Heat wave

“This is miserable,” the people around me say, plucking the fabric of their shirts away from their chests.

They’re sweaty and cranky, so I go silent. I can’t lie; I love this heat wave. The peer pressure to complain runs strong, though. Like in high school when my friends griped about diagramming sentences in English class.

“This is stupid,” they’d say on their way to the chalkboard, whispering so Miss Helgeson couldn’t hear them.

To fit in, I nodded. But I loved dissecting those sentences so much I thought my heart might explode. I even pictured one day sitting in heaven—in a coffee shop in the heart of the celestial city—drawing horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on paper, identifying groups of words and bringing them structure at last for all of eternity.

Husband walks to the thermostat now and clicks it lower by a degree or two, and I remember I’m writing about temperature and not grammar.

Living in Minnesota, I’m chilled for seven months out of every year and continually scheming ways to warm myself amongst family members who like it brisk. If I were a single lady, I’d pass on the air conditioning altogether, but here I am doing life with this overheated group.

Husband proposes traveling to Iceland sometime and staying in an ice hotel there. I read about the novelty accommodations. Architects and designers have made sleeping on blocks of ice inviting. They’ve even created amenities like frosty cocktail bars and ice-molded dinnerware to add to the adventure. I shiver and close out the tab on my online search.

I saw a YouTube video once about why summer is “women’s winter.” In the skit, the women at the office wear furs and still freeze, their lips bluer than their skin, while the men lounge in front of their computers in shorts and tank tops while tossing around a beach ball. One commenter says, “I never truly understood this sketch. Then I visited America. Now I understand.” Yes, in this country the women stow space heaters under their desks in July.

I recall bundling up to go sledding with the kids one winter. My many layers turned me into an immobile sausage. With that memory in mind, I say to one of my girls, “There’s only so much clothing you can put on, but to cool down, you can always take off more.”

She snaps her gaze at me. “I think the real expression is just the opposite.”

I recollect my Norse Mythology class in college and the knowledge that Hel—the underworld for the ignoble dead—is located in Niflheim, a realm of primordial ice and cold. To imagine hell is freezing tells me much about the ancient Scandinavian peoples and what they found insufferable. Enough said.

The forecast promises a high of 99 today (with a heat advisory), up from yesterday’s 95 degrees. Whether it was President Truman who said it first or not, the quote is true: If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

To twist this adage for my purposes, I’ll say this much: The lawn chair in the “kitchen” is calling me right now, and I’m heading out there with my iced coffee ASAP. You’re welcome to join me, if you can stand it.

This central air is too much.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Improvements

Two weeks into our home ownership in 2002, curiosity nibbled at me like a mosquito at dusk in a Minnesota summer. What was underneath the beige carpeting in the bedroom? All the other rooms on the main level had hardwood floors—except for the kitchen, which was suffocated in a dated linoleum. But how could I rest if I didn’t know about the bedroom? And how could I know if I didn’t take a peek?

Bolstered by the expression “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission,” I waited for Husband to leave for work one day. After he was gone, I peeled up a corner of the bedroom’s carpeting, which flowed into a tiny hallway. It was all or nothing. If I ripped up some of it, it would all have to go. So it all went, and I stood back, assessing the scene.

The bedroom floor was paint-spattered, and the hallway was covered with old, brittle linoleum. I chipped away the ancient flooring to discover a wooden floor grate, gummed up with a black, sticky residue. But I was a visionary; cleaned off, it would be beautiful. And it wouldn’t take too long to refinish it, would it?

When Husband returned home, my impromptu project startled him. He wasn’t happy, but had I lit the proverbial fire under him? Yes, I had. So after lugging out the old carpeting, which I had left in the dining room in more of a pile than a roll, he borrowed a floor sander from my Uncle K. The floor project scaled up the mountain of priorities like a pro rock climber.

The refinishing job was more involved than my initial estimate. Before sanding, we needed to remove, by hand, all the staples and nails that had secured the carpeting. Husband did the work in flip-flops.

“Your choice of footwear scares me,” I said.

“You worry too much.” He swung the claw hammer at a nail. It missed its mark but found his big toe and plunged into it.

When the bleeding stopped, the work resumed. Husband and I completed the sanding, applied three coats of polyurethane, and eventually the floors gleamed.

I sidled up to him with a coy smile. “Now aren’t you glad I gave you the nudge to do this?”

