Grandma's World

I looked in the mirror, and didn't do a thing about it.

This is a fairly typical occurrence daily, minus the time to look in the mirror part. Monday through Friday From morning through afternoon I repeatedly tell myself I need to...here is where any number of taken for granted hygiene or personal necessities and activities would be inserted.

Interestingly, it is not unless I leave the house that this grandma phenom becomes a concern, embarrassingly so. At some point in those instances, it usually suddenly occurs to me that I neglected to apply deodorant, or while interacting or speaking with someone, I imagine them thinking something like, when is the last time she plucked those eyebrows?, or a little makeup would go a long way, or does she not own a comb?, and what's that stuff on her shirt?

When day-caring for a pre-schooler and his baby brother, things have the potential to be on the best of days, at least mildly askew. Weather in fact they are or not is mostly inconsequential, since I likely have not looked in the mirror at all, or have looked and done nothing about it. Either way, I feel quite self conscious that I am rumpled in some conspicuous way.

How have I come to this, again, I ask myself. Was there not supposed to be a completion date for my mothering duties? Wasn't I at this point in my life supposed to be off pursuing those dreams put on hold for the sake of the first batch of children? No one told me anything at all about the second batch being work. On the contrary, I was under the apparent misunderstanding that the second batch of kids was where at my whim, I would hop them up on sugar, buy them whistles and drums, keep them up too late and then send them home with their parents until the next time I chose to fill my schedule with them.

The second batch was supposed to allow for me to enjoy a squeaky clean fingerprint-free home. All the lovely fragile heirlooms were to be displayed for my viewing pleasure, even low. I was to have a cool drink in a tall glass, all my own. I could stay up late because mornings would not begin until I decided they would. And all this my reward after many years of paying my dues, doing the hard thing. It was to be Grandma's world. I find instead that it is still Elmo's world. Maybe the two worlds are not so dissimilar, both unrealistic.

The mirror is not an ally unless there is time to linger before it to examine, assess, and then implement a plan for damage control. Without time to manage the findings there in the glass, the mirror's only purpose is to mock the image it reflects. From that point of view it is better not to know what the mirror would hold against me. My own imagination, kinder.

I wonder, if it is true that I have lived under this delusion for all these years, am I also kidding myself about the days yet ahead? Here's what I know; At the end of these days, when the children's parents have picked them up and I am exhausted, I miss them. When the children are here for eight or nine hours of five days a week, I miss me. There is much to be missed in life, it can't all be fit in.

For the time being, I think it is preferable to see my reflection in the smiling eyes of my grandbabies than in any old mirror. In one there is no condemnation, while the other judges harshly. One reflects a Grandma, in a neat tidy world, and the other sees this grandma fit in nicely with a red scraggly haired puppet who lives in a house of crayon drawn furnishings, that I might add, are colored outside the lines and in every which direction.

If you happen to see me out and about and I look, well lets face it, a mess, wonder no more. You are probably correct to think these are yesterdays clothes, I have not combed my hair, plucked my eyebrows in weeks, and I cannot say for sure what is on my shirt. You would be right to think I have not looked in a mirror, or perhaps I actually did and did not do anything about it. You should know it is largely because those whose needs matter most right now, are more attracted to Elmo types.

P.J.

Product Endorsement

It is with regret I must say it has been discovered that I have an unfortunate malady affecting my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. It pains me to admit that I suffer from the “Shakes”, a condition very often invisible to those around me, nonetheless escalating internally. 
 

 Sometimes while driving, I suddenly without warning, am overcome with the urge to shake my finger at other drivers or even pedestrians who lack, in my critical opinion, the necessary skills for road usage. Absent it seems is even the sense once nostalgically referred to as common. 
 

Not limited to shaking fingers, I find that my fists are also prone to shaking, even if only in thought. This occurs when I believe that my fair pay, reward, recognition, or status has been overlooked or disregarded, intentionally or otherwise. I am not given the respect or credit due me for how great I am, and how invaluable my contribution has been to mankind. And do not dare take what is rightfully mine, or detract from my people the good things they deserve. No, in such a case my fist shakes anger, defiance, and even violence.
 

