offering hands

Yesterday I wrote about receiving companionship, and it reminded me of this piece I wrote in college about my time in Jamaica, so I thought I would share it with you today:

Her mom was in the apartment braiding the other white girls' hair to earn some American cash for her upcoming trip to the states. A little over 2000 Jamaican dollars was the price for a full head of braids. This meant 25 U.S. dollars. This meant the difference in our worlds. 

I only had a few braids done, the pulling had begun to give me a headache, and I made my way out to the pool. That is where I met her-- nine years old. 

It's funny, but true, that most Jamaicans can't swim. I say funny, but I mean ironic, their location being an island. But she wanted to learn how to swim, and as we flitted around in the shallow end I realized my English teaching degree wasn't going to be able to help her learn. 

And that's how we started talking. And that's why, in this pool in Jamaica, she asked to pray for me. She held my hands, the water rippling into her chest, and she prayed with the force of a Southern Baptist revival pastor: and dear Father God, I just ask that you would walk with Kelsey, and dear Father God, that you would show her the way… 

She used "Father God" liberally and frequently, like my mom uses garlic. Her Jamaican accent added rhythm to the otherwise routine words. I was impressed by her maturity and the way she spoke with such authority. And then my world hit hers abruptly: and Father God, I ask that you protect her, Father God, from anyone who would want to murder her, Father God, from any one who would want to steal from her, Father God, protect Kelsey and her body from someone who would seek to sex her up…

The water around my waist was different now-- it was a meeting place for me and her. It was common ground that showed us there is no such thing as common ground between wealth and poverty. I have never sat trembling in a closet at home, scared a strange man might come in at any moment. 

I hugged her tightly as she said amen, displacing the water between us. She smiled up at me, Can you teach me how to back float? 

Too much was happening. This was Jamaica after all-- it was supposed to be like Florida with an accent. 

Now nothing made sense. 

She ran inside to get a snack, and I began talking with two of my teammates. We didn't see her come back and we didn't see her jump for the life ring in the deep end and we didn't see her miss it and go under water. 

She's under the water, her sister said, not as frantically or loudly as she should have. In some span of time that I can't remember being short or long we had her out and coughing up water on the edge of the pool. As her breath came back she said, I opened my mouth to say 'help' but all that came in was water.

This happens in her life more than she realizes. And I wonder if anyone will ever be able to teach her how to back float. 

In that pool, and in that country, I saw the beauty of the body of Christ. I was encouraged by my Jamaican brothers and sisters and their willingness to invite me into the privileged spaces of their own lives. I was humbled by a God who is transcendent and yet near-- who is able to be in the midst of the live we all live and share as believers, both in the States and in Jamaica. 

When I returned to campus that fall, the first week back I met Derefe. From Kingston, Jamaica. We became friends and when I gave him a winter coat and gloves he hugged me and said, Kels, I  know you got a lot out of your trip to Jamaica-- but I really think you went for me. 

Before we left, the leader of our trip had said it was about us-them. God has shown me that to follow Christ and to love like Him does not mean giving handouts--it means giving hands. 

with this ring…

She mashed the ground beef and bread crumbs in her fingers, feeling the slimy meat ooze through her hands. The other condiments for the hamburgers were already laid out before her and as she continued to mix and mash and form the patties she surveyed the counter to make sure she had everything she needed.

And she saw them. Set aside to keep from getting gooey with meat.
Her rings.

A diamond ring and a wedding band slightly scratched in a few places and desperately needing to be cleaned.

She remembered the day he had slid that diamond on her left hand and asked her to grow old with him. She remembered the giddiness. The way she felt filled with air and heat and glitter.

And she remembered the lace of her dress that clung to her barely twenty-two year old body in the sticky June humidity when the band was slid next to it. She remembered the promise. The way she clung to her new husband's hand as they floated back down the aisle.

She looked at her bare hands, covered in muck and slime. There were places that were cracked and raw from a week of washing and scrubbing and sanitizing when her oldest daughter had been sick. Her nails were trimmed back, short and efficient and able to change her eight month old's diapers quickly and with no fuss.

She finished the last hamburger patty and moved to the sink. Scrubbing her hands with soaps she thought about the time that had elapsed since she first began wearing those rings. The honeymoon, the first apartment, the first real fight, the move, the first baby, the second.

She wiped her hands on a towel and picked up the band. As she flipped it over in her fingers she thought of her friends who were recently engaged or nearly engaged or just married. She thought about their shiny new diamonds, their newly made promises. She thought about them, someday down the road, mixing meat with polish free nails listening to the laughter from the living room. Two little girls squealing and a male voice leaking in to the kitchen.

She slipped the band and then the diamond, tarnished as they were, back onto her finger and whispered under her breath, With this ring… 

an open letter to the girl walking down the street doing the macarena

Dear Girl Walking Down the Street Doing the Macarena:

I see you there, in your youth-fresh skin, hearing something others have long ago quit listening to. I'm not talking about the early 90's tune to which you were so clearly doing the motions-- an art long forgotten in itself, might I add-- but rather the music of your soul.

I'm almost thirty, and it's been a long time since my hip bones and knee caps protruded through my skin like I see yours doing now, flesh taut across barely there, gangly limbs, but I do remember dancing once. I remember hearing music where others heard none. I remember not thinking about the people in the cars whizzing by; not thinking about any other people, but just dancing. 

I'm going to be honest: someday someone is going to make fun of your hair bow. Its size. Its loudness. Its pizazz. But hear this-- please keep wearing it.

Someday someone is going to say you're odd, or different. Or, if they are trying to hide it in a compliment they will say you are "unique." At school you will see banners that say, "Be yourself!" but you will feel the walls pushing in that whisper, "If you're weird, then don't be yourself." They will taunt, "THIS is what normal looks like. And this? THIS is what YOU look like." Please ignore them. Those voices will be the ones that make you stop dancing on the sidewalk.

