Thelma and Louise Go Riding - on Tricycles

Courtesy  Mad Penguin Creative

The breeze lifted the curtain. Images and impressions filled my senses. First would come a dull roar followed by a sense of movement. I'd feel my body begin to sway back and forth ever so slightly even as I fought the urge to jerk forward and backward. Acclimating to the balancing act, I became aware of an arc of light swinging and swaying around me. The light seemed yellow...like one of those tinted bulbs folks on the coast use to illuminate their way without inviting bugs to the party. I'd look up, and there it would be, the yellow light bulb, bare of a shade, swinging above me. Faces looked back at me in the dim, swaying light. Everyone wore a dull, stunned expression. I try to make out where I am before the memory slips away. I am defeated.

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Over the years, I tried to convince myself that the memory was only a dream or maybe a clip from some long forgotten movie. I didn't feel particularly haunted or concerned. So, if it was a dream, it surely wasn't a nightmare. I could never anticipate when the multiple sensations would erupt. Over time, I dismissed them as my overly active writer's imagination begging me to tell a story. One day, I'd have to sit down and figure out the story I was supposed to tell.

I guess you could call it serendipity that my brother was around one day when the roaring in my head began again. He saw me slip away, I guess, because he asked what was on my mind. Hesitantly, I began to describe the sights, sounds, and proprioceptive input crowding my brain. I heard him chuckle. He's 7 years older than me, so my vague impressions are clearly defined memories for him. His reaction startled me because it meant my descriptions resonated with him as well. I caught my breath.

“What?” I asked. “Do you know what it is? Do I really remember something like that? Is it real, or did I just make it up?” The words spilled out so quickly that my tongue was almost tied.

“Oh yea,” he says, “It was while we lived on the Outer Banks. I can't believe you remember. You were so little. They were evacuating us. One of the few times it happened. There had been a storm. The island had been cut in half. We were in a military transport vehicle of some sort. You've described it exactly.”

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“Oh,” I say, and I think about those days of long ago. There was no bridge to the mainland. Ferry boats were the only access. There were no streetlights. Nights were so dark that, in the absence of moon or stars, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The sound side harbor was directly across from our front door. I could see the Atlantic Ocean from my 2^nd floor bedroom window. On a good day, I could see the Hatteras Island lighthouse. The famous barber pole-stripped one. The wind always blew, and the fish always smelled. The sound of the waves was so ever present that you didn't hear them anymore. It was a magical place.

All those years ago, the land was mostly wilderness beach. It was a place where 2 tiny girls, 4 and 2, could ride tricycles down the main thoroughfare of the island village. We'd expected to keep that jaunt a secret since no traffic ever came by. The fishing boats had not yet come in for the day. The coast was clear...no pun intended. Sometimes I crack me up...just in case you wondered.

2007

The way I sized it up, what mamma didn't know wouldn't hurt us. Given the slow time of day at the harbor when we launched our caper, we shoulda been A-OK. I hadn't heard of Thelma and Louise, but I think I might be pretty sure where that writer got his inspiration. Our plans were foiled when we looked up to see a traffic jam trailing along behind us. We probably created the first and only traffic jam in the village before the bridge made travel to and from the mainland easily accessible.

Imagine my surprise when a peek over my shoulder alerted me to 3 cars and a DUMP TRUCK shadowing us at a safe distance. The dump truck driver is seared in my memory even now maybe 50 years later. He's hysterical and not in a bad way. I can almost hear his waterfall-like laughter spilling over the cars between us and onto me. Yea. Good times. Good times. I was the queen of my world.

Inspiration for Thelma and Louse, doncha think? .

At least, they were good times until I realized that the dump truck was hiding one more vehicle. My dad's. The ferry had docked. He was home from a business meeting. His car was was creeping along in my impromptu parade – bringing up the rear. I'd like to think the dump truck driver pleaded our case as 'innocent on account of being too cute to be in trouble'. Whatever he pled, it didn't work. We were toast.

The scene fades out at that point. I think I coulda used one of those military vehicles to transport my hide outta there right about then. I blame it all on my baby sister. She should have known better than to let me go first down the village street. Anyone knows the leader always gets the blame. So, if you are the oldest and the leader of a traffic jam in a world where no such event ever occurred before, you are bound to attract some negative parental attention.

I think about that little girl tonight..the brave one who thought it was a great idea to ride a tricycle down what would have been Main St. if there had been such. How did she get to be such a fraidy cat? Can she get in touch with her inner tricycle rider again? And, if she does, what kind of force will she be to reckon with? What kind of force indeed?

