Hi All!  

Still searching for the Joy and Hope in this world?  
Me, too.  
Look forward, look backward.  Looking all around trying to notice all the Hope and Joy I can find .
To help you out, here is a Re-Post from a very Merry June ago....




​
​Merry Christmas!


Yes, there is a Christmas tree in my living room today.
Yes, I know it is June.  


Need an explanation?


We had a photo shoot at my house for a story that will be published around Christmastime.  Publishers work months ahead, in order to have the material ready by December.   So we set up Christmas a bit early, and took the pictures.  This is the first time that I have ever decorated for Christmas when it is NOT December.  And you know what?  It has been a fantastic experience!   


The kids are beside themselves with Joy.  Not kidding.  I never realized how magical this could be.   


I mean, it’s not like June is a dark and sad month or anything.  We don’t NEED Christmas tree lights in June like we need a sparkly tree up north in December.  By the third week of December, we Minnesotans are desperate for anything that twinkles like the sun.  The world is such a dark and cold place that even tiny Christmas lights and Advent candles make us happy.  Christmas gives us HOPE!  


But in June, we have sunshine and sparkling water and boats and loons crying.  And mosquitoes.  Those too.  And kids out of school, and broken arms, and trips to the orthodontist and dentist and doctor and gophers digging up the yard that I just mowed in 80% humidity with a herd of mosquitoes trailing me like flying piranhas through the woods…I don’t worry about wolves in the woods, because the mosquitoes leave so little flesh that no wolf would be interested.  Wolf spiders are more scary, anyway.  June in Minnesota is special that way.


I guess what I am trying to say, is that even though it is summer, and the kites are flying, the sparrows are hatching, and the roses are blooming, I still need Hope.  I still need a little help finding Love, Joy, and Peace.  And you know what?  It is really easy to find those things with a Christmas tree in the living room and a creche on the mantel.  


The kids’ excitement and anticipation of great Joy were contagious.  So I rummaged around the nooks and crannies of my house, and found many odds and ends for presents.  Mostly books.  And silly things like a Bonne Belle lipgloss giftpack (90% off in January!) and some Jolly Rancher shower gel.  How is that even a thing?  Who wants tasty shower gel?  These things are in my house because I can’t pass up a 90% off sale, no matter how ridiculous the items.  I also grabbed all of the individual-sized snacks out of the cupboards, like Cheetos and Sour Cream and Onion Chips.  I wrapped everything up in Christmas paper, and tucked it all under the sparkling tree.  


Then we invited friends over.   


I think they were surprised! 


And you know what?  We had a lovely, unexpected, and Joyous afternoon.   We ate popcorn, we talked, we laughed.  We played a White Elephant gift game with all the wrapped presents, and the mystery gift that everyone wanted the most turned out to be the Jolly Rancher Shower Gel.  Imagine that.  It was wrapped in the shiniest paper.  


If you are looking for Hope or Joy, I highly recommend celebrating Christmas in June!   The sparkly Christmas tree brought us excitement and Joy.  But there was more to it than that.  


Amid the decorations and presents and laughter, something else was there.  


The most powerful part of this week has been the quiet parade of plastic animals and shepherds, making their way across my mantel, looking for the small Christ Child in the manger.  Despite the drafty barn, despite the darkness of the night and the chaos in the world, the baby sleeps peacefully in the manger.  Silent night, holy night.  That is what gives us Hope.  That’s the source of our Joy.   And that is worth celebrating, any time of the year.  


Merry Christmas!

Baby, it's cold outside!
The windchill is -26. 
​Seriously.
I love the windchill.  It's not just the temperature; it's how you FEEL outside.  That can actually be measured.
My husband disagrees.  He says "Just the facts.  What's the real temperature outside?"
"But honey, scientists can actually measure how you FEEL outside."  Doesn't that validate that Feels are for Reals? 
I think it does.  
Thank you, meteorologists.
So, this is how I feel tonight.  
I'm looking for something beautiful about minus 26 windchill...
It's dark and it's cold. It's so darn cold it can kill you.
So, I did the logical thing, and filled up a water balloon, and tossed it outside in the snow.  
I didn't get the typical or the expected summery water balloon experience.  But sometimes, the unexpected turns out to be a joy, too.  When the water balloon froze, there was a small hollow spot left  inside.  

