwork courtesy of Chelsea Smith, © 2013.

Even the Lone Mourning Dove Continues to Sing

Cracked Grace

Mourning Dove Song

Even the Lone Mourning Dove

Continues to Sing

I see a solitary mourning dove and hear the notes of its lone sweet song. I look for its mate. Finding none, I experience a slight stab of wistfulness. I feel tender grief for the lone dove.

Lone as the dove is, however, it continues to sing—to pierce the solitary air with its melodies of life.

The song of the dove reminds me that whatever our place in families, friends, relationships, we have much to share if we but open our hearts to sing.

* * * * *

Mourning doves are monogamous and mate for life. However, if one loses its mate, it often finds another and continues to sing.

Remembering the Shock and Anguish Fifty Years Later

The Bitter Taste of Anguish

When Our President Died

November 22, 1963

The life of President John F. Kennedy was first on today’s gratitude list in my journal. The rest of today’s entry follows:

It’s hard to believe I was once the little girl—preteen—sitting in my classroom crying because our president was killed. Yesterday, a friend and I spoke about the “past,” and how we don’t have to relive it. We don’t, but remembering—memory—is important. Memories can shape who we are today if we use them to fuel the positive aspects of life we have gained from our experiences. And what was/is positive about November 22, 1963? We mourned together—as we now also do on September 11. That time—fifty years ago—shaped who we are today.

Did Fears of Nuclear Annihilation

Armor Our Psyches?

I remember being so fearful during the months preceding the assassination. I was afraid of war, of nuclear attack, of bombs dropping from the sky. None of those things happened. However, I now wonder if at some deep level of our collective psyches we weren’t prepared, maybe not prepared, but holding our personal armor in front of us to brace for the disaster we perceived was imminent. However, the disaster through which we lived was light years away from what we feared. Perhaps it was because I was numb after the horror of our president’s murder, but my memories of duck-and-cover drills and practice evacuation walks to the railroad tracks fade after that November day.

What never faded was our collective grief and dismay that the president so loved was cut down in such a cruel manner as he smiled and waved to the people of Dallas on a day that the sky was clear and blue.

A Bitter Taste of Anguish

Those of us who were young enough to not yet be wounded by life and uncertainty and the random chaos that breaks hearts, had our first bitter taste of anguish that day. We were changed and continue to be changed by those dark clouds that crept across the blue and blocked the light of the world.

Use Passion to Shrink Your World

Passion Whittles the World

Down to a Less Frightening Size

The loneliness inherent in the vastness of Florida stretched in all directions as The Orchid Thief author Susan Orlean drove through Florida’s small towns and near swamps where orchid hunters dare to tread. Most of Florida is flat. It’s easy to see east–west, from horizon to horizon; neither hills, mountains, nor high-rise condos block one’s view in Florida’s undeveloped areas.

Orlean writes about orchid hunters who see such areas with different eyes. Rather than experiencing an expanse of deserted roads criss-crossing the state north, south, east, and west, rather than feeling desolation, loneliness and emptiness from untamed territory, the orchid hunter sees Florida swamps as “lands of opportunity” where they things [they] love are waiting to be found.”

The vastness of the world Orlean felt in those near-primitive areas of Florida engenders tension. One can feel small, insignificant. She notes that the orchid hunter doesn’t feel that insignificance when viewing the Florida wilderness. A passion for orchids—or anything else, a care and concern so intense—“whittles the world down to a manageable size.” A passion for life, creativity, involvement, reduces the tension of the knowledge of the vastness of the world. Passion gives one something on which to focus—to anchor oneself in this universe that’s constantly moving and changing.

Orlean’s words resonate for me, but not so much regarding orchids. I love them, tend to them, care for them, and, of course, I want more. However, when I dipped my toes into the world of orchids and their aficionados, I knew right away that orchids are not my passion.

I approach anything resembling a swamp with trepidation. I doubt I would ever view a swamp as a land of opportunity, other than, of course, the opportunity a wild animal might seize if it wants to try a bite of me for its lunch. Anywhere near a swamp, I would be watchful for moccasins (not the shoes), alligators, Florida panthers (which endangered, would nonetheless show up in swarms if I were around), and errant pythons. If I were to come face to face with the rarest of rare ghost orchid, in my efforts to keep away from its dangling roots, I would brush right past them in my haste to find the quickest way out of the swamp.

