Love & Loathing

Well, today was both humbling, and enlightening. The Bible says that knowledge puffs up, and I heartily agree. But I think that any time we I can receive a bit of new information with a sense of quiet gratitude I am that much the better for it. I know I am. Read on and perhaps you will agree. 

Let me set the stage for you. As most mothers of young children tend to do this time of year, I've decided to celebrate the season with a smorgasbord of holiday crafts, even though I generally give my glue gun the evil eye while I turn away and smugly sip my coffee. I don't know if it's that we poor dears, as a group, are deceived into this heightened sense of creative festivity by the aroma of snow-scented candles (ask me how I know this scent exists), the reams of colorful paper and their starkly bare inner tubes that begin to grow like sapling forests in our closets, or just the wild proliferation of joy and anticipation, but no matter the cause the end result is this-those of us who, as a general rule, refuse crafting at all costs, not only embrace this messy, expensive, time-consuming hobby, we invite our children to join us. What madness are we perpetrating?! In my enthusiasm I have planned an entire 24 days worth of celebratory events, many of which involve the use of scissors, glue, and paint. Paint! What am I thinking?!

Of all the evil minions lurking the shelves of a craft store, paint, in all formulas, is my self-sworn foe. Acrylic? For grown-ups only please. Crayola's offering with that tiny purple-handled brush and about 5 plasticky bristles? The primary colors are positively screaming obscenities at me as they promise irreversible stains, never mind the profuse promises on the package. Barking dog, says I. Don't get me started on finger paint. Have the manufacturers never seen how children are absolutely, fatally prone to shoving their messy digits into their mouths at any and all given moments?! Imbeciles.

Despite my very strong feeling regarding paint in all forms and colors, one activity I planned to do with my 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter was assembling snowflakes with craft sticks, puzzle pieces, and hot glue, then painting them. I'm going to give you a moment to snicker at me. Joke's on your if you snort your peppermint mocha. That'll burn.

So here we are, my sweet children and I, crouched on the floor because I can't find an extension cord to make the glue gun reach the table, merrily making these snowflake ornaments. My son is practically vibrating, high on a cup of cocoa and the intense joy of wielding an instrument whose name includes the words "glue" and "gun", two of his favorite items of all time. My daughter manages to burn herself only three or four times as she sticks the puzzle pieces to the craft sticks, but soldiers on like a true artist, unfazed by pain, intent on lining those pieces up perfectly. Once the pieces are dry and I've removed most (some?) of the excess glue strands, it's time to paint our snowflakes. 

My son fetches a paper plate. My daughter selects her paint brush. I squirt the paint with an uncharacteristic liberality and verve, and away we go. Bristles are quickly gobbed with paint; puzzles pieces are transformed by swift, joyful smears. I remain tense and watchful, ready to call it quits, grab an entire roll of paper towels, and swear off painting forever, or at least until next Christmas. I continue to watch, and then realize, They are doing just fine. Sure, my son reloads his brush for every single puzzle piece, and my daughter seems to paint the same three or four branches of her snowflake over and over again. But neither of them have painted themselves, or each other. Their clothes are unsmeared. One drip on the table is easily wiped away. I breathe out and slowly reach for my camera. Snap a few pictures. Feel brave enough to break their concentration and ask them to look at me, smile, and say "Merry Christmas!" The magic isn't broken, so I grab my own snowflake and paintbrush and begin to paint. As I smooth the glittery gold color over the brown puzzle pieces, I actually relax. And then my son says, "I love painting. It's my favorite kind of art." And on he paints, blithely, merrily, a bit messily, as I am struck down by his simple confession. I, who from this moment on, can no longer profess to love my son and loathe paint, who must realize that the joy in those blue eyes is worth any smear of paint on the table, or the stain on any shirt. How can I let my own selfish obsession with neatness and order hold sway, even in the wildly unfettered world of art and creative play? The simple, truthful answer is that, I can't. 

And so, today I am converted. Today painting has become an accepted, embraced, and encouraged form of self-expression. Today I give my son the gift of freedom, and find it for myself as well.

-Ashley

Real Life

My birthday was a few days ago. From the outside looking it, it was much like any other day. Same sweet kids to feed and read to and love on, same laundry to fold, dishes to wash, clothes to iron. My husband did a lovely job of making it a day of joy an celebration, but when you're a mom and a housewife, the work is rarely ever finished and a birthday is still a day. 