“Hm,” he said.

In 2008, after someone kicked in our door, catapulting its lock mechanism across the living room, we decided we should probably replace it, and this time the door wouldn’t have a window in it to showcase the inside of our home to eager onlookers. Husband bought a new one—three times the weight of the previous one and inches bigger—from Siwek Lumber in northeast Minneapolis. He showed me his choice, knocking on it to flaunt the strength of the solid, six-paneled oak beauty.  

I nodded. “Nice.” A thought zinged me. “When you trim it down, you’re gonna cut the same amount off each side, right?”

He tossed me that look. “Of course.”

Hanging a door seems simple enough, but when one hangs a door in an almost century-old home, one quickly learns that nothing about that home is exact—particularly the size and shape of the doorways.

In the garage, Husband made some adjustments to the slab of oak and muscled it into the house to check the fit. Not quite right. He heaved it back out, made more adjustments, and hauled it in again. Still no. In and out, in and out.

After six times of trying the door on for size, it slid into place. He attached the hinges and inserted the lock and handle. The color drained from his face, though, and he shot me a withering look, one I could tell was aimed at himself more than at me.

I scrutinized the door. “Oh no.”

The right answer was to not cut off the same amount on both sides. The door lock and handle plate no longer fit. I cringed. Silent, Husband humped the door back out to the garage, climbed into his truck, and drove to Siwek’s for the second door purchase of the day.

Husband’s basement bathroom project spanned a few years. After the plumbing was roughed in, he plugged the hole—where the toilet would eventually sit—with an old rag. One day, however, we discovered a putrid mess all over the bathroom floor. When the repairman came, he told us something interesting; the built-up gases had sucked the rag into our main drain sewer line, causing the backup and spill. We cleaned up the nightmare, and Husband stuffed another rag into the hole. After the second Raw Sewage Fiasco of 2006, however, he learned about $2.00 rubber plugs.

In the spring of 2007 when I returned home from a trip to London with Mom, Husband led me down the basement stairs. Excitement flipped my stomach.

“Close your eyes,” he said before we got to the bathroom.

When I opened my eyes again, my dream materialized. “It’s perfect.”

“When I put in the heating mat under the tile, I didn’t get it far enough that way.” He pointed out an area on the floor, shaking his head. “There, of all places.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I drank in the details of the new room. He had done the ceramic tile with precision and painted the walls the same color as the green bead in my favorite bracelet. “The floor is toasty from where I’m standing.”

He frowned. “Well, it irritates me.”

I waved away his concerns. “Who needs warm feet when they’re using the toilet? And when they’re done showering, why the need to step onto a warm floor? They’ll probably be overheated at that point anyway.”

I may not have convinced Husband, but we had a new bathroom, and that was enough for me.

Over the years, we’ve learned some home improvement lessons. The mistakes have been funny or maddening, the process frustrating or exhilarating. And sometimes the ordeals made my back ache—like the time Husband, in a burst of paternal nesting, renovated the kitchen while I was pregnant, and every day for six weeks, my big belly and I had to bend over the side of the bathtub to wash dishes.

But that’s a story for another day.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The Juno house

Lately, I’ve thought about the guys from the group home. I don’t know why they’ve come to mind, but there they are, still living with me in my memories thirty-one years later.

*****

If only I had known then that Dick—lunging at me with unsteady feet and incoherent speech when I stepped inside his house—would still make me smile decades later. But I didn’t, and his jarring welcome was our first meeting. My brother and I were already set to move in with the man and his two roommates, Allen and Tim. I assessed my surroundings—the stains on the plaid couch cushions, the smoke-filled atmosphere—and nervousness rattled me. What had we gotten ourselves into?

The house on Juno Avenue in Saint Paul—and the gig we had signed up for—was a coup, I reminded myself. College students like us couldn’t resist the offer. We would live at the group home rent-free as live-in staff and get paid for coming home each weeknight by ten o’clock to relieve the dayshift workers and make sure the men took their meds and went to bed. With extra money for weekend and holiday shifts, the situation was ideal, except for the dishes the guys may or may not have washed properly, the smell of cigarette smoke permeating every last thing, and the mystery coffee can on the closet shelf in Dick’s room. 

The supervisor of the house assigned us to an unfinished room in the basement, the lock on the door our biggest amenity. The washer and dryer outside our room didn’t require quarters, so that was something to celebrate too. My brother slept on a narrow military cot, and I passed my nights on a mattress on the floor. My eyes wide in the musty darkness, I tried not to think about the centipedes I spied darting across the cinder block walls during the day. 