I do not search orchid shows for the perfect specimen. I do not participate in online auctions. I do not buy from online international sellers. After two years of what I call middling interest, I know only one Latin name for orchids and that’s because I’ve read and spoken it enough to burn it into my memory.

Orchids are not my “passion.” Regarding orchids, I don’t have the “fire in the belly.” Fire in the belly is passion personified; it’s vigor, drive, motivation to achieve, to take action, to do, to be. World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s sister also is a cellist. She noted, however, that he had the “fire in the belly” and she did not. That fire whittles the fevered orchid collector’s world down to orchid size, as it did Ma’s world down to cello size.

At age 61, the world still seems too big to me at times, too unmanageable, too lonely, too scary to contemplate in far too many ways.

Some of the few times when my world is manageable are when, like these moments, I put pen to paper. Then, it’s only me, the ink, the pale blue lines, filling with me as I move my hand from left to right across and then down the page.

The words come alive and spring from my fingertips. I forget all the noise and wish to, yearn to, get into these flames of fire in my own belly. I want only to continue feeding that fire with yet another word, filling the page.

I look up for only a moment and the bee skimming the purple porterweed distracts me for only a moment, but long enough for my eyes to light on the calendar tucked beneath these pages. I see and then hear those other things, those responsibilities, call me—and the fire starts to sputter and it burns with less intensity until I see only a tiny wisp of smoke flit across the room.

* * * * *

However, when it gets cold, when the world around me becomes too big, too open, too lonely, just too much to consider, I know that paper and pen await me. I can reduce the tension and fear of the vastness of the world by simply stoking the fire with pen to paper. Inky words will again whittle my world to a more manageable size, filling those lonely, vast gaps in life. Ah, passion!

Never, Ever, Did God Choose You or Your Child

Leukemia? Brain Tumor? Drug Overdose? Autism? Kidney Failure?

Never, Ever, Did God

Choose You or Your Child

My God! God Is Not That Mean

Some of the most evil, misguided words about parenting are making the rounds again. When I recently saw them on Facebook, I had to stuff my hands in my pockets to quell the urge to pound the keys and type my anger and dismay. Why did I stifle that urge? I am and continue to be stunned and angry, but I saw that people get some sort of perverse comfort from this garbage. Last week, the noxious thing had 125 Likes and 31 people had shared it.

What is this vile prose making its rounds of the Web? It’s a pseudo-inspirational poem that tells parents of chronically or terminally ill, disabled, and challenged children how special they are and that God chose them.

The first time I saw a version of this God-chose-you nonsense was in 1985 on the living room wall at the Ronald McDonald House in Gainesville, Florida. Titled “Heaven’s Very Special Child,” it advises parents of disabled children that God chose them. It adds that He put quite a lot of effort into doing so because of the profound privilege to receive such a gift. I shook my head in disbelief that anyone could write such drivel and also that anyone was cruel enough to put it in plain view of the parents it was supposed to—but certainly does not—celebrate.

Parents and family members stay at the Ronald McDonald House because a child has a major illness—heart abnormalities, major organ failures, cancer, diseases that defy diagnosis, severe birth defects. Their child may have been in an accident so serious that life-saving techniques available only in a university hospital setting are necessary to keep that child alive. We stayed at the Ronald McDonald House because my child, Alexa, had brain cancer.

Most of the time we stayed at RM House, I was exhausted, filled with dread, fearful, unable to eat or sleep, and emotionally, physically, and psychologically overwrought. I did not feel “special.” Reading that plaque and its message that God “chose” me only increased my anguish. I wanted to scream out loud, climb on a chair, remove the plaque from the wall, and throw it in the trash, where I thought it belonged. I still believe such drivel belongs in the trash. I’m shocked that it is doled out to heartbroken parents like it’s some sort of balm for their wounds.

Another negative aspect of such dreck is that it purports that mothers/parents of children who have life-threatening illnesses or physical/mental/developmental challenges are chosen for certain reasons. Flowery phrases extol their special strength and wisdom, and that they’re unselfish (or just selfish enough as one of them states), or that they are among the few capable of great faith, and worse, great love, the greatest love, because it’s “supposed” to be more difficult to love a child that’s sick or is challenged.

