The Late Arrival

Nearly one year into COVID quarantine, and we’re still in darkness. I still believe hoping in darkness : that unseen good things thrive, grow and bloom in the darkest of places.   Today felt like another dark day in a long stretch of dark days, so I decided to intentionally eat my feelings on days like these as I have done for roughly ten of the eleven months of lockdown.   Pioneer Woman’s BestEver Lasagna fit the bill for the day’s emotional eating. I set out meats for defrosting as my daughter and husband set out for shopping at the local hardware store and Target.   They got back home as the meat sauce simmered; and after settling in with her newfound Target treasures, my daughter offered to pitch in with lasagna assembly.   This, in of itself, is any parent’s reason to rejoice, but when you are the parent of an artistic kid with specific and precise aesthetic expectations, an offer to help with lasagna assembly is less help and more annoyance.   B...

School starts this week. I'm anxious, and at the same, relieved because my daughter's chosen to do a many of her classes virtually. Still, my mind chatters that all it takes is one hour, one moment, one exposure to start a potentially deadly domino fall. There's so much, mom. Like, I don't understand why we need to be face-to-face. Like, why are they forcing this to happen? I went off on a well-informed, frustrated tangent...in my head. She didn't need to hear that, and frankly I didn't need to hear myself say it. So I dug deep into what I believed and what I knew and what I felt. You know what? I'm not gonna lie: I am anxious. Thing is, I honestly believe that God is gonna do something big this school year. Like, beyond what you can even imagine. Seriously . She looked at me like I had grown a third head. No seriously. This school year, this whole situation -- everything is like we're walking into pitch black darkness. We don't know what's in fr...

So I usually fall asleep by one or two o’clock, and then I wake up around three-thirty. My then-therapist nods his head and lets out an Ohhhhh…mmmmm. Then, I stay awake long enough to see the sun rise and then drift off for what feels like ten minutes maybe, and then wake up groggy. It's a beautiful thing when you actually want to see it. Ohhhh…mmmm. *blank stare from me* You’ve got EMA’s. At last, a diagnosis. Wait. What are EMA's? Am I dying? I knew I was dying. *heavy sigh from the therapist* EMA's are Early Morning Awakenings. Well, no %$@&$! Sherlock! Look, I’ve never been a good sleeper, unlike my husband who can literally say goodn—and be snoring before his head hits the pillow. It’s some weirdo parlor trick that we probably oughta take on the road. Even now, it takes at least a week for me to fall asleep and then the dreaded EMAs hit. I was in my late-twenties at the time of my thirty-dollar-copay EMA “diagnosis.”...

The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith. You take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part. So what do the lyrics to one of my favorite Tom Petty songs have to do with yesterday’s sermon? The sermon on this First Sunday After Christmas centered on people in the Bible who were celebrating Jesus’ birthday even though they weren’t circled around the manger when He was born on that December 25 silent night. (Yes, I know He wasn’t born on December 25. I’m just checking to see if you’re still with me here) Here’s the story in a nutshell Simeon was a guy who was close to God. I’m thinking Simeon prayed daily and in one of those prayers, God told him that Jesus was coming, and even though Simeon was really old, he’d get to see baby Jesus before he died. Sure enough, the Baby is born, His parents take him to temple, Simeon actually holds the Baby and sings a big ol’ long song of praise and thanksgiving. The End. But maybe ...

At a sneeze away from fifty, I’ve been thinking about my teen daughter muddling through college or career, relationships, student debt and just figuring out who she is. She’s not too far off from nineteen -- the age I was when my mom died. I remember having to discover so much -- too much -- through bumps on the head instead of through her guidance. Now, I figure if can tee my daughter up to be okay by shuffling in all of life’s instructions in the next couple years, AND guidance to learn to be at peace when I’m gone, I will have done my job. We talk about how although I may, but do not plan to make an early exit, there is that reality. The cool thing thing is that the more she grows in her faith, the more she understands that no one’s spirit ever dies. That while we do miss the person’s “container” for awhile, we will eventually be reunited with their spirit. She gets it. And I feel good about that. Except she’s a little zealous in her comfort sometimes. Like, she’s g...

Every night, a million words hover and swirl around my head before my eyes close. They blink in and out, alternating in bold whites and varying shades of gray -- as if in competition against one another. The competition goes on for what seems like hours, and by the time my lids fall like lead, I can never tell which word finally prevails. I guess that's why people who can pick out one single word to encompass New Year's resolutions, hopes, dreams and themes amaze me. There are just too many words. At least for me there are. The last Thursday of the year, I went through the usual morning motions: made the bed, brushed my teeth, refreshed the dog's water dish and poured a cup of coffee with just enough cream so the color matched my skin. I sneaked a cigarette and, coffee in one hand, phone in the other, sat on the porch despite a biting wind that came with morning rain. Words, in list form, blew in and out with cold blasts of air, and I fanned them away in favor of th...