Since our little TV didn’t get reception in the basement, my first paycheck bought us a VCR. And after we tucked in Allen, Tim, and Dick for the night, we scurried away to watch movies we had rented from a store around the corner. While we indulged in our cinematic escapes, we dreamed of moving out, finishing college, and making big money. 

Oh, we’ll look back on this later and laugh, we told ourselves. But we laughed even then.

I refused to show fear the day Allen backed me into a corner in the kitchen, his intense gaze magnified through the smeared lenses of his glasses. Another time in a fit of rage, he hurled the decorated Christmas tree down the basement stairs. But that was all in the beginning. He soon let us into his harder days when he shuffled around in his mother’s old slippers and cried because he missed her.

Tim told us how when he was little he got a withered arm and one leg several inches shorter than the other. He used to be smart too, he said, until that car hit him. His sister picked him up for church on Sunday mornings, and he hobbled to the door faster than usual, Bible in his good hand and a smile stretched across his face. During our time at the house, Tim underwent surgery to lengthen his leg. When I got up in the night to turn the screws a quarter of an inch at a time on the metal halo that encased his leg, I asked him if it hurt. No, he said, shaking his head and smiling in that sleepy way.

Dick, the door greeter on our first day, clomped around the house in orthopedic shoes, his voice booming, and we reminded him to turn on his hearing aids. We shuddered when he spit in the coffee can in his closet and hid its contents away like a vile treasure. His seizures were the first I had ever witnessed, and after each one, he slept the rest of the day. When he awoke, the supervisor stopped in with York mint patties for him, and he squirreled them away in his room.

One day, I waved goodbye to Dick and watched him climb onto the bus bound for his day program. Twenty minutes later, the bus driver phoned, his voice edged with panic. At one stop, Dick had bolted down the steps and run away. I called the police, and they picked him up only a couple of blocks from where he had escaped his ride. He returned home in high spirits, rejuvenated by his morning adventure with law enforcement. I told him I had reported the situation—and never do that again, please—and admiration lit his eyes. From that day on he called me Cappy. My brother and I imagined the name was short for Captain, but we never found out for sure.

Oh, we’ll look back on this later and smile, we told ourselves. But we smiled even then.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The art museum

Beauty is everywhere, but sometimes a person just needs to stroll through galleries of it, like I did by myself that day in 2017.

Today, I’d enjoy your company. Would you meet me at the art museum?

*****

Social media dripped muck, and whenever I rolled in it, it soaked into too many of my layers, leaving stains I couldn’t scrub out. So I let it go and drove to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, trading electronic screens for picture frames, negativity for creativity.

I had never visited the art museum alone, and on that weekday at noon I had the place almost all to myself. My attention first settled on a huge oil on canvas, The Union of Love and Friendship by artist Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. Thirteen years earlier on a stroller-laden excursion, four-year-old Flicka had sounded out the words in the painting’s title.

“The Onion of Love and Friendship,” she announced at last.

“It’s Union,” I said.

And we had laughed along with her—and never let her forget it.

Often in the past, I had helped chaperone squirrelly elementary-age students on field trips to the museum. Some had stampeded through the place, threatening to topple precious antiquities with their romping. Others had sidled up to me like mice, flicking their gazes to my face. You’re doing a good job, I had whispered to them.

For the first twenty minutes of my solitary visit, I wore my pragmatism like a pair of comfortable yoga pants. What would I do if I owned all these artifacts? The antelope jade vessel from India’s Mughal dynasty would make a cute soap dish, the beaded moccasins crafted by an A’aninin artist would be cozy on my chilly floors, the thirteenth-century earthenware bowl from Iran’s Seljuk period would be perfect for my salad at the next potluck, but the seventeenth-century glass drinking horn from the Netherlands would never survive my dishwasher.  

The works of art whispered to me as I neared them, sending my common sense on its way. And because my distractions were gone, I heard all the stories.

I forgot where I was going when I stepped into Gustaf Edolf Fjaestad’s painting, Winter Landscape. The floating snowflakes muted the sounds of the forest as I meandered through the trees. I found my way to the other side and for a few seconds, tufts of color in Dorothea Tanning’s Tempest in Yellow buffeted me. I swam through it, though, until I reached Edouard Manet’s The Smoker. I nodded at the brushwork, coughed, and moved on.