A Flyin' Leap of Faith

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

It was really his 'blink rate' more than his words that made me sit up and take notice. Sometimes, you have to watch what people say as much as you listen to the words they are saying. You know me: social anthropologist, people watcher, and fraidy cat who's on the prowl for other fraidy cats. I don't miss details like a blink rate.

Thru the magic of technology, I've been able to watch bits and pieces of Richard Branson's CNN/Piers Morgan interview 3 times now. Each time, I'm more impressed with his blink rate. You see it more on a television screen than on Utube, but both get my attention. I recently heard a psychologist analyze blink rates. If we had watched this interview together, I think she would have concurred with me.

I don't think I've ever seen the man uncomfortable. I've watched quite a number of his interviews. He makes you just wanna be him when you grow up. He seems utterly irrepressible, affable, comfortable, and unflappable. So, it was pretty shocking to see him begin to stutter, stammer, and blink like he was in a sandy windstorm without goggles. Boy, was he nervous about the topic.

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He was blinking so rapidly by the end of the discussion on the existence of God that he could barely keep his eyes open. He said, “I wish someone could convince me. I wish they could.” (I don't claim that as an exact quote, but it is pretty close. You can check the transcript or Utube video if you want.) His blink rate told me how desperate he really is to KNOW. To really KNOW at the core of his being. To know once and for all. Is there a Creator GOD vs just a god you can reach via any warm and cozy avenue you choose? Is there a God that would rock his evolutionary awe?

I guess God was trying to tell me something this week. Every time I turned around, I was bumping into someone's spiritual wrestling match. Within 2 days of Sir Richard's interview, I happened across a Good Housekeeping magazine article (Sept 2011) about Meredith Vieira's life after the Today Show. She talked a bit about the decision-making process she went through in deciding to pull the plug.

There it was again. As is so fashionable to do in our politically correct world, she disavowed any inclination towards 'organized religion' and dubbed herself 'a very spiritual person' a la Oprah et al. She went on to describe her angst as she wrestled with her career decisions. Then, she talked about gifts she received from friends, including a 'mediation bowl', and how those prodded her along in her spiritual quest for decision-making guidance.

My inner fraidy cat jumped up and took notice. I could feel the earnestness of her search for something to make life, the universe, and her decisions meaningful. Sadly, not only do I see Richard Branson when I look in the mirror now. I see Meredith looking back too. My mirror is getting really crowded!

Here's the kicker. We live in the information age. Not only is information available, it morphs at the speed of light and threatens to overwhelm. We are more connected than we have been in the history of man. Connectivity increases so rapidly that it seems we will soon be those Star Trek people who communicated by brain waves without using their voices.

Despite all that connectivity, most of us are adrift in a sea of doubt and insecurity. We are all looking for an answer that will fill the void in our souls.

Increasingly, I am understanding that the void is not really empty. It is filled with those questions that taunt us when our minds have grown quiet and no one is around:

Who am I? Why am I here? Why do what I do? How do I fit in God's big plan? What will make my life more meaningful in the time I have left on this earthly journey? Is there really a God.

Here's what I think. No matter how 'comfy' we are with our politically correct assertions that we are 'spiritual' and not 'religious', in the quiet of our souls, we cry out for an unshakeable presence in our lives. We yearn for one that will stand the test and trials of time. Our hearts cry for a foundation that will not abandon or desert us when life is overwhelming. God, the Creator God, put within us the earnest yearning to know him and to keep looking for him until we know he has found us.

You'd think that journey would be easy for me given how I was on a church piano bench at 3 days old. Yea, that one puzzles me too, but here we are. Funny thing but it seems the more I write, the closer He seems. I still don't know the answer to the why's or what's. But, I know that I believe what I believe I believe. I believe with enough tenacity that I have not abandoned my belief despite the painful, puzzling journey of the last decade.

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I believe enough to wish Richard Branson could catch a glimpse of what sustains me...even when my heart is full of questions and doubts. When it comes right down to it, this journey involves a flying leap of faith. You get up every morning and decide again to take another flying leap of faith. Face it, we all put our faith in SOMETHING every time we get up and go out of the door into the world. No one could say it better than my husband the day we began this scary journey over a decade ago:

“I don't know what else to do but jump. If God catches us, he's God. If he doesn't, he is still God.”

Is your inner fraidy cat crying out to know? Do you see Richard and Meredith when you look in your mirror? Maybe it's time you join me? Take a flying leap of faith! God, the Creator God, is standing there with his arms outstretched saying, “Come on. I'm here! I'll catch you. You can trust me.” Even a fraidy cat like me can see...the leap is worth it. 