It's perfect for a candle.

So here I am, enjoying the beauty of fire inside of ice.  It's just an imperfect, round orb of ice, frozen solid by it's harsh environment.  And yet, because of its hollowness or brokenness, the candle light can be placed inside.  
That light inside the ice is more powerful than all the darkness of this winter forest. It melts away the fear of the unknown and unseen. 

I'm having an existential crisis of the best kind here, where suddenly it all makes sense outside here in the cold.  I don't have to be anything but a broken and cold ice chunk, as long as I have God's love inside.   That is enough.  Enough to change anything.

God's light is enough to melt any darkness and fear. 

​

He did this for you!

Early Sunday morning, before the crowds of kids woke up, I went for a walk.  Before French toast and dirty dishes and washing kids' hair before church...before wardrobe checks to make sure no one still has their pajamas on under their coat (yes this has happened)...before checking fingernails for mud (Someone always manages to pass me by on this)... Before the frenzy of the day, I went for a walk.   

And I found this.

In the Mud.  Just frozen mud.

I like mud.  It reminds me of clay and sculpting and big messes with creative children and I love that.  

It also reminds me of mud puddle stomping in the half-frozen springtime with my friend Joy.  We each had a tall pair of rubber boots, perfect for stomping through frigid, crystallized mud lakes down the hill from her house.  But my boots had leaky zippers on the sides.  So we shared our boots;  each taking one waterproof boot, and pushing our stockinged feet into two long plastic bread bags, then into the leaky boots, then into an old five-gallon bucket.  We'd wrap an arm around each other and three-legged race it through puddles and ponds, cold, splashing, wet, and gloriously happy.   

We always fell.  

Our moms never complained about the mess. 

This Sunday morning, when I found these crystal jewels of frozen snowflakes in the mud, I smiled.    It was just a muddy, dirt road.  That's all.  But that's life.  We're all stuck in it together, muddy fingernails, leaky boots, and all.  Glorious, messy life.
 
I hope you can find the crystal jewels of perfection in your muddy life today.  And if you have leaky boots,  I hope you have a friend with a five gallon bucket.  

I cannot get Robert Frost's poem out of my mind today.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

I did go miles.  And miles.  My feet were frozen, my hands numb.  But the woods were silent as a whisper, soft flakes floated down from the silver sky.  They settled on my camera lens, melted into blurry spots on each picture I took.  

The snowstorm was breathtaking.    

I was sitting on the couch before daybreak this morning, cuddling the small kiddos.  No school today, so of course they were up extra early.  It was pitch dark, but no bus, no race, no stress.  

Just peace.  Quiet.  A tender moment...I thought.

I wondered if my kids would keep this scrap of time in their memories, just watching the sun rise, peacefully with Mom...

I looked at my son's freckled face.  His eyes drooped half-mast, dreamily.  

"Whatcha thinking about?" I asked.

"I wish I had dentures,"  he said.  

"Dentures?"

"Yeah!  SHARK DENTURES!!!!  That would be even more epic than tiger dentures.  Yeah, I sure wish I had dentures."

I guess peace is a state of mind.

A friend of mine asked an esoteric question yesterday.  He asked, rather incredulously,  "Why the (insert inappropriate word here) would anyone live in Minnesota?
​
Well, my Friend, this is one reason:  

I hear a picture is worth a thousand words.

'Nuff said.

Do I love you?


Oh, I do.  I’ll tell you how much, Dear.  I won’t tell you all the details right now.  But someday, when you are older, you might stumble across this blog of mine… And then you’ll find out the truth.


I love you so much that I let you have a pet.  That buffalo that you love so well, the one that masquerades as a dog… The one that digs holes in the front yard and sleeps on my couch.  Yeah, that one.   I love you so much that I let you have the dog. 