I joined the men in tempera who stood in line outside the barbershop in Reginald Marsh’s Holy Name Mission, but I squirmed, surveying the group. Would they ask why I, the only woman, had joined them? And would I dare ask them if World War I had smudged the darkness onto their faces—or had it been their own desperate choices?

Young Woman in Undergarments by artist Wilhelm List reminded me of my own list—my Target shopping list—and so I jotted down “black tights” before I could forget again. Then, a locket, its chain snagged on a tree branch in Henry Koerner’s My Parents II, captured my eye. The elderly man and woman had their backs to me, but why did they sit so far apart in the woods? And where were their children, whose Hansel and Gretel-like faces peeked out from the locket? The painting refused to let me out, so I breathed in the shades of brown until I could slip away.

While I was trying to imagine the reason for a woman jumping, nude, from an upstairs window in The Barn by John Wilde, voices interrupted the gallery’s silence. Behind me, two men analyzed Paul Cadmus’ Aspects of Suburban Life: Mainstreet.

“See the dog on the leash out in front of the woman?” said one of them. “See the movement? The length of her stride? She’s going places while the men are watching her.”

I turned to look. The man who spoke wore his remaining gray hair in a ponytail. The other man leaned on a cane and sprinkled his own thoughts into the conversation. Today I had escaped ugly for beauty, but what had driven these gentlemen to the museum? Did they visit often? I approached them and explained who I was and what I did.

“Why did you come here today?” I wrapped my blunt question in a smile.

“Why do you write?” said the man with the ponytail.

“To make sense of the world.” The words came out faster than I could think them.

“There you go,” he said, a smile flickering over his features.

“Have you seen the silver piece in the next room?” the man with the cane asked me. “It’s truly remarkable.”

“No,” I said. “But I’d like to.”

The three of us strolled into the adjacent gallery to admire the eighteenth-century silver wine cistern.

… whatever is lovely—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

“Have a beautiful day,” I told the men before I left them.

Refreshed, I exited the art museum and walked to the car. I had abandoned my to-do list and halted my hectic schedule that day for a necessary indulgence. In one of the galleries, I had left behind some burdens too.

And soon, maybe I would do it again.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The Glory

I read the term thick darkness twice this week, and now there’s no ignoring it. As it is, darkness holds the known and the unknown—the what-ares and the what-ifs—but thick darkness? I feel queasy just thinking about it.

I recall an ancient people, captives in a foreign land, when the plagues broke out. As if the water-to-blood, frogs, gnats, boils, and the rest, weren’t enough, a darkness—one that could be felt—covered the land for three days, and it wasn’t the be-careful-not-to-stub-your-toe-on-the-chair-when-you-go-for-a-drink-of-water-in-the-night kind of dimness. I imagine an utter absence of light, the oily tentacles of fear threatening to strangle the already battered citizens with their every move.

Yes, I wrote a blog post about darkness a few weeks ago too. Trust me, I practice habits that perk the spirits, I really do. I run, read in the sunshine, enjoy coffee, prepare healthy food, laugh hard at least once daily with Husband and the girls—but still. Like you, I hear of gas lines, continuing sickness, border woes—and that’s just here. This week, I squint across the ocean to The Cup of Trembling too, and it all hurts. Who can deny the murkiness of the world?

My petitions turn to pleas: Snap on Your light, God. It’s getting hard to see down here.

But those two things I read come back. One was King Solomon saying he built an exalted house, even though “’the Lord has said He would live in thick darkness.’” My breathing calms. And then the second, one of my favorites:

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

The thicker the darkness, the brighter the light.

Here comes The Glory.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Dandelions

Yellow dots the lawn. I take a hard look at those common intruders, shining like mini suns in the spring green.

The blooms are so perfect it’s startling. As a kid, I collected handfuls, delighting in the abundance of beauty in my fist, the stems staining my palms.

Thanks to Husband’s grandma and great-aunt, I tasted the homemade wine once. The women served it in tiny glasses—the kind dried beef was sold in once upon a time—and tossed the yellow liquid back like it was nothing. I took a slower pace, sipping the bitterness and wondering if the aging vintners harvested the flowers directly from their back yard or what.

In a big jar on the counter, I store tea of all kinds, but one of my favorites is made from the roasted root of the rejected plant. The Pest of the Lawn warms my cup and stomach, and I know my organs love me more and more with each swallow.

