Live

That poster says it all. Sadly, we (okay, I) don't learn lessons from posters. Instead, I have to learn the hard way. I make mistakes. Big mistakes, small mistakes, medium mistakes--you name 'em, I make 'em.

Then I learn from those mistakes.

Of course, I don't just make and learn from mistakes. I am getting old-ish, after all; I've accumulated all sorts of genuine, time-certified experiences, and I learn from those, too.

So here I am, with some lessons learned and the awareness of many lessons yet to come. I'll never know it all, but at least I know myself.

Now I can tell you my passions. Now I am not afraid to do things I love and be selfish with my time when necessary. Now I know that I have some gifts, quirky and modest as they are, and I am confident enough to use those gifts. I can look at that poster and realize mine is a life not wasted, but lived. A life at once guarded and shared. I can look at that poster and just say, "Amen. the End."

The thing about that poster is that twenty or even ten years ago, I might have smiled, nodded, and enjoyed the sentiment. In fact, I'd have thought, "I get it."

I would have been wrong. I would have been blissfully, belligerently wrong.

But, as I mentioned, I'm getting old-ish.

I watch my family and friends with younger kids gladly dispensing juice boxes and Cheetos, running to practices and games, and I know they are putting their all into parenting those kids. I did the same thing, and was rewarded with kids who are people I want to know--people I like. Yes, I watch these parents happily raise their children and occasionally talk about having no life. "It passes," I say. "You'll get your life--your self-- back." What I can't begin to explain to them is that the self you get back will be different from the one you gladly let fall to the side in a tumble of diapers, dress-up clothes, jerseys, knee pads, and duffel bags.

This self? This new self? You've never met her, but you will. She'll emerge from a mountain of laundry and teenage trials and tribulations a different person, a person who somehow found herself while looking after everyone else.

And then? Well, then you will get this poster.

Can't Fight the River

The creek is encroaching. One row of trees has already been washed away, the water has undercut the fields, there are washes hiding in tall grass, and the riding paths are unsafe. Yes, that high water is causing problems.

So we mow regularly. We keep an eye on certain familiar places in the fields and pastures. We do what we can to keep our area and our people safe.

Today, as I was driving my grandfather's tractor around fields and pastures, thinking about how I'd explain where I'd mowed, I thought, "Oh, I'll just tell them I mowed down by the creek where we played when we were kids," or, "by the hog shed," or, "along the old road." Sounds simple enough, until you realize that "we" encompasses four solid generations. We didn't play there at the same time; most of us have never lived there, but we were most certainly there together.

We saw our cousins there together, waded there together, walked there together, grew up there together. In all of our lives, those rushing waters, those rolling hills, those red barns, those solitary havens, have been the one common constant.

Some of us remember a basketball hoop by gas tanks, a pond raft floating on oil drums, and a silo glimpsed at the outer stretches of a swing's arc, while others remember jewel weed and mulberry trees in the ditch, a tire swing on a hillside, and patches of lawn worn bare by frequent baseball games.

Because of who and how we are, most of us have worked there and all of us have played there.

Every one of us has known love there.

And that love--the shared, enduring love for the people and the place--is what links our many generations and buoys us as dangerously high waters threaten to wash us out and away.

Fighting the water is futile; it will go where it chooses--where it was meant to go--and it will go when the time is right. No, we can't fight the water or coerce the water. We can only keep the paths safe, flag known dangers, and keep protecting the people and places we love.

The river will win; we will do what we can.

The Song of Spring

There is something sublime about a spring storm, about realizing that, while I was busy looking the other way, dark clouds were gathering forces behind the neighbors' houses, just waiting for a blast of wind to send them flying.

I suppose I could liken a storm to the multitude of unpleasant surprises we face, but in my mind it's not the same at all. There's nothing awe-inspiring about cruel twists of fate, the winding down of lives, or the workings of unhappy people. Instead, spring storms are the epitome of the never-ending force and beauty of nature.