Late last night, while you were sleeping peacefully,  your beloved dog didn’t feel so well.  It seems that his foray into the garbage can yesterday gave him much more than the plunder he sought.  He got a tummy ache.  


At midnight, his restlessness grew into groans.  The rest of the house was sleeping soundly.  But Dog was unhappy.  As time ticked by, his sadness ballooned into a storm of desperation.  He needed to go outside.  Bark, bark, bark.


I stumbled to the hall, donned my parka over my bathrobe, stepped into my son’s arctic boots that are three sizes too big for me, and opened the front door.  A cloud of steam escaped, swirling, dissipating off the porch, and I gasped for air.  Did I mention it was cold?  The windchill was under -20 Farenheit last night.  I braced myself.  I’m tough.


We walked up and down the icy street in the dead of night, Dog and I.  With not a cloud in the sky, the stars pierced the heavens brilliantly, glittering their reflections on the snow.  It was brittle, but beautiful, I will admit.  But I wondered at my own sanity.  I wondered how many minutes it would take for my hands to freeze.  I wondered how my mag light would fare against coyotes.  I wondered when your dog would finish his business of being sick, and want to go back inside.  His paws got cold, too.  


We repeated the scenario a couple hours later.  


It was still dark.  Still starry.  Still frigid.  


Still, you slept.  And I was glad.  Because I love you.


By 4:00 a.m., he finally stopped the bark bark bark noises, and settled down for a nice old-dog-nap.  I started the coffee.  


So here I sit, sipping some ridiculously thick coffee, and thinking of you.  You’ll be up soon for school, and I’ll be making your breakfast and lunch and pushing you out the door.  Dog and I will spend the day together, I will write and paint, he will sleep and bark.  


Yes, I love you quite a lot, My Dear.

Click.  

This is the moment I want to share today.  
Just one moment in the frozen shire.  The morning is clear and crisp, full of possibilities.

Today is a gift.

I had a moment of Peace today.  It might seem unlikely.  Invisible, even.  But it mattered.  
I saw A Bolt. 


One bolt.


It was smaller than a dime.  I was at the gigantic Mall of America, riding a merry-go-round with my kids, and fighting dizziness.  The world was spinning, colors flashing, noise bombarding, and I was feeling woozy.  I grabbed a horse, but it was charging up and down as well as spinning around the frenzied mall.  A question briefly crossed my mind:  Did seasick moms ever fly off the merry-go-round while standing watch over their kids who were buckled in atop the colorful animals?  


Because I didn’t want to be the one that did.


Suddenly, in the middle of the cacophony, I remembered some sage advice I learned on a similar seasick moment on a sailboat in the Pacific.  


Find one stationary thing on the horizon, and keep your eyes on it. 


I scanned the MOA, searching for something, anything, that was unmoving.  But EVERYTHING jumped, flowed, charged, flashed, and spun.  Until I saw the Bolt. 


The bolt was screwed into the center of the merry-go-round, where it faithfully and quietly stayed.  It seemed to hold the whole merry-go-round world together.   I kept my eyes on that bolt the rest of the ride, and although the entire mall world was spinning and racing around me, my equilibrium stayed balanced.  My spirits soared!  I had found balance!  For one ephemeral moment, I became transformed into a Prima Ballerina. I floated above heavenly clouds of misty tulle, spinning on my toes in graceful, balanced perfection, far above the whirling crowd!


Thank you, Bolt.  


I’ve never been en pointe before.  


Because I focused on One Bolt, I went from middle aged mom, spun out of control, to Odette the Swan Princess.


Today when my world starts to spin out of control, I’m going to remember to find One Bolt, and keep my eyes on it. 




God is my Bolt. 

I introduced a kid to pastels.  

It was a marvelous, quiet night.  I found a forgotten old box of cast-off pastels that hadn't been used in years...  I brought it out, and he smiled.  It simply meant a Free License to Make a Mess.  We opened the treasure chest of colors, and put some large papers down on the kitchen table.  Peel the colors, break them into pieces.  Use the sides, the tops, the hard edge on the bottom.  No lines, just your imagination.  

​Scribbling makes the best pastel art.