The taproots support our livers, the leaves make an earthy salad, and the blossoms are a hue that cheers us. It spreads throughout our grass, this perennial herb, giving us more benefits than the sod on its own ever could, but we’re taught to detest it. Why?

No one is born despising dandelions; we’re groomed to loathe them. And I wonder what else—or who else—we’ve been told to hate this whole time.

The subject runs as deep as the turf’s usurper (or is it a usurper?), and I need some refreshment to go with my thoughts.

Heading for the tea jar now…

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Roots

In these erosive days, I see people’s roots. Many are strong, and I hope mine are too.

Enjoy this post I wrote in 2015.

*****

One day in late summer, I drove Ricka to one of Bde Maka Ska’s beaches for a high school volleyball event. Instead of scurrying off for errands, I decided to savor the lake until she was done. The wait coaxed me into smell-the-roses mode, so I set out to log some steps.

I strode at a brisk clip, rounding the east side of the lake. The promise of school had leaked into summer, staining its last weeks with a melancholy wash of responsibility and duty. Late August’s slanted light pierced the day; the wind had gotten the memo too, and hinted at September as it fluttered me along.

The trees lining the path reminded me of Dad, a conservationist, who during his lifetime planted over 50,000 of them in northern Minnesota. But Bda Maka Ska’s trees were old, sturdy pillars—far from the tender poles I had watched Dad plant when I was young.

As I spanned the north side of the lake, one tree captured my attention. Something had eroded its base, wearing away its dirt and exposing its roots. But the tree—still stout and strong—stood its ground, drawing its nourishment from somewhere deep.

Living life with the roots showing.

My octogenarian neighbor Charlie had known hardship in life—and in the neighborhood. On several occasions, someone stole his car, and each time, his staid response rattled me.

“Those people don’t know any better.” His body was worn, and compassion seeped through his words.

I scowled and shook my head. “Shame on them for making your life hard, Charlie.”

“Bless your heart.” His pointer finger wobbled in the air. “But it’ll be okay.”

Not satisfied, I crossed my arms. “I hope they get caught. Horrible people.”

But no leaves of malice grew on Charlie’s tree, and little by little, his roots began to show.

Dad’s cancer years washed away the superficial dirt of his busy life. And damaged bone marrow eroded his obsession with punctuality and precision, performance and productivity.

“You couldn’t ask for better kids.” Decision shored up Dad’s words. He adjusted himself in the hospital bed, the yellowed whites of his eyes another sign of the deterioration at work in his body. “They’re just right, those girls of yours.”

“I know, Dad,” I said, still striving, because life hadn’t swept away my soil yet.

Patience mottled the leaves on Dad’s tree, and his now visible roots reached deeper.

For years, I watched from a distance as my friend Evie’s marriage eroded. Her husband chipped away at her sanity, persuading her she was incompetent. At last, she learned she lived in a house of secrets, and her skin erupted in hives. Worry for her children’s safety pummeled her peace. The miles between us sickened me, but I couldn’t have fixed her life even if she lived next door.

During our frequent phone calls, I paced the living room.

“Prison would be too good for him,” I said, clenching the phone in my hand. I kept my voice low; my own little ones played in the other room.

“There’s a lesson for us in this somehow.” Evie’s voice quavered on the other end of the line. “I’m just waiting to find out what.”

Before her marriage dissolved, one crisis after another crashed in like waves, wearing Evie away. I thought she would disappear altogether, but then I saw her roots, and they twisted—strong and resilient—down deep.

Battered by racism, crime, and finally illness, Charlie’s roots grounded him and showed the rest of us the anchored life. As Dad stood at the end of his days, the mundane sloshed away, and his roots pointed to the Source. And Evie’s life—running deeper than her circumstances—tapped into the Living Water, and she stood firm.

He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

 *Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The Light

Darkness is here—and more is coming.

There, I said it.

Whichever way the election of 2020 would’ve gone, we need help. We lie and afflict to get our way, and I don’t understand this repetitive coercion.

Whichever way the George Floyd trial would’ve ended, we’re in trouble. We can’t get past skin color, and I don’t understand this sticky sin.

Whatever the truth is about the virus and its ultimate remedy, we’re fumbling. We’re a ball of shifting answers, and I don’t understand this swirl of confusion.

We’re all in this together, as they say—and it’s a mess. We’re a mess.