I only saw you for about 10 seconds, and then you were a blur in my review mirror. But I wanted to turn around and tell you all these things. I wanted to get out of my mini-van, out of my adulthood, out of my follow-these-rules head, and do the Macarena with you. I wanted to introduce your heart to my little girls who were in the back seat.

It may be a few years before you study Thoreau, but he once wrote: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however distant or far away."

Keep listening for that beat, Girl Walking Down the street.
Keep listening.

Sincerely,
Kelsey

better than...

I haven't been writing much.
Like really writing.

I used to have my students write nearly every.single.day and I burned it into their brains that If you write every day you get better at writing every day. And I would write with them. And I would ache to write.

I want that ache to continue because it is something I enjoy. It is a gift I have been given. Brent has been pushing me and encouraging me to write more and see what God might do with it.

And, so I don't just write about ice cream cake every day on this blog, I found a really great site where a teacher has posted some really unique and thought provoking prompts. [www.writingprompts.tumblr] I may use some of these to get me back in the writing game a bit. We will see what time two babies and softball season allow.

For today, a quick one:

Wendell Berry said: 
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup. 

So I say:

Better than any fear is the grasp of a grandparent's hand, wrinkled with wisdom and time.

Better than any party is the laughter of your child, ringing in your ears.

Better than any food is the taste of springtime bursting through the dead of winter.

Better than any worry is the feel of thunder in your chest.

Better than any distress is the loud quiet of solitude and rest.

Better than any unfulfilled dream is the hope of trusting you are still under construction.

Better than any scent is the embrace, quiet and warm and trusting, of the one you first loved.

Better than any victory is the soft smell of her head as it sinks into your chest, fast asleep.

Better than any memory is the waking to an eager new day.

What would you add ? 

time

Yesterday I packed the girls up and headed the 20ish miles from our home to Brent's parents' home. Brent stayed at our house to finish preparing a sermon he was to preach Sunday as a fill in for a little country church near us. I was giving the girls time with their wonderful grandparents, and giving Brent a little peace and quiet.

Our little girls' trip included supper, with green beans fresh from the garden, book reading, pretend swimming on the living room floor, and some splash baths before heading home.

As I walked out to the van, girls and a bag of leftovers and garden veggies in tow, I breathed in deeply. I wanted to smell the familiarity of this family-- a family that was once not mine but now felt like flesh and blood, my mother-in-law's kisses fresh on my cheek. I wanted to experience the sticky, sweet humidity in the summer air as the sun faded over the pasture where I'd had bonfires, laughing with friends into the twilit evenings of fall. As I drove home, answering my two-year old's questions about the corn fields and cows and moon and cars and songs and her toes, I glanced in my review mirror.

There they were, my babies and my memories.

For the past ten years I've been driving that pot-holed, two lane road. Ten years ago I sat in the small front seat of a red Ford escort, the touch of his lips still warm on my own, my heart beating wildly in my 18 year old chest. I raced the darkness home, trying to squeeze in the driveway right at curfew, rarely making the cut but always worth the extra ten minutes I'd spent in his embrace.

I drove away from a boy who made me giggle and feel beautiful; a boy who I ached for in his absence. I drove away from a family I was growing to know and love, back to a family who was watching me fall in love, hoping they'd taught me all I needed to know before the inevitability of our marriage happened.

 In those days, as I cut through the country roads, lit by summer's stars and tractors' headlights, I was exhilarated with a fresh and exciting kind of new love, exhausted from the late nights of dating and staying up late dreaming and reliving each moment.

And last night, as I travelled those same curves and bends, saw the same fields that had been harvested nearly a dozen times since that little girl I used to be sped past them, I looked in my review mirror and realized I was still exhilarated with a fresh and exciting kind of new love. But I also carried with me the quieter, trusted love of that boy who became a man with me over the years. And I realized I was still exhausted from late nights of rocking babies and waking early to feed them breakfast.

Last night I drove away from in-laws that have become grandparents to my girls; from a family that has become my family. Last night I drove away from a small town to another small town that has become my home all over again in new ways as I raise my own family within its borders.

Last night I realized I've traded my cute little escort for a mini-van. I've traded fresh, young love for a deeper, quieter love. I've gained family. I've made family.

Last night I took a moment, and that moment filled with years of moments.

And that moment reminded me that this life ebbs and flows in and out of little and big things, messy and beautiful things, difficult and easy things. But most of all it gives us people to love through it all.

And when you aren't looking your review mirror gets kind of filled up with lots of love if you let it.

I want to always remember

I want to always remember the way it felt when she hiccuped in my belly.
And the way his embrace feels around my waist.
And sunshine. Always the sunshine.


I want to always remember a few multiplication facts
                        because I just never know when I may need to use them.

I want to alway remember the way she kneaded her bread
and how the butter melted perfectly on its crisp, golden surface.
And the way he said, "Our Father…who art in heaven….

I want to always remember that hallowed is His name.

I want to always remember the look on their faces
            when the final out was called, and State Champs became their title.
And the hugs and tears and applause and exhaustion and exhilaration.

I want to always remember the way she calls me Mommy.
And how her pudgy, dimpled hand fits just so in mine.
                 And her smell. Oh, how I want to remember that smell.

I want to always remember the taste of tea brewed in the sun.
And my mom's cinnamon rolls. And chicken salad.
                 And how she prepares them with selfless giving.

I want to always remember that moment she made me an aunt.
And her sister after her.
And their brother.
              And the beauty of the way family keeps on giving.

I want to always remember the day he said, "I like you."
Finally crashing through our silly flirtations into the land of forever.
              And the way he's never stopped humbly loving me.

I want to always remember the imperfect perfection of sisterhood.
And giggles under covers.
And bike rides until dusk, stone cold hands gripping bars in defiance of the setting sun.

