Temper Tantrums

Clementine, June 2010

Temper tantrums.  Not Clementine's.  Mine.

In a nutshell, it went down something like this: my vehicle had been in the garage for weeks, my babies had been a little sick and clingy, my boy had been a little testy, the bank had shut down my debit card, and my telephones had stopped working.

Granted, I knew full well that my beloved had been trying for the same two weeks to correct my vehicle problem.  Also that I had caused the debit-card incident by trying repeatedly to conduct a $30 transaction that the bank thought fraudulent.  Also that I had misplaced my cell phone for the millionth time and hadn't bothered to look for it.  Also that I had been too frustrated to investigate the source of the home-phone problem.  (As it turned out, a receiver, upstairs, was off the hook.)

I knew all this, but--when my beloved came home and said my vehicle drove no better than it did fourteen days and $550 earlier...that the garage would revisit the problem on Monday--my winged-creature theory (see previous post) took flight, and

I melted down. 

I did not curse, but I yelled accustatory and ugly things before howling, over and over: "How did I become such a nobody that I don't even have a car, a debit card, a phone?!  Don't even pretend you understand what that nothingless is like!"

Suffice it to say, we didn't make it to church for Friday Family Fun Night, even though I'd baked a Mennonite Busy Cake from scratch.

And, last night, Jim and I didn't go to the movies for what was supposed to be our first date night in six months.  He sent me to the movies, alone.  I came home sad and (somewhat) sorry, and we talked into the wee hours of the morning and made everything ok.

Then I had another temper tantrum, this morning.

I had sprung forward with the clock, gotten dressed, and readied the babies.  I had my Bible, my Sunday-school book.  I was ready to walk out the door when I realized I didn't have the key to our one, properly-working vehicle.  I looked on the counter tops and mantle, in my pants pockets, in my jacket pockets, in Charleigh's car seat, in the truck, and on the ground; it was nowhere to be found.  I yelled ridiculous things, like: "Jesus has the key!  We're not going to find it!  Tomorrow you're going to drive the messed-up minivan to work and leave me here with the truck, and I'm still not going to be able to go anywhere because I'm not going to have a key!" and, "If God isn't going to help me at all, I'm going to stop fighting so hard to do the right things!" and, "What am I supposed to be learning?  What?  What?"

After about an hour of my yelling and our searching, Jim found the key in the pocket of the pair of pants I wore to the movies last night (not the pair of pants I had been checking).  He smiled and said: "At least we'll be early for church."

And I hissed: "Don't you say that!  Don't say that!  You don't know that, yet!"  And, sure enough, Clementine had a nasty, I've-been-taking-antibiotics-stinky blow-out, and we got to church exactly at 11.  At 11:03, I slid behind my pastor and into the choir loft.  Late again.  (Always late.)  Defeated, discouraged, worn down.  Still feeling all nobodylike and nothingish, and angry about it.  And...

You know, this space belongs to me, and I can paint myself any old way I want.  I really can.  I don't have to admit to the feelings I had this morning.  If I don't, I am much more likely to receive more inquiries regarding the Source of my happiness and peace.  But I think it's so important to paint myself as myself: my oft frustrated, impatient, overwhelmed self because--truth be told--I suspect that, sometimes, everyone feels just the way I did this morning.  And if I don't paint myself as my true self, the rest of the story has no meaning. 

The rest of the story is the best part.

As my pastor prayed, my girlfriend just to the right put her arm around me and drew me close, and I leaned against her and cried into her hair.  In that moment, she became Jesus to me.  And I heard God speak into my heart:

Brandee.  Isn't Karen everybody to you right now?  Isn't she the only person to you right now?  Is her job, vehicle, phone, or debit card making her my very hands and feet right now?  No: of course not!  You don't need a job, a working vehicle, telephones, a debit card, or money at all! to be somebody.  All you need to be somebody, a real somebody, is an open heart and open arms. 

Workings of Winged Creatures

"Sweet princess, if through this wicked witch's trick a spindle should your finger prick, a ray of hope there still may be in this, the gift I give at thee. Not in death but just in sleep the fateful prophecy you'll keep, and from this slumber you shall wake when true love's kiss the spell shall break." -Merryweather, Disney's Sleeping Beauty

When I was a little girl, I had a 7" record of Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and I listened to it over and over and studied the pictures in its accompanying storybook.  To this day, I love Merryweather.  (She reminds me a little of my Grandma Shafer, although not as much as Ladybug from James and the Giant Peach.)

