When Your Stakes Seem Higher

The stakes seemed higher. It's funny how that happened. Every week without a blogpost here raised the cost of words for me, and weighted each one heavier.

Photo: Martin O_ob, Creative Commons, cc license

Busyness first halted me, carrying me away from my desk and you. Days passed, weeks mounted, though, and suddenly fear crept in. I wanted the words to have beauty, to hold meaning, and to be worthy of your time. And that wrangled a finger hold around my throat. It choked my words inside me.

Simple images of grandpas and gardens, and two sons in the dirt. My dad, silver-haired, looking more and more like his dad, kneels on dew-dropped grass blades. "I forgot my knee pads," he murmurs, dipping an orange-handled shovel into a shallow channel.

We're building four raised garden beds again, in the new yard. His hair is starting to curl around the edges, "Like Uncle Kurt," my mom and I notice, and he is so much stronger since September's cancer surgeries and the ceremonial-eating of the only apple on the tree. 

My twenty-year old son is there for his strength and his love of the outdoors. He and his grandpa wield a borrowed yellow mallet, heavy enough to tip me over when I pass it unexpectedly at one point.

"Can I help? What can I hammer?" hopes six year old Daniel aloud.

"Hey, Daniel. Here's a spot you can hammer." John points to an upraised metal reebar tip and crouches beside his brother, and my mama heart sings.

A red cardinal crows birdeee birdeeee birdeee from the highest point of a silver balsam tree behind us, and the rising morning sun warms us. My nose runs from the cold air. A wind shakes cottonwood seeds down around us from the neighbor's tree.

"Ready for the next post, John?" my dad asks, and I snap out of reverie and jump green corduroy sneakers onto my pitch fork, preparing the soil before them.

Write what you know, right? I know about heavy squares of sod chopped and shaken to save any garden dirt; black-capped chicadees and cardinal soliloquies, and sons with grandpas wielding mallets. I know french-pressed coffee oils swirling atop hot mugs, and dirt under the nails despite three washings. I see hard-working loved ones, and smell rain-fresh brown dirt, sliced grass sod, and lilacs from the neighbor's front yard.

And the moment captured is enough. My job is to see and note.

For you? Is there anything that looms taller with each passing day? Step in, pull up the chair, take that first action. The fear will still be there, I confess, but the hidden joy that comes from doing what you were made to do will spring up and delight you. I promise.

How are you? I've missed you. Catch me up?

Don't Let Fear of Looking Foolish Stop You

 Glassy highrise buildings slipped past, mirroring the sky. Parallel-parking beside joggers and bicyclists at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, we piled out of the car, carrying roller blades, a folded stroller, and a brown paper bag of hot bagels.

 On our last days of vacation-- this segment of the "stay-cation"--we were all intentionally making family memories and savoring these last few days of normal. The last few weeks of having John here with us before he moved to college. The last few weeks of summer, and the last few days of relaxed family time. Strolling past the rose gardens, we joked and sniffed occasional buds, noticing how fast the weeds grew here too. Groundskeepers in tan shirts gouged out fast-growing weeds and scrambled to keep up with passing time.

 After the cherubim fountain and the spitting turtle fountain, my broad-shouldered college-bound John raced across the grass to climb a tree, charmed by its low-hanging branch. Mark handed five-year old Daniel up, entrusting him to John, and swung up after them.

"Wow, Dad! I didn't know you could climb trees!" my daughter cried.

"What? I'm not that old. I can climb trees," Mark asserted (several times that day).

 My daughter joined him, swinging up with a bit of help, and perching beside them.

"C'mon, Mom, let's all go up!"

 For all my talk of loving to climb trees, it had still been a long time since I had swung up into one this size. Jumping up, my hands only slipped off the smooth bark again.

"I'm too short. My hands can't get a grip." I laughed and complained. They urged me, good-naturedly teasing me and trying to spite me into success. Laughing, jumping, and falling, I stood barefoot in the grass looking up at them.

"My shirt will gap open! Sorry, it's not a good tree-climbing shirt." I worried.

"John, don't look for a sec," Mark advised. Handing Daniel to the kids, he jumped down, and hoisted me up. I scrambled ungracefully to his shoulders, scooted up from there, and grabbed on to the branch, shrieking and giggling. My oldest nearly fell off the tree in silent laughter.

Finally, we were all there, six feet off the ground, grabbing onto the weathered bark of the branch. Wrapping ankles together for balance, I reassured Daniel that we were fine, and Mark set up the camera for our family photo.

Happy August 12th to you, friend! Kids around the nation start school this week, others start in a few weeks, and my son moves onto his college campus soon.

Savor today. Savor your family and friends. Climb trees, look silly, laugh hard, and build family memories. What crazy or fun thing have you done this week? I love hearing from you.

Linking with Emily at Imperfect Prose. 

To My 18-Yr Old on Your Last Day of School

I remember chubby hands grasping thick crayons, and us singing your name to the tune of "Bingo was his name-oh."

I remember reading The Sign of the Beaver and building teepees and soft leather moccasins.

We've painted medieval family crests; flooded mini Nile Rivers; constructed mud ziggarats; embalmed and  mummified toys; and chipped chicken bones out of frozen dirt like archeologists.

Our countless hikes in the woods on leaf and nature hunts were as much fun for me as for you, and I love the songs we made up to thank Jesus.

I remember the butterflies' curling proboscis tongues (they liked cantaloup best), our panic in remembering that frogs can't swim nonstop once they're no longer tadpoles, and your instant rush home from the party to give them land.

We discovered that goldfish can jump higher than we thought, and sadly practiced subtraction. Ants crawled through blue goo, caterpillars hung upside down, and we moved from fungi to a cell's plasma membrane, from dissections to differential equations.

History timelines marched across our living room, dining room and kitchen, and you and your sister and I read for countless hours on that couch throughout the years.

I'm so proud of the man you are, and are becoming. I see your love for Jesus, and for your family and friends. I see the way you interact respectfully, kindly, and confidently with others, and I see your intentionality. You are a man of schedules and watches and punctuality; a backpack-carrying, purple-cabbage-eating, consistent Bible reading, water-bottle-swigging, guitar-playing young man, with grass-stained toes.

We love you. We're proud of you, and we're cheering you on in this next chapter. You're going to love college.

Love,
Mom