I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down -- We get it Chumbawumba, we get it. Even as you read this, you're someplace on your way up again and prepping to get knocked down. Again. Good for you. But that ain't me. I'm trying to get up again and flinching at everything that might possibly could maybe, who knows, knock me down. Again. It's been a long November, a month in which I had planned posts on daily affirmations of thankfulness, perhaps a countdown to my daughter's birthday / my mothering day and maybe a post about the minutes I've been missing my parents since all the way back to 1987. But I got knocked down by a lot of things. The knowing that so many friends of mine were newly missing loved ones in the season of giving thanks that leads into the season of celebrating family and friends. It'...

At around 10:00 Sunday morning, I'm sitting on the porch half-broiling in Milwaukee's special brand of humidity while relaxing away the time before we have to pack up and head back to church for volunteering at the church picnic. *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * In between wiping beads of sweat from my upper lip, my thoughts drift back to seven days before when we were tackling that last pain-staking two hours from St. Louis to Joplin and then later, Pierce City. I can still feel the silent fatigue hanging over my husband, my daughter and me as we drove those 200 hundred miles. We finally arrived, settled in, had dinner and then worried whether that we'd have to take cover from an impending tornado as National Weather Service suggested. But life in Joplin went on, as it was going on in Pierce City. In fact, the sun was shining. So we went. Back in 2012, I serendipitously found Editor of the Monnet Times, Murray Bishoff on the internet. He had re...

The endless countryside is dotted with hay bales in random, yet organized rows. Then more hay bales, then meadows grasping on to the last greens of summers, then signs for rest stops, lodging and gas. Maybe a few cows and horses. Then more random hay bales. We're probably at mile 175 of a 600 mile road trip to Pierce City, Missouri. As rest/gas signs become fewer and fewer, my mind does what it always does: What would happen if we needed gas before the next exit? I imagine my daughter and I waiting roadside as my husband grows tinier in the distance, a lone figure walking into the sunrise with a telltale red gas container toward the next truck stop exit.  In this imagined reality, I will myself into not complaining or being passive-aggressive (my specialty) even in the face of being stranded gas-less on some abandoned stretch of beat-up road in Wisconsin...even though my husband could've just stopped for gas when we were at a half tank, and he does have  I am Capt...

What brings you joy? Like, actual joy? Somehow, the question came up in conversation with friends. I didn't want to put myself out there, so I sat back and listened: My relationship with friends. When I accomplish [insert accomplishment here] When people really get what I do all day. When I... When I... When I ... From my judgey perch, something uncharacteristically pushy inside me added Okay. But what brings us joy outside of ourselves? I'm pretty sure that's probably the last time I'll be invited anywhere. But anyway. There was a long pause and people (including me) began shifting uncomfortably. I mean, what in my definition of joy is not exclusively and inextricably linked to some benefit to me? How self-centered and self-serving am I anyway? We kept shifting and soon changed the topic. But I kept thinking: what brings me joy that isn't about me at its core? I came up with a few. And by a few, I mean few : Watching the lightbulb moment. Thes...

My daughter's friend's mom stood up and publicly acknowledged her daughter for who she was, the blessing she was to her parents and community, and then prayed for her daughter to keep the faith.  This was my very first  Quinceañera  mass and it was all in Spanish; and, even though my brain doesn't speak Spanish, my heart totally does. So the Baptist call and response tradition in me was all... via GIPHY BECAUSE I COULD FEEL EVERY WORD THIS KID'S MOM WAS SAYING even though she was speaking Spanish. The mom was barely five feet tall and wore a sparkly beige dress with blue accents that mimicked her daughter's dress. Tasteful, but not full-on mother of the bride or anything. I figured she and I were around the same age. We're in that phase when you shave your legs less and pluck your chin more. Both of us understand that we've got more years behind us than ahead. Both of us understand this isn't a drill -- it's real life. ...

Given the choice, I'd take singing a solo to millions over speaking to a crowd of fifty. With songs, there's a verse, a chorus, another verse and a chorus, maybe a coda and then I'm done. Speaking on the other hand, especially without notes, leaves the verse, chorus and coda to me and vulnerable to top-of-mind tangents liable to spur other tangents that could possibly last for hours. With that in mind, I told a story at tonight's event: nervous, shaking and determined to tell lost stories -- like those of the Fair Housing Marches held in our city a mere fifty years ago. Up until 1968, there was no forceful organized push-back against nefariously embedded red tape designed to keep brown folks in one corner of the city and white folks in the other. The march, the people who marched and the related untold histories were the centerpiece of this event that was held at Wisconsin's Black Historical Society . Oddly, and sadly enough, I really didn't know much...

