…In a one-Dialga open sleigh…
Elizabeth contributed the artwork for this year’s Christmas card:
I can only mail this one out to the people who will understand the funny; the rest will have to get regular store-bought cards this year.
I might frame my copy. It’s distilled essence of 12-year-old Elizabeth, a snapshot of her inner world right now, decked in Christmas cheer.
Happy Winter Holiday of Choice, Internet! May it be merry and bright!
Sunday night we got another nice rain, and Monday night we got our first frost of fall. Yesterday most of the pomegranates on my tree had suddenly developed those little splits in their skins that means they need to be harvested soon or they’ll go to waste. So I spent most of yesterday taking pomegranates apart, putting the seeds in containers, and putting the containers in the freezer, which was…about as tedious as it sounds. But also satisfying, because around January and February a handful of half-thawed pomegranate seeds tastes like a fresh little boost of happy.
Still pretty tedious, though. The mind wanders while the hands work, and my mind had lots of time to wander on Tuesday. Some thoughts it offered up for my consideration:
1. I’m amazed at how many people see love as a weakness to be exploited. These people are seriously shortchanging themselves. Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and they will live and die without ever tapping into that vast, amazing power.
2. People have to receive before they can understand the value of giving. People have to be listened to before they can understand the value of listening to others. They have to be accepted and respected, in all their quirky uniqueness, before they can accept and respect others who are different from them. If you convince a child that her feelings don’t matter, she will grow up believing that no one’s feelings matter. Feelings either matter or they don’t. If you’re constantly telling your child not to be so sensitive whenever your thoughtless words and actions wound him, don’t be surprised if he grows up to be insensitive and thoughtless of others. If you try to teach your child humility by treating her as if she has no great value or importance, don’t be surprised if she grows up treating herself (and others) like garbage. This often involves chemical addictions and promiscuity. If you try to impose your will on your child by force, don’t be surprised if he grows up believing that might makes right. If you try to impose your will on your child through lies and manipulation, don’t be surprised if he grows up to be a manipulative liar.
3. A common misconception among Christians is that they are (or should be) somehow exempt from the natural consequences of their own poor choices. This is an unrealistic expectation. You may be “saved by grace,” but you still have to water your garden, tend lovingly to your personal relationships and feed the dog, or they will all wither and die. If you lie and cheat and steal people will stop trusting you. If you are unreliable people will stop investing in you. Being “a Christian” doesn’t absolve you of any earthly repercussions or responsibilities. It’s silly (and totally missing the point) to think it should.
4. One person’s “normal” is another person’s “completely unacceptable.” One person’s “attractive and desirable” is another person’s “eww.” What one person admires and reveres, someone else will feel nothing but contempt for. A way of life that feels like heaven to one person will feel like hell to another. What feels like glorious success to one person will feel like dismal failure to another. I don’t think there are any exceptions to this rule. To borrow Alan Alda’s phrase, “all laws are local.” You have to walk the path God designed you for, and accept that not everyone is going to understand.
So much for the navel-gazing. In other news:
5. I’m currently reading “Travels With Charley” by John Steinbeck. It’s one of the books that came with my house when we bought it twelve years ago and it’s been in my “to read” pile all this time, and I finally got around to it. It is an incredible book, and I highly recommend it if you’re interested in shrewd, amusing and often brilliant observations on human nature and eerily accurate predictions (it was written in 1961) about the impact of technology on American life.
6. I decided to make some of my kids’ Christmas presents this year, to save money. Somehow it didn’t occur to me that this would suck up the last vestiges of my spare time. If my blog goes dark for a while, that’s why. Turns out there is a finite number of minutes per day, and that number is not negotiable. Who knew?
7. A closing quote borrowed from one of my favorite bloggers, wordsmith Scott White of Caveat Emptor:
Once I met a man with a hundred hands. “It must be amazing to be able to get so many things done,” I said. “Alas,” he replied, “if only I had a few more brains and a longer reach, maybe that would be true.” Then I understood the value of people working together.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise to readers of this blog that my children live rich fantasy lives. I don’t worry much about it; I’ve come to believe that most children (and frankly, a lot of adults) spend a fair amount of time in alternate realities of their own imaginings. I know I did when I was a child, and later as an adult through online rpg’s and such. These days my need for fantasy seems to be at a low ebb, but I get plenty of it through the eyes and stories of my kids, so maybe that’s enough to keep my imagination entertained.
