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Crocheting (or sex, which ever you prefer)

I’ve wanted to write a little ditty on sex but thought it may be too provocative for some (or my mother) so I’m going to refer to sex as crocheting.

I personally fall into the category of only ever having one crocheting partner. I’m not sure if this is rare as I don’t think my fellow single partner crocheters are very vocal about it. I think it may be because we’ve been made to feel as if there is something wrong with us. I wouldn’t know, I have nothing to compare it to. For that matter, neither do those who have crocheted with many.

Those who crochet around have the chance to make new and exciting garments. Crazy scarves, colorful hats, and fuzzy mittens. For those of us who have somehow found a way to only have one crocheting partner, we create the afghans, the throws, and oversized sweaters. They may not be as exciting or colorful or current as the others, but they are warm, inviting, and comfortable.

When you are young, crocheting is fun and exciting; it can be an adventure. A little later on,  crocheting becomes a requirement if you desire to recreate little ones. No matter how evolved we become, someone still has to crochet to produce those desired new creatures. After the little ones arrive, crocheting can become taxing due to the over whelming fatigue that comes with wee ones. Life can quickly snowball into a busy life that pushes the yarn and crochet hooks to the back corner of the closet waiting to be rediscovered.

As you age, crocheting takes on a new life. The house is empty, the kids are gone, life in many ways is simpler. If you want, you can crochet anytime, anyplace, as long as you’re not too tired, or you hip isn’t hurting, or you didn’t eat something weird for dinner and you now have gas. Or in some cases, you’ve tasted a little too much wine and the thought of crocheting is exciting until you are snuggled under the covers and snuggling under the covers becomes the most awesome part of the day.

Many partners or just one, I’m not sure if either is wrong, they are just different. Each creates it’s own outcome in which the crocheter must own. Scarves or afghans, mittens or sweaters. I’ve only ever crocheted sweaters. As I look ahead to the next thirty to forty years, I am confident that there are new sweaters to create and olds ones to wear.

After all, when don’t you want to snuggle into a oversized, worn, cozy, favorite sweater?

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And the Oscar goes to…

“You don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie.”

It’s a great line from the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Two woman, sitting in their living room,  sobbing as they watch a scene from the classic An Affair to Remember. The one says, “I want to be in love.” The other replies, “You don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a move.”

We do, don’t we? We want the romance, the sunsets, the flowers, chocolates and poetry. We want the magic. Most of us not only want to be in love in a movie, we want our lives to be movies; magical moments, fields of dreams, and rainbows ends.

We see our life’s role as just that, a role. And these roles offer us many opportunities to wish we were in a movie. We make grand entrances assured that the entire room is watching us; each entrance is our red carpet moment. There are times life is so bizarre we are looking for the hidden cameras. Yet, other times we wish we could hear the director yell, “Cut! Do it again.”

Life presents us with both drama and comedy opportunities. But unlike the movies there is no screenplay. There doesn’t exist a room full of writers scripting our every word or action. A movie allows for rehearsal time. There’s also make-up, wardrobe, hair and lighting. All coming together to make each scene perfect.

But life is not a movie. Life is full of moments. If we allow ourselves to experience them live, they bring all the magic one will ever need. If we dwell on what our reaction will be in a certain situation, we miss the live performance. In fact, as we waste precious time trying to imagine the script for the future, we are missing what is being acted out around us.

We do have some power in deciding how we will play out the moments in our lives. There are those who have a flair for drama, making every scene their final farewell. Others seem to find the comedy in life and life is an improve.

If we allow it, life can be filled with “what if’s?” Spending our time and energy trying to figure them all out blinds us to the life that is going on around us.

We aren’t living in a movie, we are living life. Which to date, has never been matched in any script.

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Barnacles, Ovaries and Miracles.

In a few days I’m going in to have an ugly skin tag removed. It been with me for a while and I really could live with it, but the doc says it can come off, so why not?

At the same time, he is going to remove my uterus and ovaries. Now, one would think that the fear of having the later removed would over shadow an ugly skin tag, but it doesn’t. I have no emotional tie to these organs anymore. The thought of losing the barnacle on the top of my leg makes me want to raise my hands and shout hallelujah!

I don’t take having my organs removed lightly. But this idea of being still, observing life, and listening, has brought me to a place where I can only see the good in the situation.

A few weeks ago my body cried out for help, it came in the form of a doctor who gently pushed me down a path. Along the way, and because of his careful, intentional procedures, questionable cells were found. The solution to rid my body of any further issues, including the potential of cancer, would be to remove the organs. I can’t find the bad in that. It all looks like the making of a miracle, if you ask me.