1 Corinthians 1:18 (Bible in Basic English)

For the word of the cross seems foolish to those who are on the way to destruction; but to us who are on the way to salvation it is the power of God.

John 3:16 (Bible in Basic English)

For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life. 

 

WHAT Have I Gone and Done NOW?

You need to know that from the day I discovered I was in the family way, as we used to say, I made one statement repeatedly and with conviction: “I will NOT homeschool.” Back then, the only homeschoolers were the oddballs who opted for an alternate lifestyle because they were afraid your worldliness might sully them and their pious godliness. Or, they were preparing for the end of the world in case Y2K plunged us into the stone age. I kept on repeating that “I will not” mantra until the day before we notified his private school that Son #1 had attended for the last time.

Three days after we brought him home, he was diagnosed with a fairly profound learning disability. Good timing, huh? Just so happened that I had worked with students who had learning differences. I knew that my son was a carbon copy of 2 of the more interesting students I'd ever taught. At the time, there was no diagnosis slot for those fellas, so they remained educational and medical enigmas. In hindsight, it is easy to see that God gave me Alan and Tim as students to prepare me for my future as a parent 10 years down the road.

Our K5 experience was amazing. The teacher was the kind you dream of for your K5'er. She knew he marched to his own drummer, but boy did she revel in his journey. 1^st grade...well...let's just say the opposite was true. She was a piece of work. The 'best' child in the class lost NINE pounds (she didn't have to lose) between August and Thanksgiving. The doctor said it was stress. No one had to wonder the source. One-third of the class dropped out of the private school before the Christmas holidays. We hung on till Valentine's week.

I woke up that morning and realized I was re-teaching everything they had done at school every afternoon and on Saturdays. We were doing school at home 6 days a week. Yep, we worked on Saturdays...and he was in FIRST grade. I thought, “Why am I torturing us like this? Why don't we just do the work from 8:30a-2p and be done with it?” Then, I realized what had happened. I had become a homeschooler before we pulled the plug.

Over the years, we stopped feeling weird and as tho' we had to apologize for not being cookie cutter people. As more folks gravitated to this schooling choice, fewer people stopped us at the grocery store to ask if we'd been to the dentist that day. We found a thriving community of like- minded educators with more activities than you could possibly participate in. So, I had a ready answer for all those that lamented our 'lack of socialization'. If that didn't cure folks of their skepticism, when Son #1 made a 2 week long trip to China a month before his high school graduation, that battle was over. Mostly.

Doing what all parents do, I still fought a battle in my own mind. I guess it doesn't really matter how you chose to educate or how well your child has navigated the educational and maturational processes. When it is all said and done, we are a bunch of fraidy cats where our kids are concerned. I guess we will wonder till they turn the shovel of dirt over on us whether we were 'good enough' as parents and whether we did all we could do to enable them to succeed. Can we cut the tether and let them fly...and if we do..will they survive? If they don't, how will we survive our sense of having failed them?

Every time I averaged Son #1's grades, I had this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew I'd never get MY report card till he successfully launched into the wild blue yonder of his own life. If he fell flat, all the naysayers would have a FIELD day. I wouldn't be able to turn around and point my finger at the school system or the government. Nope. I'd have to take it like a woman when everyone, including my own son, ganged up to tell me what an idiot I had been to thumb my nose at traditional schooling.

Not a day went by that I didn't wonder at some point if I was failing him. Should I give up the self sacrifice and drop kick his butt onto the passing yellow school bus, so I could kick back with a cabana boy and some bon-bons? (Just kidding...but not about the bon-bons!) Should I soldier on and trust that God would be Sovereign over any bad decisions or mistakes I made as his parent and his primary educator? Oh! I can break out in a sweat just thinking about it even tho' he is now a junior in college.

If you haven't heard the shriek heard 'round the world, you were in the cone of silence with Agent Smart and Agent 99. It was me. That son of a fraidy cat is getting ready to take flight. And, he is not stopping till he lands in Australia. He will spend his 21^st birthday there which makes me need to bite down on a leather strap. Hopefully, Rowdy Yates will be on hand to hand it to me!

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For the last 4.5 months or so, he has been negotiating with a company down under. The deal was sealed tonight when they bought his plane ticket and confirmed his hotel accommodations. He will leave the end of this month to consult with them in his area of expertise: photography and photo-editing. His college professors have told him it is the job of a lifetime. They have moved heaven and earth to enable him to make the trip smack dab in the middle of his semester.