Anyway. Elizabeth’s current favorite fictional friend is Espio the Chameleon, and he’s pretty much her constant imaginary companion. On our trip to Disneyland and California Adventure in August, she made observations now and then like, “Espio LOVED that ride!” or, “”Man, Espio got soaked on that that one.” I’m sure there’s some fancy psychologist’s term for this sort of imaginary attachment and projection, but when I think about all the other things that a 12-year-old girl could be getting into in this town, I count myself (and her) lucky that this mild obsession is only about a cartoon reptile-boy. (And yes, I have my own theories, but they are personal and I cannot share them with you, Dear Internet.)
So after we got back home, Elizabeth took a bunch of the DL/CA pics and photoshopped Espio into them, for her own personal collection. Here are a few of my favorites:
I love that Luke and Espio have pretty much the exact same expression in that last pic.
Nice to see Cartoon Reptile Boy had a fun time. And…that concludes this week’s glimpse into the mysterious workings of Elizabeth’s brain.
Postscript: I used to think that I have one child who loves to talk and communicate and express himself, and one child who is quiet and private and keeps her thoughts and feelings to herself. And to a certain extent that’s true, but…not really. Elizabeth has the same need to express herself and be heard that every other human on the planet has. She just does it in her own language, like, well, every other human on the planet. Elizabeth’s language is artwork, so you have to listen with your eyes and with your heart.
In the past couple of days I’ve read some articles and blog posts and seen a movie that collectively have left my heart aching for all the children whose parents never bother to learn their children’s language, or never really see or hear them at all. If you’re a parent, PLEASE, take the time to learn the language your child speaks in. It is so worth the effort, for them and for you. The future could be a much better place.
And every dad, married or single, NEEDS to read THIS. Seriously.
/soapbox
This one is dedicated to two of my fellow bloggers, who are having (separate and unrelated) rough times right now and are looking for some happy.
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The first time I ever heard Rob Thomas’ song “Little Wonders” was shortly after Steve and I separated. I immediately downloaded it from iTunes and played it over and over for weeks. It seemed to be speaking directly to the tangled knot of pain and hope that had taken up residence in my chest, and I wanted the knot to hear and believe, and maybe loosen its grip a little.
For a long time (like, until just the past couple of months), it was difficult for me to look at photos taken during that first year or so after the split. You could see the hope and the growing glimmers of peace and joy in those images, but my memories of the raw underlying pain were still too fresh. I looked at those pictures and remembered just putting one foot in front of the other in a determined effort to get through the tunnel and into the light.
I’ve been out of the tunnel for a while now, but I still love that song. It’s full of truth and light and strength, and if you’re ever going through a difficult time you should add it to your favorite playlists and listen to it until the sunshine comes back.
All of this is to explain that today’s Love Thursday post is in video form, and also to express my gratefulness that even the first half of the video makes me smile now instead of making my stomach hurt. Always a bonus. I’m hoping it can bring a smile or two to anyone else who needs one today.
So now, without further ado:
Happy Love Thursday everyone, and special virtual hugs go out to Jenny and Mir. Things will get better. You are loved by so many.
This post is about a leg of my journey that felt more like a stretch of whitewater river than a winding path, and how different the scenery looks on the other side. But on the surface it appears to be a post about all the stuff I bought with all the money I made in the past year, so I apologize in advance for the temporary detour into quasi-materialism.
A year ago there was a big part of me that was just biding my time, waiting for a chance to escape where I was living and put this place of broken dreams and painful memories behind me. I was saving every spare penny with that goal in mind, just waiting for an opportunity to present itself. I made about $5,000 last September when I sold The Mighty Herd and every dollar of that went into my savings account, as I stood poised to jump through the first door that opened.
But no doors opened that didn’t look like a big step down instead of up or even reasonably comparable to what the kids and I had here. So here we stayed.
And then in November the Black Friday sales hit and something in my brain went SPROING! and I went out and bought a new mattress and box spring, a new tv and a Blu-Ray player. Can you say “uncharacteristically frivolous spending”?
