Fall-filled

Fill me full of Fall, for the eighth of what has become my annual leaving for the leafing.

This little northerly jaunt each Autumn is a time of reflection, a gathering of thoughts, a rejuvenation of spirit, one that I look forward to long before it arrives, grateful for its nurturing affects that linger considerably after.

Another year has begun departure. The kick-off event; a dazzling display here in the northern south courtesy of Oaks, Cypress, Ginko, Elm, Poplar, Sassafras, Sumac, and Maples, always the Maples which seem most anxious to strut their brilliant stuff. And no wonder, they do have so much to offer, with shades of yellow, orange, red, black, and beautiful combinations of any of these. Even the Poison Ivy that slowly slithered around dark trunks of summer hosts, now here in Autumn, is proudly worn by Fall forests like strands of strung rubies.

Unlike the screeches, shrieks, squawks, and wails from large southern tropical birds of home, eight hundred miles away, here in the northern south I bask in the lighter, sweeter bird songs overhead. These combine with the scampers of chipmunks and squirrels across crisp carpets, dry leaves that have had no choice but to let go, while butterflies still enjoy slurps of nectar from late blooming flower cups. 

Altogether it is what draws me, why I come here. I attend this grand affair to bear witness of the living cycle that at year’s final quarter, begs me stop, make some effort to bridle the shock, that it is indeed time to wrap up another.

At least this once yearly, I relish my melancholy.

Yes, I know, a curious oxymoron, but I find great solace in facing what ails or has ailed, when quietly surrounded by God in His handiwork. When, and where the constant commotion of dailies are dulled, I am “dwarfed” (Jackie Kendall) by Him, instead of by them. And that is ever so much the preferable dwarfing! There is great comfort knowing none of it, this living business that I allow myself to think I am orchestrating, is, ever has been or ever will be, my burden to figure out after all. Every sense is reawakened, renewed, as I remember, “re-member” (Ann Voskamp).

When we were both young, the year and I, there were hopes, sprouting like tiniest buds on bare branches that up until then appeared lifeless.

Spring promised.

Before we knew it life’s youth like Spring’s buds, burst into full Summer bloom, lavish, dressed to the nine’s, ten’s even. Perfection from hair to shoes, Summer’s waist sashed in beautiful gardens, her lush locks laden with bustling aviary villages, and her dancing toes sprinkled with butterflies, dragonflies, and buzzing bees. Unrivaled opulence. Strong limbs extended invitation to climbers, and swingers, while protecting gently from stinging rays.

She tirelessly nurtured.

Time goes. Not fast really, it simply goes, little by little, almost imperceptibly, until one day looking up to the sky, one sees the dark undulating formations in choreographed unison, light gently in long rows on the wires. Migration has begun. What time is it anyway? The light of evening grows shorter, deceives. Pumpkin spice invades.

Summer’s sweet chariot swings low. She smiles and cues her princess wave, looking back, looking ahead.

The weather report states a cool front is coming, and riding in on it, evidence that Autumn popped in for her brief annual visit. She is tenacious against her inevitable defeat, doing her very best to be spectacular. Undeniably admirable, she dresses like gypsy royalty, layering colors and patterns without regard to fashion etiquette. She can arrive early or late, it’s her own affair, and can stay until she is kicked out, which is exactly what she does. Autumn is willing to risk the steal to third with every intention of sliding into home, safe. Autumn reminds, rewinds the year, simultaneously preparing for the little of it that remains.

It surprises me, who loves a perpetual summer, how much I crave the fall season. We are a lot alike, Autumn and me. We both have invested the best we had to work with to reach this place and time.  Now here, every intention is to dazzle, delight, and defy, until at last, we each are ushered out.

P.J.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if do not lose heart.

Galatians 6:9

A Lyrical Melody Medley 

We’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams,

You’ve been all over the place

and it’s been all over you

There’s no such place as Neverland,

Peter Pan.