Impatience and frustration will set my leg or foot to shaking as I mull over in my mind the responsible infractions, be they long lines, slow service, inattentiveness or rambling conversation. Over and over I replay them, as the shaking persistently worsens.
 

Perhaps the most menacing symptom of the Shakes and possibly the most debilitating for me, would be the shaking of my head. I need look no further than anything besides what I see in the mirror, before I am aware of the incessant side to side motion. When appalled, disgusted, shocked or aghast at the differing ideologies of others, their, style, manners, speech, taste, or lack of these, I sense my head shaking. More grievous issues and character flaws like pride, indifference, non-sensibilities, neglect, deceit, and ingratitude, are dangerous triggers to my head Shakes, threatening to overpower me and render me useless to correctly process information. When subjected to these I become vulnerable to serious prolonged side effects and complications. The Shakes is a pitiful diagnosis.
 

Fortunately there is a remedy that promises a 100% cure rate, including a satisfaction guarantee. It is effective when extending forgiveness. It is useful when taken with humility. It is fail-proof when combined with gratitude. For maximum unconditional effectiveness, take on a full heart of selflessness until symptoms subside. This is a powerful, highly addictive treatment, not to be abused, but can be safely taken continuously as needed, with no adverse side effects.
 

If you too suffer from the Shakes, whether occasionally or more often, and however severe your symptoms may be, ask The Great Physician for your own risk-free sample today. I did, and I can tell you it works! Ask for it by name, L-O-V-E, and accept no substitutes. You’ll be glad you did.
 

P.J.
 

Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything.   

1Peter 4:8b (MSG)

The Broken Beautiful

It just seemed the right thing to do on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon, knowing a new week would begin in a few short hours. So I tacked my hair up in a knot and clips, a new up-do that my daughter showed me and thankfully works very well, put on a loose sleeveless dress, grabbed my draw-string bag for collecting, and headed off to the beach. 

It was a beach I had not visited in a while so I was surprised to see it under construction, not realizing that of course until after I was parked. As far as could be seen in either direction was a large pipe and heavy equipment operating even on this Sunday afternoon. Well, I thought, I have a good parking spot right across from a beach entrance and I am not going to be run off easily. Some doubts nagged as to how great an experience this particular beach outing could be, what with this unsightly monstrosity of a pipe running its length. 

To create in me even more doubt for the beach outing’s success, a stiff sea-wind threatened my up-do as soon as I stepped out of the car. I hope my dress doesn’t fly up I thought, followed by, well if it does I will still be clothed more than the majority of others here.

 I persisted, knowing full well that it is an almost unheard of occurrence that a day at the beach might be anything but enjoyable. 

The sand was dotted with shells, and people. The ocean rushed, white tipped waves each hastily chased the one before. The wind was noisy and blew stinging sand against my legs. Not to be defeated, I just accepted it as a natural exfoliant. 

The shoreline was completely void of shells and sea glass, what I most like to search as I beach, but further back from the edge previous waves had left some chunks and broken bits that I couldn’t help but wish were whole. Considering the size of the unusually large fragments I was finding, they must have once been some very impressive shells. I quickly decided they would be my collection for the day since they seemed to be plentiful, and would most likely be passed over by typical collectors preferring the unbroken, unblemished specimens. 

These were the beach underdogs and I made it my mission to credit them for the beauty they possessed, just as they were. Sure, they were not as they started out, and no longer as they were intended to be. Somehow they had been tossed, tumbled, crashed and broken in the surf-life of the sea, yet they possessed a beauty all their own. I decided they were the broken beautiful. 

Breaking bared their inner construction, perfectly formed secret spirals revealed through jagged windows of bits missing from their sides. Some appeared as though they had been sliced in half, and some were only the innermost spirals having every bit of their outer shell beaten away. 