I should mention that my old mattress was old and horrifically uncomfortable, so the new one was more of a need than a luxury. And our old picture-tube tv had muddy sound and a low-def picture with occasional random purple spots in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, so the kids and I do enjoy movie nights a lot more with the new one. But there was nothing wrong with our old dvd player, and it’s not like me to replace expensive stuff that still works fine. I was kind of baffled by my own priorities at that point.
But the thing is, after that it got easier to live in my house. It got…easier to breathe, somehow.
It didn’t take a PhD in psychology to figure it out: I had replaced everything that Steve and I used to share here. The bed, the tv and the dvd player were pretty much the only things that contributed anything resembling a relationship to our empty sham of a marriage, and some subconscious part of my brain needed to be rid of them.
Once they were gone and replaced, something shifted in my perspective. When I got the Census job, the first thing I did with my first paycheck was buy skylights for three rooms that never used to get enough natural light. I wasn’t thinking about leaving anymore, I was thinking about all the ways this crappy little mobile could be made more livable. Now the kitchen, the kids’ bathroom and my dressing room are much brighter and cheerier, and I don’t have to pay for electric light in the daytime anymore.
The next thing I bought was insulated curtains for the front half of the house. We used to lose a lot of heat through the windows in the winter, so hopefully that will change now.
After that I started letting the paychecks pile up in the bank, partly because I was getting too busy to start any new projects, partly because I didn’t know how long the Census job was going to last and I was hoping to save up enough to replace the exterior siding on the mobile, and partly because almost everything else I wanted to buy would have to be delivered on a Home Depot truck and I wanted to order everything at once and only pay one delivery charge.
The Census job lasted long enough to fund the new siding, but I decided to only replace the north and east walls. That’s where we lose most of our heat anyway, and I didn’t want to take on too much all at once. Besides, my plans for the south wall are more ambitious and involve lots of glass for passive solar heating in the winter. That’ll be a project for another year.
I knew how crappy the old aluminum siding was because I’d torn a section of it off part of the north wall back in ’05 when we built on the new addition. But this summer I was freshly horrified at the flimsiness of it — there’d been no real barrier between the elements and the inside of the house at all. The framing was “insulated” with (highly annoyed at being disturbed) wasps’ nests and mummified mice. It was deeply satisfying to clean it all out and replace that tinfoil crap with solid exterior walls: wood sheathing, tar paper and then lap siding, and then all the seams and joints were caulked to make an airtight seal against weather, bugs and rodents. Then I painted it and it is very pretty. I had a ton of great Before and During pics, but I lost them all when my hard drive crashed. Here’s a sneak peek at the After; I’ll post a bunch more once the front porch has been sanded and painted to match the trim:
(Btw, if any of my local readers own a floor sander, maybe we could work out a deal? This is taking forEVER with my little hand sander.)
To those of you who have seen my previously boxcar-like mobile and are wondering where the eave came from: I built it onto the frame while I had the siding off. Cool, huh?
I bought the siding and the insulated curtains with winter in mind, but I am astonished at what a difference they’ve made this summer. We don’t have AC, but even during the most blistering heat waves the house now stays comfortably cool as long as we remember to keep the curtains closed on the east- and south-facing windows. Yay!
Since I only re-sided half the house, I had enough money left over for a new back door (the old one was falling apart), some parts for a solar oven I’m working on, and to finish the retaining wall that now keeps my side yard from washing into my driveway every time we get a heavy rain. And also some fencing to replace a stretch along the property line that badly needs replacing.
What intrigues me most about the past year isn’t what I decided to spend the money on, but the order in which my priorities ran. The most significant purchase was obviously the new siding, followed by the skylights and the insulated curtains. And I could have bought all those things last fall with the cow money, but it never occurred to me. I wasn’t there yet. The most “frivolous” purchases turned out to be the most liberating, the ones that freed my mind to think about the bigger picture and made this house feel like home again. Healing works in mysterious ways sometimes.
Also: very accommodating of the weather to stay clear and sunny while my walls were off and then give us a good soaker as soon as the new paint was dry. We appreciated that!
An Invincible Summer 