Miracles still happen. They happen every day. Not the squint your eyes really tight, pray really hard, be really good, and believe with all your might kind of miracles, those usually end up in disappointment.

The Miracles I’m referring to are the quiet prayers that ask for help and guidance. The quiet moments of trusting. The over-heard comment or Facebook post that points you in the right direction, the urging in your gut to ask a question, the person who just happens to be in the right place at the right time – your time, your place. These Miracles happen everyday, all day long.

We miss them cause we’re so busy… or consumed with fear… or angry at the world. Our heads are preoccupied with figuring it out on our own… or obsessed with blame, threatening to sue anyone and everyone who we feel has caused our need for a miracle. We’re so overwhelmed with noise we miss the whisper, the gentle nudging, the missing piece that finishes the puzzle.

I am in awe of this entire medical process. A hysterectomy is now an out-patient surgery. A short two-week recovery. Who knew?

So in a few days I’m going to wake up in a recovery room. I’ll be missing a few organ, but they’ve served me well, it’s okay that they must leave. With their absence goes the potential of a really serious illness, a risk I didn’t even know existed three weeks ago. I’ll most likely be tired, but I’ve got two weeks to rest.

It all seems miraculous to me, every step of the way. Best of all – that old ugly skin tag will be gone and to that I’ll shout –

HAL-LE-LU-JAH!!

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Carrots, Bikes and Listening

Three weeks ago I found myself down for the count. In fact, I was so down that I was gathering my things to go to the hospital.

I called a nurse hot line and was assured that I wasn’t in any danger but I should call my doctor. I did and they made me an appointment the next morning. After my exam I was told I would be fine but I should schedule a procedure in the next three weeks, just in case.

Jeff and I were at the grocery store a few days later and I had an overwhelming craving for carrots. To my great disappointment, there wasn’t a carrot to be found; its a very busy grocery store. Three days later I was back at the same store and I was excited that the carrot truck had been there. By the time I checked out, I had five bags of carrots; baby, whole, chopped, whatever they had.

Back home, I steamed them, smothered them in butter, sprinkled a little brown sugar and cyanine pepper on them and devoured them. I ate them for breakfast the next day. I ate them as a snack. If asked, I would have eaten them in a box, with a fox, on a train and in the rain.

Carrots? How bizarre. I went to the google to find out what these wonderful creations had to offer. There were many, but the two that jumped off the screen – iron and potassium. The two things my body was depleted of the week before. Go figure…my body knew what it needed to heal.

I’ve recently had a desire to get back on my bike and ride. I live in a beach town where I can ride 25 miles along the Pacific Ocean. Biking here is a delight, not a chore but it still takes the effort to actually get on the bike. After years of no rain, it’s finally the rainy season here in California, so I’ve been diligently riding my stationary bike in the garage till the weather breaks.

Yesterday, I geared up for my first outdoor ride. My hope was to make it five miles, but for some reason I chose the ten mile route.  About two thirds of the way into my ride, I was delighted that I was going to make the entire route and I noticed the knot I carry in my stomach was beginning to release. For the past thirty years, I’ve been trying to convince myself to follow a very strict diet. When I do so, all my digestion issues go away. When I don’t follow it (which is a lot of the time) I get all knotted up. By the time I was home, my tired little tummy was happy.

Hmmm. Carrots and biking, our bodies know what they need – we just have to listen.

Most of us can’t hear our bodies talk cause we’re so preoccupied with the unimportant conversations in our head. We have to get to know the unimportant voices, and to most of them, we need to tell them to shut up and go away. We have to stop trying to figure everything out, sometimes things just are. We have to stop analyzing every thought or feeling that runs through our minds. And we have to stop blaming everyone else for our struggles. We have to stop drowning in the pool of self-obsession and start living. We have to STOP TALKING, SIT DOWN and learn to LISTEN!

You never know what you might hear. Sometimes it may be as profound as “eat carrots and get on that bike!”

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Pandas, Trains, Picking and Robbers

Thursday is Liam and Emery’s sleep over night and since Jeff is out of town, I’m flying solo. I promised dinner at Panda Express which won out over the McDonalds with a play ground.

As we made our short commute, we had the radio playing and a commercial for Hospice came on, I quickly turned the channel and pretended I knew the words to the song that was playing.

“Neenee, did you hear that lady say her mother died,” Liam asked.

“Yes,” I said knowing very well what was coming next.

“She said she remembered when her mother was sick and died…” (this is where I changed the channel.)