But I push myself from dusky thoughts this morning into the transformative Word, into one of my favorite passages—one I can’t read aloud without crying.

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Oh, to have these descriptors in my obituary: “She was a Repairer of Broken Walls, a Restorer of Streets with Dwellings, and a light.”

Please hear this today, dear people: there’s hope out there.

Darkness may come, but if we grab onto The Light, we’ll shine forever.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

What do you protect? (your responses)

Last week, I asked my readers this question: What do you protect?

Here are your thoughtful responses.

*****

I protect the earth and its creatures whenever and however I can. I gently take spiders outside, I plant native flowers and trees every year, I don’t use pesticides, and I make our yard a peaceful habitat for as many creatures as I can. 

Julie, Orono, MN

*****

In this season of my life, I find myself protecting my mom. The protection I offer is not from physical danger or harm. (I couldn’t do that very well from three states away.) Instead, my actions serve to protect her dignity on the journey through Alzheimer’s disease. As I make decisions about her care and treatment options, I feel intensely protective of her and strive to choose what will provide her the most autonomy and allow her to retain her dignity, while also ensuring she is safe and comfortable. Some of those choices are easy and others are agonizing. They’re all important. As she protected me during my childhood, now I have the privilege of protecting her as she moves toward her sunset. 

Annie, Minneapolis, MN

*****

Right now I am learning to protect my time and energy.

Carolyn, Granite Falls, WA

*****

My time with the Lord first thing in the morning. I make a cup of tea and take it back to bed with my Bible and prayer list. If I don't—if I let other activities like checking email or sticking in a load of laundry take precedence—I never get back that quiet mind for prayer and meditation.

LeAnne, northwestern WI

*****

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

What do you protect?

In December, my cousin emailed me. After asking about the details of my life, she shared hers. She wrapped up the note with news of her late fall garden. My Minnesota plantings were long gone, but hers in Kansas City, Missouri, still lived. The update concerning her vegetables made me smile, but it was her final sentence that lodged in my mind and sits there even today, four months later.

Here’s what she wrote:

My fall lettuce and spinach and cilantro is still alive, but a little meager. I harvest a bit of it every other day and cover it with a sheet every night so it survives. What do you protect?

The question stared at me—and still does.

What do I protect? I think of the mid-century modern lamps in my living room, once belonging to my maternal grandparents—and the more important things in life, like my reputation, my time, my loved ones.

But today, reader, I’m curious about you.

What do you protect?

Write a note about something you protect and send it to me HERE (or subscribers, simply hit reply to this email.) I will publish your writing (along with your first name, city, and state) in next week’s blog installment.

I look forward to your responses, reader. Until next week…

“People protect what they love.” Jacques Cousteau

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Newness

Lala, our dog, sleuths out the area under a tree in the yard, and I’m on the other end of her leash, so I guess I’m going with her. Animals and babies slow us, making us notice our surroundings; there’s no rushing what they think is important.

The tree stands naked, and I picture the death of those leaves months ago. I see the ground, still covered by their memory. The pain of their loss is something I’m used to. They died of natural causes; autumn claimed them. But wait. Buds pop from the branches of that tree, I see now as I’m standing under it. And it means life.

Newness has come.

Another tree stands naked, and I picture the death of a man almost two-thousand years ago. I see women, His friends, heading to His new resting place. The pain of His loss is not something they’re used to. He died of unnatural causes; hatred killed him. But wait. Emptiness shines from that grave, they see now as they enter it. And it means Life.

Newness has come!

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Lessons in clouds: Part 2

“This was the cloudiest January in Minnesota since 1963,” our pastor said at the start of his sermon.

And my recurring word, clouds, drifted in again. I thought of that 1980s jaunt in the station wagon to see Mount Rushmore. Clouds obscured the presidential faces the day we visited, but they couldn’t block my memories of the trip any more than the hard things in life could blur my dreams.

I shot a look at Husband, not a big cumulonimbus guy, but a meteorology minor (to go with his Aeronautical Science degree back in the day) nonetheless. Even his education sparked thoughts for me of the condensed vapors in the atmosphere.

Clouds were everywhere. So, what other lessons loomed?

I focused on the message again. Pastor talked about clouds over our country in more ways than the physical ones that hovered over our first month of 2021. And if we lived inside of them, depression and despair would turn our views grey and defeat us.