I want to always remember reading books with him under the desk.
     And early morning hunting trips, groggy ears taking in his stories.
And rebounding in the broken driveway until suppertime.

I want to always remember community
          and friendships that transcend friendship.
And loving through the hurt; receiving through the not deserving.

I want to always remember what it was like to trust strangers.
And see the good in others.
                 And have boundaries bigger than my own back yard.

I want to always remember how small I am.
And to walk in others shoes, and be like that lawyer in that old, favorite book of mine.

I want to always remember how easy it is to forget
how very good this life is.

a little unsafe in my life

Here is another story I found in a notebook from when I was first pregnant with Blythe. It seems fitting still, as I embark on this journey to become a mother to two:

I didn't feel like I was ready, but I knew I didn't belong in my 18 year old body anymore. I needed to breathe in something bigger than me and I needed to be changed by it all. I needed to laugh at 2 in the morning and sleep until noon with people who would become my family. I needed to sit in a classroom where I didn't know all the answers. I needed to stress and study and eat chocolate and pizza. I needed it all, but I was too scared to let go-- I was scared to let go of my athletics and scared to let go of being known. I was scared to let go of the title of Student Body President, and scared to let go of never being afraid.

But I needed a little unsafe in my life.

So I went. I packed a million things and I went. I drove away, but still looked in that review mirror because no matter what the moves tell you, you have to look back. I pulled onto campus, 18 years old and brimming with ideas and energy and fear, so much fear. Fear of losing him. Fear of losing everything that was me. Fear of forgetting it all. But I needed it. So I walked to room 211 and threw open the door to my new life. My new life of tears and laughter and fear and pain and growing and heartache and community. I threw the door open to a messy life of learning how to be an adult; a messy life I would share with hundreds of others in that journey.

And now I've closed that door. Not without trepidation and fear. I'm scared to let go again. I'm afraid to let go of 22 year old me and life in the dorms and a simple married life in an apartment with a plant and broken water heater. I'm afraid to need a set bedtime and car repairs and a mortgage. I'm afraid to leave that me behind.

But I need to have a family of my own to grow old with, and I need to learn to pay bills and comfort friends in loss. And I need to learn how to invest in a job that matters. I need to let go of never being afraid.

I need a little unsafe in my life.

I need to breathe in something bigger than me, and I need to be changed by it all. Sometimes when I think of this life inside of me-- growing each day-- I am overwhelmed with responsibility. Responsibility to eat right and not run too quickly and cook my meat thoroughly. I feel the great responsibility to be more than I've ever had to be. Sometimes when I think of this life inside of me-- growing each day-- I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude to Someone bigger than myself. I feel the need to express appreciation more than I ever have. And sometimes when I think of this life inside of me I am overwhelmed with joy-- joy so full and so real that it spreads bigger than anything else in my life. I feel joy so great it wakes me in the morning. I feel joy bigger than me--Joy bigger than this life--Joy in creation.

And I am reminded of the messy life of learning how to be something more than I am. And I dive into the fear.

old stories

I used to write. When I was in college I used to buy cheap composition books and write until they were full. Not just journal/diary writing, but try-to-improve-myself-write-stories-share-stories-life-stories kind of writing. I still love writing on my blog when I can but, for me, to pick up a pen and write longhand brings something else out of me; a different "voice."

I used to show my students pages from my notebooks because, well, they're a mess. They are scribbly and winding and I draw arrows to insert and rearrange, but mostly I just write. I write and I don't care if it's perfect. And this is why I would show them to my students: because I think this is where all true writing must start-- in the heart, in that place where things are jumbled and imperfect but bursting and rushing out of you just the same. I wanted them to see, like Anne Lamott always says, that you write the first draft with your heart.

I dug out a few of my old notebooks recently and spent some time flipping through them. A lot of the stories I have shared here at some point or another [in their more edited, perfect form]. But there are a few that I found hidden in their pages that I had forgotten about. One such story I wrote while on an airplane to Seattle, just before I took a cruise to Alaska with my friend, Micah. Here is that story:

People fascinate me. And so as I look out my window of the plane I see a marvelous landscape of carved out mountains, but next to me I see a woman who actually uses the word "marvelous" when she speaks. She ordered chardonnay and looks at me through her "Tiff. & Co." glasses and tells me the time from her Coach watch. She showed me a picture of her grandkids and explained that the seven year old and her are kindred spirits; they are both spiritual and interested in ethereal things. She said she can live on a little when she retires because she's already experienced the 4000 square foot beach house. She travels Monday through Thursday for her job, and she relaxes on the weekends by curling up with her cat, Willow, a glass of wine, and a book.

She said she is very ready to get back to the zero humidity in California and the more tolerant viewpoints, "but I'm not trying to be mean…it's just a different culture." She stopped going to church every Sunday when she was in college because she believes God is in all of us and we are just supposed to love. She was an early reader and read Jane Eyre and Little Women when she was just six years old. When I shared that I was a teacher, she didn't want to "get into politics," but said that she was glad we have a president who believes in the importance of education. She sees herself as a liberal humanitarian.

She passed on the peanuts and eats a quesadilla with fresh guacamole and pico de gallo. She's traveled to Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and more. She sleeps with her mouth wide open.

She fascinates me. I do not aspire to be her, nor do I agree with her on a lot, but she fascinates me. I do not aspire to be her, but she fascinates me and I am thankful we are all created differently. I am thankful we all have stories to share.

it's not what you know...

Warning for my sister: this post is about snake killing and contains some images at the bottom. [she can't handle anything snake related, so if there are others of you out there like her, consider this your warning too]. 

You know that old saying right: It's not what you know, it's who you know. 

