Because it was there

I sometimes look at the titles I choose to read and question my sanity. Then, in a moment of clarity, I realize that books are meant to be read. If I don't read them, maybe no one will. I shall consider myself the Pitier of Lonely Books.

I sometimes think that I will be judged a book snob. Then, in a moment of clarity, I realize that I don't read for anyone but myself. 

If you were to ask me why I chose to read some dusty old thing long forgotten, I suppose that in most cases my only answer could be, "Because it was there."

Well, there is a feeling that comes over me when I touch one of those long-forgotten tomes but any attempt to describe the feeling would be lost on the average reader. (Not that I am above average, no. I just read differently from most people I know.)  There is also a feeling that overtakes me when I touch the cover of some old book. Yes, I will raise my hand here and admit that I read Lucile and I would likely read it again.

So, if you find me reading something weird or unique, just remember that more than likely it was there.

Random writing prompt

The air was gray with the smoke from a dozen forest fires. Pedestrians hurried with cloths covering their noses to find the easier air of indoors.

A Different take on Fat Shaming, or I think I can.

I looked at myself in the mirror and the image that stared back at me wasn't me.  It wasn't the me that God created; it was the me that I'd created in darkness. When my heart ached, I turned to food. When I needed a nap and felt like I just didn't have time to take one, I turned to food. When I was bored, I turned to food. I was turning to food to satisfy all of my needs.  The only thing is that it didn't solve anything. It hurt everything. I gained 20 pounds in a year.

There's all this talk about "fat shaming." Well, blah. If you are fat and ashamed, that merely means you know something needs to change. That's where I was.  I tried the gym. I worked out until I was exhausted and unable to get out of bed for a couple of weeks. I went for 3 months and lost 6 whopping pounds. That wasn't good enough. In the exhaustion, I gained it all back and then some.

(If you are fat and don't care, no one can shame you because you don't care. So, either you care or don't. If you care, do something. Change it because you know that isn't the real you.)

Over time, I began to accept that I was fat. That's when it dawned on me that the person in my reflection wasn't who I really was. That's when I began to know something would change. I just had to find what.

From previous posts, you know how I deal with constant exhaustion. You know I don't want to be this sick person that I always am. I want to be vibrant; I want to healthy. 

Enter Trim Healthy Mama. I had a friend mention it to me once. It was planted in the back of my brain. But then another friend announced that she'd lost a great amount of weight and all along she'd been talking about how well she was eating. Then I began to see that I had other friends who were on the plan. I began chatting with them. I asked questions. 

And then I did it. I ordered the monster book. (There's a new edition coming out so I'm not going to post a link.) And while I waited for my book to arrive, I stopped all sugar and overly-refined foods.  And I lost 2 pounds immediately. Then I lost 4. And now I'm sitting at 10 pounds down.

Mind you, 6 pounds was the most I'd ever lost on any diet. But this isn't really a diet. I'm eating so much good food and I get to eat until I'm satisfied. 

But there's more. With this weight loss, I'm seeing other things happen. I don't need two cups of coffee to get going in the  morning. I might only want half a cup. The constant pain in my shins has lessened to a very great degree.  My constant sore throat is gone. I have been able to plan chores and do them (without my supplement, mind you). I survived VBS week which was immediately followed by grocery shopping. The tired I felt was an honest tired and not the embarrassing sort of tired. My skin has cleared up. 

My weight loss is slow compared to some who started about the same time I did. I tend to get a little jealous. But look, my body has a lot of healing it needs to do. Things I didn't know were wrong are changing. My spirits have lifted. I'm listening to sermons online again as opposed to drowning my fog in Farmville. (Trust me, THAT one is huge.)

Now, I'm not saying Trim Healthy Mama is a cure-all. I may still need the supplement at times. I am saying that eating well is sort of amazing. For once, I am encouraged in a "diet." And for once, I am seeing glimpses of who God created me to be and not this me that I created.

When the memories began

I looked at the map. I found the school. I didn't look for the market; I forgot. I changed the map settings and I saw the images. Real images of things I both remembered and forgot.

It's a parking lot. There used to be a small playground with a glorious little sandbox. Not as though we didn't have enough dirt, because we did. We lived int he desert and there was dirt. But there wasn't sand. And I was small. Maybe the sandbox wasn't really as large as I recall. Yet, where's the harm in a child's memory?

I moved the map, panned a bit west. I saw the cattle guard. And the church. And a concrete pad that would have been a bit larger than the now missing trailer.

