Layers

I measure out the flour, silky and white on my hands, leveling the cups with a shiny knife.

And the night's dreams, filled with screaming and anger, flicker through my mind like a movie. Glad to be awake and safe, warm in my kitchen; glad the dream isn't an accurate reflection of those relationships.

Next into the bowl are sprinkles of salt, a little sugar, some cinnamon. I mix it all together with my pastry blender, enjoying the tactile pleasure of working with flour.

I hear an actor's voice talking about his father, the years he's enjoyed with him, the pleasure of watching him through the phases of both their lives. And tears salt my flour as I wish for my father, gone from me, and I'm only 41. How I long for his voice, his affirmation, his love, his laugh. The twinkle in his eyes, the wrinkles around his smile, those rough hands that held mine with such tenderness and almost unbearable love.

The shortening is pure white and curls prettily under the spatula and into the measuring cup. I cut it into the flour mixture, working to make crumbs and readying it for the buttermilk. This is something I do know how to do - make a tender biscuit, a tender crust - with just enough salt to tingle on the tongue, and just enough fat to make it melt in your mouth. I cut it in without having to think, the movements of my hands effortless.

Music plays and tugs on my heart, drawing out more tears. Thoughts from the morning flicker across my mind's eye. Baseball season is over, but I'm already anxious to hear that sound of ball on bat and cheer for my boys. The nights are cold now, too cold to leave any windows open and I miss that fresh air on my face. And I'm unpacking my sweaters, so happy to see each one, old friends that hug me in warmth and softness winter after winter. And how glad I am to be well enough to be back in my kitchen, cooking, enjoying, creating.

I gently stir in the buttermilk, soured with just a little extra vinegar so my biscuits will have a tang to contrast with the jam and honey. The dough forms, purposely uneven, and I carefully incorporate the loose bits in the bowl, unwilling to get it all in there as too much effort will toughen my pastry. The lightly floured board waits and I hand-press the biscuits, cutting them with a knife.

They'll come out of the oven twice as high, hot, layered, and flaky.

This is my life. This is where I live. This is who I am. And today it feels good to feel, to let the tears fall, to cook what my heart wants on a chilly, fall morning, and to not push away memories. Not really enough words, or perhaps no adequate words, to describe where my mind is, where my emotions lie today as they are conflicted and convoluted.

Today I'll just be content knowing that both the comforting and the painful can rest in my heart, bed-fellows of my dreams and my days.

Bright lights

I drive down the street through a modern-day Babylon. The brightly lit buildings lure me with their plush clothes, and even the broad street's twinkling river of lights seems a reflection of the river that flowed through the middle of that great city.

I am both thrilled and repelled by those lights, those temptations.

What makes this place a Babylon? The excess, the variety, the endless choice? Not necessarily bad things, but they do tend to draw my heart away from what is real, what is important, what gives my life meaning and significance.

I keep driving - home to Tim, home to a cuddly kitty, home to our simple life, filled with (yes, things I love), but also filled with relationships, tasks, and patterns that fill my heart and draw me into peace and joy.

This day

Quiet house, music playing, the shush-shush of the dishwasher...

Golden autumn sunshine streaming in my windows, fresh laundry lying folded on the couch, and a fat kitty asleep on the bed...

A hot breakfast in my belly, the day begun in quiet and love, I suddenly feel ready to tackle the grief inside me. Finally after months and months of staggering, I feel strong enough to take care of my home and my heart. Perhaps it is the newly-given permission to take better care of myself. I feel released, somehow allowed now, to have a quiet fall, with lots of days for me to cook, pray, sew, journal, spend time alone, time with God, with friends, family.

My time is my own, and I choose to give this piece and that piece away. But it is right, it is healthy, it is good for me to save a quantity just for me, so that I will be able to give away what I choose with a glad heart and a healthy spirit.

Not new thoughts, but certainly newly reclaimed and taken into my heart and mind with an urgency and truthfulness.

