The Painting

Dad brought a painting with him when he came over Saturday to help Warren with the garage heater. It is a copy of a watercolor he did several years ago that hangs over the phone at my parents' house. The watercolor is of a house against a dramatic evening sky.

He handed it to me, saying "your mom said you always liked the one at the house, so I painted you one of your own." He studied it critically, then added "this isn't identical; the sky on this one is darker…"

His voice trailed off.

My dad has never been good at giving gifts to anyone, least of all to someone he cares about. He gets a little sheepish and clears his throat a lot. He tends to hand his gifts off carelessly, almost with a shrug, just in case the recipient doesn't like it. Dad is better at helping you with a project - fixing a car, installing a heater - than saying, "here, I painted this for you."

I loved the painting and said so immediately. In fact, I like this version better than the original, and told him that too.

Dad had always been a doodler and a sketcher. After he retired as a machinist, he took some drawing and painting classes and began turning out watercolors. Being handy with his hands, he also made his own frames, so whenever he gave one of his paintings, it was already matted and framed so you could hang it immediately.

Some of dad's paintings are his interpretations of magazine pictures - mostly landscapes - that appeal to him. Sometimes he paints the landscapes of his boyhood.

Dad was born in Greenup, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River, during the depths of the Depression. Although his parents left and settled up here in central Ohio when he was three, there was always a lot of "going back home." When I was a child, there were frequent trips, usually on a Sunday, to Greenup to visit family.

Coming from central Ohio, which is relatively flat, we kids always got excited as we drove south into the low foothills of the Appalachians.

Those foothills were the mountains of my childhood. My dad's family lived in the "hollers" of Greenup County, meaning the lived on the roads tucked into the valleys (the hollows) of those hills.

As a child learning bits and pieces of Psalms in Sunday School, I always loved the opening of Psalm 121: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills… I always associated that verse with southern Ohio as I had to lift up my eyes to what seemed incredible heights to view the tops of the passing landscape.

Dad's painting sat on the study couch all day Saturday, while everyone worked at other tasks. Then Warren  moved it to the living room, up against the china cabinet, so it didn't get knocked and the glass broken. This morning, I hung it right over my desk.

I find myself lifting up my eyes to it frequently.

My new painting does not have hills, although there is a little  rise to the house. It is more likely an Ohio landscape than a Kentucky one. No matter. I have another of dad's paintings, this one with a hill in it, right above my files.

I lift up my eyes to that one as I work too.  

I have written about my dad before. He is a plainspoken man who openly acknowledges that his time left on earth grows shorter each day. He never graduated from high school, but has worked hard his whole life not only to feed his family but also to feed his mind. He has been married for 58 years today to the love of his life, who he met by driving around and around the downtown block she was walking home from school on until she caved in and finally said "hello."

And sometimes, a little sheepish, a little red faced, he'll hand you a piece of his heart.

A Journey, Part 3: Cream Puff Lessons

"There are things we know so well that we are able to do them despite ourselves."

That statement, or some version of it, floated through my dreams all last night. Sometimes someone said it to me. Once or twice, it was just announced as a pronouncement from on high.

It is Saturday morning and I am waiting for the first stage of pastry dough to cool enough (but not too much!) that I can beat in four eggs and then bake cream puffs shells. I tried it twice yesterday, curdling the eggs each time because I pushed the timing on the hot dough.

It's not like I have never made cream puff pastry before. But yesterday was an unmitigated disaster in the kitchen. My mind was everywhere but on the task before me - the simple task of adding eggs to the dough.

The shells are now in the oven baking. I think I got it right this time. I hope I got it right.

These cream puffs are for a small celebration tonight of Elizabeth's birthday. She turned 17 just two days ago and, as she is with us this weekend, I decided to make creampuffs as a surprise.

It'll be some surprise, all right, if this batch is curdled also.

I have a lot on my mind right now on several fronts. My bundle of concerns is intruding into every corner of my day. Walking to a meeting yesterday, I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I missed the small moments that bring great rewards to my life.

We had had a big snow Thursday night when a front blew through. By the time I walked yesterday, the skies were clear blue, the sun was bright, and the lawns were fresh under the solid layer of white.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't really notice.

There was that woman, smiling and calling to the man who was just loading up a snow blower three houses down. She was bringing him a plate of cookies as a thank you for his blowing out several sidewalks, including hers, on the block.

My mind was on the meeting, and on the cream puffs that I had just botched, so her delight in his surprise was lost on me.