After Maleficent curses Baby Aurora at her christening, Merryweather softens the promise of death to that of deep sleep.  She and her fairy friends sequester Aurora in a woodland cottage, and Aurora's father King Stefan orders all spinning wheels burned; still, in the end, Aurora pricks her finger, and Merryweather's sixteen-year-old weakening of Maleficent's curse protects the princess from death.

I think of Merryweather most everytime something goes wrong with the log cabin or minivan, and things go wrong with the log cabin and minivan very often.

Because here's the thing: I don't know how it works up there in heaven.  I don't want to complain too much because...what if a winged creature has been negotiating on my behalf?  I can almost hear my guardian angel, now: "I know she needs to be tested and tried, Lord, but how about we remove our protection from her hot-water heater, dishwasher, oven, and forced-air heat system...but not from her little children?  What's that, Lord?  Oh, good idea!  We'll remove our protection from the rack-and-pinion-gear system on her minivan, too, but just at opening of her driveway...not in the middle of town." 

What if?

Empty Hands

"Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go."

-Sylvia Robinson

This morning, I peeled and sliced an apple for Clementine's breakfast and put the slices in a blue, plastic bowl.  She took the bowl in her little hands and started walking toward the living room.  I said, "Clementine, your milk is on the train table."

She said, "Oh, right, right."  Then she did the most remarkable thing: she put down her blue bowl of apple slices before walking to the train table to retrieve her sippy cup.

Perhaps this would be far less remarkable were Clementine not my daughter, but I am thirty-six, and I have to remind myself constantly! to empty my hands.  I swear, the only thing my mom told me more, as a child, than, "I love you," or, "Patience is a virtue," was to put one thing down in order to look for another, or perform a task.

Cade, bless his heart, has the same issue.  He thinks he can do most anything while holding a book, so he very often knocks over, drops, and breaks things.  It drives Jim wild.  How many times does a person need to have an accident before he remembers it's in his best interest to empty his hands?  I don't know.  I mean, I continue to forget.  It must be part of Cade's and my wiring.

And Clementine must be wired like her daddy, which--in this respect, at least--is a great thing.

I find Clementine's blue-bowl situation analogous of deeper ideas.  Like...

• Sometimes, in letting go of someone or something, I make room for someone or something better.
• Sometimes, in letting go of someone or something, I become capable of better grasping or caring for--or even moving toward--someone or something else.
• Sometimes, in letting go of someone or something, I become less reckless around--and dangerous/hazardous toward--other people and things in my path.
• I am limited in what I can do by myself.  Again: I am limited in what I can do by myself.  When help is offered, I should accept.  But help or no, I need to decide carefully what to carry, how to best accomplish my task(s), and--in general--how to best spend my energy.

Hey, nothing like learning from a two-year-old Wild Orange!  And I know there are many more lessons to come...

Collision of Selves

Cade and Me at His First Birthday Party 01/20/01

I clean our addition in preparation for Cade's eleventh-birthday sleepover and come across a VHS tape labeled "Cade's Baptism."  I need to take a break to feed Charleigh, anyway, so I climb onto Cade's bed and pop the tape into his little, dinosaur tv.  Cade is about seven months old at the time of the footage.  His dad and I were members of a Methodist church, and the baptism is of the infant variety.  The event unfolds, on screen, just as I remember, and I find myself fairly unaffected in the watching, although I do marvel for the zillionth time at how much Charleigh looks like Baby Cade.

The baptism footage ends, and I start climbing out of bed to rewind the tape when--to my complete and utter surprise--Cade's first birthday party starts playing on the dinosaur tv.  I have no memory of anyone filming it and didn't know (obviously) I possessed the footage, but I watch, transfixed, for about an hour.  I look into the heart of the first of four houses I've bought in a little under twelve years: a red, brick Cape Cod on Fifth Street in Shenandoah, Virginia.  Although Jim's and my log cabin runs a close second, I have never loved a house more than I loved the brick Cape Cod, with its five bedrooms, built-in bookcase around living-room fireplace, oak everything, full basement/garage, and back deck and second-floor (outdoor) balcony with views of the Massanutten ski runs.  Still, as I watch, I don't experience nostalgia...even for my baby son now ten years older. 