​In front of my eyes, his blank white page grew entangled with roots and vines.  Nordic myth and legend spilled over a pastel waterfall, alive with mystery.   

We drew together until late in the night.  

No technology.  No screen.  Just colors and paper... And his imagination.

Peace Out.

​Hope.  
​
That's all we need sometimes.

Around me, the plants are dry and dead, like paper in the wind.  The ice is moving in.  
It is so dark, so much of the time, and always growing darker.  
Winter is coming, and it will be brutally cold.   With it, truckloads of trouble will fall from the sky, and I will have to shovel it for months.  I know it.
The world can be a wretched, cold place.

But when the sun rose this morning,  everything changed.

Bright colors splashed on the lake, ricocheting off the ice crystals in a joyous explosion of light.  Geese floated, weightless, like angels, through the shimmering glass of water and ice.  The air was crisp and fresh.  

I stood silently on the shore...
Breathing in the joy and the peace  and the hope.
I thought of dancing, but I am a clumsy oaf, and the neighbors were nearby.  
Instead, I laughed.  Out loud.  The joy bubbled up like music and my heart danced inside.
Swan Lake in my head, I glided with the heavenly geese, through the rosy atmosphere.

The world is a glorious place!

The next time you feel the ache of the weight of the world, think of a middle aged fuddy-duddy standing on the shore at sunrise.  Laughing.

I hope you can hear the music, too.

​

7:00 a.m. Happy Thanksgiving text from the family.  
9:00 a.m. Early Mass.  
By 11:00 a.m., I had peeled 22.5 pounds of potatoes.  I am not kidding.  I am the Undisputed Mashed Potato Queen.  I have prepared mashed potatoes for family holidays for many years, because they are impossible to mess up.  It’s all about butter, whipping cream and vast quantities of potatoes.  But about the time I put the third stock pot of water on to boil the last of the spuds, I knew something was not right. 


At 1:00 p.m. We were supposed to be at Thanksgiving Dinner, for 31 people.  
But Small One had a headache, a raging sore throat, and a fever of 101.5.


Time for a plan B.  


1:20, late as usual, the rest of the family packed into the trucks with the potatoes and drove away for dinner.  Small One and I cuddled up on the couch together.  


“Happy Thanksgiving, Kiddo.”  I said.  “Just you and me.  What do you want to do?”


“I like corn.”   She whimpered, huddling under her blanket.   “Can we eat corn out of a can together?”


Yes, we can.


And so we did.  


After all the cooking of the morning, the only clean pot in the kitchen was an egg poacher.  I was far too tired to wash dishes.  So I dumped the egg poaching cups out of the pan, and dumped a can of corn into the poacher.  In a few short minutes, we were cuddled up together in the big arm chair.  The poacher piled on top of every other pot and pan and potato bowl in the house, and I left it balancing there.  


And Small One and I ate canned corn with mashed potatoes.  She wore a damp washcloth on her head.  


Our Thanksgiving feast was unusually quiet. 


There was no hand holding, no long traditional prayer.  No cousins jumped about, shrieking and laughing, snitching treats.  No games of tag were dashed under the table or up the stairs.  No aunts discussed politics or sales, no uncles hammered out the details and how-to’s of organic gardening or ant farms.   No sisters talked about low-glycemic desserts, and no sisters dished up huge portions of homemade gluten free pie, crowned with whipped cream. No college kids regaled us with horror stories of final exams or roommates.  No one asked me to cut up their food.  


Just Small One and I, together, ate canned corn with mashed potatoes.  We did smile at each other.    


And we were thankful.  


She was thankful that she had her mom.  She had her blanket.  And she had her favorite food, canned corn.  


I was thankful for peace.  For hugs from my child.  For the antibiotics that would surely cure yet another case of strep throat.  I was thankful for the dirty dishes piled high, which meant that there was plenty of food for the family celebration.  I was thankful for the family.  Even if I wasn’t with them.  I was thankful for my mom, who hosted the party in her always-clean house, for a sister who made three turkeys, for a sister in law who baked all the pies.  I was thankful for the sister in law who made a special plate up for me, when all was said and done, with the best slices of turkey on it.   And mashed potatoes.  Lots of mashed potatoes.  


