reflecting on bev

this weekend we remembered our friend and neighbor beverly harrison.  bev died back in december, but we waited for springtime to celebrate her life and love together.  people came from every corner of the country.  I was more than proud to be in the room with such greatness, these people who work tirelessly for justice and love just as courageously as bev did.  and I was more than humbled to be asked to share a reflection at her memorial service.  here's what I had to say:

when we moved to redbud springs, we really didn't know what we were getting into.  we mentioned some of our new neighbors' names to a friend in asheville, and her jaw dropped.  "beverly harrison?" she said in awe. "wow, you are so lucky."  we agreed on the lucky part, even if our reasons for thinking so were a little different at the time.

my children loved to go to bev's house.  we quickly learned to leave the door open, even if the heat was running, so bear and pom and buddy could come and go as they pleased.  the kids also learned where the dog treats were kept, and with those treats pom became a little less wary of them.  it was our job to bring whatever was blooming in bev's yard inside so she could enjoy it up close.  we made haphazard bouquets of whatever was colorful and caught our eye: azaleas and lilac, mountain laurel and rhododendron, plum and cherry blossoms, columbine and phlox.  once eric discovered the soil in bev's raised beds was rich and loamy, he asked for permission to plant tomoatoes and squash.  he was sure to help bev make the trek out to the garden every few weeks so she could pick her own tomatoes.  sometimes it took her quite a while to make the trip from front door to back yard, and she would talk and talk the whole time, as if her pace was set just so she could finish the story she was telling us.

we never left bev's house empty-handed.  she bought fruit specifically for jamin and cora's visits, mostly citrus and strawberries.  bev would drive by our house and honk from the driveway after a trip to the produce stand.  would walk up while she drove home to meet at her place to help her unload groceries. we'd come home with a bag of corn or a jar of pickles she thought we'd like.

I always thought of bev as the queen bee, even before I knew much about the personalities at redbud springs.  bev was the only one to live inside redbud circle; the rest of us sort of revolved around her.  bev could have a conversation with absolutely anyone and manage to squeeze in all her ideals into that initial conversation.  we invited bev to thanksgiving dinner the first year we lived her, only about two months after we moved in.  I can remember looking around the table while bev held court.  no one there knew her any better than I did, but everyone held her in that same high regard, that same queen bee status.

the week before bev died, jenn called in the middle of supper to ask for eric's help.  bev couldn't make it up the stairs at meadowbrook and would eric be willing to come assist?  of course he went and then went back at the end of the dinner party to help bev back to the car.  he came home teary-eyed, overwhelmed that we are blessed enough to be a part of such a loving community.  when he'd helped bev settle into the car, she kissed him on both cheeks and told him she loved him.  he hugged sue and squeezed carter, shouted his goodbyes to jenn and gerrie and nancy, and sauntered home full of the goodness that comes from being surrounded by love.  he says he is more grateful for that evening than any other moment he shared with bev.

we knew bev for less than three years.  we knew her only in the end of her life, and mostly only as her neighbors.  we really don't know much about her career or her writing, her lectures or her personal history.  but we knew bev more than enough so that when we think of having her in our lives we think, "wow.  we are so lucky."

self-pruning

for all my hype as an environmental crusader, I know very little about the natural world.  I live in a nature-lover's dream, surrounded by trees whose names I do not know, fungi with life cycles I'll probably never understand, insect sounds and bird calls I can't identify.  Need a walt whitman quote or a stanza from "how great thou art," I'm your girl, but don't come to me for latin names or an explanation of the krebs cycle.  luckily, for the sake of my children, really, I've surrounded myself with lots of smart friends.  my scientist friends:jamin and cora's only hope of making sense of their world outside of e.e. cummings.

while hiking in our neighborhood recently with one of these science-minded people (who happens to be a forester), I made the mistake of trying to act knowledgeable enough to ask an intelligent question.  "so these pine trees," I said (I was pretty sure I had that much right), "what sort of disease do they have?"  the lower limbs of all the trees we could see were obviously dead, brittle and brown and needle-less.  thankfully my forester friend is not only smart, but also patient and gentle with ignorant questions.

"it isn't disease that makes the limbs look like that.  those trees are all self-pruning.  all the trees here are the same age, even though they're all very different in size.  they were planted here probably forty or fifty years ago.  some of them grew faster and have shaded the others out, but they all self-prune so growth can be concentrated at the top, where the most sun is."