Thanks, friends, for reminding me of these truths and walking this path with me. You are loved. I am loved.

Tender mercies

Thank God for small mercies!

I went to visit Janice today, dreading walking down that hallway I paced for 7 days while Dad was there.

Would she be in the room at the end of the hall I disappeared into to make phone calls? Would it be the room where the friendly man laid? Would it be the room that had the most inviting sunlight in the early afternoons? Would it be at the end of the hallway where I felt God's presence in a way I never have before (my "butter-dipped roll" story that only a few of you know)?

I almost lost it in the elevator, fidgeting, trying to not lose it.

We walked out of the elevator and checked the sign for her room number. Wonder of wonders! She is on a different wing!

I didn't even have to walk down the same hallway! My heart leapt! My tears disappeared, and I felt a wave of relief that almost knocked me over.

God is good all the time - I assert that, believe that, cling to that. But sometimes that goodness takes me by surprise in how committed He is to kindness and loving care. Yes, He would have enabled me to do what I needed to...but He is gracious and made my job just that much easier.

I love Him. I am thankful. I am encouraged.

Pain

Janice had knee surgery this morning. At the same hospital where Dad was. In the same building.

I didn't expect to be riding that elevator again quite so soon.

I couldn't stop the quickened breaths and fat, hot tears. The panic and welling pain in my deepest heart.

Will Janice be on the same floor? Will she possibly be in the same room?

I'm barely holding it together today.

Can I walk down that same hallway? Past that same nurses' station? To the same coffee machine that was my best friend for 5 days?

It feels unreal. Am I really here? Do I have to be here? And why am I here alone?

Not alone. God is with me. But my heart is breaking none the less.

Wonder

My dear next door neighbor Jill got married today. An amazing and wonderful celebration! A fun afternoon and evening. A beautiful party. She looked so beautiful and happy. He looked overwhelmed and relieved - at least by the the reception. :-) They danced, they roamed the room, they enjoyed their friends, they drank lots of wine.

And we all joined them, participated in those wedding rituals. We stood in her honor as she walked down the aisle, radiant on this day just for her and Jack. We lifted our glasses in toasts to them and their future. We ate a lovely meal, and watched them cut the cake - hoping that their lives will reflect the prosperity symbolized by the celebration.

I am so happy for her, to see that her heart is filled with love for this man. She has had some hard years, and I want the absolute best for her. I want her to have as happy a marriage as I have. I want her to find bliss with her husband, and find that path that leads through all the hard stuff, but the path on which you walk hand in hand, figuring it out together.

Marriage isn't all daisies and butterflies. We all know that. But, oh my, what a wonder it can be! What a blanket of warmth and comfort, an afternoon of laughter and sunshine, a quiet evening of soup and fresh-baked cornbread.

I love weddings. I love hearing the recitation of vows and saying them quietly in my head. And sometimes, if I look over at Tim, I can see his lips moving.

Ain't love grand?

America

My thoughts on arriving home from our road trip, written Oct. 10...

That ribbon of highway before and behind me, stretching, weaving its pattern on the map, criss-crossing our country. Sometimes straight and sometimes winding, paved in black and gray, even pink, made of concrete and asphalt. We zoom along, seeing things for just a moment, and then they're gone.

The White House, glimpsed through rush hour traffic.

Two deer, their eyes bright in the shine of our headlights as we drive through the Maryland night.

A fawn deep in the woods on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

The winding road through those famed hills of West Virginia, that song rolling through my head, and the lyrics ring true as we make our own way home, wishing we were already there ...

The radio reminds me of my home far away And driving down the road I get the feeling that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday... Country roads, take me home to the place I belong...

Miles and miles of crops through Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, whether pan-flat or beautifully hilly, clouds of dust rising from the combines working. The bread basket of the world.

That little boy I saw in a convenience store, his father angry and harsh, for whom I've prayed every day since I saw his pain and felt fear for his future.

The sunrise behind me as we make our twisting way through Topeka.

The Golden Arches ... a perfect to-go cup of iced tea.