I can’t stand to fly

Men weren’t meant to ride

with clouds between their knees

We call them fools

who have to dance within the flame,

convinced it’s not living

if you stand outside the fire.

I’ve wasted time

I’ve wasted breath

I think I’ve thought myself to death.

Turn up the collar on my favorite coat

This wind is blowin’ my mind.

Every storm runs out of rain,

like every dark night turns to day.

Pull in to town,

step off the bus,

shake off the where you came from dust.

Driving along, just me, the Autumn road, and mountain radio stations, changed often. I was struck by the music’s cleverness of words. This is a bit of creative credit to those writers whose prose and rhymes resonated in the moments.

Are you familiar with the term “the butterfly effect”?

The exact definition can get a little bit tricky, but for the sake of my story, I will use an explanation offered by Wikipedia, which is this: “the idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events”.

For many of my adult years I have lived on considerably lower than the highest dollar amount within the definition of poverty, but for the most part that was not known, as we had a fine home, dressed well, and never went hungry. Though many meals and articles of clothing stretched much farther than they reasonably should, and regularly I was uncertain how the bills would get paid, still my family did not appear to be poverty stricken. I attribute that to a frugal upbringing that rubbed off onto me, and included a common-sense, figure it out and make it work, mentality.

To this day, my finances are almost as tight as they have ever been. It is the result of my choosing. Rather than to pursue a career years ago, I considered a more important work investment for me to be that of bringing my kids to adulthood successfully. Trying to give 100% of myself to both a career and motherhood seemed to me an impossibility, both would suffer. I chose to apply myself wholeheartedly, to the best of my ability, to my children. It was a conclusion that took some time to reach, as when my mom journey began I was barely more than a child myself. Just eighteen and a half years old when my first was born, he was followed every couple of years for the next fifteen with another, until there were seven. The deeper into my work as mom, the less I could justify leaving them alone for some period of time every day as “latch-key kids”, or even in the care of someone other than me. So I didn’t.

 I always had some sort of earnings from jobs I could complete between the morning and afternoon hours when they were in school. Summers posed a bit of an obstacle, and we do have the stories of shenanigans when mom was not home to prevent them, but for the most part, my kids did not go unsupervised by the adult whose biggest concern was for their well-being. This has been my most rewarding work, my most important life investment, and though I am dollar poor, the result of my work being the adults my children have become, is the far superior measure of treasure.

Now that I have to claim three score for my age, I feel a strong urge to have an income that might allow me to take proper care of myself, like with healthcare, home repairs and car replacement, without being a financial burden on my kids who think they need to take care of mom, and without my parents who have kept me in their used cars for more than three decades. Of course, I love being cared for, but dislike knowing the sacrifices that need to be made by my loved ones on my behalf. Aren’t I supposed to be helping them, like my parents have me, and not the other way around?

I decided it was time to try my hand at a “career”, my first, at the age of sixty. Seems I’m a bit late to the party but hey, I’m still breathing so why not. I’ve had many jobs over the years but only one I considered as a long-term position. I worked in a laboratory for a couple of years and it felt like important work. It was the greater good that most connected me to that job, a work that mattered, a time investment that made a difference besides simply providing me an income. I liked the job quite a bit, but the business was sold to a larger company whose existing employees would absorb my position.

Three of my sons either have been, or currently are, insurance adjusters. I have listened to their stories and thought maybe I could fit into the job. I started toward that goal, taking the forty credit hour class, passing the final exam, getting my fingerprints submitted, and applying for licensing, and then, I left for vacation.

While out of town, hurricane Harvey slammed Texas and hurricane Irma was spinning in the Atlantic on a path toward Florida. Even without having my license yet, my kids encouraged me to apply with catastrophe companies to try to get immediate work in light of these storms. When the need is so great, emergency licenses are issued. It seemed like having completed a class and having already submitted for licensing, I would have a pretty good chance for that to happen.

