Just Fine
The house is a mess.
Yesterday one of the cars needed repairs costing way more than we expected.
Two days before that I yelled at my oldest boy for getting uppity.
A few projects are showing their darker sides and really getting on my nerves.
My baby girl had two teeth pulled and suffered a really bad sore throat for two days after.
Every time we run the dishwasher, it makes a sound that convinces me some big round, greasy part is going to come flying through the front of it and lodge itself in the neighbor’s garage door.
I haven’t parked in my garage since 2008 because my son and his compatriots have turned it into a recording studio for their band.
Every morning I wake up, drag myself to the coffee maker (*sign of Cross) and sit down to either read, write, design, or try and get Something Done. And every morning I’m interrupted by kids needing this or that, breakfast, lunch money, a ride, a signature, or socks.
My life…all our lives…are made up of interruptions and a near-constant not-quite-a-rhythm of Three Steps Forward And Two Steps Back. Lately I’ve been irritated with it. And cranky. I can’t seem to get anything done and that makes me crazy.
It’s noisy, frenetic, and feels like the hub of some wheel desperately needs oiling. I wonder if I’m doing anything very well or merely keeping (barely) my head above water enough to keep my mind off what just sank below the surface.
That’s only some of what’s going wrong.
I could go on and on and on but it’d be a waste of time.
A waste of time because it’s a waste of time to write about death when there is so much life all around me. And, yes, I mean death…because, at it’s core, that’s what I think I’m griping about.
Surrounded by a whirlwind of What Happens Every Morning, I glanced up thinking I was going to roll my eyes at the clip-clop-clip-clopping going on over my head (Cute Redhead was up and well underway toward High Powered Day), when this arrested my attention…
“Though darkness lay, it will give way when the dark night delivers the day.”
I needed to see this. I’ll explain why in a minute.
And then I saw this. The rhubarb I promised to dig up and remove. I hate that plant. It’s not what I planned for that spot. But we’ve had late snows and some unseasonal cold, and through all of it…year after year…it thrives.
Absolved. It stays.
I decided I wasn’t looking closely enough at things, so I grabbed my camera and decided to find Everything That’s Going Right.
I didn’t have to look very far…
He’s thirteen now, but as long as I live I will never not see one tiny little foot peeking out of a bundle of newborn blankets.
Even when, being woken by the sound of a camera shutter, said Thirteen Year Old scowls at me.
Beta Male is on an overnight field trip with his class. Though this bed is always absent the little Unibomber by now, it’s empty now because he didn’t sleep in it last night. I’m glad for his adventures, but there’s still a part of me that much prefers all my babies in the nest at night. In fact, no matter how crazy it can get…no matter how bad the wheels have fallen off (and they do) (often), knowing they’re safe, fed, covered and at rest, rests my heart…
…making the duty of waking the Princess of Space, Time, and Dimension a task I do not enjoy. Particularly when she’s clearly spent half the night turning upside down and backwards and burrowing under every stuffed animal in North America. Still, pulling back her hair and whispering,”…time to get up, little calepitter” (it’s how she pronounced it and how I’ll say it forever) makes me feel like mornings were invented so that All Things New had their encore.
And, finally, I took the camera and followed the sound of Purpose and Intent and Professional Control and Decorum and Maturity (read: everything Todd is not lol). And though I was given an eye roll and The Look, I was allowed a photograph of that foot in those shoes.
My favorite part? When I said I wanted a photograph and she tendered me her signature and very exasperated, “…Todd.”
Why I needed to see the sunrising over the wooden fence:
I’m going to a funeral in a few hours. And though I hate Death, I happen to love funerals. In the same way I like weddings. And in the same way I love Births.
Because I believe that The Door swings open at these time-between-times, and, opening, Life (even cleverly disguised as Death) flows from There into our Here and reminds me…
…that all the Wrong in the world is but a live coal in God’s ocean.
Everything…
…is going to be just fine.
Amen. Beautifully said T.
Beautiful, as you always do.
But I Do like Death. It’s the way of Death that worries me. Death is Liberation and Splendor as well as Life. I honor Life and Death, I honor them both as equals.