by jphilo | Oct 17, 2009 | Out and About
Paradise is back again – the books arrived, the water’s on, and the scorpion’s been replaced with a hummingbird on the bouganvilla vine not far from my guest cottage. But a brief talk with my husband this morning reminded me of the paradise I left behind in Iowa.
My son and his fiance came down Thursday night to spend a long weekend. Hiram told of their plans to hike and visit old friends, and longing washed over me. Doubt rose, and my brain swirled with questions: What am I doing in California when I could be with my kids? Why did the timing work out like this? And what business do I have speaking to special needs moms whose children may never be made whole as Allen is?
I was feeling very inadequate when I checked my email and found a note from a mother who shared her story in Different Dream. The entire email was moving, but these words spoke to my dark and doubting heart.
“Thank you for sharing your gift and calling in completing this book. When I thought of you writing this book, I thought of the sacrifice you made in doing it, entering the dark places in the hearts of the people you were writing about over and over again. I pray that now that it is done, your heart will be light, knowing all the people it will minister too.”
Her words were exactly what I needed, and her prayers were effective. My heart felt light again, not because I feel adequate, but because she reminded me that God is more than adequate. He was at work, meeting my needs through her, and would work through me to meet the needs of the moms I would soon encounter.
Confidence in Someone who has resources beyond those I possess is, I am learning, paradise found.
by jphilo | Oct 16, 2009 | Out and About
Greetings from paradise, or at least the nearest thing to paradise an Iowa girl can enjoy when the October she left behind is colder, wetter and windier than any in recent memory. At this writing, this Iowa girl is sitting on the front patio of an absolutely stunning mountaintop home, looking past palm trees to the mountains on the far side of a the sunny valley.
I know, I know. All this gushing is making you want to strangle me. So let me assure you that all is not perfect in paradise. The two cases of books the publisher shipped last week so they’d be here in plenty of time for tomorrow’s book signing have yet to arrive. I’m not biting my nails over it, but please send up your prayers that they will arrive in time. About 60 parents of special needs kids will attend tomorrow’s tea, and it would be lovely to have the book available to them.
Also, when I woke in the lovely guest cottage this morning, the one I’m not going to gush about since I’m a really sensitive person and know an accurate description would renew your henchman’s mentality, the water didn’t work. So Gloria, my hostess, drove me to her daughter’s house at the bottom of the mountain, where I showered and got ready for the day.
All was well in this bathroom, which I would describe as my dream bathroom except that I don’t want you to haul out the rope again, until the scorpion appeared. Having watched plenty of cowboy movies as a kid, I knew better than to tangle with scorpions, and moved to the other sink.
So you see, paradise is nice, but not perfect. In fact the lack of perfection is making me appreciate Iowa – where I have books on hand for when the orders start pouring in, running water, and mice instead of scorpions. In fact, if you would leave me here long enough – say until April when Iowa warms up again – I’ll be closing my eyes clicking my heels together like Dorothy, and murmuring, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Unless, of course, I trade my ruby slippers for sandals and my gingham dress for a swimming suit and become a beach bum.
Just kidding. Just kidding! And would you put away the rope? You’re making me nervous!
by jphilo | Mar 13, 2009 | Family
Hiram, my husband, had a birthday last Sunday. He’s fifty-three, as I will be in a few months. We’ve reached that age where people look at our wedding pictures and say things like, “Wow, Hiram, you had a lot of hair!” or “Jolene, you were so…young,” or some other exclamation that requires the speaker remove a foot from the mouth.
Our trip to California was his birthday present and he says it was a great one. We’ve been married for thirty-one years, so I could have predicted the reasons he enjoyed himself: jogging on the beach every morning, listening to the stories the elderly relative on my side of the family told, fixing a kitchen drawer for the same relative, and the engrossing tour of the Midway, a retired aircraft carrier. In fact when I couldn’t find him on the carrier, I knew right where to look. He was front and center at the “Ejection Seat Theater,” captivated by both the movie and his ejection seat.
In all the important ways, Hiram hasn’t changed at all. And when I look at his college pictures – with all his sun-blond hair and without glasses – I see him as he was then and as he is now. I have no words to explain how the passage of time has changed him (and me) without changing us at all. But one of my favorite authors, Marilynne Robinson, says it perfectly in her new novel, Home.
The main character, Glory, describes her elderly father and his lifelong friend as they tell old stories and play checkers. “The joke seemed to be that once they were very young and now they were very old, and that they had been the same day after day and were somehow at the end of it all so utter changed.”
Robinson’s words describe Hiram, a man of few words, so beautifully. “…the same day after day and…somehow at the end of it all so utterly changed.” I can’t wait to finish her book or to watch my husband’s unchanging transformation during the rest of our lives together. Between the two of them, there will be words enough to keep me happy for a long time.
by jphilo | Mar 12, 2009 | Out and About
I could have spent our whole California vacation watching surfers. Their sport is as mesmerizing as the ocean, as wild and unpredictable as the waves, as precarious and exhilarating as a baby’s first steps.
For someone like me, who finds remaining upright a challenge and standing on a balance beam an impossibility, their sense of balance boggles the mind. How can their feet cling to the board? How can their bodies, clad in slick and glistening wet suits, react with such grace to the nuances and pummeling of wind and wave?
The more I watched the surfers, the more evident it became that a successful ride is the exception rather than the rule. The surfers spent most of their time lying on their boards, paddling in the ocean, waiting for the waves. When a good ones came along, their attempts to gain the wave usually failed, and cold water engulfed them. Seconds later, they emerged from the foam, climbed on their boards, and waited for another wave.
Though the surfers intrigue me, their sport is not calling my name. The water’s too cold, the waves are too wild, and the mental picture of my middle-aged body glistening in a wet suit is absurd. But every morning when it’s time to plan the day, I see myself carrying a board toward the ocean, dipping in my toe to test the water. Slowly I climb on my board and paddle toward the waves. Every day is a struggle as waves of phone calls and emails, writing and projects threaten to engulf me.
When I fail, my only option is to try and mount the board again. Because, on the few occasions when I find my balance, the sensation is exhilarating and the world is lovely from my rare vantage point. So I try again and again and again because balance is a gift not to be received, but to pursue.
by jphilo | Mar 6, 2009 | Out and About
It doesn’t take much to thrill two baby boomer Midwesterners on a sunny California beach in February. So when my sister and I came face to face with this pelican when we rounded the side of the restaurant at the end of the Oceanside pier, we were delighted. I manned the camcorder while my sister took still photos. (Credit for today’s photo goes to her.)
The attention didn’t phase the bird, intent as it was upon it’s morning grooming ritual. A few minutes into recording my version of The Pelican Brief, three things became abundantly clear: the bird was amazingly flexible, its beak is a lethal weapon, and the species has no need to invent toilet paper
Our encounter with the mangy and tourist-weary pelican reminded me of a limerick I learned in elementary school. Maybe you learned it, too. The part I memorized was:
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
I thought the poem was by Ogden Nash, but a little research informed me that humorist Dixon Lanier Merritt penned the ditty. The research also revealed why every elementary teacher’s rendition stops before the last line:
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
No wonder teachers cut the last line. They want to keep their jobs. But after watching one bird contort it’s body and wield its beak as only a peli-can, the last line of Merritt’s poem makes perfect sense. Just don’t tell any of my former students I said that. They would be scandalized.
