Reality Check

"Things are not as good as they used to be, and they never were."

Will Rogers

Although I would have to consult Google for a clue as to the identity of the man credited with the above quote, I heard my daddy repeat it often. I think it means that the "good ole days" might not be all they were cracked up to be. Still, as we meanderd through Amish country in southern Ohio, the slower, simpler way of life on this autumnal day seemed attractive, indeed. 

Open-air buggies make their way non-chalantly through idyllic landscapes pulled by clip-cloppy horses. Fresh laundry billows on clotheslines. Old-fashioned cornshalks stand tall in rows by pumpkin patches.  Children play baseball in the schoolyard at recess...or kickball or Red Rover (where are their digital devices?) Pristine barns and homesteads dot the countryside, (no wires strewn from building to building or satellite dishes marring the view). Corner stores market homemade jams, jellies, noodles, pies and cheese (oh my, the Amish cheese!) with shelves of quilts and aprons, doll clothes and tea towels and bins of crocheted scarves and knitted stocking caps. Family-style restuarants and little tucked-away eateries serve home-grown veggies, gravy-smothered entrees and pies with meringue or lattice-crust or piled-high berries. Shy, small girls in navy and black with little white caps suck their fingers. Rambunctious boys, wearing suspender-held britches, pitch in with after-school chores. The sun sinks into a late afternoon glow that bathes every hillside in color. Dusk envelopes the farmhouses. We fantasize about soup being stirred on the cook stove, supper by candle light, homework in front of the fire, and fluffy comforters on wood-hewn beds. 

Delighted, relaxed, challenged and inspired, we climb into our SUV and head for home. We adjust the heat (or air). We anticipate the ready-meal bubbling away in the crockpot. We text family to say we're on the way and consult the GPS just to be sure. No eggs to gather. No cows to milk. No livestock to bed down for the night. At home, we will flip on the lights and read or watch the game. We will spend the evening on Facebook or Pinterest or shopping online. We will push levers on the dishwasher and turn knobs on the washer and dump clothes from the dryer into a basket. We go to sleep wistfully thinking of those bygone days when life was simpler, slower, and less pressured. We awake to the aroma signaling  coffee is ready and waiting. We flip on the light, check the digital calendar, the weather, the emails and the lists for the day. We head to the morning workout...for exercise, you know. Ooops, the car is low on gas, so we shift into high gear, dart in and out of the gas station and hurry back into the fast lane. Thankfully, there were no chickens to feed, no cows to milk....no manure to shovel. 

"Different isn't better or worse.

Different is just different."

(Was that Will Rogers, too? Maybe Siri will know.)

Doors to Yesterday

      

Fall in the Midwest. Miles and miles of flat fields interrupted by fences, occasional creeks, colorful puffs of woodland, and corn ready for harvest. Cattle grazing. Clouds billowing. Leaves fluttering, changing colors and letting go, drifting through the door of Autumn breezes into another season. 

Peeking through doorways into yesterday is such good therapy for a melancholy. As sisters, the three of us have embarked on journeys into our past these days of longer autumn nights and lingering shadows. We visited our aunt, recently turned ninety-nine, now back home in the house where she reared her family, where our daddy grew up, where our grandparents farmed the land. She sits in the chair most days positioned  where she can watch the passing trains that have echoed through  decades cutting across fields carrying coal, crude oil and cattle. The trains are no longer pulling a caboose. We lament the absence of the familiar salute from the railway worker whose job it was to signal the crossing had been passed and to dutifully wave to children standing by.  Once upon a time, this frail, diminished lady was the matriarch of the household, the queen mother, the Proverbs 31 woman who kept it all going. Could she have guessed that one day she would be sequestered in a makeshift bedroom in the old dining room, totally unaware of what was happening in the kitchen, the canning cellar, the milking parlor or garden or hen house or attic or corn crib or anywhere else that had formerly been her domain? Do we ever consider that the world might keep turning on its axis in those years of our lives when we twirl sticks with a myriad of spinning plates?

Far from despondent, although perhaps a little wistful, our darling auntie rests nestled into the heart of the home. The working farm keeps working. The family members come and go. The days of our lives tick mercilessly on. Others now perform for her the acts of kindness she has been doling out for years.  We laugh. We remember. We say good bye. We pause once more to capture the visual of this dear lady who rests content as we hurry off to life beyond.

I

How to unlock the mysteries of the past when there is no one else to ask? How to look through keyholes or beyond the gate or into windows that might give clues about questions that niggle in our heads? The compass turns and we venture out another day in another direction. Another farm community. Another small town. Here we identify the building where our daddy ran a drugstore and courted our mother, who worked the soda fountain. We locate the church where they were married. We sisters visited this community often during growing-up years when our family came to visit our mother's aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Connecting GPS signals with remembrances,  we discover the cluster of buildings that marked the homestead, although sadly, the house itself is gone. The out-buildings, now boarded and securely locked, only hint at busy days in the barnyard leaving few keys to the past. Yet, unmistakenly there had been life and meaningful work and there had clearly come a day when the work was done and the barns were boarded up.