I fell asleep, holding Small One while she watched Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving special.  


I slept in the peace and quiet of alone-ness, hugging my feverish child, and dreaming of My Big Fat Family Parties.   It was almost like I was there, in the fray.  


Sometimes being absent makes me appreciate life even more.  


And I’m thankful for that.  

Today is a glorious brand new day, and anything can happen!  

If I mess up, I still might get another chance tomorrow to make things right. But I don't want to think about that...Because I always mess things up.   It is as inevitable as breathing.  
Presented with perfection, I spill the paint.  
Break the dishes.  
Step on toes.
And darn it, I have to say I'm sorry.  

Again.

It's a never ending cycle of failing and falling.  Life isn't perfect.  Maybe that's why I love mornings so much, because I in the morning, I still have a chance.  I'm hopeful.  I haven't messed up yet.

Really, how much can I wreck before the sunrise? 

Please don't answer that one.  

Just enjoy the sunrise with me, because this morning is a gift.

And it is perfect.

Small things matter.

Especially when the Big Things sometimes get out of control and overwhelmingly negative, 
small things matter.   

The daily news sometimes hits me like a ton of bricks, and I feel crushed by the pains of this world.  I can't write.  I can't paint.  Empathy hurts.  

“Are you crying about that, Mom?”  

Of course I am.

“You don’t even know those people!”

I don’t need to know them.  I see the homeless, the downtrodden, the oppressed, and I feel their sorrow.  Some great people feel called to action.  They become powerful and invigorated when they see others’ needs.  They are motivated to do great things and change the world for the better.  Dorothy Day, Mary Jo Copeland, Mother Teresa…  They are Real, they are Extraordinary, they are Magnificent. 

I’m not one of them.

I see suffering, and I just get knocked down to my knees.  But I am beginning to think that’s not only a bad thing.  Because on my knees, I am praying.  And only when I am on my knees can I see the small things that make all the difference.  

Small things are easy to overlook.   Like these dewdrops on the grass…


If I wasn’t on my knees, I never would have noticed them.  The veins in this beautiful Maple leaf show me that there is order and design here in the universe.  I didn’t make it.  I can’t understand it.  Certainly can’t control it.  But I don’t have to.  Even if I feel chaos or pain around me, those feelings do not sum up the entirety of the world.  News headlines cannot take away the perfection surrounding us.  
​
God is here, and He has it under control.  I just need to pay attention to the little things.

They are everywhere.  They are perfect.  Just as they always have been.

And that matters.

Last night, just as the sun began to set, I began a long drive home.    I don't often get to just sit and watch the sky, but last night was an exception.  I was a captive audience to the most amazing moon transformation!  I wasn't washing dishes, I wasn't putting kids to bed, I wasn't sorting paperwork or homework or planning for tomorrow.  For two and a half hours, I just watched the moon.  Well, and the roads, of course.  The roads were pretty deserted, because everyone else was busy sitting on their patios, watching the moon with their kids.   I called a friend to let her know how beautiful it was, and believe it or not, they had known in advance that the supermoon eclipse was coming.  They had their camera all set up already.  They probably even had popcorn.  

​I, apparently, was the only one on earth that didn't know it this was planned in advance.  Like everything else in life, it took me by surprise.  And I didn't have my camera with me.

​But I had coffee.  I had silence.  And I had the moon.   The night felt so ethereal and majestic;  I wanted to be part of it, be in it.  Being hermetically sealed in a metal car, looking through a window wasn't enough.  I wanted to fly, to feel the wind on my face, and breathe in the night...  

So I rolled down all my car windows, just in time to be flooded with a fog of fresh woodland skunk.
​Way to ruin my dreams of night flying.  
​Back in my sardine can.  The moon was glorious anyway, even when viewed through a window.

I made it home just before the moon disappeared completely under the red shadow... 
My kids and I watched the rest of the magnificent eclipse together, breathing in the damp dark air, laughing together in the glow of the moon.   No homework.  No skunks.