As I stood over the steaming iron, pressing the wrinkles from one of my husband's shirts, I thought about Jesus and what His days were like. I would describe most of my days as mundane. Blessed and beautiful, yes, and mundane. His were anything but. We rarely see Jesus engaging in regular human activities such as eating and sleeping. When He does those actions are part of a larger context that tells the grander story. Cogs in the machine. We know Jesus was God and man, so we know He ate and drank, and even suffered criticism for it at times. But so much of Jesus that we see in the Gospels is God - healing, forgiving, resurrecting, teaching. As a housewife engaged in every day chores, even on my birthday, I found it hard to identify with Jesus and His days, to be conformed to His likeness through the sameness and utility of my work. 

The good news in the midst of my mundane is that Jesus, through His ministry, both saved me from and to this beautiful life I live. Because Jesus is my extraordinary Savior, I am free to live an ordinary life. The work I do does not define who I am, nor does it provide my worth or salvation. Jesus does all of that. As a follower of Jesus I'm delivered from my definition of self, by losing my life in His. 

The life I'm living now, as much as I am thankful for it and as much as I invest in it, is only temporary. My real life is hidden in Christ. And we all know that hidden things are precious. Christ treasures my true life and safeguards it until the day He appears in all of His radiant glory, and bestows the best gift of all. That day will be my true birthday, when I see Him as He is and finally become who I was created to be. 

Until then I fold laundry and wash dishes and love children even as my heart whispers: Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Not What I Expected

Recently, my husband has been required to work out of town for weeks at a time. Although I'm thankful for steady employment and the opportunities that have come his way because of this assignment, I was nervous about what lengthy separation would do to our marriage, our friendship, and our kids. The past six months have been a difficult time for me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Honestly, I've been a bit of a wreck. Through all of that, my husband has faithfully loved me, cared for me, sacrificed hugely to meet my needs, and shown me time and again what true love actually looks like in the corners of dark days. He's my best friend, and I wasn't thrilled about suddenly having to go it alone.

So in the face of this impending separation, I got busy. I worried. And worried some more. And sought counsel from dear friends and wise women. And took their advice and discussed my fears openly with my husband. And prayed. A LOT. And was finally blessed with the restful realization that if this is the situation I find myself in, God is here, too, and will enable and strengthen me to meet any and every need.

There have been many graces that made life easier to navigate. God has surrounded me with loving, giving people. Multiple friends have checked up on me, planned play dates, and offered encouragement. My dear, dear neighbor and friend brought me food, and fresh eggs from her own chickens, and helped me round up the garbage in my house so I wouldn't have to drag the can up the driveway in the dark. My in-laws invited the kids and I to come and stay for as long as we wanted to, and turned their patio into a play time paradise with a huge wading pool and custom made sand box. They prepared food for us, gave me moments to curl up and read a book, and provided love and affection on days when I could've been sitting at home, alone, killing a bag of potato chips while I binged on Netflix. The power of being present in someone's life should never be underestimated. Through the kindness of friends and family, God has proven Himself to be present every day.

Another blessing is that my kids have been wonderfully normal during their dads absence. They've played and fought and gotten taller. They've wailed for their dad during emotionally-charged pre-nap moments, partaking in a luxury I don't allow myself. They've learned to ham it up on FaceTime with him, but also to say "Hi!" and then walk away to play with a toy. They've shown me that it's possible to react to a major life change with resiliency and acceptance. The fact that they continue to fight and whine and drive me a bit batty has given me even more opportunity to trust God to provide the patience and love and wisdom I need every day with them. And He absolutely has. 

The blessing that has caught me by surprise and fueled my wonder at God's goodness has been how well my husband and I have been able to communicate while he has been gone. Communicating effectively is an aspect of our marriage that has needed constant attention during our 9 years together. Any time we allowed our proximity to each other to become mundane, we began to take the other for granted and failed to communicate with purpose, respect, kindness, and joy. Now that we are separated by many miles and several time zones, I was afraid that distance would work the same evil as familiarity, and we wouldn't take the time to really share with each other. Happily, blessedly,  our conversations have been open, honest, and joyful! By utilizing the many capabilities of smartphones, we have been able to continue sharing life. We've rejoiced over our sons second lost tooth, and shared in the worry that our daughter might have broken some bones in her hand after taking a hard fall outside. We've discussed spiritual things. We've encouraged each other in our efforts at our respective jobs. We've stayed up way too late (for me) on the phone, like a couple of high school kids with a crush on each other, just because it's nice to be in that moment together. Even from far away he has continued to be my biggest supporter and my best friend. 