The meeting was one of those "good but…" types. We worked through some topics that needed some input, but ran out of time before addressing the entire list, some of which are part of my bundle of concerns.

As I walked back home, my spirits sagged, but whether as a result of the meeting or the failed cream puffs, I could not tell. A bit of both, I suspect. I shared my thoughts with Warren when he got home, tears spilling over despite my best attempts not to go there.

We spent part of the evening with dear friends, keeping them company in the shop that Linda, the wife, operates. She is closing it next week after some 14 years in business and her mood as we talked quietly ranged from calm to sad to humorous. As Elizabeth was spending the night with a girlfriend,  I decided it best to put off cream puff attempt #3 until this morning, to get a fresh start.

My thoughts were muddled last night. My spirits were all over the place. And then I had a night of dreams in which the thought I started this post with - "there are things we know so well that we are able to do them despite ourselves" - kept rolling through until I awoke with it on my tongue. 


I just took the cream puffs out of the oven. They look right. I'll find out shortly.

Whatever my thoughts, whatever my spirits, there are some things I know so well that I am able to do them despite my mood. Baking is usually one of them. Cream puffs are apparently a little more demanding, and so for want of attention, two batches were lost. Not to mention a walk to and from a meeting while all of the small moments of daily life were laid out right there. Right there, right in front of me.

As I have recently written, I am on a spiritual journey. At many points along the way, including my lowest moments, I turn back to Frederick Buechner and reflect on his calming words: Go where your best prayers take you. Unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy. Breathe deep of the glad air and live one day at a time.

Instead of mangling those cream puffs, I should have been unclenching the fists of my spirits. While I was walking oblivious to anything but my own inner dialogue, I should have been breathing deep of the glad air.

I should have, could have taken my lessons from the cream puffs. Stop forcing - either the eggs or the issues - and take the day as it comes. Go where my best prayers take me, instead of insisting the prayers follow me to where I want to go. Take the moment - all the small moments - and enjoy the rewards.

Simple stuff, but lessons I learn over and over again.

Like being on a journey and taking step after step.

P.S. The cream puffs turned out fine.

Finding My Voice

Scene from "The King's Speech"

In the exquisite film, "The King's Speech," there is a scene in which the therapist Lionel Logue explains how he helped shell-shocked veterans of World War I regain their voices - voices that they were afraid to use because of the trauma they had experienced. Some of his techniques consisted of breathing and vocal exercises to re-educate the muscles and nerves as to the mechanics of speech. One of his techniques meant listening with his heart as well as his ears to his clients.

I wrote a post last April about how I have been largely voiceless when it comes to poetry due to my own long term trauma. Like those shell-shocked veterans, like poor Albert thrust onto the throne as George VI, I could barely write if it involved poetry. 

And then a group of my high school classmates coalesced on Facebook. We found, some 40 years after we all began 9th grade together, that we share common bonds after all. One of us, Kate, began to post daily haikus, and eventually that lead to no less than three separate poetry groups on Facebook populated primarily by the Delaware Hayes Class of 1974.

Okay, a disclaimer. We are not talking T. S. Eliot or Emily Dickinson here. There are a lot of limericks and general high jinks. There is also a lot of fun, not to mention appreciation of one another that we couldn't have begun to have had back in our teenage years.

For me, the groups are all that and more. For me, they are a series of exercises in finding my poetic voice. They have become drills to re-educate my fingers and my sentences in the mechanics of poetry. They have become a way to get the taste of poetry back into my heart and into my words.

Writing poetry for a very small, very supportive audience makes me feel as I am starting to speak out loud again after a long silence. I may never regain my poetic voice with the same strength and vigor I would have had had I not lost it for so long. But I don't stutter anymore either. I don't  stand silent in front of the poetry microphone. Today Tonya threw out a haiku assignment of "favorite childhood memory" and before I could stop myself, I had posted four in response.

I was a little taken aback when I had finished. Did I just do that? Really?

National Poetry Month is a little less than five weeks away. I am still exercising, still writing, still building up my skills and my nerves. But I'm giving serious thought to a self-made challenge to post my poetry on this blog during the entire month. 30 days, 30 poems.

I know, it's not the start of World War II and I am not the King reassuring his people. I am only me, reassuring myself that it is okay - more than okay - to write out loud.

And that - giving myself permission to write poetry again - is more of a challenge than all the King's horses and all the king's men could ever have put back together again.

Spent

Spent is not a reflection of  how I am feeling these days. Nor is it an analysis of my purchasing habits.