One company let me apply without existing license information, and that application was filled out while still away on vacation. Upon my return, I found in my stack of mail a letter from the department. I thought, oh yay, my license is here. But oh contraire, the letter was in fact, stating that I would be required to submit certain certified court documents to explain “background information deficiencies” in order to be licensed. Specifically they listed one event, an arrest for theft, on August 22, 1974. Not in all the forty three years between that time and this, had I ever been required to provide that information. I suppose due in large part to my non-career life choices, and the other part just for the fact it was not a serious enough infraction, misdemeanor of a minor, to be deemed necessary for review.

For over thirty years I have lived more than fifteen hundred miles from those courts. To go in person for these documents would be costly and seemed unnecessary, so some online research and phone calls, advised sending a Freedom Of Information request to the arresting police department, which I promptly did. The form asked for details that would help them locate the proper records. I can barely remember what happened two days ago let alone forty three years ago.

 One of my life conclusions has been that a person remembers what was traumatic or dramatic, and years removed have a way of altering details. Like it or not.

This process forced me to think about these things that I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to in many years. All I really knew of the specifics were that I got arrested one month after my seventeenth birthday, and that only because the letter from the state listed that date, for trying to steal a t-shirt from a store in the plaza near me, that, I remembered. I was put in jail for trying to steal a t-shirt. Crazy!

I was with a couple friends at the time, one of which made it their mission to collect the hundred dollars needed to bail me out of jail. They were able to do so very quickly and I was released, with a court date. That same friend’s mom accompanied me to court as one in charge, since I was a minor. I have always had respect for my friend’s mom, respect that grew deeper as my own kids reached the age I was back then. I never told my parents, any of it. Parents find these things out even still, eventually, but never on my account for having volunteered the information. At this point it just seems mean to make them “go there”, and at sixty years old I am still afraid to tell them of this sordid past.

 Back then, I was so stupid that I actually believed I was smart!

My friend’s mom was able to perceive that in me, seeing a fragility that I myself was completely unaware of at the time, and for that matter, not for many years following. She knew this could bode very badly and was willing to intercede. Right, or wrong, her care was, and is, undeniable.

We went to court, she and I, and that was it. A year later I was refunded ninety dollars of the hundred posted for my bail, end of story, and from then until now, it has been. I only remember the money part of the story because for me at that time, it was a large amount.

This is the part of the story where “the butterfly effect” begins to come into play.

 I had a volatile friendship at the time that had morphed into time spent together shopping, which for us actually translated to shoplifting, perfume, earrings, nail polish, that sort of thing. She took pleasure in showing me her latest acquisitions, quickly stepping up her craft to stealing underwear and tops. Naturally I felt I should do the same.

On a particular summer evening we “shopped”, entering a store whose name is long forgotten, where my eye fancied a yellow t-shirt with a butterfly on it. I no longer have a picture of it in my mind’s eye, but remember this much; I liked it, did not have the money to buy it, so I put it in my purse. Of course I knew it was wrong but the consequences were not considered. In fact at that time in my life, it was all about me, and the moment. Consequences were never considered.

I was the most ill-equipped person for real life that I have ever known. Fortunately some good stuff stuck, and as it turned out, I have made it to today.

The one company that accepted my application for insurance adjusting even before I had my license, emailed me stating that they wanted me to come to Texas where I could get the training I needed and   be issued an emergency license. Of course I was excited to be offered this fast path opportunity. Home from vacation only two days at that point, no matter how I figured it, I just could not maneuver a trip to Texas in only two days from receipt of that email. The following day however, a starting date four days away was offered, and that one I believed I could manage.