Yesterday afternoon this played out in my life a bit. You see, it was a warm and breezy afternoon. Blythe and I were taking advantage of the sun on our toes and sat outside on the sidewalk throwing rocks and leaves for awhile. And then Blythe got this bright idea to go in the back yard and swing. 

Of course I obliged her and we headed to the backyard. Everyday this week we've done this in the afternoon: She swings and I pick up the sticks and branches that the storm blew off the night before. We've been having a lot of rain and thunderstorms and wind, and this has allowed me to keep up with what has been left behind. 

So there we were, Blythe swinging and squealing and waving at cars as they drive by, and me walking around picking up sticks and limbs and occasionally stopping to give her another heave-hoe. I was walking over to the side of the house where we get a lot of sticks from our neighbor's Chinese Elm tree [I only know what type it is because I was raised by my father, and he has said that if he ever becomes president (Lord help us all, right ;)) one of the first things he would do is require all Chinese Elms to be cut down. That's apparently how much of a nuisance they are: my tree-planting father wants them all cut down! But I digress]. I bent down to pick up a stick and in my peripheral saw a little slither action. 

Now I'm not like my sister when it comes to snakes: do I like them crawling on me? No. Do I want them to startle me? Of course not. But do I mind small, harmless ones like a garter snake? I don't. So I was just going to pick up this little garter snake, maybe even throw it in a jar and let Blythe watch it or bring it to our little buddy Wyatt or something. 

And that's when I realized my mistake. What I thought was a garter snake was really the little, tiny tail of another five or six foot of a rather girthy black snake. I didn't hike my skirts and run away screaming, mainly because I wasn't wearing a skirt, but I was sufficiently no longer enjoying my warm and breezy afternoon.  I actually stepped around and watched where it was headed. My fear was that it was going to slither into the crawl space beneath our house, which has been my one peace of mind with all the tornadic weather we've been having, since we don't have a basement. I thought, "If that thing goes down there and a storm blows through, I'm really not going to want to jump down there in the dark, even in the worse case scenario." So I watched the path it was taking from about two feet away. It didn't, and I don't think it could have, enter our crawl space. 

And then I took action. I grabbed a shovel and with all the bravado I could muster…  I gave Blythe another push, then promptly walked over to our backyard neighbors where I saw two of my former students, one of which I just knew was a snake-killing machine: after all he once survived when his truck broke down on a scary gravel road by using his library book to build a small fire to make it through the frigid night [yeah, don't worry, I didn't buy it either ;)]. It's not what you know, it's who you know, right?!

He grabbed a board out of the back end of his truck. His girlfriend informed me while we tromped back to my yard, "He doesn't like snakes at all." This could be interesting. 

"Uhh, this is a pretty big snake," I warned him.

"Oh great." 

We gave poor, oblivious, yet contently happy and swinging Blythe another push as we walked by. We couldn't find the snake. My saving grace started poking the bushes, but not in the manly way I thought he would. It was more poke and LEAP back, poke and LEAP back. And then we heard the rustle that proved he had found our amphibious friend. 

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! He had it pinned. I trotted off to get a shovel, while his girlfriend went to entertain my abandoned daughter. 

"Hurry up with that shovel, would ya…." he said as I came around the corner. The snake was mad but not dead. I passed the shovel to him while simultaneously taking control of the board that was pinning our nemesis. In a swift chopping motion, the shovel came down. The snake promptly began to curl itself around the the shovel, nearing the handle. 

"Ughh I hate snakes," the tough boy muttered as he continued to stab at the wilting creature. 

Snakes ability to be dead, with their head separated from their body, yet still slithering may possibly be what ranks them so high on most people's "least favorite" lists. 

I exchanged the board for the shovel, and we congratulated one another on our kill. 

"That is probably some endangered one and your dad is going to arrest me now." I ensured him I would take the fall if it came down to jail time. The things I do for my students, I tell ya. 

We rounded the corner of the house to retrieve our respective ladies. I was about two paces ahead of him when I heard, "WHAT the HECK!?!" I whipped around to see him pointing his board at the tree I had just traipsed passed. And I will admit I let out a little girlish whelp when I realized he was not pointing at the tree but at another, even larger, black snake, its body writhing among the tree bark. 

I immediately pictured snakes just dangling from the tree tops, about to fall on my head or into my daughter's swing. My eyes darted from branch to branch, and then back to the largeness of the fiend gliding down my tree. 

"What is going on?" I thought this kid was going to swoop in and rescue my yard from all scaly souls, yet the more he talked, the less sure I was of his shovel wielding abilities. "I'm not messing with that one." It raised its head off the tree as if he heard his enemy forfeiting the battle. 

"Brent will be home any minute. He hates snakes but he can probably handle this one. It's okay." As I am reassuring him that he won't need to mess with it, the thing promptly turns, its body forming a giant U, and heads back up the tree. My tree. In my yard. Where my daughter plays.  "Uh-uh. Oh no. You're gonna have to kill it now. It can't go back up that tree." 

"Are you being serious?"

"Yeah. Seriously. Kill it now." 

"What am I supposed to do?!" 

I make the motion of a giant baseball swing and tell him he better hurry. "Just kind of flick it off and then attack!" 

He turns the shovel so its broad side is lined up with the snake. Now, I've never actually seen this kid play baseball but I've always heard he is a decent player. After I watched him take a swing at that snake, I have no doubt about his skills on the diamond. I think it was dead before it hit the ground, but for good measure he started hacking at it. 

Brent rolled up about this time and grabbed an ax. Both snakes were dead but squirming [again…just gross], so Brent made certain we could sign over their death certificates and totally severed both their heads. 

We thank my students, my saviors, again and they quickly jaunted back over to the snake free-ness of the yard from which they came. 

I sent my dad a picture, and he quickly responded:

"Black rat snake. Harmless."

"Well they are now." I hastily typed back, still envisioning hundreds more roped around my branches. "Tell me this: why were there TWO!? Did they make babies in my yard?!" 