No, Spent is a computer exercise in poverty created by Urban Ministries of Durham. I first learned about it on Nola Akiwowo's blog at Feeding America. It is a thoughtful and provocative tool to raise awareness of what the Great Recession has done to the lives of so many Americans.

Its premise is that you have lost your job and your home. Your savings are gone and you are down to your last $1000.  Spent challenges you to making it through one month without running out of money.

If you choose to play, you are guided through a series of choices, starting with finding a low-income job as a waitress, a warehouse worker, or an office temp. (I flunked the speed test so could not get a temp job, taking instead the $9/hour warehouse job.) From there, the choices come thick and fast. Do you pay your car insurance this month or not? Do you allow your child to play sports when it will cost $50? Do you go to a free concert with friends if the babysitter is going to cost $30?

As you make each choice, your balance account fluctuates and you are given a fact about what your choice represents in the real world. (Opt not to go to the free concert to save money on babysitting? Be aware that "everyone needs a break but not everyone can afford" one and that may be a contributing factor to higher levels of stress among low-income families.)

I have taken the Spent challenge four times. Each time I have "won" in that I made it to the end of the month with money left over. But when you "succeed" by reaching month's end, the program reminds you that rent is now due.

I have yet to finish the exercise with enough money to pay the next month's rent.

Spent is not a fun or easy romp. I found myself getting a knot in my stomach as I agonized over which utility bill to pay. I chose to pay the electric, so my gas was shut off, which meant I could no longer fix economical meals at home. I lost my job in one round because I took a pamphlet from a union organizer in the company parking lot. In another, I chose not to renew my car registration, hoping I would not be stopped by law enforcement before I pulled together enough funds, including late reinstatement fees, to be legal again. I accepted a coat from a neighbor because mine was worn out. I refused to let my children opt out of the free lunch program, even though that meant they might not eat because of the stigma of getting free lunches.

After I finished (forget "won"), I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I stood for a long time looking into the backyard, grateful for what Warren and I have. Finances are always tight around here, but we are blessed with so much relative to so many others. Spent reminded me of that.

My friend Sharon has been blogging about her No Spend February. Last week she had some unexpected expenses arise and speculated how to treat the hit to the dollars she had limited herself to spending this month. Sharon wrote:  

Even though I didn't expect some of these expenses, they are still misc. items that need to be counted.  I thought about this for quite a while.  If I counted them, it would make the rest of the month very hard, but isn't that the point of a challenge??  These types of expenses will crop up every month.  If I only had $750.00 a month to pay for food, gas etc. then I would have to make it work.  So, that is what I've decided to do.  Make it work.

I commented back: "We have all sat there, small scrap of paper at hand, noting expenses, prioritizing what we really need to get through to the next payday, the next whatever..."

Take the Spent challenge and see how you do.

Spent reminds us that millions of us are faced with economic choices that do not lead to better times, but are instead desperate attempts to keep the wolf from the door for just a day or two more. For far too many of us, the wolf is already inside the house and we are standing on chairs with a battered broom in hand, hoping to keep it from eating us alive.

Letting in the Light

"Blessed are the cracks, for they shall let the light in."

I have carried that quote around in one of my notebooks for years. It is a good place to start today. This morning, despite the heavy, gray overcast, there were cracks in the cloud cover which were luminous with the early light. I stood for several long moments at the back deck door, just looking.

Last night was our monthly legal clinic. Clinic night is always a reminder that despite my tiredness, physical or otherwise, so many others out there are carrying far heavier burdens. They come to the clinic looking for advice, looking for hope, looking for a place in which to lay down those bundles of worry and dead ends, even if only for an hour. We give them coffee and comfort, cookies and counsel, before sending them back out into the world again.

Working at the clinic does not "cure" my depression, but it softens it by helping me gain a fresh perspective. It cracks open the soft gray in which I am wrapped and lets the light enter.

Thoreau ends Walden on a Transcendentalist note: The sun is but a morning star. As I type these words, it is early afternoon and the room has suddenly brightened. I look up from the screen. The sky is blue and clear; the morning star is shining bright.

A Note on Journeying

My last post worried Warren, more than he was willing to admit at first. But it was obvious within some five minutes of his coming home for supper last night that it was gnawing at him.

What bothered him the most was my use of the word "journey" repeatedly.

I didn't get it (or him) at first. But I'm not taking a physical journey, I said. I'm staying right here. I'm just traveling in spirit.

That didn't seem to allay his concerns.