The steeples of distant churches all across Kansas, beautiful in the distance.

Beautiful and plain, touching and harsh, prosaic and extraordinary. Not just a drive - a winding journey home.

In the back

I ate out today at a prosaic, run-of-the-mill Chinese buffet. Nothing exciting, nothing to blow your socks off.

Ironically, I was reading a book written by a chef. Seemed a strange dichotomy.

It did, however, make me think about all the people behind the scenes who make our lives easier, those unseen folks who do all the things we don't want to, who work unthanked, unappreciated.

Think of all the people in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant, chopping vegetables, making the same sauce day after day, browning pound after pound of onions. Thank you to them!

And on our trip we stayed in a couple hotels. I didn't give a thought to the maids who would change my sheets, vacuum those floors, bring in fresh towels, replace the shampoo and soap that I stashed in my suitcase. Thank you!

All those gas station attendants, convenience store workers, road construction crews, tire changers, fast food slaves, and National Park rangers who every day get out of bed in order to serve behind the scenes - anonymous, living from one paycheck to the next.

Tonight I say thank you, and I'll do so the next time I run into any of them.

Thank you!

Witness

You are my witnesses. Isaiah 43:10

Those words inscribed on a wall of black granite - that's the first thing you see when you walk into the U.S. National Holocaust Memorial Museum. A humbling beginning.

We spent two full afternoons at the Holocaust Memorial. There is much to disturb the mind and heart within those walls, iconic photos and stories all around, Hitler's voice booming out, artifacts that shake you - a pile of thousands of shoes confiscated from prisoners arriving in Majdanek, a section of the train tracks that led into Treblinka. A thousand more.

Two things stood out to me - the row of tall, inward curving fence posts from Auschwitz itself, and the pile of square stones quarried from Mauthausen forced labor camp. The prisoners were known to say that each stone quarried there cost the life of one man. And there those stones lie - 193 stones, 193 lives. And those fence posts. How many lives were lost because of them? They were a dividing line between life and death.

On the ground floor of the Museum is a beautiful Hall of Remembrance. It is a solemn, simple space designed for reflection and memorial - a large, circular room lit only by a rose window in the high ceiling and tall, narrow windows, at the same time imposing and inviting. Directly across from the entrance is a rectangular altar of black stone inside in which lies dirt from 38 concentration camps and a cemetery in Europe where American soldiers are buried. The dirt was brought to America in urns and deposited inside the granite block by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Above the altar a large candle burns, and this inscription from Deuteronomy 4:9 is inscribed into the stone wall:

"Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life. And you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children."

On either side of the room in small alcoves are banks of tiny candles. I lit a candle in memory of Tim's Uncle Eugene who fought in Germany, and almost gave his life in a POW camp; in memory of our family's trip to Dachau in Germany and the impact that had on my young life; and in memory of those who suffered and died at the hands of both evil and complacent men.

Evil and complacent men.

www.ushmm.org

Expectations and fulfillments

We drive through D.C., and I am feeling disappointed, my head filled with thoughts of all the amazing things I didn't get to see. So much left unseen and undone ...

But there, suddenly and unexpectedly, is the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts - that beautiful building, its gold trim shining in the sun. My heart is buoyed.

And there! The Watergate complex. How many books did I read about the Watergate scandal throughout junior high and high school? A minor obsession for a time. I'm pretty excited!

And again! Out the car's side window is that emblematic memorial of the capture of Iwo Jima - the raising of the flag. Books, movies, songs - all memorializing the event in truth and in myth. I used to know all the names of those flag raisers. So cool to see it!

Wonders in my eyes, leapings of my heart, joy as we pass by.

So much to see and do. Too much for 3 short days. Yet my heart is full with the experiences we did have.

Our first day, there was a major protest at the Lincoln Memorial, and although the loud, jostling crowds in some ways detracted from our personal experience and ability to access the monuments, it was a wonderful and amazing experience to see democracy at work - to see and hear so many people exercising their right to free speech.