“I think she was a grown up talking about her really old mother. She wasn’t a child talking about mom,” I said trying to ease his burden.

“Yes, she was an adult,” he began.

“Look!” I said, “aren’t the dunes beautiful from up here…”

As we waiting our turn to order there was another reference to people dying; there had been a fund raiser at school for a mom and son who were in a car accident and the son died. Liam explained that it must have been because the air bags didn’t open.

Then we ordered and life was happy again. After, I had promised ice cream.

“Let’s go to Doc’s,” Liam said, “its got trains on the ceiling and they have lots of flavors I like. Dad and I went there! We can park across the street and cross where the yellow light are flashing.”

“OK,” I said. “Let’s go.”

On the way, Liam continued to fill Emery and I in on the details. “Emery, it will be your first time,” he said with great enthusiasm.

“NO!” she insisted, “It’s not my FIRST time!”

“Yes, it is.”

“NO! I don’t want it to be my first time!”

“Did you go there before?” he asked.

“NO!” she said with great certainty. “But it’s not my first time.”

“Maybe she and dad had a date,” I suggested hoping to stop this endless, and un-winnable debate.

“YES! Dad and I had a date there,” she said.

“Did you see the trains on the ceiling?” Liam asked.

“Yes.” She was convinced.

“Emery, are you just picturing this in your mind?” he asked.

“Yes….but it’s not my first time!”

We parked in front of the building to avoid walking through the yellow flashing lights. Liam chose from a variety of chocolate and caramel delights and Emery’s only choice was vanilla, she’s a vanilla kind of kid. We watched the train go around the store on the tracks suspended from the ceiling and Emery cried because we didn’t have four quarters to buy a bouncy ball from the giant gum ball machine. Now that I think of it, they may have been jaw breakers, but they looked like bouncy balls and Emery wanted one.

Back in the car and driving home from our culinary adventure, Liam asked, “Can we run into Walmart for a little thing?”

“I don’t think tonight,” I said. “What did you want to get.”

“Just something little,” he said.

“Well, not tonight,” I said.

As we pulled into the garage he continued, “I really wanted to go into Walmart.”

“What did you want to buy?” I asked.

“A train set.”

“Like a real train on tracks?” I asked.

“Yes, one that runs on batteries, not like the big ones at Docs.”

“I think we’ll need to save up our money for that.”

A short time later Emery came running into the bedroom, “NO I’M NOT!!” she yelled.

“Yes, you are,” I heard from the living room.

“NO I’M NOT!” she repeated. “Liam said I’m a little bossy – BUT I’M NOT!” she yelled.

“I think you kinda are,” I said.

Nighties on and both snuggled into the big bed.

“Don’t you want to sleep on that side?” I asked Liam hoping he would vacate my side of the bed.

“No, I don’t want to sleep on Hoppie’s side.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I like this area,” he said.

We watched our favorite movie, “The Sword and the Stone.” Emery hid under the covers on the scary parts. After the part where the boy is returned to his human self after spending the afternoon being a squirrel and playing with a girl squirrel, Liam inquired, “Why do only girls get to pick?”

“What do you mean, pick boys?” I asked.

“Yah. Why do they get to pick?”

“They don’t,” I said “Boys can pick.”

“THEY CAN!” he said with great excitement.

“Sure. Daddy picked Mommy and Hoppie picked me,” I assured.

We finished our movie, turned off the lights, snuggled under the covers, and got kissed.

“Can you close the bathroom door?” Liam asked looking into the bathroom from MY side of the bed. The sky light was dim as it’s a cloudy night.

“Do you want it closed?” I said as I walked over to meet his request.

“Yes, please.”

I closed the door, rubbed his head, and once again said, “Good night.”

“If robbers break in, they’ll be trapped in there…” is what I heard as I left the room.

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Garments

She laid in bed looking up at the ceiling. Today would be different, it had to be. Another night of restless sleep, she couldn’t do it much longer. She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up off the matt. She walked across the floor of her one room dwelling to the basin to wash. How much longer would this go on? How much more could she take.

She began to layer her garments, today she needed extra layers. If they saw her, if there was any sight of blood it would be her demise. She ran her hands over the once luxurious garments. She remembered when they were new, when they had color.

She loved color. In her past she was known for her unconventional style. When she walked through the streets she drew admirable attention as she carried herself with grace. Those times were long past. Now, these same garments were warn and tattered. With each layer she felt the weight of her illness and the heaviness of her shame. This was a dirty illness. She had scrubbed her garments until they were so thin they were almost useless. Nothing had color any longer and nothing was white. Her life was covered in dull dingy grays.