Around another bend, we find the farm where most of our childhood memories emergd. There is the well where the milk cans were kept for cooling after our uncle would lift them (and us) into the cart and let us ride from the barn. In bygone days while we watched the milking, we offered grain to the cows and giggled at their rough tongues receiving the offering from our shy, city-slicker hands. Cats drank fresh, warm milk from saucers. We spy the side porch where we stood to watch the boy-cousins and uncles go off, guns over their shoulders, to hunt on Thanksgiving Day. With noses pressed against frosty windowpanes, it seemed that magically the first snow of the season began to fall that same day each year as we awaited their return. The front porch, still intact, is where we dressed those poor baby bunnies and kittens in doll clothes, playing house for endless hours while our mothers plucked chickens, made jams, and canned vegetables from the garden. We wore calico skirts sewn from feed sacks. We helped gather eggs. The adults drank Sanka. The odor of fuel oil used to heat the house gave mother a headache. We sat on Uncle Freddy's lap playing with the hooks of his bib overalls. He shared peanuts from a little tin dish. The black phone hung on the wall. One of the steps leading upstairs lifted to reveal a storage niche. Additions here and there left uneven passage between rooms where layer upon layer of sparkling linoleum creaked and cracked with daily wear. The curtain covering the corner pantry made it easy to steal inside to snitch snicker-doodles or homemade donuts. Shared memories ricochet between us.

The barn door is stuck open, permanently it seems. Vines creep and crawl and cover the unpleasantries of rusting machinery and rotting wood. Maybe, there are new litters of kittens making themselves quite at home.  Maybe, like the children of Narnia, we can keep slipping "through the wardrobe" revisiting memories and reliving days beyond the land of here and now. Maybe, the hinges of  the door connecting past and present stay well-oiled with use. 

Booting the Busy-Bus

My friend has been in a waiting room all summer. 

After her husband suffered a stroke, a UTI, a bout with pneumonia and a few other maladies, she tripped and fell in the middle of the night, trying to avoid stepping on the cat and found herself with multiple fractures of her leg requiring surgery, a plate, pins, rest, PT, a  bedside potty and as many indignities as one can imagine. Since, my friend has always been a front-line server, it has been hard for her to be the recipient of meals-on-wheels, the passenger rather than pusher of wheelchairs, and the wearer of garments selected by those who  venture upstairs to rifle through her closet for the purpose of accessorizing her baggy sweats and voluminous pants.

On good days, when we are "in charge" of life, my friend and I twirl family and friends and church responsibilities with one hand tied behind our backs. We make lists, dart in and out of projects, paint, canvases, prep meals, make lists of where our lists are and stay busy. Yep, we board the busy-bus every day. And on and on, in true James 5:16 fashion, we confess busy-ness and pray for one another to be healed. We quote Psalm 48:10 exhorting ourselves to "be still and know that He is God". We strive to enter His rest. And yet, why do we often have to learn by default instead of just choosing to get off the bus?

The healing process has been slow. I have attempted to encourage my exceedingly patient friend. "You are passing lots of tests," I say. "The Lord is just taking you higher...It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but sometimes we need to allow others the blessing of giving to us...You have been Aaron and Ur to many. Now let them hold up your arms." Why didn't she slap me? Why didn't she tell me take my Pollyanna quips and offer my platitudes to someone else? Why didn't my sweet friend--knowing that I didn't "get it"--roll her eyes in disgust at my cheerful (yet, sincere, I might add in my defense) colloquialisms? Because, she was intently focused on listening to The Lord and learning what He had for her in this waiting season. She was drinking deeply of a bitter cup that a loving, heavenly Father had allowed to be passed her way. She did not gulp, pretending the potion was not bitter stuff, nor did she  pass the cup politely sipping in solitude. His grace was sufficient one day at a time as she waited and waited and waited.

I have observed my friend brave physical pain and acquiesce to all kinds of limitations formerly unknown to her. And here's the remarkable part. I have watched her countenance turn from a Martha-type worry and fear to a Mary-heart consistently seeking to know her Lord more intimately, thanking Him for his faithful care. She wasn't trying to "miss it" before, but my sweet sister-friend gained a new perspective when the bus came to a screeching halt. A pervasive sense of humor has been good medicine, like the Bible says. My friend shrinks from the sounds of the bus she claims to hear honking it's horn bidding her back on board.  She knows that the brightly colored lures of life-in-the-fast-lane offer a ticket with a seat reserved for her. But having tasted of the sweetness of a season of dwelling quietly in God's presence, I'm pretty sure she will turn down all offers for a busy-bus pass.

And in the healing proces, there came a new perspective. My friend, an avid gardner, says that she enjoyed her garden more than ever this year. How could that be? She was not able to be immersed in the fruits of her labors....to pinch, poke, prod and prune all the greenies and growies in her lovely Tasha Tudor-type surroundings. How enlightening for her to realize she had a selected view, much like a photographer behind the lens as he moves the viewfinder to frame a pleasing composition. Without being overwhelmed by weeds or threatening mites, the view from her kitchen window highlighted a swath of colors, textures and patterns not before seen and appreciated because of the tyranny of the up-close-and -personal tending. Isn't life like that sometimes? Our "missing the forest for the trees" is a common infirmity when we let the day-to-day drain the joy and beauty that surrounds us.