“But because of His great love, we are not consumed,” he said. So, live above the clouds, he urged us; a change of altitude would shift everything.

But even the sunniest among us feel caught in the dismal sometimes—and dampened by our circumstances.

“Turn off the TV, the news,” he said, answering my desire for the practical. “And listen to the voice of the Air Traffic Controller who knows the way through the storm.”

Hope pierced my thoughts like a spear of light through fog, and more faith followed—because it always does when we glimpse our once hidden path again.

Refreshed, I dimmed the temporal things, tuned into the eternal, and a podcast spoke into my week, telling of more clouds. But these were different.

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with endurance the race set before us.

The clouds covering Mount Rushmore that day in 1983? An obstruction.

The clouds over the news with its threatening forecasts? A distraction.

The clouds of the faithful—gone before us—who finished life’s marathon well? A motivation. And I want to be like them.

Faith moves us. Hope accompanies us. Intention fuels us.

And the clouds, once dark, clear again.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Lessons in clouds: Part 1

When one encounter after another—in a short span of time—brings up the same topic, I listen. There’s a reason in this season for the recurring subject, and I’m curious why. Does that happen to you too?

The common theme for me these days started last week with a visit from some of my relatives who mentioned a trip to Mount Rushmore. And when I hear Mount Rushmore, I don’t think faces. I think clouds.

Hop in our old wood-paneled vehicle, and let’s go back a handful of decades to relive this one together.

*****

Nothing says family trips in the 1980s like a station wagon without adequate air conditioning.

As the carsick one in my family of seven, I soon learned all the tricks to stave off nausea: “Don’t read in the car”, “Put your head between your knees”, “Take deep breaths through your mouth”, and “Just look out the window”, which was hard to do when my head was dangling between my knees.

Perennially queasy in the warm backseat, I battled my way through childhood trips without asking Dad to pull over—except on June 16, 1983. Winding our way up to visit Mount Rushmore, I was finally out of options.

“Can you stop?” I said, waves of sickness threatening to drown me. “Now?”

I don’t recall Dad’s answer, but he wasn’t pleased by the interruption in our schedule. He pulled the car over and put it into park. I shoved my door open and sprang out. Crouching by a back tire, I emptied my stomach. And I heard it.

I wiped my mouth and climbed back into the car. “Something’s hissing out there.”

“A snake?” One of my siblings said.

Dad got out and took a lap around the vehicle. He returned. “We got a flat tire.”

No one ever said it, but I’m sure the family thought my bout of sickness, however ill-timed, had saved the day.

The tire changed, we continued our ascent to the presidential faces. But the skies, thick with grey clouds, obscured our view.

“Maybe it’ll clear,” Mom said.

For hours, we waited. But the clouds—more stubborn than we were—persisted.

“I guess that’s it,” Dad said, hands on his hips. “Maybe next time.”

We kids snapped pictures of the hidden landscape. At least we knew what the photos were all about, and anyone sifting through them later would just have to take our word for it.

Today, I laugh at the vomiting episode, the flat tire, and our blocked view of the national monument. But isn’t life like this? My days lately have resembled June 16, 1983. The trip up to the stuff of my prayers is winding, and car sickness distracts me. But wait. A flat tire too? And now when I’m almost there, clouds are hovering, obstructing my outlook.

Is this your life too? I have an idea. Let’s capture some snapshots for our scrapbooks anyway—to remind ourselves. Because the longings of our hearts are still there even when we can’t see them.

Everyone else will just have to take our word for it.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick

Maybe it was my uncle’s passing last week or maybe it was yesterday’s rain that triggered the memory of my long-ago neighbor. Either way, even after forty-seven years I remember Mrs. Fitzpatrick and smile.

*****

Whenever someone dies, it rains.

Or at least that’s what I decided that day in 1974.

We lived in a big, green house in south Minneapolis—across the street from Seward Elementary School—back then, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her sister Inez lived next door.

To my preschool eye, our two neighbor ladies looked ancient. Mrs. Fitzpatrick wore smock tops, and half-moon eyeglasses hung from her neck on a bejeweled lanyard. Her fingers dripped with splashy rings, and when she laughed in her gravelly voice, she flashed silver-capped teeth.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick was good to us kids and allowed us inside her house for visits. The place brimmed with musty knick-knacks and heirlooms, but I was drawn to one picture on her wall: a peacock—its splayed feathers done in shimmering threads—laid to rest on black velvet and framed in ornate gold.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick was the only adult I knew who smoked, and I thought the habit was otherworldly and matched her velvet art. She owned a beaded coin purse, made especially for her pack of cigarettes, and pedestal ashtrays stood at attention by the sofa and chairs in her living room like servants awaiting their lady’s orders.