In my wild imaginations, I have a car and I pull up outside the cattle guard. I'm little again. My lunch box is metal with a red plaid design and I'm terrified that my little feet will slip between the rails as though they were hooves. I draw my hand across the concrete barrier--there's one on either side of the guard--and I recall how I scooted across it every morning, scraping my lunch box. I give a sad little laugh at those days when my fears were so small and no less real.

I now look into the property and wonder if it's still a church. I see the shed is gone. The mesquite tree stands though. 

I can't help but giggle as I remember the races after church to see who could stomp the most loco weed pods. I can still hear them popping. 

I can see where one of the ranchers pulled up in his truck one day to introduce his new dogs. One was named Blue. I remember Blue because she had two different colored eyes. I was amazed.

I see the porch where the fellow brought a tarantula in a jar that we all hovered around after church. Some of the kids held it, but I was too wise. I watched from a distance.

Then, in my dreaming, a woman comes out and calls to me. "Can I help you?"

"My dad was the pastor here when I was young," I answer. "Is this still a church?"

She smiles but doesn't answer. She cannot because she isn't real and doesn't know the answer. But she bids me come and see. I pull the car in and feel the tears.

~~I remember, I remember/ The house where I was born~~

No, not born, but most of my memories begin here.

She leads me into the church and I laugh.

"Pretty much as I remember it, "I say. "I had to come over to practice piano and I hated it. It was so big and so lonely. And dark. I left the door open one day a bird flew in. That's the only thing I remember about piano practice.

"We would walk back through this hallway to the kids' rooms for service, Junior church. My mom taught. They numbered the chairs and chose a quiet seat prize that way. One morning, I saw the number they drew and it was my chair. I was extra good that day.

"Then for business meetings, if there were no kids to play with outside, my brother and I would go back into the trailer. And play Lava. But Jack, one of the ranchers, was smarter than we were. He came in and caught us running on the furniture and he got after us.

"Jack is a pastor now. In Nevada, I think I heard."

We go back outside and I show her where the chicken coop was. I tell her how careful I was gathering the eggs; but it was hard because I had to climb up to get out while holding the basket. I point out where the cows were gathered when my brother preached to them. I pointed the opposite direction and told her that's the way my dad and I were walking home when I was attacked by fire ants.

I share with her local stories, like the one about the  rancher who was struck by lightning on mulitple occasions. I tell her of the girl who collected rattles from the snakes her dad killed.  I tell her of the prison escapee who ended the days of my walking to school. I ask if there's still a prison there.

But she doesn't answer. Of course she can't answer because she isn't real and doesn't know.  But she manages to enjoy my memories.

Handling the hurting

We are supposed to be able to comfort others with the same comfort we were given. We were supposed to learn from the journey through the valley of the shadow of death when we felt like we were losing everything.  

But sometimes, our comfort seems small in the face of someone's hurt. It's not that we don't understand where they are  because we have been in a situation so similar that it might as well be the same.

But we remember how lost we were. We remember how the pangs of death had seized us so tightly that we thought there was no hope. And we remember how hard it was to comfort us.

That doesn't absolve us from sharing the rays of hope we received.  We just need to share with wisdom. We need to listen. We need to be gentle with our hope.  As the wounds begin to heal, there is room for other sorts of comfort. But maybe today there is only room for handing the hurting a box of tissues.

Just a poem I ran across

The Tuft of Flowers

BY ROBERT FROST

I went to turn the grass once after one

Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen

Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;

I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,

And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

As all must be,' I said within my heart,

Whether they work together or apart.'

But as I said it, swift there passed me by

On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night

Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,

As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,

And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,

And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look

At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared

Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,

Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,

By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.

But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,

Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,

And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;

So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,

And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech

With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

Men work together,' I told him from the heart,

Whether they work together or apart.'

People watching

I  am an introvert. This means that I like to be without people. No one should be offended by this. It's nothing personal. So, when I take Rebecca to tae kwon do, I sit out in the van where I can be unmolested. Think about it, I homeschool five children. I have two large dogs. I don't get much time alone.

Tonight, as I sat out reading The Innocents Abroad, I happened to glance up.

I saw a slight, black man with both ears pierced. He was, perhaps,, the dapperest man I've seen in real life. Oh, he was not Hercule Poirot dapper; no, he was his own sort.

He was in his early to mid-50's. He wore dark jeans, a nice button down blue shirt, and a chipper sort of tie. He carried papers in his back pocket. In his hands he carried a plastic grocery sack of goods, two Slurpees, and black cane lovely in its simplicity. His smallish hands were bedecked with rings. 

He wore a pair of cowboy boots which gave him a sprightly walk so that I wondered at the cane.

Other than what I saw, I can say nothing about the man. I can only say he amused enough to write of him. I believe he might make a good character in a book.