And as we walked down Constitution Ave., one building after another drew our eyes, the buildings' names etched in stone summoning up awe and respect - Department of Justice, National Archives, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and on and on. These buildings, this city, designed to awe those visiting.

One evening we took a detour to the Dupont Circle metro stop hoping to find a local place to grab a snack. And what did we find when we examined the map before riding that long escalator up and out into the late afternoon? Well, we were just blocks from the Indonesian Embassy! My heart thrilled as we quickened our pace and found the entrance. Oh, my home flag flying high and proud! My picture taken in front of the gates, and a few tears shed for my dad who loved Indonesia as much as I do.

And on our last day, as we walked from one museum to another, we unexpectedly passed the National Archives, and decided to go in. And there, in the dim rotunda, were those icons of our nation - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. The actual documents, the ink fading, some of the signatures still legible, iconic, conjuring up the stories of our history. Quite amazing.

So, ok, I didn't get to see everything I wanted to. Who ever does? And in 3 days, we actually did quite a bit. Especially considering the major surgery I had just a couple months ago. I left feeling full and satisfied, thrilled with all we did see. A wonderful time!

As Tim said to me with the cutest smile on his face, quoting Forrest Gump: I'm glad we were here together in our nation's capital.

Home

Boy howdy, am I glad to be home! Seriously. I can't tell you how happy I am to be here ... in a deep down, soul-contented way.

The trees are donning their fall coats of many colors, my tomato plants are covered with ripe fruit, and the heat of summer is past for the year.

Tonight I did the minimum of unpacking, then headed straight to the kitchen. A simple supper of roasted tomatoes and pasta salad. It felt so good to be back in my domain where I have some control and expertise.

Ah, my spirit can relax into my house, my routine, back into my life. I don't really have words for how tiring the past week of traveling was. Even though I was with wonderful people who I love, my heart just wanted to be at home. Yes, I even enjoyed seeing some of D.C., but I wanted to be at home. And I do indeed love traveling with Tim. We have a great time together. But I wanted to be at home.

And now I am. I can pull out my calendar, figure out my priorities for this fall, and settle back. I can cook when I want, plan my own day, and take care of my husband.

Last thoughts for the night?

I am thankful for safety while driving over 2,200 miles, for fresh tomatoes, and for my very comfy couch.

Welcome home ... to me!

A week

What a difference a week can make. My heart has been encouraged spending time in the Bible, spending time in my house, just resting my heart. I had quiet evenings, beautiful days filled with sunshine, easy meals.

I had some hard days, too, but overall it was a good week. I am so thankful!

I am especially thankful to feel better emotionally, because I'm on a somewhat non-voluntary vacation. It's a long story.

Whatever the case, Tim and I have spent the last 3 days in Washington, D.C., staying with his cousin and wife. They are such wonderful people - fun, easy to be with, inviting! I used to feel nervous when family gatherings of Tim's family were on the horizon. Would people like me? Would they accept me? Would it be difficult to get into the circle?

Nope. Tim comes from a family filled with lovely, warm, and accepting people. They loved me as if they'd known me my whole life, and that has been true since day one. Amazing, heart warming. I'm thankful for that, too.

It has been great to be with Tim, too. At home, in my routine, I wasn't missing him too much. In fact, I was enjoying the quiet of the house, and the very small amount of mess just one person makes. ;-) But seeing him, getting my little kisses, spending time together - it's just wonderful. I do love him so much. And he's just so cute.

Tomorrow we head on to Blacksburg, Virginia, to spend a couple days with friends from Tim's graduate school days. We should have a lovely drive. Even though these three days have been quite nice, I'm looking forward to a few days alone on the road. And then we'll take our time getting home. They should be relaxing days. More good time for my heart.

I surely didn't want to leave home, but I think it has been good. I think it's been good to get out of my cocoon and make myself spend time with people. And it has certainly been very cool seeing stuff in our nation's capitol. More on that later. Tonight...on to bed!