In fact, I am most affected in watching myself.  I was twenty-six, and my thirty-six-year-old eyes think I looked great: interesting, because I remember, distinctly, feeling so fat that day.  I don't look at all fat.  I look young, happy...seem sweet and thankful.  I find myself appreciating my twenty-six-year-old self in ways I didn't, when I was twenty-six.  For the first time, I forgive myself for who I was and wasn't ten years ago.

I want to slip into the rooms of the brick Cape Cod and encourage my twenty-six-year-old self.  I want to say: in six months, you will leave this house, this town, you love and move to Powhatan, Virginia.  Your husband?  You already know (and you are about to understand in whole new ways), but he's all wrong for you.  It's going to get worse before it gets better, but it will never get as bad as it might, and--in just a little over six years (Hang in there!)--you will reconnect with the right guy: the one you dated in 1994...the one you haven't seen since you graduated from Maryville College almost five years ago.  (You've been an idiot for a long time, but it's ok.)  You'll earn your Master's degree from JMU and teach before staying at home with two baby girls.  (I know, right?  Two baby girls!)  It will take awhile, but you'll make friends in Powhatan...real friends...friends who will believe in you, build you up, and make you better.  I promise you: Cade will be just fine.  And here's the most important thing: you'll come to know Jesus in a much deeper way, and He will grow you into someone who can hardly recognize the person you are right now. 

And then I want to put my hands on the shoulders of my twenty-six-year-old self, look deep into my own eyes, and say: Girl?  You aren't fat.  In fact, you won't be able to wear these jeans forever, so enjoy them while you can...




Of Food, Prayer and Praise

"Grace," a photo taken by Eric Enstrom in 1918, the year my Grandma B. was born. 
This image hung, always, in my Shafer grandparents' living room.

Still half asleep, I buckle Baby Charleigh into her chair and skirt around the bar, for forks.  "Mommy," Clementine insists, "Hands.  Pray."  But before I settle at the table, she grows impatient: slaps her hands together, bows, and offers, "God.  Food.  Amen."  She dives into my beloved's biscuits and gravy, exclaims, "Yummy, Mommy.  Delicious." 

I know she speaks truth about my beloved's sausage gravy, which I wrote into my wedding vows for its excellence, but I marvel that--at barely two years old--she has already reached the point of prayer and praise.  She stopped drinking from my body only ten months ago. 

I get stuck there, for a moment, and (although of course I can't remember) think of my twenty-one-year-old mother's nursing me even while driving her baby-blue Volkswagen Beetle.  I have spent, already, thirty-four months loving my children in this way: nursing all day and night until my mouth grows dry and sometimes the sockets of my eyes, too...flopping from side to side like a fish in my bed so as to nurse from the fuller breast.  So much love in feeding, in being fed.

I think of my grandad--just returned from his garden of sun-kissed strawberries--stirring real Hershey's syrup (not Nesquik, like at our house) into my glass of milk.  Rich dark syrup in a real glass (not a plastic cup, like at our house). I can see the rise and fall of syrup in the bottom, catch glimpses of spoon, hear the quiet bell in silver meeting glass.  I see my grandma slathering one slice of fresh, white bread with peanut butter and another with Marshmallow Fluff.

I think of my other grandparents, too: Grandma of ice cream (always) in the freezer...standing at the stove, scrambling eggs with sharp cheddar, Grandad with his endless supply of bananas and sunflower seeds.

It comes to me how deeply I have loved and been loved in the sharing of food.

(I am not a thin woman.)

It pleases me to remember my dad (who requires cast-iron for happy cooking) and his adding, generously, tomatoes to eggs in skillet: to think of his amazing dutch-oven creations.  I see--baked by my mother's hands--one applesauce-raisin cake after another: an endless line of them to represent all my birthdays, graduations, homecomings, and new babies.  Also heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink icing. 