And now, I sit, with a big old boot on an ankle that has been painful for weeks. An elusive injury has been diagnosed. All of a sudden, my sense of importance has escalated and my "to-do" list flashes in neon. I cannot keep my foot elevated, clear my calendar, do nothing! My disgustingly responsible self-reliance seeks to drown out the Voice of the One to Whom my sweet convalescing friend has pointed for months. What would He have me do today? Where would He meet me? Am I listening or am I just breathing the exhaust fumes while the bus idles at the door of my heart? For long years I have wanted to write, been encouraged to write, felt often I was in disobedience to God as I have chosen to spend time doing "important" things first. Always the laundry, the next meal to prepare, dust bunnies to coral from under the beds. There are weeds to pull, leaves to rake, plants to water. Always, there are tasks. But IF I delight to do His will and IF He has given me a gift to employ and to enjoy and IF this is the day that He has given to live fully present and fully alive, then maybe, just maybe, He is pleased when I disembark from the busy-bus and don a boot and a slower pace, for such a time as this.

"But godliness is actually a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment,"

I Timothy 6:6

Pre-Mothers Day Party

An invitation like none other! Now when it comes to tea parties, I have indulged in my fair share. High tea at the Ritz. Tea at The Four Seasons. Afternoon tea in London and tea at sundown in a castle nestled away in the Lake District. Tea in Ukraine. Tea in Germany. Tea for twelve straight days at a melange of sidewalk cafés, local pubs and lavish hotels in Dublin. Tea from a thermos bottle overlooking a seascape. Tea while hiking a mountain trail. Scrumptious, beautiful tea celebrations served by a myriad of friends over the years. But tea in Bangkok (who would have thought?) at the Chocolate Buffet might take the cake. (Pun intended.)

Two mama's shared a brand new baby and the joys of motherhood at an early Mother's Day celebration. The Chocolate Buffet, at the Sukhothai hotel in Bangkok, from two o'clock til five each day, is host to tea-time delights that are truly culinary and artistic masterpieces. An entire table, centred with a ravishing arrangement of colorful, fragrant flowers, displayed savory options like prawns with yam gazpacho, egg-salad-filled charcoal buns, shrimp and potato fritters, little tuna boats, adorable cucumber sandwiches, sushi bites, salmon-filled crescents with goat cheese and cranberries. Tucked between the tiers of opulent offerings were bowls of olives, pistachios, sunflower seeds and nuts as well as interesting sauces for slathering or dipping. Pineapple and cantaloupe slices and watermelon cubes with feta, made for colorful touches on each plate we composed, and also helped to "cleanse the palate" as we drifted back and forth between sweet and savory sensations. 

On the other side of the atrium, a buffet table laden with pastries, cakes, tortes, eclairs and candies (mostly of the chocoalte persuasion) held the spotlight.  Willy Wonka, eat your heart out. Adjacent to the vats of chocolate (dark, milk, and white) fondue, marshmallows, apricots and prunes (yes prunes!) were skewered, ready for dipping. (We were relieved to not see any crickets-on-a-stem which actually are flaunted ppas a delicacy in some less-Western-influenced establishments.) 

(Hmmmm, why try a cutting of blood orange marshmallow strip when all this chocolate is up for grabs?!)

You can well imagine that this mother-daughter team cozied right up to the executive pastry chef who was actually on site creating made-to-order hot chocolate drinks, a process he developed. We were offered a tasting and then selected chocolate (or mixtures) from twenty-some geographic areas with varied cocoa-sugar ratios. Chef Laurent melted and blended our picks, stirring and adding accoutrements like hazelnut or sea salt or whipped cream. Decadence reached a whole new level. We loved learning from this Swiss Chocolatier who has been at his profession for thirty years and whose eyes sparkle when he relates his penchant for developing new recipes, like chocolate wasabi sorbet. 

Laurent's engaging chit-chat is part of the gift he offers to the guests at the Chocolate Buffet. He related that the record for drinking the most hot chocolates was held by a nine year old boy who, left to his own devises one day, downed thirteen of the syrupy creations. His slightly concerned mother, a hotel guest, phoned up the chef next day to find out if any one else may have reported not feeling well, suggesting there might have been  a questionable item on the menu. She hung up the phone abruptly when she learned it was only her little darling's greed that had him feeling under the weather. We ladylike ladies were not about to suffer such an ill fate. So, yes, we polished off our tea (Mandy's was an iced floral selection and mine a lovely fragrant jasmine) and decided to end the tête-a-tête with one more silky signature selection ala Chef Laurent.

Footnote: When we finally pulled ourselves away, we laughed at how we might have spent a similar amount of time and money attending a concert or the theatre and how we would have walked away when it was over carrying only a memory with us. This event's tangible take-away could be with us for awhile, right here on those hips and thighs. The taxi took three hours to make the five mile trip home that day.  We regretted not sticking a few truffles in our bags for the ride, although walking might have worked off some calories. Oh well, the truffles would have melted in the 99 degree heat, had we walked. And somehow, this day was all about indulgence!