Random Thoughts: And Then It Was Spring

I've wanted to weep for two weeks now.  If you were to ask me why, I'd only shake my head.  It's one of those "It's everything and it's nothing," mix of emotions.  Spring finally arrived here, with the occasional chilly wet rain and cold cold morning to remind us that she's not fully made up her mind yet.  April is so fickle.  Sunshine, rain, wind, soft breezes, chilly, warm, cloudy, stormy.  It's the teenage portion of the year.  And maybe that's what I'm going through is a Spring all of my own, a change of season in my life and heart that I wasn't even aware of just at first.  Maybe I'm being April-ish too.  I'm not unhappy, nor sad, but the desire to just lay my head in my arms and cry my heart out has hit me daily for the past two weeks at least.  I'm not unwell, nor upset.  I'm not depressed or even slightly deep blue. Maybe it's just overwhelm at this lovely season, a season of blessings.

We found a synagogue a couple of weeks ago and visited and today we were back.  It feels comfortable. The place is friendly but not overwhelmingly clingy friendly nor so distant that they leave you feeling snubbed either. But we're holding off on full commitment.  I think this time we're going to do a little courting before we settle in.  We've been in or we've been out for all these years in one place or another, working hard, and worked harder, trying to hang on to some sort of  balance and losing,  but a sounder saner reasoning has grown in us over the past year.  Still, I greet these Shabat mornings that we are synagogue bound with gladness.  "I was glad when they said, 'Come and let us go to the house of the Lord.' "  But it's so much more than just that.



I'd been feeling for weeks now that time was evaporating before me.  I'm within touching distance of my mid-50's and John is his age (ha.) and it feels like time is fleeing before us.  We were antsy and anxious and restless and feeling very much that while we were waiting upon God to move us, we needed to remind Him to hurry up.  Then I had this wonderful dream.  I was running about the house getting ready to leave, doing the White Rabbit imitation quite well.  "It's late, It's late!"  I kept looking at clocks in the house and they all said the same thing.  It wasn't late, at all. It was still early.  I traveled out to the highway we needed to be upon and found it under construction, not even ready for travel.  You might think that a frustrating dream but I found it all very reassuring.  It's not as late as we think.  It's early yet.  The road isn't ready for us to travel.  I still have time to prepare myself for the journey.  There's nothing quite like the relief of knowing you've time to pack, lol.

I spoke with Amie early this week.  The kids were home with a tummy virus.  A Spring snowfall of 10 inches helped to make up her mind to keep the children home that day.  So after chattering with Amie for a bit, I got to speak to the grandchildren for the first time in quite a few months.  Lily's birthday is this coming week.  She will be 7.  I have not seen her in six years.  She hadn't even taken her first steps when they moved away.  Ross talked to me, as best he could.  Like his Mama, and my brother, he has a rather serious speech impediment at this time.  He'll get speech therapy in school this next year and be able to speak far more clearly, but he did better this time in making himself understood. He's never seen me, only hears my voice occasionally.

Amie and I chuckled together over the phone between children.  When my brother was little (he was 1 year and 9 days younger than myself), I talked for him.  I could understand perfectly what it was he was trying to say and so he'd babble and I'd interpret.  Amie says Lily does much the same for Ross.  When I told her how frustrated I recall her and I getting with each other as she tried to make me understand she asked why I'd had such a hard time.  "Well, you didn't come with an interpreter!" I pointed out.  That made her laugh out loud.  Then Josie came to the phone. 

It was Josie that was my undoing.  We chatted as normal but right at the very end, she said very softly, "I remember you Gramma and your house and your kittens and dog..."  Well...There was an answer to a question I'd asked God time and time again over the past few weeks.  "Does she even remember who I am?" It's been six years since she left, seven since her visit here when Lily was being born.  "I remember..." she'd said and the tears that are just below the surface at all times spilled down my cheeks.  He cares that I know, that I get an answer to a prayer question.  He tends to my heart.

Then there's all the awfulness in the world at the moment, that isn't total awfulness because there are awesome people who make a difference even in the midst of the horrible things.  Just ordinary people who step out and act like heroes and then go quietly back to their every day life, some having been noticed, some not known.  It's true that the people who set out to cause harm do damage and hurt us all in one way or another, but it's these ordinary heroes that truly change us.  They give us hope.  Hope that there is goodness in the world, hope that in fear there is courage within ourselves that we don't know is there.

I don't talk about these awful things.  There's plenty of folks with lots to say on the subject.  I don't hide away from them either.  I know they are there.  I'm not unmoved by it all.  I just am a quiet observer.  Sorry that it's come to this sort of mess.  Sorry that families are hurt, both the victims' and the perpetrator's, that so many people must carry grief.  I don't see the point of it.  There is no glory in it.  It cannot be good in anyone's belief system that pain is inflicted.  I don't weep openly for others but I FEEL it, the horror, the shame, the hurting, the grief, the loss. I feel it. 

This world is a beautiful place.  Flowers, trees, birds, bees, people.  I LIKE living, I do.  But now and then these days, as time passes and I see too much television and hear too much of every one's rhetoric, I get weary and want to go home to a place I've never been.  I have to stop and move away from the noise and the babble, oh my word the constant babble!, and look at the way the wind moves through the trees, admire the yellowed nose of a busy bee that's been digging pollen, listen to the contented cooing of a mourning dove pecking over the lawn, watch a rabbit move slowly across the same lawn nibbling grass here and there, admire the shape of the clouds and the color of the sky and take in the vastness of all that never changes,that is the same from day to day regardless of man.   That's what quiets my Spirit and allows me to HEAR once again.

Those pansies in the photo above are nearly spent.  They had a brief but oh so beautiful season of life, a season of living that uplifted me every time I walked out on the deck and looked at their glory.  It's a new season, time for a new flower, flowers that will be lovely and uplifting and shine in all their glory through hot weather and drought.  It's just a continuation of a cycle that goes on and on.  One lovely thing that does it's part and then is replaced by something else that does it's part.  Life.

My youngest are coming home this weekend.  Katie will arrive soon.  Samuel will be in tomorrow.  They are bringing guests with them.  I've prepared my home, I have the food required to feed the bodies and have asked for whatever foods the souls might require.  I want my home to be a haven, a quiet place, a place to be restored and renewed.  I want to be a lovely flower, doing my part to shine and bring beauty for a while, whether I'm helping to create it in a home or offering inspiration. And prepared as well to simply sit quietly  near by, because I am aware that one of these, my children or my guests, might well be an inspiration, a shining beauty, meant just for me.  We are all extra-ordinary in a most extraordinary way, aren't we?