"No. They mate in the fall. Out due to high water and warm weather." 

I guess everyone is supposed to know this. 

I'm just glad I knew the big kid in the baseball hat that was outside at the right time.

And I'm glad I knew my dad who has so much critter knowledge he can [almost] appease my fears in case I run into another one. 

It's not what you know, it's who you know.

My phone buzzed one more time.

"Next time scoop it into a bucket and I'll come get it and relocate him." 

I think I'd rather be arrested. 

I didn't even get the whole snake in the frame!

milk, coconut, and coffee

I'm truckin' on with my Grandma Pat Project. I have decided to set a goal to write one story a week, and see where they all lead me. They won't necessarily be chronological, but they will be written down, and that is the point. Here is LAST WEEK's.

__________________________________________________________

Even before Daddy died, I didn't have a strict bed time. I can recall my mother once pushing me off to bed and I declared, "But it's not even MADNIGHT!" Such was the routine in our house. 

One morning we slowly got around, having slept in like usual. Mother went to the front door to retrieve the milk and, like many other days, we hadn't gotten up early enough to save it from the morning's cold fingers and it had frozen since being placed at our doorstep. The milk, having no where to freeze but up, was standing at salute out the top of the bottles with the caps crazily resting on top. Barbara and I set them on a towel on the kitchen table, waiting for them to thaw before we could have our breakfast. Waiting was worth staying up late and sleeping in. 

I suppose all the coconut is what made me thirsty for milk. 

Barely taller than the bushes out front, I would throw on my jacket and walk up town. Daddy didn't like me to cross the highway, but to get to the grocery store and the restaurant I didn't have to. And it wasn't like I was the only five year old wandering around town. 

I rattled the bell as I heaved the door open and tumbled into Clarence Pickart's store. I meandered through the aisles, but knew where I was headed. I stopped by the baking goods and saw it, like freshly fallen snow. I scooped up the coconut and headed to the counter. Daddy never used money at the grocery store, and that seemed to be okay. He would just show them his items, they would scribble a note, and out of the store we would go. So that's how I bought my coconut. 

I sat on the sofa, my book in one hand, my bag of coconut in the other. I would take a bite for every page I turned. I was on page 17 when Mother walked in. 

"What are you eating?" It didn't take her long to notice. 

"Coconut." It seemed rather obvious to me. 

"And where did you get this coconut?" I guess she did know everything that was stacked in that crowded pantry after all. 

"Pickart's." I turned back to my book, assuming the conversation was over. 

It wasn't. She informed me that I could no longer "buy" coconut from Clarence's store, or any of the grocery stores in town. She said "buy" funny, drew it out a little longer than the other words in the sentence.  And that was that. I didn't bring coconut home anymore. 

The next time I bought some, I put it in a brown grocer's sack. Taking a few pinches of the fluffy, sweet flakes, I made my way to the corner of our street where a culvert jutted through the ditch. I licked my fingers and carefully rolled up the sack. Dropping down onto my belly, I scooted into the culvert up to my shoulders. I reached forward and dropped the sack. 

It was always there when I needed a little snack. 

And Turk was always there when I needed a little coffee.

Around the time my coconut could be found in the town's drainage system, I could often be found at Daddy's restaurant. Barbara and I spent many hours upstairs, roller skating around on the wooden floors while customers were served below our spinning wheels. But I'm not referring to those times; I'm talking about the times I needed coffee. 

The dark liquid, with it's unequalled smell, had been present in my house since I could remember, but Daddy and Mother didn't let me have my own. I suppose they believed the old axiom that it would stunt my growth and figured I needed all the help I could get in that department. Even though I was just five years old, they must have been able to tell height was not to be gifted to me. 

At the restaurant I would climb up a barstool, tuck my feet under me, and plop my elbows up on the counter. I watched Turk, one of Daddy's employees, fly around on the other side. When he wasn't busy though, I'd ask him to pour me a cup of coffee, please. I made my voice confident and sure, so he wouldn't suspect that I never drank it. 

And on that barstool I learned how to appreciate the bitter taste; learned how to grip the warm mug in my small hands. 

And on that barstool was the only place I drank coffee for three years, until I was finally allowed to start drinking it at home. 

a date that will live in infamy

In January I mentioned that I was undertaking a new "PROJECT." I have been collecting stories from Brent's Grandma Pat, in the hopes of writing some down. I've always envisioned this to take shape in first person, but I feel like it's almost blasphemy to try to embody such a wonderful person. I've only
recorded one story on my blog, HERE. And I'm going to try to change that. So on this gloomy-trying- to-be-spring day, I wanted to write about how I envisioned her listening to FDR's speech declaring war in 1941. She shared that they were ushered into the Study Hall to listen to the President's address, but that it didn't really register with anyone.

_______________________________

As a freshman girl who had read nearly every book in my small school's library, I was a little surprised there was a place I had not heard about. But ever since yesterday the teachers and everyone at Clarence Pickard's grocery store, and I'm assuming at his brother's grocery store up the street, were sloshing the word "Pearl Harbor" around in their mouths.

My brown curls bounced about my shoulders as I followed my classmates up the stairs to study hall where every student in the building was being herded. I spotted my friend Meredith, one year my senior, and made my way to her. Before I could say anything we were hushed to silence and the familiar crackling of the radio was turned up a little louder.

And then I heard our President's voice, a slight pop in the speakers. I remembered his voice well, having spent some evenings washing dishes while listening to his fireside chats on our small, brown radio. But here, in the crowded study hall room, President Roosevelt seemed to be coming at us from all sides.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941-- a date that will live in infamy-- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked…

I nudged Meredith, raising my eyebrows and pointing to the radio, as if to say, "Infamy? Where is Pearl Harbor?" She shrugged her shoulders at me and we leaned in to hear the rest.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. 