After some discussion, I think I finally understood what he was trying to tell me. One, Warren thinks he and I are on a "pretty amazing journey" ourselves, that being our marriage, and there is a little pang that I feel the need to journey in other ways. Two, he has seen others head down different paths with all good intentions and then find themselves too far apart to ever put the bond back together.

If he hadn't been so heartfelt on that last comment, I would have wrapped my arms around him and said "silly Warren." Instead, I just hugged him close and said "you know better."

We talked a little more about my view of spirituality and about our mutual commitments to this relationship. Warren then headed off to the monthly Symphony board meeting. These are tight times for the Symphony and Warren has been spending many, many hours beyond the office week working on various issues. While he was away, I baked for tonight's legal clinic. The rhythm of baking, sliding the cookie sheets in and out of the oven, gave me plenty of time to think about our conversation and to explore further my own thoughts.

When Warren came home, chilled and exhausted, we shared heart cookies, hot chocolate, and some more talk. Because of events in my life before Warren, I needed reassurance that we were "okay." (This was one of those nights in which the Ghost of Relationships Past sat down on the couch to eavesdrop.)  I also needed to voice what I was feeling.

I shared with Warren that I have struggled emotionally more this winter than perhaps he has known, even if he has sensed it. Given the weight of the Symphony matters, I have kept somewhat quiet in recent months when it comes to talking about my personal concerns. Fairly or unfairly to him, my thinking has been "Warren has enough on his plate already; he doesn't need this." So I have masked my moods as "exhaustion" and spoken somewhat vaguely of how tired I am and how hard it has been to keep up with him this winter.

That is not untrue, but a more honest label would be "depression." Not serious (I am blessed that it rarely is) and not omnipresent, but depression nonetheless.

It is what it is. Not the first time, not the last time. Just there.

This morning as I drove to swim, I felt the gray mood settle gently on me, despite the brilliant sunshine, despite a quiet breakfast with Warren just minutes earlier. I said aloud the words I ended yesterday's post with: Go where your best prayers take you…Unclench the fists of your spirit…Breathe deep of the glad air.

In this winter of my discontent, it is solace to intentionally, purposefully carve out time to read and reflect on words such as these.

I can't be on all of Warren's journeys and he can't be on all of mine. We are blessed to share many of them, the most precious one being our marriage. As I finish this post, I breathe deep of the glad air, knowing that at least one of my best prayers took me to where I am today, alongside Warren.

A Journey, Part 2

One of the young adult novels on the bookshelf here is The Ramsay Scallop by Frances Temple. The story, set in 1299, tells of two betrothed youths who are sent by their parish priest on the pilgrimage from England to the shrine of St. James in Santiago, Spain.

The priest tells them that the proper way to go on a pilgrimage is "to take only the spirit and those minimal necessities that keep body and soul together." No, they may not take paints to capture the sights. No, they may not take a fishing net for sport.

"Pilgrimage is painful," Father Gregory reminds the village as Eleanor and Thomas prepare to set out. It is not a pleasure trip.

As I have recently written, I am on a journey. At Katrina's request, I am reading A Purpose Driven Life, one chapter a day, for the next several weeks. Small wonder that thoughts of being on a pilgrimage are lodged in the corners of my mind. Is it coincidence that I keep stumbling upon references to pilgrimages? This morning it was this quote by Richard Niebuhr: "Pilgrims are poets who create by taking journeys."

We (the personal we: Warren and I) are at one of those points in Life where outside matters - professional and community - are weighing heavily on us. We, but especially Warren, have been carrying those bundles around on our shoulders a lot lately. Quiet, heavy concerns are draped like cobwebs in our home.

I haven't read my daily chapter yet today. Like clearing away the day's candle-ends to better focus on my daily reading, I need to bring down at least some of those cobwebs before opening the book. But I have been restless, reading some, writing some, trying to express on paper what I am thinking and feeling in my heart.

While I putter through my thoughts, this one keeps popping up in my mind: I need to get outside of my comfort level. (Make that a "we" if I drag along Warren.) I am not at all sure what that means, or may mean, in my life, let alone in our life.

I don't know if it is one of the cobwebs, or is instead a broom with which to bring them down.

This weekend I read one of Frederick Buechner's beautiful memoirs, Telling Secrets. In it, he wrote of the AA saying, "let go and let God." It is one I say often, especially at night when I am awake late into the dark hours. As Buechner reflected, "Let go of the dark which you wrap yourself in like a straitjacket, and let in the light…Go where your best prayers take you. Unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy. Breathe deep of the glad air and live one day at a time."

Go where your best prayers take you…Unclench the fists of your spirit…Breathe deep of the glad air.

I'm trying.