On Halloween, Mrs. Fitzpatrick treated us kids as guests and not like front-stoop beggars in costume. With a flourish, she swept us into her home so we could choose the candy we wanted. And my older sister Coco counted the old woman as her friend.

While Mrs. Fitzpatrick watered her lawn one day, Coco modeled all her summer clothes for her in an impromptu fashion show. As my sister flounced outside in each new combination, the woman tipped back her head and laughed. Some days, after Coco returned home from her school across the street, she went over to visit Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and the two of them chatted while they worked crossword puzzles on the front porch.

One morning in 1974, a paramedic van with flashing lights pulled up in front of Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s house. My two-year-old brother Fred and I scrambled to our perches on the back of the brown couch and watched the activity through the picture window. Several men from the vehicle traipsed into our neighbors’ home, but the rain pelted the glass, obscuring our view. So Fred—wearing nothing but a diaper—scooted from his post, pulled on a coat, and stepped into Dad’s galoshes by the front door. He tromped outside in the thigh-high boots, and I followed him. We stood side-by-side in the rain in our front yard until the men emerged from the house, carrying a covered something out on their gurney.

Coco came home early from school that day. She had spotted the emergency vehicle when she was outside for recess, and she told her teacher she felt sick. Mom announced the sad news to us kids: Inez had found her sister unresponsive in bed that morning. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had died in her sleep.

A year later, I watched the episode of Little House on the Prairie where the widow passed away, leaving behind her three children. The woman’s voice had been raspy—just like Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s—and rain poured down at her graveside funeral. I again thought of our neighbor’s showy accessories and generous candy dish, her smoke-staled furniture and Coco’s frequent visits. I recalled the scratch of the upholstery on the backs of my legs as I sat with Fred on the brown couch that last morning and the feel of the rain that greened the grass but washed away our friend next door.

Because back then, it always rained when someone died.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The darkroom

“Have we met before?” the author said, scanning our surroundings at the bustling event.

The writers’ conference boasted a large gathering of riveting speakers, notable authors, new writers. And like me, the creatives milling about the auditorium hoped agents, editors, and publishers would notice them. The woman—many books to her credit—waved a finger, motioning to someone behind us. Her gaze drifted back to me.

“A couple of years ago,” I said. “We talked again last year.” And I mentioned a third writerly event where we mingled and where we really connected—or so I thought. We had even exchanged business cards twice.

Without words now, she smiled, but her blank memory had much to say.

Of course she was busy with life and people. Of course she had bigger goals to pursue. Of course it would be difficult to remember an unpublished someone. But my name was unusual enough to spark at least some recollection, wasn’t it?

Baffled by my interaction with the author, I drove home at the end of the conference. Maybe with future publication my memorability would change. I shelved my fears of being forgettable—what good would it do?—and instead mulled over the highlights of the convention.

When the same thing happened with a few different writers at another seminar the next year, though, I let my brain venture into that place. What was going on? Would my visibility change someday when someone offered me a publishing deal? Would people remember my name—or face—then? What did I think I was doing anyway?

Notoriety mattered in the profession, and I wasn’t out there yet. Instead, I worked in life’s darkroom, practicing my skills in seclusion while praying the developing picture turned out beautiful.

But it felt like forever in the dark.

One day while I drove on 35W North to meet a friend, I envisioned my early writings, bound in book form as they stood, and something tweaked my gut. My face heated. Those beginning drafts weren’t developed yet. What if they had gotten out to the public years ago like I thought I wanted, but embarrassment and regret followed? What if the masses read them, raw and unprocessed as they were, and the message didn’t move them? Premature light—too early exposure—would’ve destroyed the final product, stripping its beauty.

What was the darkroom’s purpose? Refinement. What was its offering? Time. What was at its essence? Peace. Blessings hid in the season of being unknown, unnoticed, unseen. And protection rested there.

So, to those of us still practicing our gifts in obscurity, remember this: One Day. And until then, leave the darkroom shut. When it’s right, the One Who opens and closes doors will fling yours—and mine—wide, and the final picture will be worth it.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.