My car had had some issues that my son, with a bit of assistance from another son had corrected just a couple weeks prior, without which the twenty hour drive to Texas would have been impossible. I thought my licensing process was on track. So, off I went like a cowgirl on her trusty (hopefully) red steed (my fifteen year old nearly 200,000 mile Mercury Sable). My steed and I galloped toward the goal even while knowing the same licensing issue could occur. I figured (and mostly prayed) that it be as God intended, for my good, and I told Him I would accept the outcome. If the door opened and I could work, ok. If not, also ok. Well it did open, until it shut. As the reality of the shutting was sinking in, I lost a night’s sleep with worry. My it’s “ok” Lord if You don’t allow that door to be opened to me, was usurped by emotional exhaustion.

 When the morning sun finally came up, I called my ex-husband Larry, another casualty of my not so glory days, who was living in his childhood home back in Illinois where we met. As I was telling him what was happening, I was surprised that he was surprised. He has an exceptional memory, but did not remember that this whole me getting arrested thing ever happened. That made me feel at least a little better that so many of the details had left my own lousy memory. He anticipated my need and offered to go to the courthouse to try to get what licensing required of me, even before I asked. Repeatedly reassuring me he was happy to help.

I did not expect him to meet with success, thinking there was no way he could do what up until then had proven too difficult for me, but I felt desperate and gratefully answered yes, please try. Within a couple of hours at the most, he did in fact have in his hands the very paper that licensing required me to submit, a certified letter from the appropriate Clerk of the Court stating that the records had been destroyed. No record against me existed.  

Why my home state turned this up, and how it could be considered relevant as an only infraction on my background, as a minor forty three years earlier, I will never know. Nor will I ever know what exactly did happen in court that day. Was I “convicted” of a crime? I do not remember the legal terminology.

 Until these past few days I have never really considered what a different matter it is altogether between an arrest, and a conviction of a crime. There were no further requirements of me by the courts as far as I can recall, which may mean the charges were dropped or dismissed, satisfied in some way that I don’t remember. A conviction of a crime may never have happened at all, and in fact, I think not.

 Maybe all these years if ever the subject came up, I was the only one convicting me.

The words “purged”, “destroyed”, and “non-existent” had been used as I spoke with officials in my effort to obtain these certified copies. I cannot know, now that I am interested to know, what I was incapable of understanding back then. It was something I did do, but it is not who I am, and does not need to be what defines me.

Larry sent me a picture in a text of the certified letter from the Clerk of the Circuit Court. One page, a couple of simple sentences essentially acquitting me, giving me permission to let it go, because it was gone.

I never again have to consider how to answer “that question” when filling out an application. The signed and raised seal pressed into the lower left corner of court letterhead gives a forever and official, no records exist status. The official letter that clears me did not come quickly enough to help me stay for work in Texas, and that was so disappointing, but I can now submit this letter to my home state, and hopefully be granted licensure through normal processes.

So, what do I know through this less than desirable experience, whose ending turns out to be really quite desirable?

 I know that after years of trying to do the right things for my children and myself, failing often, but pressing on determinedly, reaching for the finish line of raising my kids successfully, even still, to so many and maybe myself as my own worst critic, I do not measure up and never will. I am still being viewed through eyes of doubt, and still being required to explain and defend myself.

And, I ask me, will I never rise above, never get this and all the other monkeys off my back?

And, I know that in the middle of it, when I am losing sleep and finding tears, as the minions of Hell persistently pick at scars in an effort to draw fresh blood, that I should not forget I hold a certified letter stating that the records have been destroyed. They do not exist. There is nothing against me.

By God’s mercy, grace, and love I have indeed reached the finish line of my first most valuable and important job, child rearing. If I never had another work to invest myself into, I still will never consider the choice I made to make motherhood my priority, inferior to any other profession I might have sought. More fullness of life could not have come by any other means.

In whatever way the rest of my insurance adjusting pursuit plays out, it has up to this point shown me at least this, which is no small thing: The butterfly on the yellow t-shirt from my past, set in motion something I never expected would affect my present. A kind of literal butterfly effect, proof that choices, even those as seemingly minute in the grand scheme of things as the ever so light swish of air from a butterfly’s wings, has the potential to reach far. How much more so for life’s choices of greater significance.