I'm educated and most days am able to pass for not-entirely-stupid. I listen to the weather people who tell me to get inside, stay away from doors and windows, and hunker down in an interior room with plenty of flashlights and radios. But today, when the sky shouted from across town, showed itself over the neighbors' roofs, and stirred up the tree tops, where was I? Well, how do you think I know how it looked out there?

I was in my yard, under my beloved trees, listening to the song of spring play through the new leaves.

I stood there on a long winter's worth of empty acorn shells, thoroughly entranced with the kaleidoscope of clouds and leaves, letting the wind buffet me, welcoming a tangible reminder that spring did happen this year.

I need those reminders. We need those reminders. After all, we did survive a long winter, which followed a heartbreaking autumn and stress-filled summer before it.

And now, finally, renewal. Finally . . . life, hope, and a new set of seasons. Fresh air is wafting in through windows, flowers are blooming in spectacular fashion, trees are reliably preparing to shade us, mushrooms are surely about to pop, and the weather--Nature--is putting on her show, reminding us that we are not in charge.

For that reminder, I am thankful. I don't want to be in charge; I'm quite content to be eternally in awe.

Muddled March Musings

I would LOVE to write an honest-to-God blog right now. Really, I would. I know my mind would be better for the writing, but folks, it's just not happening. I've started no fewer than three blogs in the past 27 hours. Sadly, I've finished precisely zero and have decided to resort to a list of less-demanding thoughts, thoughts that politely refrain from insisting that I link them together in paragraph form. Therefore, in no particular order, I present my March Musings.

1. Ignorant, hateful people need to go away.

2. We all need to defend that which we know is right and decry that which we know is wrong, even when those actions cause us discomfort.

3. I am trapped in Bizarro World. Seriously. It's everywhere right now!

4. The Midwest is in a staring contest with Old Man Winter. So far, nobody's blinked.

5. It is MARCH. Winter will blink before long.

6. I have not worried about a filmy hula-hoop tornado falling from the flies for five days.

7. The aforementioned tornado did not fall during a performance. Thank you, God. We appreciate your cooperation on that one.

8. I have not set off a hand-held incendiary device in five days, and I miss it. Maybe tomorrow. Fireballs are great fun when they are intentional.

9. By virtue of hard work, team work, and MUCH work, we did a fabulous job with a difficult show.

10. Free time and normal amounts of sleep are good.

11. That time-consuming, grey-hair-growing, sleep-depriving, trickery-filled, working-with-friends show made winter bearable.

12. Currently, I am hosting a brain riot. I do not enjoy hosting brain riots.

13. Camera-friendly days cure brain riots, so anytime Old Man Winter wants to blink and get it over with, it will be fine by me. Psst! God? You could pitch in if you were so inclined.

14. I am grateful to know the cures for what ails me. Some of those cures come from Walgreens, and some of those cures come from knowing myself and what works.

15. I would REALLY love a day to myself with my camera and some cooperation from Mother Nature.

16. Kid #1 will be 21 in two weeks and is looking at grad school.

17. Kid #2 is working nights.

18. Kid #3 takes the ACT next month.

19. I got old.

19a. Old isn't all bad.

20. Right now, my perfect day (and it could happen whenever you see fit, God) would involve my hammock, my pool, warm sunshine, my camera, my book, Miller Lite, and the time to wander back and forth. I can forgo the beer if it helps.

21. Switzerland may find it unsettling to learn that they were, in fact, a powerful German state during WW II, and that Prussia is a fine place to go if you want watches, chocolates, or secret accounts. (according to a few of my 7th graders)

22. Soon, and for the first time in my life, I will go mushrooming and not be able to share the fun and the find with my grandpa, a realization that makes me ache.

23. I know that I will feel him there with me nonetheless, walking stick in his hand, Old-Timer knife in his pocket, and twinkle in his eye.

24. I am blessed--thoroughly and undeniably blessed--by simply knowing some of the people in my life, young, old, and in between.

25. Just how much would it bug my Aunt Audrey and my math-brained, inside-the-box, perfectly-organized friends if I ended on a number that is not a multiple of five?

26. And I end with a wondering, ornery smile . . .