This all seemed so distant; so far removed from my little life in U. Star, Missouri. If I would have looked directly into my math teacher's eyes though, I would have seen the trepidation they held.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japan Empire. 

And then the radio broadcaster came back on. The president hadn't even talked for ten minutes. Low rumblings began on the outskirts of the room and slowly rippled their way throughout: conversations about Christmas break and number 14 on the math assignment.

Our principal stood up and told us we were to report back to the class we had just left. And with that I followed the small throng of high school students, shorter than everyone not just because I was a freshman but because I was a Woolery. As my hand found the banister and I headed back down the stairs, I thought briefly about those poor people in Hawaii that must be scared about what this attack meant for them. I was glad it was far away, and that I would never know the underpinnings of war.

And as I crossed the threshold into my science class, I walked past the desks of two boys who, in their righteous might, would be strapping on uniforms in a couple years.

discovery

I have been on a kick lately. 

That kick is called: CLEAN THE CLOSETS IN MY HOUSE. No closet is safe. I have two left to tackle.

And to be honest I am quite looking forward to it. 

WHAAAA? 

Yeah, you heard me. 

Projects like this always take more time than they should because I become ENTRANCED in my junk. Entranced, people. 

I make discovery after discovery. 

Yesterday while cleaning a hallway closet I discovered what appeared to be a scrap of paper. It had scribbles all over it and I could barely decipher my own writing. After inspecting it closer I remembered that I had written on this particular piece of paper while sitting in on one of Brent's college classes. One year we decided that we wanted to do that- see what the other experienced in class- and arranged visits and checked with professors accordingly. 

In the top left I had scribbled a note to Brent: "he sounds like Gpa Schoon!"

Underneath I had signed my name with my soon to be new last name over and over and over, perfecting its loops and swirls. 

Under that another quick jot to Brent: "my womb loves you" Interesting. 

And then, as many a scribbly note book page of mine became, it turned into poems. The first a short one, starting with a line I had heard over and over again in writing classes of mine:

"Write what you know"

& I write about the field of grass between my toes

& you touching my face that way

& children laughing & babies sleeping

& I write about being tired

& being fully alive

& the way the rain falls in Missouri

& I write about family

& teaching Shakespeare to freshman

& singing off key LOUDLY

& I write about writing

"Write what you know"

& you'll never run out 

And then a jagged line juts through the page, as if all of a sudden I had a new idea. 

I turned the page over and found more treasures on the back; treasures of this day I sat in Brent's class and wrote with a blue ink pen. 

Another note to Brent: "I hate when ppl ask questions just so they sound like they know what they're talking about." 

And then I'm guessing he gave me a look, a  now famous look , of his.  

Because just beneath that I wrote: "I do it." 

Beneath this I must have gleaned a nugget from the professor because I wrote "WHEN YOU MATCH NEEDS WITH ABILITIES, IT'S A MINISTRY." I boxed it in, three lines thick. Remember this, I must have thought. 

And then I was off again, another poem emerging from my pen. In half cursive, half print I wrote:

Teaching Shakespeare to Freshman

kids in a classroom

eyes hungry, and tired

listening absently

they want more than 

Romeo and Juliet's words

they want to experience

"lips doing what hands do"

and they want to feel

the poison on their lips

"oh give me my sin again"

they misbehave because they don't understand

the significance of Lord Capulet disowning his daughter

they misbehave because they don't understand

the reason their father disowned them

"a rose by any other name

would smell as sweet"

and the girls think it's romantic

and the boys have checked out

Juliet is a "house bought but not yet owned"

and there are no snickers

so it's obvious they don't understand

or their puberty could not refrain from laughing

how do I reach them?

how do I touch them with 

timeless words?

how do I show them meaning 

in the midst of real tragedy?

tragedy, comedy, history

they see this everyday

and they scream from their desks

"let the show begin!"

their "poverty consents

but not their will"

and I pay their poverty

and I do't know if I've hit a nerve

but I hope they see beauty here

if no where else

and as they taste the words

of a play from then

that they taste life

now

In the top right on the back of the page, as an after thought I'm sure, or out of force of habit, I wrote: 

4.15.08

I doubt I thought I'd come back to it four and a half years later, while crouched on the floor of my hallway, covered in the dust of my memories. 

the sixth november

The dust is settling from a crazy, busy, wonderful week and half filled with family, birthdays, holidays, and kiddos…lots and lots of kiddos. It's fun to see our family growing and changing, but it sure is getting loud.

I realized recently that this is the SIXTH November that I have been blogging. Albeit I'm not blogging as well now as I used to but, SIX!, none the less. I love being able to look back and see how my life is constantly expanding and changing.

I started this here little corner of the internet as a place to put my writing and let my family check in on me my senior year of college. Little did I know it would turn into the monster that it has, but I'm thankful I have it. Someday soon I hope to get it printed into some sort of scrapbook do-hicky to have and to hold in my flesh.

For those of you that have been with me since the beginning: thanks for hanging in there. For those of you who have joined somewhere along the way: I'm glad you somehow stumbled on over. Thanks for all your comments that keep me plugging away. And for those of you secretly reading that have never made your presence known: you're still welcome here too, I suppose! :)

And now here is a glimpse at the last 5 Novembers:

November 15, 2007
I got my packet for student teaching last night at a meeting. That was weird--not the meeting so much as getting the packet. In this packet are 3 folders for teachers I will be working with, containing observation reports and checklists and requests for letters of recommendation [yikes!]. The reality is setting in that I am really going to be doing this:I am really going to be teaching soon.

I know deep in my being that this is what I want to be doing...that this is what I'm meant to be doing. I have videos of me teaching when I was 8 years old, alone in my room with stuffed animals and a chalkboard. I know how much I love being in front of students and how much it means to see them "click" with something.