Hell’s minions are tireless, and their assignment is nothing short of total annihilation. They will cause a sin sickened spirit to fester into such a state that the focus turns to one of oh, woe is me, look at all I have lost and all I do not have, instead of the life affirming message of God that would cause me to say woah, look at all I have been given, in spite of my own self.

Be brave I tell me, stand tall.

I have a certified letter of sorts, signed with the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ, who for me chose to pay every single one of the penalties I have earned. He died, willingly, so that I can live, and just as He rose again, so too will I. Knowing this strengthens me to hold high, and with a rebel yell of mutiny against the Hell minions who only seem to have gained an upper hand, read out loud for all to hear the part that states, the records have been destroyed, the records do not exist. And when I am not acceptable to others, and when even my own self is deceived by the lie that I am not good enough, I need only remember that God has called me out to be His forever daughter and because of this I possess the right and power to wave my own personal certified letter, issued from the high court of the Most Honorable Judge Jesus Christ, who states that by Him and on my behalf, there is nothing, nada, nix, zero, zilch, nothing, against me.

P.J.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12

I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah 43:25

The day starts at an hour of my choosing, I like that.

Perched in my pink chair, I sip hot caramel colored decaf coffee from a mug that reads “life is good”, and I know it to be true. Oh how I truly know that fact, which in knowing, the sensible person I believe I am begs to question, how even knowing it abundantly am I unable to shake this gnawing gloom clinging to me, for months now? It stands as a threat to steal my joy if I so much as let my guard down even for a moment. It is bigger than a mind over matter thing, but I know my mind is where the battle wages.

Self-sabotage.

Somehow, with parents and children and grandchildren all well, and so much to celebrate here in the month of June, Dad’s 80^th birthday, a grandsons 5^th, another’s 1^st, the adoption of a granddaughter establishing her as a permanent addition to our family, dear, dear friends, the kind who send cards in the mail and phone texts just to say they’re glad we’re us, good health, a fine home and all that goes with it, somehow, with all that is good and right, sadness creeps like an oozing blackness.

Next month, a few short days from now, I will exit one decade and enter another. The new decade is a rude reminder that I am running out of time. That, compounded by the lack of resources needed to fulfill the wish list I’d like to upload into that limited time, is the culprit, the enemy of my content, the black ooze.

I look at my book of Psalms, a gift from a daughter-in-love, precious. Today I read “ You (God) care about the anguish of my soul”, that’s it really, a soul ache, “I am in distress, tears blur my eyes, my body and soul are withering away, my years are shortened by sadness, I am wasting away from within…as if I were a broken pot”. I can relate to that, all of it, the broken pot part even, much like the one I made in ceramics class designed to represent me, a “self-portrait” in clay, unfinished, because neither am I yet finished. That is a comfort, and empowering.

I look a little further down in the same Psalm and read “You lavish blessing…far from accusing tongues”. Even the forked tongue of a serpent? Even the tongue of the voices in my own head? Ann Voskamp eloquently writes “that serpent, the enemy of your soul, his name means ‘prosecutor’ and that is what he does…he tries to make your life a trial to get you to prosecute yourself…poisons endlessly with self-lies…distort your identity”. The fears creep black, fear “I’ve run out of time…missed the boat…was never good enough for the ‘real boat’…I’ll probably get kicked off this boat”.

I write, it is therapy. In the journaling section of my Psalm book I enter:

Sometimes a rescue is needed even when there is no outward evidence. One can be chased into hiding by an enemy invisible. What I hear myself say to my own ears can freeze me, dead and cold in my tracks unable to push through, ahead.

Lies.

Lies of my own worst enemy, me. I self-sabotage.

One word of encouragement so desperately needed, one expression of loving kindness, threatens the already bulging levy barely holding back the heaving deluge pushing behind it. I swallow hard, push the feelings down, keep them contained, hold back and hold on, ‘till the cavalry, Calvary, rescues, yet again.