She pulled her hair back and covered it. She added a second veil to cover her face. She couldn’t risk being recognized. She walked to the door. This wasn’t a home, she had lost that years ago in order to pay doctor bills. Over these past twelve years she had lost everything. She had been drained of status, wealth, security, belongings, relationships, health, and most recently, the will to continue the fight.

She had made her inquiries and knew where he was staying. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him, these days there was always a crowd. One final check to ensure she was completely covered. She risked everything walking out those doors, she couldn’t be discovered. That would ignite new battles that she didn’t have the means or energy to fight.

She could see the home where he was staying in the distance. She watched as the crowd grew. He must be there, he had to be there. She was a short distance away when the crowd began to shift. “He’s not there,” she thought. “No. He has to be there.” She quickened her pace and in doing so felt the dull pain awaken.

The crowd seemed to be turning as if a great ship pulling out to sea. They turned toward her. She stopped. She waited, squinting to make out the images. Two men were in the lead. They drew closer and she gasped. “It couldn’t be. They hate him! Why is he here? I can’t do this. What was I thinking?”

Still closer, she was sure it was him. He was one of the officers, the temple leaders. He held a great title and with it great power. If she was recognized… If there was any sign of blood… She had been warned twelve years ago when this all began. It was the law and she must obey. Anyone showing any signs of bleeding was sent out. They were expelled from the world they knew until they could be confirmed clean. She couldn’t risk it. They were now yards away and walking in haste. Why were these two men together? And why today?

She took a breath. She didn’t need to stop him, or interrupt, she just needed to brush up against him, touch his hand, or grasp his arm.

She tightened her stomach hoping it would stop the bleeding. She knew it wouldn’t work, it never did. As they passed, she forced a step. She merged into the crowd but they were moving faster then she had anticipated. As she found her stride she counted at least five people standing between her and this man. She was moving faster then was safe to do. He was in her sight and she wasn’t going to lose this chance. She pushed her way through until there was only one person between them.

She kept the pace. Their speed created small gusts of wind catching their robes and forcing them to flow behind. She felt her veil assuring that it was in place. She reached out, hoping to touch his sleeve as his arm moved back and forth at his side. With each step she reached a little further. And with each step, he was just inches out of her reach. She couldn’t keep the pace much longer. The wind blew, the pace quickened, she reached forward, she felt it. She had touched the very tip of his garment. The moment over took her and she fell to her knees.

He stopped. The crowed did their best to follow his lead but not without first bumping into each other. No one notice her.

“Someone touched me,” he said.

“Of course someone touched you,” his follower said. “It could have been anyone.”

“No,” he said with unlimited confidence. “Someone touched me.”

By now the crowd had halted. He turned, and on cue they began to step back reveling a mound of garments, scrunched down in the middle of the road.

“Who touched me?” he asked again in a voice that blended great strength and love into harmony.

She couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe. And then, she began to sob. She felt him near. She heard his footsteps. She felt his warmth. Then, she felt his hand.

“Was it you?” he asked.

With her head buried in the dirt, she nodded. He waited. Her life flashed before her. All she had lost, all she had suffered. Then suddenly she felt the release, muscles that had been knotted for what felt like eternity began to untie themselves. Her entire being was warmed as if warm oils were flowing through her veins. She couldn’t look up, the other man would certainly still be there. He would have her arrested. He would have her sent away. The little she had left could be ripped from her. But she couldn’t feel the blood any more. She couldn’t find the pain. From the depths of her soul she felt the birth of life. New life. Whole life. She was alive.

“Did you feel it?” he asked.

She nodded again. She felt his warm hand cradle her chin. In his hand, she allowed her whole being to relax. He drew her head up. She could feel the tears running down her face, mingling with dirt from the road. She looked up at him. His eyes were gentle, like none she had ever seen. In them was the source of life. His face was kind.

“Are you whole?” he asked with a depth of reassurance that could calm seas.

She looked up at the other man. All the fear and hesitation vanished, she was no longer in his control. She looked back into his eyes. “Yes,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

He helped her to her feet, steadying her. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She wanted to fall back to the ground. She wanted him to hold her up forever. Without a word, he released his grasp and she knew it was time to go. She brushed the dirt from her tattered garments, adjusted her veil to reveal her face. She raised her head and began to walk. The warmth of the sun penetrated the layers of fabric and she breathed in life for the first time since she could remember.

He stood watching as the crowd began to separate as she passed. This one who had hidden herself, who was unrecognized, who did her best to be invisible, walked through the crowed as royalty.

After all she was, she had just touched the hem of this man called Jesus, and she was whole.