Let’s be clear about love: Mothers, fathers, and other guardians and caregivers do not need to be faced with the death of their child, or their child’s suffering and great need of hands-on care—whether it be for days, months, years, or a lifetime—to have the greatest, most supreme love for their child. I did not, do not love Alexa more than I love my other children. No special strength, challenge, or blessing from God was or is necessary to love all my children. That is what parents do: They love their children. It’s that love that moves us, unawares, to do all that we can for our children, from birth, because special needs, illness, or challenges aside, the human infant must have such intense care to survive. We provide that care and that love because it springs forth from our basic human instincts to care for, love, and nurture our children. It is one of the greatest human callings.

It mocks and disparages all parental love to say that calling to love our children morphs somehow into a different, higher love when faced with adversity.

I don’t say or even hint that it’s easy to care for a child who has a serious illness (or any other of the conditions I’ve mentioned). It isn’t. But just like when your baby is a newborn and it cries during the night, you get up and feed the baby. When your child requires that you sit beside them for hours and mop up vomit while chemo drips through their veins in an effort to save their life, you mop up the vomit—that is, “you get up and feed the baby.” When your child needs to go to the doctor for a checkup, you take your child to the doctor. When your child needs to go to a teaching hospital for brain surgery, you take your child to that hospital.

Would I and the thousands of other parents who have shared experiences similar to mine prefer to simply go to the doctor? Absolutely. But in certain situations, you have no choice. It’s part of the love, it’s part of being a parent. You don’t rise to the challenge because God has gifted you with a special child. You rise to the challenge because you love your child.

And anyway, what kind of a God sits up on a throne in the clouds and decides which child will be “special,” as noted in this disjointed prose? It’s abhorrent to describe, much less believe, that God scans the Earth and then decides which parent will conceive a child that has a disability or illness or accident. God would decide a child will have cancer? God would decide a child will have heart defects? God would decide a child will be maimed in an accident? God would decide a child will have autism? God would decide a child will become drug addicted? The idea that a supreme being and creator, one who loves us, would do such things is despicable. If God chose me to be the parent of a child who would have brain cancer and die of that disease, then I don’t choose that particular God.

My God! My God doesn’t operate like that. My God doesn’t micromanage the lives of people on Earth. My God doesn’t micromanage DNA. My God doesn’t manipulate a toddler’s blood cells and tweak them so that child gets leukemia. My God doesn’t micromanage the chambers in a teenager’s heart so that one is faulty and that child either gets a transplant or dies.

My God! Where do people come up with such garbage?

Of course, we ask why: Why my child? Why me? I have asked why a thousand times and counting. Why? And you know what? I don’t get many satisfying answers. Life has too many mysteries for me to fathom. I can’t figure out why a cell goes haywire and starts reproducing because some awful switch in a child’s body chemistry has jumped to on, producing rogue cells. I can surmise that the environment and what we’ve done to it are part of those answers. I also know that some things are just random. No answers are available. I know that I just have to live with that.

What I do know is that God doesn’t have much to do with child illness, disabilities, challenges. What I do know is that God did not choose me or any other parent to be the parent of a “special child.”

So where is God in this? Sometimes, I admit, that it’s hard to find God. Anne Lamott, one of my favorite writers, often says a variation of, “God, would it be so much skin off your nose to _______________?” Fill in the blank with whatever you think God should do. I’ve tried it, and God doesn’t always pay attention to my queries.

What God does is provide a source of courage when facing the nightmare of a diagnosis. What God does is provide a sense of calm when I want to do nothing more than scream. What God does is provide a sense of peace when everything and everyone around me seem to be at war. What God does is bless my efforts when I try to walk with courage and grace in spite of anguish and loss. I believe God does this for all parents.

I’m not a theologian. I’m not a pastor. I’m not even very well educated in the Bible. I do know that the parts about Jesus focus on love, not on blame, not on judgment, not on choosing which child will be sick and which parent will become a caregiver or a mourner. I prefer that God—the one that tells me to love and to keep loving in spite of the things that crush me, in spite of the things that try my patience, in spite of the things that leave me with only the tiniest shred of energy, in spite of the things that anger me. I grudgingly admit that those stupid poems bring comfort to some people, but it’s a false comfort. It also gives God and the angels a really bad rap. They aren’t picking and choosing special parents and special children. That’s too dark to imagine. What God does is provide light and a way to walk the path I took as a parent and the one I continue to take as a parent. I don’t walk that path because I was chosen. I walk that path because I love my children.