I wonder at my God, who cares so much about my family that He would not only allow this separation, but that He would use it for our good and His glory. Because contrary to all the things I feared it would be, and through all the times it has been difficult, this separation has been good. Good because of the kindness of others toward my family. Good because of the normalcy of my kids. Good because now I know that physical distance can't ever truly separate my husband and me. Good because I have seen daily confirmation that God is wise, and kind, and active in our lives. As much as I love my husband, as happy as I am that he will soon be home, I wouldn't trade these past few weeks without him for the goodness that God has shown, and the truth He has revealed. It's only through greater knowledge of God that I can ever truly love my husband and my kids. And so I am thankful for this separation, and all the good that God has accomplished through it. And that is the exact opposite of everything I expected. 

-Ashley

Because We Love this Land

Recently my husband and I watched the movie Promised Land (2012). We both enjoyed the story centering on the conflict between the residents of a small farming community and the employees of a large mining firm, seeking to purchase leases of the farms in order to harvest the natural gas pocketed beneath the beautiful but largely unprofitable fields. The story was educational and engaging, and the actors delivered relatable, likable characters who were caught between the drive to do their jobs and advance their careers, and their empathy with the farmers who struggled to remain faithful to something that, for them, was deep and good and true. Almost every farmer in the film was working his daddy's farm, which had been his granddaddy's, and so on, so far back until some of them didn't even hazard a guess at the number of years the land had been in the family. All they knew was, that land was theirs. An ennobling privilege, a terrible responsibility. 

This film raised all kinds of questions for me, and stirred up feelings that would never have crossed my heart or mind were I not married to my husband. You see, he comes from land. 

Here in the South we are proud of our clay, even as we shake our heads over the stains that it leaves on our clothes, our shoes, our carpets, our skin. We dye t-shirts with it, and people buy them (probably mostly tourists. All we have to do is put a white undershirt in the washing machine with a pair of dirty jeans and Ta Da! Clay-dyed shirt for free.). We may hate it, but we're proud of it. That's one Southern brand of love of the land.

But my husband doesn't come from clay. He comes from hills that roll alongside a river in southeast Missouri, from acres of backyard studded with trees, from fields of his grandma's farm right next door where he walked every Sunday afternoon with his family, then went home to check for ticks. He comes from a close-knit, kissing, hugging family of aunts and uncles that lived on the land and from the land, and even if they moved away and made their lives on a ranch in Texas, or inside a church sanctuary in Florida, or anywhere else, they always came back to the land. Even after 16 years in Georgia, my in-laws still call that little town beside the river, home. You can't ever really leave the land. 

I grew up differently. I mostly lived in a neighborhood, in a city, with a Wal-Mart close-by, not horses and cattle. I played outside and rode my bike and climbed trees and made mud burritos that I unfortunately sat on occasionally, but I didn't know land. I was ignorant enough that every year when my mom planted annuals, I felt sorry when they died, or maybe felt like she just hadn't been able to keep them alive. (No offense Mom.) I didn't even bother to ask her how long they were supposed to live. The greater shame is that I was privileged to be the granddaughter of the fairy godmother of plants, and I was still too dumb and disinterested to learn a little bit about turning over a shovel of dirt and watching something green and magical appear with the application of water and sunshine and hope. 

But that all changed, very gradually, over years and years, as my husband began to lovingly and patiently give me the gift of the love of land. He began by showing me what it meant to care for our property, to take pride in the form and appearance of it. He mowed grass, he yanked out ugly bushes, he tamed an entire crazy grown-over woods in our backyard with his brute strength, determined will, and a machete. I think the little saplings might've started felling themselves when they saw him coming out on a Sunday afternoon, ready to work for a few hours. I mostly stayed inside to read a book and doze. Sometimes he would come and get me to show me his progress and tell me his plans. Sow some grass seed. Dig a firepit. Maybe add some benches. I'd nod and smile and encourage and go back inside. 

After he got the woods beaten back far enough for his purposes, and dug a deep pit in the earth, and ringed it with homemade concrete bricks, he turned around and looked up the hill and started making things beautiful around the house. He transplanted a dogwood from the woods to the grass beside our patio, and tied it upright with wire to convince the poor thing is wasn't going to die. And it didn't. Then he dug a flower bed and filled it with roses and irises and lilies, and began to experiment with a few things like tomatoes and peppers and cilantro. And I think that's when I was converted, and fell into the love of things that are green, things that come from the land. Watching that dogwood stand up on its own, putting out six inches of new growth and a gorgeous coat of leaves, year after year, and seeing those iris leaves shoot up like a geyser from the ground, then those thick stalks with their buds like a purple cocoon, and finally that flower like a waterfall caught in time. Every day there was something new to marvel at. And I began to go outside just to see what had happened since the day before. To count the number of lily blooms that were sure to open the next day, to come as close as ever I have been to grabbing a rifle and shooting a deer when they came by in the dark hours and nipped all but two of those almost-blooms. I measured my son's height by how tall the iris blooms were, until our last year at that house, when he finally surpassed them. I won't ever forget that blonde boy in a t-shirt, diaper, and sandals, standing beside a blossom of Holland Sky. I could not get enough of watching things grow. 