His take on the whole thing? “Well Mom, I guess I just gave you a lot of blog material, huh?” Of course, I didn't hear him because I had fainted.

You wanna know the kicker? I am the one that pointed him in the direction where he found the info that put him in touch with the lovely people he's flying over to work with. ME. The fraidy cat with a blog to PROVE it....set this whole heart attack inducing chain of events in motion. WHAT WAS I THINKING? What have I gone and done NOW?

Truly, my hands are shaking so badly that I can hardly type. My breath is coming in huge jerks, and I cannot get enough air. He will be in Australia for his 21^st birthday. I hope they send him home in time for our Thanksgiving holiday in November. In between, I hope he has the time of his life. Most of all, I hope he buries any of the fraidy cat left in him that he got from me. Fly, son of a fraidy cat. F-L-Y!

PS...stay tuned for updates. Do not buy paper bags or tissues. I'll need to former for attacks of hyperventilation and the latter for the tears I'm already crying.....

Psalm 139:16 (NLT)

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)

For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

I Looked in the Mirror....and Saw Richard Branson!

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Piers Morgan, Larry King's CNN replacement, interviewed Richard Branson tonight. Branson owns Virgin Air and a bunch of other stuff that mere mortals aren't allowed to own. The way I hear it, only God is richer than Richard Branson. Which is an interesting irony given the story I just heard Mr. Virgin Air tell.

As he told it, he and a friend recently argued about the existence of God while seated at the dinner table of his Necker Island vacation home. He OWNS the ENTIRE island. The house has hosted the likes of Oprah, Lady Di and the Princes, and other ultra rich, famous people.

In case you aren't the newshound I am, let me give you the 411. That same house burned down a few weeks ago. It burned down while a violent rain storm, kicked up by the soon to be Hurricane Irene, was dumping INCHES of rain on the island. The famous actress Kate Winslet carried his mom out of the blaze because the octogenarian couldn’t move faster than a burning tropical hut/dream house. Amazingly, no one was injured.

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Wanna guess what night the fire occurred? Branson and his friend ate and argued about God's existence, went to bed, and woke up with the house in flames that very same night. It was in ashes within 10 minutes despite the fact that Baby Irene was dumping as much water on the place as a battalion of fireman would have used to hose it down.

I'm thinking if I was him, I'd feel like I heard God's answer to the debate. A 10 minute fire on a Robinson Caruso-like island that destroyed my house during a rain storm, without anyone coming to bodily harm, would make me a believer before the first flame died out. Know what he said? He says he still wishes someone could convince him of the existence of God. He WANTS to be convinced. He said so. I could see the intensity of that desire in his eyes right here in my living room.

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Oh my! Poor Mr. Branson and poor me. When I think about my journey over this last few years, I think I look a whole lot more like Mr. Branson than I'd like. As he spoke, I could see what I thought was an almost painful hunger to know the truth. It seemed to me that he is having a real crisis of faith in his...well...lack of faith. He's got all that money, all that stuff, all those beautiful, famous friends....and down deep inside, he is a fraidy cat just like me.

He must be brilliant or at least know how to surround himself with brilliant business people. Yet with all that intellect, he too is flummoxed by the most foundational questions in life. Is there a God? If there is, why did he put me here? What is my ultimate purpose? Who am I in the grand scheme of things? How can I really know if he is there and that he is trustworthy?

I strained toward the television to catch every inflection of his voice and every mannerism. There it was....his inner fraidy cat! He's arm wrestling as furiously as am I; he just hasn't figured out with whom he's wrestling. I'd like to think I'm one step ahead in our mutual process since I've known quite clearly that God was at the other end of my struggles. I didn't have to wonder if he existed or if my wrestling match was worth it.

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One need only look at the complexity of creation to know that each member of nature cries out in testimony to the fact that a Creator God exists. That Creator God uniquely designed each one of us, and every member of the natural world, to fulfill a specific purpose. Nothing else can do what a click beetle, platypus, jellyfish, Venus fly trap, calla lily or mushroom can do. No one else can fill the spot in God's plan for time and eternity that I will fill. There will be only one YOU in all the expanse of time...even if you are an identical twin.