Remove Those Invasive Plants—and People

Cultivate What Sustains You

And Your Garden

Ditch the Invasives, Crazymakers,

and Other Pests

In the Garden and in Your Life

Invasives are tempting, but dangerous, in your life and in your garden. Life can get lonely; gardens can get sparse. When life is barren of relationships and gardens are barren of growing things, it’s far too easy to enter the danger zone of the psyche and the garden center. Under such circumstances, which are wrenching both personally and in the garden, it is tempting to let invasive people into our lives to sooth the ache of loneliness, to cover the bare spaces in our hearts. It’s tempting to plant something, anything, that will grow in the space around our homes.

That’s the time to be careful, watchful, and aware of what we let into our lives as well as our gardens.

When I started my Florida garden, poor soil, lack of rain, record-breaking cold, too much rain, fungus, and bugs thwarted my efforts. Every clod of compost or potted palm I introduced to my lot was for naught. My yard was lonely, unpopulated except for some struggling Bahia grass and uglier-than-imaginable Lagustrum bushes. I labored in vain to grow trees, shrubs, annuals, and herbs. Failure after failure inspired a bleak gardening motto: “If I plant it, it will die.” Or this other charmer: “If at once you don’t succeed, dig up all the dead stuff and plant something else.”

Much like clearing away the debris after a failed love affair, or other problematic relationship, I dug up all the dead stuff. I planted something else: Mexican petunias. I added other plants, amended the soil, learned how to water a Florida garden, and fought the good fight against fungus, bugs, and nematodes. I read “self-help” books on the challenges of Florida gardening and how to overcome them. Rather than hope for the best (which I’ve certainly done in relationships), when cold weather was forecast, I got to work and tucked blankets around susceptible plants and moved some sensitive ones inside to protect them.

Even so, some didn’t make it. And I resolved to end that plant relationship. No more trying again.

None of my garden challenges affected the Mexican petunias. They grew and grew and grew and grew. They bloomed. They spread. When anything else withered and failed to thrive, I knew their purple flowers would greet me every day. That is precisely why I planted them. That’s the nature of invasives—people and plants. No matter what you do, they’ll stay around. They continue to show up, year after year, like creepy Uncle Ernie, who, in spite of your futile hopes (and maybe even prayers), will be sitting at the table Thanksgiving Day.

Uncle Ernie and his plant counterpart, Mexican petunias, are Category I invasives in Florida.* Invasives invade. They take over your garden, they spread by runners, drop seeds, and sprout. They edge out native species on which wildlife depend. They drink too much precious water. They alter the balance of growth. Self-respecting gardeners turn up their noses at Mexican petunias and narrow their eyes in scorn at the ubiquitous pots of them at garden centers and plant sales.

Much like I planted Mexican petunias, I once cultivated too many invasive people. I wore the Queen of Codependency crown. I gave out second, third, fourth, fifth . . . chances like candy on Halloween. In my quest toward fixing what was beyond broken, I rebuilt too many houses of sticks and straw, ignoring the many times they had been blown down.

I recently returned to my front flowerbed after searing months of Florida summer heat. Plants had suffered. Some had died, blocked by the sun, choked by weeds, and wilted by thirst. Not the Mexican petunias. They were the reason many of the plants were stressed and dying. They took up the space. They drank the water. They ate the food, just like greedy Uncle Ernie who always hogs the gravy.

Most of the family wish Uncle Ernie had never been invited in the first place, just as I wish I’d never planted those purple pests. It’s tough to uninvite Uncle Ernie. It’s tough to get rid of Mexican petunias. It’s tough to disentangle ourselves from weedy, invasive people.

I got out my shovel, dug hard and deep, and started ridding the garden of the Mexican petunias. As I paused to sop up the sweat dripping down my forehead, I reflected on invasives—in my garden and in my life. I realized that I have freed myself from most invasives—plants and people. Study, prayer, education, and determination have been and continue to be my tools. I plant and nurture what sustains me in and out of the garden.

*A Category I invasive in Florida is defined as a plant that alters native plant communities by displacing native species, changing community structures or ecological functions, or hybridizing with natives.

To identify and remove invasives from your garden, Google, for example, “invasive plants, New Mexico” and you’ll get this list. 

Cornell University has a Web site that identifies invasives in the United States as a whole.

A comprehensive list of plant invasives in Florida can be found here.

For invasive people, Julia Cameron presents a fine definition of crazymakers in her book, TheArtist’s Way: 

Twelve Step programs such as CodependentsAnonymous have helped millions of people develop healthy relationships.  

Mexican petunias are invasives. If you have them in your garden, get rid of them. If you don’t have them, don’t add them.