My loved ones become food.  My brother: deer jerky, IBC Root Beer, Big League Chew, Swedish Fish, a cheeseball with crackers.  His wife Sarah: homemade biscuits, and Sarah's mom: green beans cooked in bacon grease.  Andrea: smoothies, Wheat Thins.  My mother-in-law: broccoli casserole, and my brother-in-law: barbeque sauce.  Erin S.: Papa John's ham and pineapple pizza with breadsticks and banana peppers.  Erin Q.: Maryland Blue crabs and Beanie Weenies straight out the can.  Rachel: peach cobbler, chicken ring of crescent rolls.  Christy: apple bread and a little bowl made from bread and filled with dip.  Terye: fondue and turnip greens with little cups of vinegar.  Carlena: chili from Steak and Shake; fried potatoes, butter beans, and corn bread; El Azteca.  Boggsies: hambugers in buns, in bags.  Virginia Ann: plate after plate of deviled eggs.  I could go on and on, for a very long time. 

At almost thirty-seven years of age, I rarely eat any kind of food to which I have not already assigned a memory.

I think of those who, six months ago, brought food to our door in celebration of Charleigh's arrival.  Such a labor of love, to feed a family of five for a month.  I think of the friend who glowed as--even in the midst of a tremendous battle for her health--she made three separate trips to her car for food: gigantic containers of delicious, steaming food, enough food to eat for three nights in a row.  I think of the friend who fed us when we knew she couldn't afford to do so.  We chewed slowly (and with deep appreciation, the deepest) her offering and wondered if she had food to eat, herself. 

To feed, to be fed.  I have never gone hungry, and I thank you, Lord, for Your provision and all the love represented in a lifetime of consumption.

Out of gratefulness, I have taught my son to pray, at dinnertime: Thank you, God, for our food...for rest, and home, and all things good.  For wind, and rain, and sun above.  But most of all for those we love.  Amen.

Amen, and amen.  Thank you, Jesus.  Amen.

***

Linking with Emily, whom I know, read, appreciate, love.  Say a prayer for her today, and throw in one for her mum, too.

The Sad One

You know who you are.  You, the sad one, whom I love.  I have been praying for you, and look: I have words, now.  Now I have words. 

Of course you feel sad. 

I wonder: if you try, can you feel gladness for your sadness?  Just a little gladness, because your sadness proves your realness, your feelness.  You really loved and held close that person, idea, situation.  The heart in your chest beats deep-steep-wild.  Your sadness reveals your humanity, God-given complexity.  Your sadness confirms the gift of what-whom you now miss.

He Who Made the Sad One never turns away.  He knows your grief...works even now to bring you peace.  Loves you more-better than a sparrow, has a plan to suspend your sorrow...heal your heart-hurt...use for gain this pain when, later, others live it.

I am here.  Take my hand if you know.  Take my hand if you know I know.  We will press forward together.  You are not alone.

God loves you.  God in me loves you.  I love you. 

Parable of the Tomato Plant

Photobucket photo. You'll know why soon enough.

J.L. left a tomato plant (and a Sunday-school book) on our porch.  My beloved tended lovingly to the tomato plant...sunlight, water...until and after a wee, green tomato appeared. 

Only one tiny, green tomato, but--under my beloved's watchful eye--it grew slowly to the size of my fist, and, at last, its color started to turn.  Finally, my beloved announced, with excitement: "Honey, I think--tomorrow evening--I will pick the tomato and eat it."

But.  The very next day, just a little before the appointed picking time, Thieving Groundhog came and made away with the one tomato.  The only tomato, the very tomato my beloved had planned to eat.

(Seeing as how this is a true account, I could--at this point--tell you about my brother's attempts to shoot into the hiney butt of Thieving Groundhog.  But that is not what the Lord laid on my heart on Sunday morning: my heart, because this parable is for me.)

My beloved, in his frustration, wanted nothing more to do with the tomato plant to which he had lovingly tended.  Thieving Groundhog had feasted on the fruit of the tomato plant.  The tomato plant had been stripped bare. 

But then my beloved realized: the promise of the tomato plant rested not in the fruit lining the belly of Thieving Groundhog.  The promise of the tomato plant rested in root, and vine. These things remained, and the time had not yet come for frost.

When the Enemy manages to steal and destroy the fruit of a loved one's spirit, I may--in my frustration--want to give up on my loved one.  But if I stand by, wait, and continue to care...if I forgive and forget the temporary loss...I may just witness growth in my loved one, and his or her production of something finer, even, than that which was lost.