Perhaps I've had a spiritual mid-life crisis of sorts? Perhaps he is having one as well? Here I am wondering who I'm supposed to be when I grow up. I'm especially puzzled about that answer now that it seems God has made it plain he doesn't need me on his cheer leading squad. At the same time, the world's richest man – who can be, buy, or do anything he wants – is crying out to know who he is in the grand scheme of things too. Man....like they say: money can't buy everything. If it could, I think he'd have bought his answer by now. It would be a lot easier and less painful than sitting around debating the what if's and what if not's with friends. Quicker too!

I, for one, really know how it feels to have a desperate inner fraidy cat like that! I could have taken the coward's way out and kept on pretending that I had all the answers. I know it would make a lot of folks feel a lot more comfortable around and pleased with me if I just sucked it up and uttered a lot of 'God is Good. All the Time'-s. I just reached a point that I had more questions than answers. A long time ago when I was a kid, some adult told me that when you reach that point in life, you are a bona fide adult. YIPPPEEE. Not.

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Just like I got sick and tired of secret keepers and mask wearers, I got tired of feeling as tho' it was un-Christian to wrestle with my faith and admit that the battle was hot, lonely, and scary. In fact, I imagine my battle is about as ugly as the effort Mr. Branson and his resort guests launched that night during the fire. From where I sit tonight, I'd say my effort is as worthwhile as the one he put forth during the fire to save lives.

Mr. Branson has reported that they will rebuild his island oasis bigger and better than before in time for his daughter's wedding. Again, I think we have something in common. A fire (of sorts) destroyed all I had hoped to be and all that I had worked to become. I am writing my way back to God. In the process, I hope to rebuild my life and myself from the ground up again too.

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I'll pray for Mr. Branson tonight. In fact, as crazy as it sounds, I'll probably remember him in my prayers often. Maybe as often as I remember the troubled couple in the grocery store parking lot. Given the enormity of his recent post card from Heaven, I hope he wakes up and smells the coffee – once the smoke from the resortfire clears his mind, that is!

Love you long and strong. You are fearfully and wonderfully made with a unique purpose that is yours alone to fulfill. Let's conquer those inner fraidy cats together....and do something fearfully wonderful. Ok? See you tomorrow. I'll be here if you will!

Romans 1:20 (International Standard Version)

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes-his eternal power and divine nature-have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.

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1 Corinthians 26-29 (New American Standard)

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no man may boast before God.

Ain't Gonna Take it No More

I bumped into and old friend a few days ago. We knew each other in another lifetime...the one before kids. I envied her because she was happily married. I was single with one dismal failed relationship after another. I loved her and laughing with her. I sure did want to be her and not me.

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When she decided to leave her career to return to school, I admired her to pieces. The inner fraidy cat in me could never tackle that challenge. Over the years we'd catch up via mail or maybe even email. She was a teacher. A MATH teacher of all things. That degree she left her job for had served her well. She had become a mom and was still married to the same man. Looked like she was batting 1,000.

Most recently when our paths crossed, she alluded to all the laughs we used to share. Then, she told me she had been reading my blog and had a 'true confession' to share. All those years ago in that other life, I had been HER inspiration. Do WHAT? Her life has taken some tough turns. The kind that leave me wincing in emotional pain to think about. Yet, she said she couldn't believe what a tough life I had ended up living. And, she graciously allowed that I continue to be her inspiration. Do WHAT? I needed to take a powder!

I have to chew on that one still tonight, you know? Last year this time, I could barely get out of a fetal position to do a chore. If I was moving physically, my emotional self remained curled into as tight a ball as I could manage.

This year, I am on the mend. Yet, I get up every morning and move real slowly when I do. I gingerly check myself out to see if anything feels broken. And yes, you can take that as both a metaphor and a statement of literal fact. The xray might say my leg is healed, but I don't trust it anymore than I do my heart!

I'm going to have to tell you, when the idea for this blog came to me in such a flash, I thought I had lost anything I had left of my mind. But, it was one of those “If you build it, they will come” kind of moments. I had one other moment like that in my life.

That earlier inspiration spurred me to organize a half day retreat for homeschool moms. The thought, “If you organize it, they will come,” kept ringing in my brain. I know that is hokey to admit, but it is true. I knew the event had to be cheap enough that single income families could afford the registration fee. I also knew it had to be short enough that moms could attend without freaking out about all they weren't at home to take care of. I took the risk and totally booked my venue of choice. I was open mouthed with amazement. I still am when I think of it.

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So, when the blog idea popped into my brain, from out of I don't know where, I checked to see if I'd had a stroke. I went to that writer's conference a total imposter who felt like a freak in the midst of a bunch of Jesus freaks. I had completely abandoned the idea of being 'the cheerleader'. In fact, when alone in my room, I licked my wounds reminding myself I didn't have a single thing to cheer about and no God interested in employing me on his team.