Well, I'm a new kid, I'm just comin' up. A lot a rappers think that I can't tear it up, but I'mma show 'em, and ignore 'em... I was lost in the middle of throwback bliss perhaps induced by a menthol bubble bath when my daughter, who was in the basement doing her workout during this too-brief minute of sillyness and relaxation, came upstairs and threw a wrench in it all: MOM, THE BASEMENT TOILET IS OVERFLOWING!!! My head and body's towel-wrap along with my rapping was interrupted. I sprang out of my makeshift sauna down the stairs to find that, sure enough, our basement toilet was springing like Old Faithful. Then a funny thing happened. The rapping in my head stopped, and the water seemed to gurgle in slow-motion. The water was going to keep on doing what it was going to do and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was helpless, and it felt okay. You know what? Get all the towels out of the linen cabinet and we're just gonna soak ...

It's the last day of the year, and as I peruse the pages, the hours of each of the 364 days, I realize that I am hungry. Given, if you compare pictures of New Year's Eve Me 2016 to 2017's New Year's Eve Me, you'd be wondering how in the name of all that's holy, can I be hungry. But I am hungry.  And I'm realizing this 2017's lingering hunger is a manifestation of inward starvation. This past year, there's been so much that's starved me: everything from a dads dying -- DYING-- on social media, to grown children whose parents didn't live to see this day, to the unspeakable anguish of friends who have buried children. Then there were the DudeBros chanting Jews will not replace us , to a crowd being plowed over by a car that ultimately resulted in the death of a mother's baby . Then there's the horror of a President who won't call evil for what it is. And then sometimes -- a lot of times -- I've felt broken by folks who ca...

5:00pm seems so late in the couple weeks after Daylight Saving Time. It's around that time my daughter and I were heading home after an after-school volunteer meeting. I understood Daylight Saving Time, but I knew our dog didn't. His life runs by the clock: walk at 5:43am; nap until we get home at 4:00pm; walk and then poop at 4:30pm. In that order. We were an hour late. I knew it, I knew he knew it and I hoped he could wait. It was in that spirit that we burst into the house, screaming Okay Charley, let's go for walk! But Charley was nowhere to be found. I breathed a sigh of relief thinking my husband had beaten us home to help Charley stay on task with his personal schedule. But something was out of place. Our makeshift doggie gate that bars Charley's entrance to the rest of the house was still up.The basement door was slightly ajar; and its cold green hallway light cast an eerie sliver of light through the kitchen.  The leash was still in its place...

File this one under Understanding Stuff a Week After it Happens. At first glance, last Sunday’s sermon about the story of Jesus healing a blind man in an unconventional way (as if there’s a conventional way to restore sight) was about a miracle...and mud. But I think there’s more to this miraculous story that speaks to everyone, regardless of belief in the story or faith, or no faith at all. If you’re unfamiliar, here it is: Blind Guy is poor, looked down upon by everyone. The Bible doesn’t even say his name – he’s just BLIND GUY. Anyway, Blind Guy is disenfranchised because somehow, someway society back then believed his blindness was probably deserved for something his parents did or something he did. (Some things never change: how are the poor, refugee, immigrant and ‘other’ viewed today?) Enough editorializing. I’ll go on. Anyway, Blind Guy is so desperate and without dignity, he’ll ask anyone for help – including Jesus, Who in turn spits on the ground, mix...

My gut is all I have. This doesn’t discount my family, friends or my faith, because my gut instinct is tied inextricably to all of the above. It’s the second voice that whispers a welcome or a warning in the interest of keeping family, friends and faith intact. Teaching my daughter to trust her own gut is critical. I won’t always be here to give her the answers she needs. It’s gut-wrenching because I want to give her the right answers, but I know if I do that, she’ll never learn to trust her gut, or make decisions that grow into convictions. Most of the time, I end up sprawling myself strategically along the sidelines, allowing a toe or a foot or a half-shin to cross over into her decision-making territory while I pray she hears her gut and God’s voice and listens to them both. You’d think I was an expert at gut-listening-gut-heeding. You’d be wrong. Let the record reflect that I turned a blind eye, deaf ear and mute tongue during the relationship that was anything but ...

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40 The breeze whispers through open windows on a clear summer day. It carries with it the aroma of freshly cut grass and the lawn mower’s steady drone as my husband paces back and forth, following our backyard’s perimeter. The drone abruptly stops. In minutes he appears at the back door. Get out here NOW , he shout-whispers. I race outside following where he leads, praying we’re not looking for detached toe in the grass. There were no toes, just bunnies. We coo and fight back every urge to pick up the baby bunnies because we know their mumma will return for them. And she did. Thirty minutes later, they were gone. ********************* The skies are purplish gray. Scattered spots of orange promise sunshine’s return after the afternoon’s violent windstorm. Sidewalks are littered with snapped branches too weak to cling to the...