Then I started getting my hands dirty. I got down in those beds and learned the feel of dirt and clay and the smell of mulch, and scrubbed my hands at the end of the day, satisfied. I headed outside with my husband and stayed, working alongside, standing back to survey the progress, dreaming about and planning for the future. And I took my kids with me, because this was something too important to miss. 

We've moved from that first house, where my husband helped me fall in love with the dirt. I still live in a neighborhood, in a city, with a Wal-Mart close-by. My neighbors do, however, have chickens, and the fresh eggs are delicious. My husband and I don't have much land, a little more than an acre. We are the first generation of our family to live on it, but we love it just the same, and every sunny evening and weekend you can usually find us outside, wreaking havoc on the existing overgrown underbrush, clearing the old to make way for the new. Already we've planted a spring bulb garden, fifteen blueberry bushes, and six trees. We make long-term plans, grateful for whatever amount of time the Lord gives us here, and for the beautiful things He makes to come forth from the earth. We do this, because we love this land.

-Ashley

Being Southern

I have two sisters-in-law, but with both of them I leave off the "in-law" part and let it be at "sister." Even with three sisters in my family, God knew I needed these other two to round things out nicely. Every single one occupies a specific location in my heart, reserved just for her. Nobody crowded anyone else out or butted in. They all just slipped right in where they belonged. They are each of them so beautiful, and loving, and generally wonderful in every way. I admire them, and wish I was more like them. I wish I was more courageous, like the youngest one, and tender-hearted, like the one I gained through marrying my husband. I wish I had the lion-heart of my oldest sister, and the great ability not to say too much, like the sister I gained when she married my brother. And the one closest to me in age, my first (and former) frenemy, I wish I had her kindness, which runs as deep as a well. And also her skill with power tools. She is our daddy's daughter, in so many good ways. I think I got mostly his feisty-ness, and his nose. I don't mind.

My sisters are all great gift-givers. They give of themselves, of their time, of their hearts, A well-timed text from one of them can help me straighten out a really rotten day, or at least my rotten attitude. And when special occasions come around they give lovely, thoughtful, sometimes hilarious gifts. One of my favorites was the set of dryer balls that look like hedgehogs. Quirky and practical!

Last Christmas one of my sisters gave me a nice, comfy long-sleeved t-shirt with a Bible verse printed on the back. I really like it. She was kind enough to buy it in a really pretty coral color, which complements my complexion, and makes me feel a little bit pretty on days when I give in to the fact that I am a stay-at-home mom doing laundry all day, with no need to be glamorous. Her gifts are usually like that. Like the cute chip clips with sassy sayings printed on them, or the delicously scented bar of soap from a soapery. All of my soap comes from Target. But she's sweet like that. She takes a mundane thing and makes it special.

This t-shirt is from a popular line of clothing that celebrates the dual desire for femininity and comfort, as well as the region of the country that I live in. Aren't t-shirts amazing, that they can do all of that? And I really love wearing this t-shirt. I wash it and hang it up to dry, instead of letting it roll around in the dryer with my socks, because I have arms as long as a gorilla and I hate it when my sleeves are too short. But this shirt. It's got me thinking, What does it really mean to be Southern?

Any person, no matter where they came from or where they live now, can wear a shirt with a location printed down the sleeve like a tattoo and pretend that it makes them belong there. But that just isn't true. I can wear a shirt that says "I Love NY" and all it means is that I probably got hustled by a street vendor. I wear this gifted shirt, and I love it, but it doesn't make me Southern. So what does?

Is it my accent, which waxes and wanes in intensity depending on my company? Put me on the phone with my nanny and I'll prove it to you. She has the most beautiful Southern accent, and anybody that speaks even remotely like her makes me feel comfortable and safe and homesick all at once. I hope I talk like that when I grow up.

Is it how I like my tea which, contrary to what I order most of the time, is thickly, richly sweet? My mom and grandmother are champion brewers and sweeteners of tea. I've drunk gallons of it, and still I want more. A true Sunday dinner of beef pot roast with carrots, potatoes, rolls, and gravy is not complete without sweet tea. Nor any other meal, except breakfast, for that matter. I wonder if tea could be considered a vegetable, since it is the product of leaves? 

Or maybe it's the fact that I eat grits. And fried green tomatoes. On purpose. Or the fact that "y'all" is permanently lodged in my vocabulary, as well as plenty of other Frankenstein-ian creations of this Southern English language. But that's a whole n'other blog post.