That voice of inspiration wouldn't leave me alone tho'. It kept nudging me with, “If you write it, they will come.” I'd wake up thinking it! When I did, I'd roll my eyes, shift around under the covers, punch the pillow, and remind God that he had spit me out about as hard as that big fish had spit out Jonah.

About the only thing I wanted to write was a country song detailing how unfair all that was given how I had clung to my hope of who God was thru thick, thin, and thinner. I was really sorry the title Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life had already been snagged! The thought wouldn’t leave me nor would my memory of the success of that retreat.

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In listening to the chats that went on during conference meals and during the keynotes, I realized that a lot of folks are as broken on the inside as I thought I was. I figured if I did what I wanted to do, however, I'd just confirm to those same kinds of folks that I was a total whack job. They'd think I was crazy for letting my guard down and spilling my literary guts as it were. Who was going to want to read a word written by a loser like me?

I woke up one morning and decided. Decisively. I was fed up. I just wasn't going to take it anymore. I woke up really, really weary of mask wearers and secret keepers. I am especially weary of them if the masks they wear keep them from finding emotional healing or helping others to find the same. Don't even get me STARTED on how I feel about secret keepers who arrange their lives in such a way that the secrets they keep deny them or someone else the chance to be whole. I'm not talking about violating appropriate boundaries, understand that. I'm talking about clinging to darkness when the light can heal.

So, here we are. I'm writing, and you're reading. I'm hoping to find my good God in the mist of this Lemony Snickett-like tale. You've caught up with my story now. I'll keep updating you as we go. I'll let you know about the progress and setbacks. If I see God peeping out at me, you'll be the 1^st to know!

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Now, tho', it's time for me to ask for your help! I'm ready to start doing what I wanted to do in the first place. I want to write about how OTHER people conquered their fears, decided not to wear their masks anymore, or persevered in the midst of great trial.

If you know of someone whom you FIERCELY admire because they have been an inspiration to you, kindly email me with their contact info. BEFORE you do so, PLEASE ask them for permission for me to contact them. Stories can't be told till the owner is ready, and their story is ripe for the pickin'. Some folks are ready sooner than others. The story doesn't have to be dramatic like Jane's. Lots of folks are courageous in the midst of ordinary, mundane lives. While I'm waiting on your ideas, I'll be working on a few of my own. Ok..you've got your homework. Get to stomping!

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carolanne.swett@gmail.com

Proverbs 27:17 (NIV)

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Lost in an ADD Fog on the Information Super-Highway

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Today was a good day. Unless you count the fact that it is tomorrow already, and my day is not over yet. To a writer, an audience is like a god to whom we have to keep making sacrifices. Gotta keep your brain fat and happy lest you go off and find someone else's blog (and no....I'm not mentioning Ree-You-Know-Who today...) to read. Gasp in HORROR!

I haven't posted in over 24 hours. I tell myself you are getting restless for more. (It is your turn to nod in the affirmative...and do it with conviction. I'm watching!) So, here I am at 1AM trying to meet my self-imposed deadline. I hope you appreciate all this free, sleep-deprived labor you are getting. I'm not even charging a Coke and a candy bar! What a deal!

Today, I realized that, as I write my way back to God, I am writing my way back to a more productive life. Yea, my friends will tell you (mostly because I pay them to) that I am busier than an ant trying to move a rubber tree plant. What my friends don't know won't hurt me. Last year this time, I was descending into an unproductive pit the likes of which I've never known. It has been a stop and go process reversing that trend and climbing up into the light again. It's been 1 step forward and 5 to 10 back depending on the day. But, I keep moving forward bit by bit. 
 

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I can measure my recovery using days like today as a measuring stick. Mind you, I didn't re-grout the bathtub or rope and brand 20 herd of cattle (which I imagine You-Know-Who did today). What I did was just the basic stuff. True confessions, I mostly did it because my washer has been on the fritz for about a week, and the repair man is coming tomorrow which is now today. Used to be, I didn't need impetus like that to get me fired up and going. Now, I do, but once I'm moving I can “get 'er done” as some comedian or other has been known to say.

Since I posted the entry about the “I did it” list, I've been thinking a lot about the old me and the impossible bar I set for her. For example, I should have listened when older mothers told me to nap when my kids napped. Did I? Nooooo! Mostly because Son #1, NEVER napped more than about 90 minutes. Between his undiagnosed asthma and his undiagnosed sensory processing disorder, I was stretched tighter than a balloon about to pop. It would take me 90 minutes to wind down enough to get sleepy. Soon as I'd close my eyes, he'd wake up. I got tired of that torture and just gave up by the time he was 8 months old.