​And that's just the way I would have planned it.    

“What do you DO all day, Mom?”  my son asked me, a small tone of jealousy in his voice.  “I mean, we’re at school for seven hours.  What do you do?”  

Wow.  What can I say? That I sit at the kitchen table all day, eating ice cream?  Does he really think that I find all the hidden Snicker bars and scarf them down with no one to stop me?  They do go really well with ice cream…  Okay, I’ll be honest.  That could have happened.

But really, that is his fondest dream;  to be left alone with the refrigerator for seven hours, with no one to stop him.  

That’s not quite how it is.  Since you asked, Son, I will show you what happened at the kitchen table while you were gone.

These are a couple of statues that a very patient person has been waiting to be painted for a long time.  Today is the day...

The kitchen table turned into this:    It was gloriously quiet and deliciously fun.

The statues now look like this:

While I was painting the seeds in St. Francis's bowl, I thought about how much I love my brushes.  I have a lot of them...Some are fancy and luxurious and delicate, some are rotten-looking things that don't appear to be worth keeping.  They might look like garbage to someone who looked in my paintbrush box.  But all my brushes are needed, they all have a special purpose.  Here are two of my favorites:

The one on the right is a luxurious, expensive oil painting brush.  It is sleek and soft, the finest Red Sable Filbert. It is 100% reliable, and far more sophisticated than I am.  It blends colors beautifully.   It softens the lines that other brushes leave behind, smoothing all the imperfections.  

The one on the left is a 99 cent cheap thing from the hardware store.  It is ancient, hardened, crusted over and pretty much destroyed.  But that's why I like it so much.  That old brush can do things that no other brush can.  Like paint abstract, splotchy spots to make seeds in St. Francis' bowl, for example.   None of my other brushes can  do that.  It is precisely because that old brush is ruined that I like it so much, and use it so often.  I need it.  At times, I have taken a scissors and snipped some of the inside bristles, thinning it out even more.  There's not much left of it, really.  
That's why it's so valuable.  

As I painted today, I did a lot of pondering about brushes and people.  

People are just like my brushes... They are all unique, for their own special purpose.  
And we need them all.

So Son, that's what I did today.  But don't worry.  The kitchen table is now cleaned off, and ready for you to eat again.  

And I made cookies.

It’s the first day of school.

The house is quiet.  Eerily quiet.  They are all in school.  

This is probably the first time in 21 years that I have a quiet morning.  Really. I am standing in my house, surrounded by twenty one years of childhood debris.  The walls are scuffed, the windows are fingerprinted.  Laundry spills out of the laundry room like a lava floe, oozing into the living room.  Cereal bowls and sandwich fixings line the countertop.  It is a mess, and I am feeling weird.

“The school bus comes, and you’re supposed to do the happy dance!”  one friend says.

“Want to come over for coffee?” says another.

But I can do neither.   I have too much emotion building inside of me, and there is only one thing to do.  

Cry.

None of the kids were sad to leave, of course.  They were ecstatic, joyful, bouncing off the walls at 6 a.m.  Ready for a new adventure.  Loaded down with 40 pound backpacks, they marched off as eager as Bilbo Baggins leaving the Shire.  

And I am sitting here alone, sobbing to Disney Music Soundtracks.  

Not kidding.  

“You’ll be in my heart, no matter what…  You’ll be here in my heart Always.
From this day on, now and forever more…I’ll be there for you always….Just look over your shoulder, I’ll be there always.”

This isn’t what I had envisioned when I got pregnant, so long ago.  I was on the five year plan:  Five years at home with a child, then back to real life.  I had it all planned out.  Parenting was like a small sabbatical, a little recess on the job of life, I thought.  A side dish.  Ha!

I didn’t know that the agony and the ecstasy of Motherhood would sweep me off my feet and overwhelm me like a tidal wave of love, and leave me sitting here, twenty one years later, crying to Tarzan music like a lunatic.  

I’d better pull myself together, because in a few short hours, they’ll be back, Trashing the Camp.  If you know your Disney music, you’ll know what I mean! 