I think about that every time I walk through that grove now, how self-pruning can look like death and disease to the uninformed bystander.  how important it is to concentrate on growth where the most sun is.  how even though they all started out the same size for the most part, those trees all look so different that each other now.

I think I am self-pruning.  I have to remind myself that concentrating on growth where the most light is does not mean failure in what I have spent time growing before.  I have to remind myself that self-pruning doesn't always look pretty, especially to outsiders who might not know exactly what it is they're seeing.  and even if parts of my life are falling away, my trunk is healthy.  I'm just reaching for the light.

tan-too, j-mo

this from the boy who had me so worried last weekend.

maybe we'll be okay afterall.

the view from my shower

tonight I cleaned chewed-up carrot out of the floor of the shower.  we went on a walk and pretended we were horses.  horses need carrots for snacks.  horses don't take showers, they play in waterfalls.  and wouldn't you know that horses just love to take their carrot snacks into the waterfall with them?  there were knocks on the wall (do all families communicate this way when someone is in the shower or just mine?) requesting more carrots two more times.  and somehow the gnawed nubs of the carrot ends got left behind when the horses got out to put on their jammies.

I started a study at church today called "the geography of grace."  today's topic was vistas, the long-range views the soul uses to call us back to ourselves, to remind us of our true nature and calling.  during an exercise where we shared with a partner I mentioned that I felt the vistas god offers me are too spread out, too few and far between.  there is too much day-to-day to muddle through in between the reminders of the big picture.

my heart finally caught up with my words today.  I've told the story of our weekend with a potential foster placement over and over.  I've shard how horrifying it was to watch my son bully another child, one much smaller and more disadvantaged than himself.  I used the analogy of fitting three carseats into my car: "it took a lot of work and some extra money.  and we forced it to work, but it didn't feel quite safe and no one was really comfortable while we were doing it.  I talked about the bedtime processing I did with jamin: "it just feels like too many kids in our family, mama.  maybe if KC had always been here like I have it would be okay, but he hasn't."  I've explained it all over and over, to eric, to friends, to our case manager, to my parent chat group.  but during that share time in this new class at church, the feeling part of me finally heard what my mouth has been saying all day.  weariness descended like a lead blanket: "I'm too exhausted emotionally to give my son what he needs right now.  giving up foster care means giving up part of my identity.  we aren't helping this poor little guy who cried when he had to leave our house.  it was my kids' behavior, not the foster child's, that lead us to say no."  and even though I am certain we are doing what is best for our family, the gravity of it all made it hard to muddle through the rest of my day.

when I told my partner my vistas were too spread out, he followed the rules of the exercise and let us sit in silence for a moment.  then he asked his gentle follow up question: "are your vistas too spread out, or are you just not noticing?  you have to pull off the highway to get the most out of a scenic overlook."

so tonight I will find my vista in the bottom of my shower.  I will see children willing and excited to eat healthy food.   I will treasure their creative imaginations as I wipe the drain.  I'll be thankful for where we live, this magical wonderland of a home, as I pick up muddy jeans and dry puddles off the floor.  I'll see the long range in the now: children who know their ideas will be honored and enjoyed, children who will remember a mama who played along.  and I will be willing to enjoy the view, even if it means pulling off to the side a little more often.

word of the year

This is my Epiphany:
it all matters less than I think it does.
The circles I run myself around in
get so small
I might as well
stand still.
The big stuff marches on, no matter
how much I try to distract myself.
Keep loving.
Even when it is hard.
Especially when it is hard.
Let love be louder, more urgent,
than my need to be loved back.
That part is already
more than covered.

"The secret to life is relationships."
So begins a speech my dad gives
to anyone who will listen (or happens
to be in earshot).  Bank tellers,
waitresses, hopeful boyfriends,
distracted salesmen are all now
privy to the innermost workings
of the cosmos.
And he's right, of course.  Not much else
matters more. Relational love
is the gospel in a nutshell.  Connection is
what we all long for most, validation
without seeming too needy.
So in his honor, my wise old dad will be
proud to know
my word for the year is what I've gotten
from hearing that speech repeated,
fine-tuned over the years, customized for
each new listener.