Courtesy Christina Jones Hooker

I guess that was like a domino dropping because one thing led to another until I just couldn't keep up with myself anymore. It was bad enough that I didn't get enough rest, I made another really bad mistake along the way and kept on making it. I never stepped away from my responsibilities to take care of me. Unless you count a cup of hot chocolate I'd have every night somewhere between 10p-2a depending on when my day finally wound down. My only other breaks were trips to the grocery store without anyone in tow. What was I? Crazy? (Ok, no audience participation needed; that was rhetorical.) I never did my nails, went for coffee with the girls, or took a long weekend away to recharge. Looking back, I wonder if I might have been more resilient had I put myself first more often than I did. Well, duh!

When I broke my leg almost 2 years ago, I was mostly a prisoner in my own knee-to-toes cast since we live in a tri-level. I found I was too antsy to read, so TV and computer solitaire became my drugs of choice. Yea, I was bored OUT of my mind, but it was what it was. I can't say those drugs are addicting, but 2 years out.....I can tell you they are hard friends to break up with even tho' they have relatively few benefits.

It hit me sometime in the last week. I was in a in a total fog that day. I mean, I couldn't think my way out of a wet paper bag. Yet, here I sat on the computer while watching cable news. (If that isn't information overload, what is?) I was riveted to both, but ripping back and forth between computer links and breaking news. That's when it hit me. And, I don't think I'm alone here. Information is coming at us from everywhere. It is coming faster than we can absorb it. (I know...try to pretend you are shocked at my stunning revelation.)

You share your link with me on Facebook walls, and I return the favor. You tweet me, and I wonder what I'm supposed to do with it, but promise myself I'm going to tweet right back at you before I turn 63.5 years old. You grab a magazine to take home when the grocery store line is too slow and throw it on top of the other 56 million you have accumulated but not read yet. I know...I counted mine today while I was cleaning.

Society is changing to meet the demands of ADD brains juiced up on info overload. Magazine editors tell us not to write more than 400-800 words on average because society at large is too busy to read more than that. (Obviously, none of YOU have ADD or info overload!) Teenagers rarely call each other anymore. We learned that the hard way when we tried not to add texting to our family cell phone plan. Who has time to talk when you have 3 IM screens, a facebook wall, homework, and email screens all going on your computer simultaneously? Smart phones are glued to our hands as we wait on the next email, Facebook update, or text message and hope they don't interrupt our riveting game of Angry Birds (or solitaire).

I'm not a recipe hound altho' my family would probably pay big $$ to see that happen if it improved our menu rotation. I am, however, a DIY nerd. I get so lost in the information about what I COULD be doing around here, that I get bogged down and stop making progress in what I've already started. I keep hearing about this new-fangled thing called Pinterest. From what I hear, it is a virtual bulletin board that you can pin items of interest to for your friends to see. Heaven, help me! Just send me to Betty Ford's clinic NOW via her ER department!

At certain points, our brains just shut down and leave us in a fog on the information super-highway. We know a little about a lot of stuff but not enough to know how to put much of any of it into practice. Or, is it just me?

These revelations may be old news to you, but somehow, they set my heart to singing. I felt a little bit more free than I had 5 minutes before my great awakening.

So, what am I gonna do about it? I considered yanking my blog again. I mean...what kinda hypocrite am I to add to your information overload? Well, I'm not sure yet. Dr. Phil in all his TV wisdom has said you can't change what you don't acknowledge. So, I'm hoping acknowledging that I have an ADD brain and am lost and wandering in a fog on the information super-highway will be enough to get me started on the road to info overload recovery. I'll let you know how that works out tomorrow...which is, as I pointed out earlier, today.

Hello, my name is Carol Anne. I'm a fraidy cat who is addicted to information about random stuff...especially if it has to do with a DIY project. It's been about 4 hours since my last tumble off the wagon. I blame it on a leg I broke 2 years ago. What do you blame yours on?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Love you long and strong....try to focus long enough to find your way back to me via the information super-highway, ok? If not, I might come looking for you...after the fog clears, of course! ;-)

Proverbs 4:5 (NIV)

How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver!