And they’ll want cookies.

Sometimes when I look at my grown children, it’s as if a shooting star crosses the sky, and I catch a one-second glimpse of them when they were eight years old. Or three  or five years old…  

A flashback to childhood…

One burst of light, and then it’s gone.  

There are moments that I suck in my breath as my grown child is talking, telling me about work and college.  And suddenly, I see her as she was:  Freckles, missing and crooked teeth, three and a half feet tall, telling me about science and how she is going to be an archaeologist when she grows up.  Or in a shimmer, I see my little author child, pen in hand, holding up her latest story.  Her braids fly wildly askew under her straw hat, which she wears to help her get in character to write.  Her freckles are drawn on with brown crayola marker to look more like Tom Sawyer.  “It’s all about a girl who wants a dog, Mom.  And she finally gets one!  That’s the happy surprise ending, see my illustration?  She gets a dog!”  Or, as my now-teenager asks for the car keys, and reaches out her hand, I see the chubby little fingers of her at two years old, holding my hand just because I was the powerful one who kept away the monsters in the dark.  She’d grip my fingers in hers, and hold on tightly until she was sound asleep.  Ah, the days when I could fix everything that was important to them.  

Those days didn’t last.

And at these lucid moments, when I again see a mirage of my small children, my heart beats on my chest wall with a pang of longing, and tears spring to my eyes.   I smile and reach out, but they are transformed.  They are grown.  

It was just a shooting star.  A glimmer of what used to be.

Suddenly, I am old, and they are taller than I am.  “You okay, Mom?” they look at me quizzically.  “What are you smiling about?”  Snap.  They are adults, and they take the vision of my tiny child with them when they walk away, unknowing.  “Are you smiling and crying at the same time, Mom? Are you?”

Of course I am.  

This week, the Perseid Meteor Shower hit around here.  Carpe diem, I say.  This is one of those moments!   We all stayed up until it was extremely late, and extremely dark.  Then my youngest kids and I camped out, wrapped in quilts under the dark sky, and counted real-life shooting stars.  

“One!”  
“Oh Mom!  Did you see that?  I saw one! I saw one! I saw a shooting star!”
“Don’t kick me.”
“Watch out!  You’re crowding me!  I don’t want to fall off the roof of the truck.”
“Can I have some of your blanket, please?”

“Two!”

“I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!!!”
“I lost my shoes, Mom”
“Pass the binoculars.”
“Did you know that stars are made up of burning gas?”
“Mom, what’s a star made of?”
“Well, she’s right.  But quit worrying about burning gas!  You’re not a star.”
“Foot out of my hair, please.”

“Three!”  
“Wow!  That one was huge!”
Small One nestled in my elbow, on the hood of the truck.  She lisps through the new hole in her teeth, where a baby tooth fell out earlier.  “I’m tho glad you got me up the thee thith, Mom.  Thankth.”  

“Four.”
We whispered now, partly because some kids had fallen asleep.  And partly because we were deep in Awe.

“Five.”
We felt the dark silence of the universe surrounding us.  Alive, burning, sparkling.  

“Six.”
We were small. 

“Seven.”
Silence.

We stayed out there until the wee hours, counting shooting stars.  It was priceless.
This is one of those moments in life that will keep coming back to me.  

Watching the sudden, silent bursts of light in the darkness with my kids…finding the joy in the stillness of the night.

As I carried the small ones back inside to their beds, I promised myself that in the rush and bustle of life, I will never be too busy to hug someone under the stars.

Because shooting stars don’t last forever.

Carpe diem.

No headlines, no news today.  
No schedule, no stress. 

Just happy summer peace.  

These moments exist.  Not often, but some rare days are just sunshine and butterflies.  Resting in the Proverbial Pastures...lying down in the restful green.  

I want to hang on to this day for a very long time.  Perhaps in the dead of January, I will need to be reminded that today actually happened.  Even by tonight, I will get caught up in busyness, crankiness and laundry, I will sink into the abyss of endless work…  yikes.

I will forget that there was peace.

