itsawonderfilledlife

“I’m going to do it all different, better.”

That was my wordless declaration as an adolescent girl, rose-colored glasses perched precariously on my button nose.

The idealism of youth can be a powerful motivator, a fire-in-the-belly, a pedestal of goals to stand upon (and fall down from).

And yet, that was me. My first-born determination … the embodiment of ‘the iron that had entered my soul’. I was going to do it all different, better than my parents, my mother.

In recent years I have come to understand that my rose-colored glasses, first-born determination and good intentions amounted to …

so many more failures than I’d counted on.

The unexpected, undesirable results have had me wondering what I missed in my perfectly planned goals. They have also caused me to take another look at the parental case study of my early years, my own parents.

And this reflection has had me hanging my (arrogant, critical) head in shame …

for now I am starting to get it,

for it is not all about me … me goals … my plans … my formula.

We, as mums (since, I am a mum), set out to do and achieve our goals … not a bad place to start, but we cannot influence every result, we are not the only ones who impact our households. We also mess up, in all of our humanness. Then there is that blessed curse of freewill (I hope God is ready for a tête-à-tête when I arrive in heaven)!

Awhile back, in the midst of an intense conversation with one of my kids, I expressed something like, “I cannot believe you would think that was the right decision on that subject.”

To which they responded, “how am I supposed to know what is the right decision, this is the first time I have been this age, in this situation.”

BOOM!

mic drop

Good intentions aside, aren’t we all living this life for the first time? There are no professionals in this thing we call life. And, life does not have a formula to follow for guaranteed results (save such lofty hopes for products promising to defy the effects of aging). We do our best (the only thing we can do) and then … life happens.

It all brings me back to my adolescent declaration that “I will do it all differently, better.”

I can now see how well my parents did, with what they knew, what they had at their disposal. They did their level best. Could it have been better? Of course. But, they were limited by the same realities that I am. They were doing their best, because they were living their situations, their lives, for the first time.

Now, I watch my mum navigating the changes and challenges of her life in the past few years. As she has walked through grief and loneliness. As I have observed her learning new things, making tough choices, making decisions on her own, embarking on independence later in life. You see, this is the first time she has been in this place, this time.

And my rose-colored glasses have been lifted off my face.

And I see now, with a clarity I was blind to in my youth.

And something new replaces a formula for guaranteed results.

It’s grace, understanding that this is her first go-around too.

I am learning to give grace to her, as a practise of the Golden Rule … to treat her in a manner I would hope to be treated.

I am so proud of you mum … thanks for modelling that you can pivot, change in the winter of life … your first time being this age.

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It’s early
Still
Clear
Quiet but for the geese across the lake
Ripples on water.

There’s a nest above the door
Momma bird flew off when I stepped out to the deck … my presence scared her off.
But she’s not far off
Lingering within sight of her home, her babies.

That’s what momma birds do
Protect their own.

I feel a kinship with this feathered momma
For I know the innate drive a momma feels to protect her own.
I know the fear
The desperation
The sense that it’s all up to me.
But is not …

What momma bird doesn’t know yet is that some day soon her babies will fly
She might even be the one to push them from the nest.
And in their flying off, strong and prepared,
She will have done her job.

The quality of which may not inspire a best selling how-to book,

but,

It will have been her best

And done with the greatest of love

She’s been flying away from the nest, bit by bit, for years now.
We humans don’t just take one leap from the nest, but many small ones.

And today she flys off with her chosen one.

They too will live along this lake, with the momma bird. One day they may have their own to protect, but for now I pray they protect each other, from this day forward, for the rest of their lives.

Fly my pretty, fly!

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Light is diminishing.

I knew it when my body awoke for the day just after five on a recent morning.

Not even two months ago the summer solstice heralded in the longest day of daylight in the calendar year. At just over sixteen hours of glorious June daylight, it was double what will be on December’s darkest day. No wonder we humans are known to have a more sunny disposition in the summer months!

I have enough darkness within me that I seek the light in most areas of my life. Part of that is just aging (for who, as they age, wants to linger in the dark), part of it is knowing what is best for myself, but mostly I believe it has to do with the light that is within.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

whoever follows me …
will never walk in darkness

Oh, how can that not be good news? To think that there is always light … if we follow Him/Jesus.

Jesus also said that we (who follow him) are like a city built on a hill, visible to all, and if we live in His light, others can see it, and also choose to live in His light. (Matthew 5:14-16 … Carole Wheaton translation 😉 ).

So our reflection of his light, draws others to him. What a fantastic privilege to reflect light, to reflect hope, faith and love. As I think of it, reflecting isn’t even an action, it’s a

reaction …

We are not the doer’s of reflecting the light of God, we are simply choosing to be available, so that the light of God shines here in this world.