I really don't know what makes me or anybody else Southern, other than being from here, mostly because I've never lived or spent much time outside of the South, so I don't even know what different looks like. Or sounds like. Or tastes like. We even fry the sushi here, y'all.

Southern, for me, is just being. It's going about my life, talking the way the words come out of my mouth, eating food the way it tastes good to me, and wishing I had sweet tea when I usually just drink water. Southern can't be commercialized or sold, no matter what that shirt says. Anybody can wear a shirt and be a faker. It takes a real Southerner to sit there at your grandmother's kitchen table with a glass of sweet tea that is mostly just sugar, talking about everybody you know and saying "Bless their heart" frequently enough to remind each other, and yourself, that you aren't really gossiping. You're just catching up with your grandma.

If that ain't Southern, I don't know what is.

Hanging Up the Cape

I am supposed to be choosing photos for our 2015 memory book. I've even made myself a cup of hot tea to try and trick myself into believing this is going to be a fun process. It's not working. With hundreds (thousands?) of pictures to sort through, upload, then place creatively into a digital scrapbook, I just can't seem to find the part of me that actually wants to do it. I figure, if I get it done by December 31st of this year, I'm not too late. Ha!

Any good intentions I had regarding my photo project were completely derailed when I came across this picture:

This is a picture of my daughter wearing her brother's Superman jacket. This picture was taken in August of last year. Therefore, this picture is also a testimony that I am sometimes a freakishly paranoid mom. I think the wind might have been blowing. Hence, the jacket. And the hood. She's wearing his because she didn't seem to have anything that fit her. Duh, it's summer. No one wears a hood in summer. 

I digress.

This picture changed my creative output from grudging photo project to overly-sentimentalized blog (fair warning!) in about 2 seconds, all because of the jacket. 

This jacket has a long history in my son's relatively short lifetime. At least it feels like it does. He received the jacket in February of 2015, and wore it practically non-stop for days. 

Here's one of the first photos of my son in his jacket:

In this picture he is doing his favorite thing in the world-playing outside and "helping" his dad work in the woods. Our previous home had a deep lot with an area of woods that my husband had cleared for a fire pit, as well as woods that weren't so tamed. My son loved all of it. Zip up his jacket, slide on his boots, arm him with a shovel, and he was ready for anything. For hours. 

Naturally, the jacket elicited a lot of admiration and comments from the general public. Our son wasn't a huge fan of the attention. He just loved the jacket. But who can resist a cute little 4 year-old boy in superhero apparel? Apparently, not many people. So, he lived with the celebrity that came wrapped up in that bright red cape. It gave him a chance to develop his people skills, if nothing else. 

My son and the jacket became pretty inseparable objects. He wanted to go play outside? On with the jacket. Target or Kroger run? Jacket. Cold in the house? Jacket. With the hood up. That kept up through all the cold months of early 2015, took a hiatus during the warm months (except for that windy day in August when his sister borrowed it for about a minute), then resumed as soon as cooler temperatures hit last fall.

And then one day, something happened. 

No, the cape didn't rip, the zipper didn't break, the large "S" didn't begin to flake off. Nope. One day, suddenly, the jacket was too short. Not so short that it wouldn't make do in most situations (see those above which don't require leaving our property), but short enough that it was time to trade up to a bigger size. I discussed it with my son, then went shopping with his dad, and found.....absolutely not what I was looking for, AT ALL. I wanted that jacket, just one size bigger (wisdom says: buy two next time). Apparently February is a great time to clearance outerwear, which means I was left with one measly option. It works, in that it is the right size, and comes in colors that my son likes and I don't take issue with, but it just isn't magical. Not in the least. There's no cape. No charisma. The replacement jacket is gray with color blocking of darker gray and just a little bit of orange for crying out loud. It's like the jacket is scared of being seen in public and wants to blend in with the sidewalk.

My son doesn't blend in. Anywhere. He lives life loud, and fast, and chatty, and chatty, and more chatty. So I think he should have a jacket that reflects how fun and free-spirited and amazing he is. 

This is ridiculous. I know. 

And it's really not about the jacket. It's about the fact that my boy is now 5, and school is much closer on my horizon than it has ever been before. As in, looming. Ominously. And I am realizing that this precious time of his life is about to go the way of the Superman jacket. It's not going to fit any more. The way we've lived life up to this point is going to change and it will never, ever be the same. And when I type that, and when I think that, it feels like my heart is a piece of paper that someone just wadded up in their hand. Crushed. 

Couldn't he stay 4 forever? Why can't the jacket fit just a little bit longer?