The Snapshots We Carry

The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. A first car ride. The first sighting of a plane in the sky. A first television set. The Hindenburg. The Stock Market crash, Great Depression, and Dust Bowl years. The Lindbergh and Earhart flights. The Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Pearl Harbor. Normandy. The liberation of concentration camps. These are the kinds of memories that punctuated the life span of my parents and grandparents. I am now older than my grandfather was in my earliest memories of him. My own freeze-framed memories have begun to chronicle the passing of time.

It was a frosty day on the Outer Banks. The sun was so bright that everyone was squint eyed from the labor of seeing. Blue jeans flapped in the island wind with ferocity. I wondered how my mother could withstand the icy attack as she hung them out to dry. A neighbor approached. There were a few words. She was tearful. The President was dead.

Hatteras Island, NC natives did not and do not evacuate. Don't believe what they guys on The Weather Channel tell you. It was a Sunday morning. Almost time for church. A storm had whipped up overnight and cut the island and our power lines in half. The power had been out 2 weeks. Sunday church would go on as usual. Mamma was struggling to get my wiggly, pre-school feet into socks and patent leather shoes. She was fraught with the strain of it all. The fan over the oil heater came on. “Look, the power's on!” I cried out knowing how happy she would be.

“What?” she snapped. “Stop that! I don't have time for your mess!”

My tears began to fall. “But, the power's on!” In an instant she was crying too.

I was getting ready for Vacation Bible School. A summertime right of passage for all children in the Bible Belt of the USA. I had scored it big that year and was attending my 2^nd VBS of the summer. 

The Today Show came on. Anxious for the moment I could bolt out of the house and toward the neighborhood church, I was eating Cheerios and watching the clock. Even back then, I was a budding cultural anthropologist and newshound. My spoon stopped midway between bowl and mouth. The dead President's brother was dead now too.

The world had really become a scarier place. 1968 was like a 1-2 punch which reinforced that my days of innocence were over. Martin Luther King Jr had been assassinated only 3 months earlier. It seemed the world had shifted on its axis. 

 

The first landing on the moon. Apollo 13. Watergate. The Viet Nam War. The draft lottery. The fall of Saigon. The Hong Kong Flu pandemic. The day that Elvis died. The fall of the Berlin wall. The 1972 Olympic massacre. My first computer. My first cell phone. These memories and others are sandwiched in between the mundane events of my youth. I lived them in real time. My sons read about them in history books.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

It was another squinty-bright day, but there was no wind this time. Altho' summer was gasping for rain, the drought and scorching heat were relentless. Autumn was no where to be found. The brilliant, dry blue of the sky was absent any clouds. We were mid-way in a spelling test. The phone rang irksomely, and I ignored it wanting to finish the test. It rang again. On the 3^rd set of rings, I gave up and snatched up the phone.

I could hear the urgency in my brother's voice. “Turn on the TV.” Like so many others would do that morning, I turned it on just in time to see the 2^nd plane hit in real time. I immediately knew that all hopes for a bizarre accident had just died along with many thousands of people.

The rest of the week is freeze framed in my mind. The 9/11 trip to 4H after we adults hurriedly agreed that the kids needed to do something normal. As we went, I noted the clusters of emergency and public safety vehicles lining up at gas stations to fill up 'just in case'. No one knew what 'just in case' represented – only that it would be bad. Later that day, my older son built twin towers out of Lego’s. He and my younger son flew Matchbox jets into them. Everyone was trying to make sense of something that was incomprehensible.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Fighter jets buzzed our neighborhood. It sat wedged so close to a nuclear power station that we soon got word there would be tablets available at the pharmacies in case of an attack. I ironed as President Bush spoke to the nation. His voice was nearly drowned out by the fighter jets again buzzing the air above us. I wondered, would our hearts ever beat again.

The churches were unusually full the following Sunday. Somehow it reminded me of scenes from World War II movies. From my seat in the choir, I as acutely aware that no one looked unscathed. Everyone seemed wide-eyed and newly startled even tho' the horror was nearly a week old. If anyone had whispered, “Boo!” I think some would have fainted dead away.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Ten years have allowed the immediacy of the horror to fade. That is, until the anniversary when we stop and focus on our collective horror and grief. Son #2 has only our memories to grab on to. For him, 9/11 will be a faint memory stirred by the history books his own children will read. Time moves on, and so do we. But, for today, our hearts will stop as we catch our collective breath. The snapshots of our lives will become the sighs of our hearts. We have not forgotten.

Carol Anne Wright Swett – 9/11/11

Dedicated to the Bass, Egli, Hutchinson, Squires, and Mendoza families and to the families and friends of those on the planes and in the Towers 10 years ago today.