I want to run away. I want to get in my car and drive until I meet the edge and have to turn back. The reality of that thought is, as it has always been, that I won’t get very far unless I rack up a credit card debt that will haunt me upon my return. It tempts even still. I succumb to sensibility and decide to instead go to the park just ten minutes up the road. Easily enough along the way my car points itself on a right turn into the fast food drive through. Crack. My son calls the food crack, an irresistible indulgence.

At the park I am greeted by a red bird, dining next to a blue bird, two doves, and a squirrel at the feeder. Coexisting amicably for their own well-being. Even those birds seem to be smarter than me. Isolation is unhealthy even if it is what I prefer. Along the edges of the park path yellow flowers grow in the grass, their faces bent in unison slightly west, looking full on to the warmth and light, their life source. Shouldn’t I be smart enough to do what these mindless flowers automatically and naturally do, bend toward my life source? That is why I am here. A bright green streaks across the trail, an iguana quick to dodge perceived danger and run for cover from it. Shouldn’t this be my reaction to danger?

And so it is.

I have run away, to the woods. Run from the danger of isolation and self-pity. Run to a place where I can meet God for a little us time, just Him and me. I have come where the trees and breeze twirl by the breath of their creator, where the sun and shadows flirt on the path beneath, where the orange butterflies tickle the fancy of purple flowers, and where a feather has gently fallen to the dirt floor.

Treasures for a treasure seeker.

It is a departure, a diversion from the “prosecutor”. It is not a once done cure-all but it is a soul soothe.

There is much yet to celebrate here in June, and into July and the whole second half of the year. Be brave writes Ann Voskamp, “be brave, your bravery strengthens a thousand battles you can’t see because your bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too…there’s a cross you can take into your heart…that can cut the head off a lying snake”.

Sometimes it’s best not to wait for the cavalry and instead go straight to Calvary, where the work of Christ’s cross has already broken the stronghold of the lying snake.

                                               The Ball

Finally, the day had come.

The date was set, invitations extended, and finally, the moment arrived.

It was the most anticipated, most talked about social event of the season, a ball. Fancy clothes, pointed pinky finger hors d’oeuvres, punch to sip, and dancing.

It would be unlike any other before, and would set the precedent for every other after.

A vision of loveliness, she chose a white dress with a black-dotted organza overlay. It was softly gathered at the waistline, belted by a thin black ribbon and embellished with a single red rose. The ensemble was polished off with black patent shoes, and on her slender wrist, his gift, a red carnation compassed about with white baby’s breath. Her sandy-blond hair was shiny and smooth, falling lightly on her shoulders.

Yes, she was nothing short of an angelic vision of loveliness.

She’d seen him in his gray suit, with the stiff-collared shirt, and tie, but only on the most special of occasions. He looked every bit her handsome gentleman caller, on this, their very own most special occasion.

She felt like Cinderella.

He intended to set the bar high enough that any potential prince charming from that point forward, would be measured in her mind by his high bar standard. Any potential prince charming would forever be forced to rival him. He was making it clear it would be no easy task to bump him out of his position as her top guy, exponentially narrowing the field.

There was no danger of the magic of their special evening wearing off, not by midnight, not ever. She’d be snuggled into her bed long before, even while long past the normal bedtime for her five year old self.

 Though she’d fall asleep quickly enough after such an enchanting event, she would still be dancing with daddy in her dreams. A little spin, a little dip, a little hand holding at their first daddy-daughter dance.

Magic really does happen, just ask her.

And daddy, don’t you ever stop believing you are a magic-maker.

Don’t ever give in to the idea that you might just like to “sit this one out”, because you know, the eyes she has for only you right now, will be inclined to ponder new possibilities.

And daddy, be very careful,

because one day, sooner than you ever imagined,

she will give her dance card to another.

P.J.