But there is a part of me that winces when I think about turning in the pink sheet in the back of my packet--the pink sheet entitled "Record of Student Teaching" that I was informed, last night, is vital to my graduating. Why is this? I think it is several reasons: I think it is knowing that this part of my life is done. This part that I've hated and loved and wrestled with and grown through--- When I hand in that pink sheet I am, in turn, handing in a part of my childhood.

I know I will be a good teacher, and I think to go into this profession you must know that simple truth. I know it might take me a little bit to get there, but I know I am capable. And I know I want to be a teacher. But I also know I will let go of that pink sheet at the last possible moment.

November 10, 2008
Last year when I shared an apartment at college with 3 other girls we decided we would be wise and buy the huge bottle of refill soap for our hand dispensers in the kitchen and bathroom. We bought the big refill bottle in September or October of 2007. I was the last to move out at the end of the school year, and found that all three of them had left the refill bottle behind. There was still about a third of the bottle left, so I decided to pack up the little dispensers (which, yes, cost about 90 cents at WalMart) and the big refill bottle. I first hauled all this home, and then I packed up and hauled it to Kentucky. Yesterday the dispenser in the bathroom ran out, and I noticed the one in the kitchen only has a few squirts left in it. That dang refill bottle lasted us this long! Man...my roommates sure missed out!
[after this post I received several bottles of soap in the mail!! One of the first time my blog readers have been so generous! :-)]

November 29, 2009
Maybe it was that first Wednesday when I went to school without first strapping on a backpack, walking in trying to appear confident but wondering why I still felt like I should be sitting in the hard plastic seats. Or possibly it was that Thursday evening when I cleaned the house for no other reason than because I wanted to. But I believe it was many accumulations of such small and big moments that have happened over the years of my life that have throttled me, without warning, into the arena of adulthood.

My friends and I used to say that "growing up is for quitters," that we should hold fast to our innocence and joy of being teenagers. I thought I had. I thought I was still gripping the rope of dependence but that first time the car broke down and my husband was at work made me realize I had unknowingly let that rope slip through my fingers and as it unraveled at my feet I saw that I was up to my neck in the water of responsibilities that I didn't think I was quite prepared for. The sea of adulthood surrounded me and for awhile I grasped for a lifeboat, a new rope, even water wings would suffice. But maybe that kick in the rear I received when I was unpacking boxes in our new apartment in a city I couldn't even pronounce like the locals made adulthood take its true shape. Although I don’t know that I needed a major event such as that move, since lustfully tasting the words of Steinbeck and Shakespeare continually remind me I have passed teenage magazines and romance series.

Maybe my maturity face-lift came that sunny day I realized I would rather walk with my husband around a golf course than go shopping. But I've also learned this refining and maturing happens through trying, struggling and frustrations, which I seem to be greeting daily as of late at the attempt of teaching hormonal adolescents to write with the passion of the gods, and at the attempt of trying to be better today than I was yesterday. But those days that I feel like an adult come and go. It's sort of like how on Friday I enjoyed conversation over coffee with my similarly aged friend, Micah, but on Saturday found conversation with my mother just what the doctor ordered. And it's sort of like how I still enjoy some koolaid from time to time, but most days let the bitterness of coffee say to me, "It's official. You're old."

I mean I have to be grown up, right? Borders bookstore is my favorite hang out, but then again I do insist on taking a peek around the corner in the children's section, and if no one is looking, sit on the fuzzy orange bean bag and read "Where The Wild Things Are" one more time.

But please don't get me wrong, I still mainly feel like an underdeveloped girl as I walk in the shadow of woman whose very scents smell like comfort, confidence, and motherhood. When I look in the mirror, I put my hand over my heart and it still pounds with youthfulness and still believes in prince charming and the shoe fitting and a ball room dance at the end of it all. But through the small and big moments that have happened over the years of mylife I believe there has been many important ones that have given me that "Oh, crap I’m really all grown up" feeling. And those moments are when my independent heels must dig into the dirt a little deeper. These moments may not be noticeable to the naked eye, but it happens when the burger isn't cooked and I have to be the one to take it up to the counter and say, "Excuse me but could I get another?" It happens when my pants are just a little too long and my grandma is just a little too far away and I have to crudely, but independently, hem them myself. It happens when the power goes out in the city and we are blessed with the gift still and so I open my home to others and cook and clean and dig my heels in at the thought that I can do this, and deeper they go into the soil of adulthood and change.

Those days of independence are the days I can easily taste my adultness and what my character has developed into, proving I must have accumulated some of my parent's wisdom through osmosis over the years. I know I am grown up when I finally realize that every day when the sun comes up and peeks through my bedroom window that I have to be the one to get myself out of bed.

Some days I feel like a goofy girl who believes with every fiber of her being that the world is not a bad place, that all her dreams will come true, and that the road to Oz is paved with gold. Other days I feel like the almost 24-year-old woman that I am who is frantically trying to hold it all together in order to keep the dream alive. And even though I have seen everything from Jamaica's hurting outcasts to the beauty of a down-syndrome girl's first steps, I am fortunate enough to have those rare days when I wake up, feeling all the ages I've ever been, and whisper to myself under the covers, "Growing up is for quitters."

Yes, I am mostly all grown up, too mature for my own good, but I am not quite an adult.