This year I want to
CONNECT.
I want to focus more on being connected
than being right.
I want to work on connecting those around me
into a community we all deserve.
I want to behold the connections
in my own life, all these pieces that
never seem to fit when really they are
the whispered truth: "this is the way.
walk in it."
To connect is to take a deep breath
and plunge into intimacy, sometimes
where I least expect it.
Connect is the one-word version of
the secret to life speech.
I hope I do it justice
in 2013.

email to my mom

did you see this post secret? I think I probably agree...
 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8s1lWgfgkGDoiPSWZliRTH8Fr_v7XwEp967mDrqpB3xi2WiORaqWGBfj_nHOJiXudo528YTaSWGVYYLHrlNMQCst0MQSMPftY7EVkyqKBmeRBexDvXwNRqPZ-H1LN32QGKsUffnWsec/s1600/divinealumni.jpg
 

weary in a way I am not sure I can come out of on my own. so ready to be with you this weekend. being the change I want to see is just so damn hard sometimes. especially when people hurt little kids and the world doesn't always feel safe.

 

 

in other news, cora called grandpa bob on her pretend phone today. she said he hasn't been feeling well, but he's okay. love marches on to the strangest drummers. thankful for that. and for you.

 

 

how can I love my kids enough? how can I teach them what peace looks like? how can I explain that I am sad because love isn't big enough to set the world right all the time? and then explain that I am probably wrong about that, too, becaue Love (with a capital L) is certainly big enough, given enough time and space, and I probably don't even know what "right" really looks like. jamin's school sent beautiful emails, full of all the gentleness and peace that we love about the staff there, reminders that our children can guide us, reminders that love casts out fear and we cannot be lead by fear if we are to raise peacemakers in a fallen world. so I will keep on loving bigger, looking to the helpers just like Mr. Rogers says, because the blurriness of tears makes it too hard to see anything else. I am so glad you are my mom. I'm so glad you set this mothering standard so high. I am so glad you love big enough to let it spill on my kids too because sometimes I feel too empty to do this job right. but I am not called to do it by myself.
 

I hope I will be out of tears by the time I see you this weekend, but that probably won't be the case. it is what I do, this crying thing. and you have taught me to love that about myself, to hold myself in the gentle way you would hold me. and because of that I can tell jamin and cora that I am not scared of their tears either. and if I am not crying, I know we will laugh hard enough together to make the tears come again. and I love that, too.

 

 

pray for me and I'll pray for you too. that's just what we do.

are your hands getting filled?

I am pretty sure I cry more than most people.  this used to really bother me.  at a recent family gathering my mom and I were talking about having teenagers in the house and all the tears that were involved.  my sister mused that she didn't remember tears being a notable part of her adolescence.  my mom and I just looked at each other and laughed, not that carey was a crier, but that I more than made up for both of us.  "my grandmother is a very emotional woman," I am quoted as saying regularly in our family lore.  I suppose I am just following in her footsteps.

I do most of my crying in the car these days.  in my twenties this was a huge marker of dysfunction to me.  I can remember having to pull over on 240 in west asheville because I was crying so hard and chastizing myself because THIS IS NOT WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE DO, which of course just made me cry harder.  I did a lot of screaming at the top of my lungs in those days, and the car was the safest place to do it.  I could scream almost the enitre distance from burnsville to the unca exit, that long stretch of 19/23 that brings up much more pleasant memories when I think about it now.  back then my tears were a mark of all that was weak and unhealthy and crazy about me.  now crying in the car is just part of my commute.  and I don't really scream anymore.  much more gentle emotional outpouring now.

we don't have a way to play cd's in our house, mostly because we are cheap.  so when a friend burned me some new discs I knew the car would be my place to listen to them.  and it fit right into my therapeutic crying time.  I still can't make it all the way through a mumford and sons song without tearing up, especially if jamin is with me and singing along.  "isn't this a great song, mama?" he shouts from the backseat, his whole body wiggling in time to the banjo solos.  so this week when eric and I had been having particularly heavy discussions about what's next (a constant conversation in our gemini marriage), I needed him to hear the song that has brought me to tears the most in my time in the car this week.  so, kids cozily in bed, we headed out to the truck to take a listen.  and there we sat, and I cried in the car.  par for course.  it is what I do.

here's what moved me.  feel free to ask me how my brick-layin's coming when I need a proverbial kick in the pants.  I'll know what you mean.