I love this quote, by Fredrick Buechner (Telling Secrets):

and love.

“Let go of the dark, which you wrap yourself in like a straitjacket, and let in the light. Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the life around you – your children’s lives, the lives of your husband, your wife, your frineds – because that is just what you are powerless to do. Remember that the lives of other people are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business because they all have God whether they use the word God or not. Even your own life is not your business. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought.”

Just follow Him.

Just reflect.

And we will shine with his light.

And the light will not be diminished.

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“Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears”

– Fiddler on the Roof
(Sheldon Harnick / Lewis Bock Jerrold)

As I drove the highway to my childhood home, I did as I often do … I marvelled at the great big sky that seems to travel eternally to reach the horizon. Pulling off the highway, I just had to snap an imagine of the setting sun.

Born in that great big sky country in eastern Canada, currently living in the sea to sky mountainous region of the west. When I say the word home, there is never simply one definition. There is a constant confusion, a muddying of the waters (and this may have double meaning as well, with the mud of the Bay of Fundy in the east and the muddy/murky Fraser in the west).

But, it is in returning to the home of childhood, of the first twenty years, that the memories of the seasons of those early years flood my mind. It is as if there is a constant video reel playing in my mind of places, people and events. Core memories that sweep into my consciousness as I hear voices, drive by significant sites, or catch a whiff of the Atlantic’s salty breeze.

All of the feels of such recollections of the good, bad and ugly.

All swiftly falling, one season after another.

All laden with happiness and tears.

As I drove the highway away from my childhood home, I did as I often do … I marvelled at the great big sky, that seems to travel eternally to reach the horizon. Pulling off to the side, I just had to snap an image of the rising sun.

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Walking through the halls of the secondary high school, people are smiling, jovial, friendly. It is the final day of classes and the relief of the school year’s end has brought joy to the hearts of everyone in the building.

The sense of community is strong in these last days, as we are all (students, staff) eagerly anticipating the same thing … the end of the school year. It is the shared anticipation of change, of rest, of other communities.

Final days can be especially joyous, especially when they precede something new.

The school years turns into summer.

The school years turn into graduation, jobs, travel.

The work year turns into summer vacation.

The dark seasons turn into light.

When it comes to school’s year end, it is the students who struggle, who hate this institution, whose gifts are best utilized outside of our places of learning. These institutes where the unnatural practises of sitting inside, under fluorescent lighting, with only people born the same year all day, every day, is the model, but also that successful learning is often different from loving to learn.

These are the ones I smile a knowing smile with, both of us aware that not only is summer coming, but so is freedom. Freedom to be who God made them to be, free to explore, free to create, free to move … free to breathe … free to heal.

Just As The Calendar Began to Say Summer
Mary Oliver

I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woods,
and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught —

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,
how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,
machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back
to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank,
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

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The fifties, a decade of changes, once known as the time in a woman’s life as ‘the change’. In the beginnings I joyfully embraced this season of freedom to wear white pants every day of the month. Rediscovered the new me, without the highs and lows of hormone fluctuation. Added to the physical changes were family changes, as the rooms of our children began to empty, as changes in hubby’s career meant less demands on myself.

Now, sitting squarely in the middle of this decade, along with the pounds that refuse to budge, the aches that come from sleeping too long on one side as opposed to tenacious physical exertion, the fatigue that seems to never go away, the hairs that grow inches in the night on chin (only to be discovered after the work day), the wings that have developed from the flesh of my upper arms, the tugs (real and perceived) of generations before and beyond, the areas of life where one of this stage is simply no longer needed … one might wonder about identity, purpose.

“I used to float,
now I just fall down
I used to know,
but I’m not sure now
What I was made for?”
-Billie Eilish

Yet, there is something more to being a woman in her fifties, more than the oft common feeling of being dried up and drifting …

There is a connection, a solidarity with all women, of all ages.

A woman shared a new song with me. It was the same day a young mum at church was holding her precious child, bellowing loudly his hunger, unhappiness, fatigue (so many reasons to bellow in this life). The same day a young woman shared her thankfulness for her foster mum who taught her what her mum of blood and flesh and DNA could not, due to her dependence of drugs. The same day a friend messaged it’s time for an ice cream, even though we will probably need to wait until the end of the school year. The same day a young man, living away from family, came for dinner and the realization set in that this is how we fulfil vows made by a congregation to one who is baptized or become a member. As I looked across the room to one who has become like a daughter, whose own momma lives so far away,

I smiled as I realized the grace in being a woman, loving for other women, loving other’s children, supporting each other, lifting each other up, laughing and crying with other women. A word, a touch, a connection whispering into the souls of other women.

“She’s the artist that paints in the colours unseen
Every stroke of her brush is an act of belief
She’s a true work of art
She is playing her part of a woman
What a woman”
That Woman

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