As I attempt to take on woman hood, and adulthood, and parenthood, and spousehood I find myself held captive by my ability to return to my innocent imaginings of youth. Sure, everyday I am reminded that I am growing up still-- after all I did find my first gray hair this week-- but I know that I still have a long way to go. So although I am no longer searching the horizon for a lifeboat and am kicking my feet with a bit more confidence, I have decided I am okay with not being a kid anymore, but I've discovered this doesn't stop me from being the girl I am. And as I dig in my heels with the confidence that adulthood brings my way, I am discovering the very ground I walk on is made up of the barbies that used to be strewn across my bedroom floor, and the dress up clothes in the trunk downstairs, and it is made up of that first painting I made in preschool and that Christmas play my sister and I put on for our parents. Yes, I am an adult now and as much as I want to say "growing up is for quitters," I realize growing up is for those that are brave; for it is the brave-hearted that realize they cannot face back and move forward. It is the brave-hearted that realize that each step is one that is uncharted and unsure. But it is the brave-hearted that are not afraid to hold onto all the ages they have been, the good, the bad, the broken hearted teen, the smart-mouthed daughter, the curly headed lump of a toddler, because only then will one truly be brave enough to face the unknown waters of adulthood.

And I'm almost ready to be that brave-hearted woman.

November 5, 2010:
Why My students write:

I write for the fun, the joy, and the need. I need to write my ideas and dreams like a baby needs milk, or anything needs air. Ever since I learned to write, I have been writing. If I do not write I become sullen and, eventually, withdrawn. The safe haven that is a pen and piece of paper can be found anywhere. Growing up around noise, I slowly lost my vision—I have begun to find silence in writing. It seems unlikely I would be sane without the ability to write.

I write because…

- each day I take another step in life and feel it should be on paper for everyone to read

- the sun comes up and then goes down every day

- the sound of a pencil on paper is like a song playing joyous music that sets your heart at peace

- words are a miracle

- I want to show the world I can

- my mom and dad don’t know how I feel

- I want something to show for myself

- I mean something

- I want to be loved

- it seems like I’m the only one who understands

- every day is the same

- my life isn’t all that easy

- the hurt is too much sometimes

- I’m crazy

- life is numb

- I need it

- it’s fun

- I’m trying to come alive

- I want people to know that I’m not just a quiet and shy person; there is someone else behind that shell

- I want someone to be impressed with me

- my real dad wants nothing to do with me

- I’m not perfect

- I want to have dreams

- I want other people to see a change in me

- it is my happy place

- it makes others smile

- I can tell a story when there is no one else to tell

- it’s my only escape

- I have a fire burning deep inside me that won’t burn out

- once the pencil hits the paper I can’t control it

- my life depends on it

- my singing is bad

- my heart tells me to

- I am different than everyone else

- I have a say in the matter

- we only live this life once

- the more I write the more I open up

- the world depends on it

- I have to say something

- I take one step at a time

-, just like hunting and fishing, it is so fun to catch something new with my words

- I care what I have to say even if no one else does

- if I don’t my thoughts will drive me crazy; if I do I can escape them

- if I didn’t no one would know who I really am and what I’m actually thinking and feeling

I write because…

- I want people to know what it feels like to be alive

- I want something for people to hold onto

- sometimes writing will give me the right answer

- it gives me the chance to get to know myself better

- I want people to feel what I felt

- I feel used and stepped on by people around me

- what I have to say is different than what you have to say

- I have to out-do my sister

- I am lonely and the notebook is my company

- I am not afraid to express my true self when I write

- I feel an urge, a compulsion to reach for the pencil and paper

- it is my place to speak, rather than listen

- it is a hiding place; a sanctuary I can go to and feel okay

- it lets me live in a new way

- I am happy

- I’m a klutz

- I’m changing

- I sometimes feel ignored

- I miss the people who have left me

- I want to be the voice to someone

- I love to make up stories

- I have something to say

- I love my family

- I want to be the girl little girls look up to

- I want the world to be a better place

- it makes me feel like I can do anything I want

- I want to be the girl people will never be mad at

- there are no boundaries

- it’s the best kind of therapy there is

- I want to be recognized for something

- I feel ignored

- I feel incredible

- I’m unstoppable

- I feel others’ pain

- I am normal

- it helps me realize what I have

- I feel all eyes on me

- these boots can only take it for so long

- I have questions but can’t ask them

- I’m an idiot and believe I’m the best writer out there

- I know who I am

- I have an imagination in my head that just won’t leave

I write…

- to stand up for the things that bother me the most

- to heal the hole in my heart

- so I can start a revolution

- so I can tell the world how I cope with all the changes I’ve gone through

- so my parents will actually be impressed with what I do

- to share my memories

- to get my anger out

- to get better at it

- to hear from the past and the future

- to expand my horizons

- to keep my imagination flowing

- to change my attitude

- to make a difference

- so I don’t feel so lost

- to have fun

- to create something I want

- to prove a point

- to confuse you

- to have something to look back on when I’m old and frail, because I will have forgotten

- to find a friend—one that offers more room for me because she’s interested, friendly and can’t beat me

- to fill up a page

- to feel human

- to make my day better

- to be creative

- to remind myself that there is a ‘before’ and ‘after’ to my story

- to be somebody

- to show others I exist

- to share the story others couldn’t

- so I won’t explode on the people around me

- so I can inspire others

- to ask questions

- to feel alive

- so I can be remembered as someone

November 22, 2011

dear baby,

you just keep growing and growing! keep it up! i can't even believe that it's already been almost 5 months since you first began to form.

the big news this week is that your dad finally got to feel you kick. one night after supper you were persistent in your punches, and i was nearly certain he should be able to feel you from the outside. and sure enough you gave a big one on my lower right side and he looked at me and was smiling from ear to ear. please be that tenacious more so he can feel you again.

people are starting to feel the need to touch my belly more now too, but i don't really mind. i'm awful proud of you already so you can just flaunt yourself all you want, okay?

i hope you like thanksgiving food because i plan on treating you right this thursday as we celebrate our first one together. for the time being though, keep whirling and twirling away in there for as long as you would like!

love, mom

And there you have it: SIX NOVEMBERS. My how my life has changed since 2007 when I was nervous about finishing college and student teaching. Two moves, 4 years of loving teaching, a baby, a new job at home… God is faithful. Here is to trusting Him for the next 6 Novembers.