So here you go:  Remind me, please, that I sat around in the sunshine today, just waiting for this butterfly to land.  

I did. 

I hope you, too, get a chance to sit in the pastures and just be.  

Peace out.  

Some flowers live in lovely gardens.  They are well-tended, fussed over, and taken care of.  They are often ostentatious and very appreciated.  Everyone notices them.  They are protected and treasured.  Everyone loves them. 

Not these little guys. 
I found these small wildflowers growing in the dark, near a woods, and in weak soil.  They grew all by themselves, with no one to look at them or appreciate their loveliness.

Until now.

Will you just take a moment with me, to notice the wonder of these tiny blossoms?  They are delicate and small.  You could crush them with a boot, and not even notice.  I had to get down on my knees to really see them, to snap a picture.  

They ask nothing of the world.  They only live to seek the sun as it shines, blooming where ever they are planted.  

They are truly lovely.  

If you slow down and get down on your knees, you might find Beauty in your day, too. 
It grows everywhere.

Before, I didn’t know.

Before my child was born with Down Syndrome, I never thought about what it meant to have a child that was Special.  Because all my kids were special.  Each one is unique, with his or her own talents, abilities and struggles.  They are all special.  But Stella is Special, with a capital S.  It’s a little something extra.

That extra chromosome has done something remarkable and different to her, that I never could have understood before I knew her.  One tiny extra chromosome has changed everything.  

Let me explain with a story.

One evening, when Stella was about two years old, our family visited a church that was not our own.  As presentations were made by speakers, Stella got a bit antsy, so I left the pew and stood in the back of the church to bounce her in my arms.  Maybe she would fall asleep, so I could hear the presentations and learn something.  I had a few stressors at the time, and could use a bit of a spiritual boost.  I was looking forward to this.

But Stella had another idea.  She wiggled and wriggled, trying energetically to get down, away from me.  In her deep, low voice, she started to repeat  “Dow.  Dowww!”  She emphatically wanted down, and she wasn’t about to be shushed.  I set her down on the floor, and she began ambling straight toward a man against the back wall.  I followed, trying to quietly corral her back in a corner where we could have a little personal space, and wouldn’t disturb anyone.  No way.  Stella persisted, and beelined as fast as she could, right up to the man.  

He was stern looking, bearded, and wearing old jeans.  Stella walked right up to him, and hugged his leg.  

“Sorry,” I mumbled, and sheepishly retrieved my child.  

For the next five or ten minutes, we repeated this scene.

People were starting to stare.  

Stella would yell at me to let her down, and right away, she’d run to the man, and hug his leg.

Soon she began to call “Uppa!  Uppa!”

The man looked bewildered.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered.  “She wants you to pick her up.”  

“Really?”  He looked surprised.  Then he leaned down, and held out his arms.  My little Stella embraced him, tightly wrapping her arms around his neck.

I stood right next to him, watching. 

Stella buried her face in his bearded neck, gently touching the back of his head with her small fingers.  She petted him, and rested.  A group of people watched Stella, no longer paying any attention to the speaker.  Everyone in the back of the crowded church was watching the toddler hugging the grizzled man.  

She rested for about ten minutes like that, nestled in his arms.  Loving him.

When the speaker finished whatever it was she was saying, the man gently handed my daughter back to me.

“Thank you,” he said, and walked away, into the starry night.  A tear glistened on his cheek.

After he left, a man and woman approached me.  “Do you know that man?” They asked. 

“No.”

“I am astonished that your daughter went up to him like that!”

“He’s the crankiest, grumpiest man!  He doesn’t talk to anyone, he always just stands in the back, scowling and waiting.”  

Before I knew Stella, I would have been surprised.  Perhaps embarrassed, even.  But not now.  Now I know Stella.  That little extra chromosome has given her a superpower, an ability to love others, unfiltered.  Unchained by manners, or propriety, or personal space issues.  Without words, without a presentation, or a speech…  With something as simple and uncomplicated as a hug, she helps people feel God’s love.  

And I am not surprised at all. 

Because now, I know.  

Sometimes Special comes with a capital “S”.