Perfectly flawless shells not battered by tides, retain their secrets. We can only imagine what they are like inside. These broken ones however, are tattle tales spilling out all the secrets of shell life. See, come see, there is so much more to us. They silently beckon, come look. I do. 

True, the battering breaks, but without the breaking inner beauty remains concealed, even wasted. It does seem a shame, because the broken cannot be unbroken. Ah, but even though noticeably broken, and only by it, does the shell’s inner beauty get to be appreciated and valued. 

Without the tumbling turbulence there would be only those that look good on the outside, never letting on to the secrets of the equally lovely inside.The outside is good, but why settle for only what is on the surface? There is more, much more, dig a little deeper. Some beauty must be excavated and mined. That it is not at first visible, does not mean it is not there, and because what is first visible is beautiful, does not mean that is all there is to it. The best may yet need to be found. If you stop there, on the surface, you cannot know what you are missing. And missing it, well that is just not a good option.

Never believe that breaking strips away all of the beauty, and never quit searching for surprises that can only be found in the broken beautiful.

P.J.

Polished as can be

the outermost layer, me

Distinguishing, each feature

creates a unique picture

Yet disguising the within

lest delving deeper begins

Discovering more to me

than what is initially seen

I am rather like the shells

though few will ever tell

that in breaking it’s revealed

what the surface would conceal

This then the challenge for you,

 to chisel a window’s view

of where the secrets lead

introducing the truest me

Pearls

He stood on “his” blue stool, the painted metal one that is light enough for his two and a half year old self to pick up and carry, to wherever he thinks he needs to “see what you’re doing”. It goes to the sink for washing dishes, hands, baby brother, and to the stove top to cook an egg, or watch me pop corn in a big pot. This day the stool raised him to a good view of the piano top, laden with the contents of my craft pantry. 

After painting the interior, the tedious, slow progressing process of sorting, organizing and placement of the pantry contents, had by then been going on for a couple of days. With a few stolen moments as baby slept his short morning nap, I stood at the piano top sorting beads. The beads would ultimately find their new home into a beautiful vintage Enid Collins style bag, bearing a horse image of sparkly sequins. Each of the small containers of sorted beads would fill it, and the bag would then be placed front and center of the new craft area to be enjoyed each time I opened its door. The craft pantry was being vacated and all the supplies relocated to cabinets, not long ago acquired. I was finally making sense of it all, and that was the reason for the meticulous organization taking place piano top. 

So there he stood on his stool, barely able to contain the thrill over all that was before him. I gave him some sorting jobs that I knew he could handle; these beads here, those beads there. He loves to do whatever I am doing and takes the responsibilities I give him quite seriously. 

With just one batch left to sort through, tiny pearls mingled with small silver and gold beads, I decided to separate the pearls and add them to a jar already designated for only pearls. His little hand and my big hand collided in the small shallow lid I had poured them into for easier access, easier for one hand but our two hands had to take turns. This we each understood and did without words. We picked through to gather only the silver and gold beads because they were the lesser, and then put them into my non-gathering hand cupped small to contain them for pouring into a bottle. One by one we picked. 

All of a sudden, he must have thought to himself, grandma let me show you how we can get this done a lot faster than this tedious one by one thing we have going on here. He pinched up as big a batch of unsorted beads that his little fingers could, and added them to my hand. My response could have and should have been, better than the startling “no, no, no “, that he heard. The frustration in my repeat explanation that we were picking only the silver and gold beads, not the pearls, was not lost on him. As I was telling him, oh look now, they are all mixed up again, he was saying “sowwy Namma”, which he sweetly and sincerely repeated a couple more times, with hopes of my assurance that I was not mad at him. He really has the tenderest heart. I responded with oh, well we are going to stop now, supposing that he was over the whole bead sorting thing, and knowing, that I wasn’t up for it anymore either. Clearly, the activity was all that his little two and half year old attention span could handle, yet the last thing in the world he wanted to do was have grandma upset with him.

The frustration was short lived. I don’t remember what we moved on to but here it is the next day, and I am remembering his heartfelt apologies, sorry that my own reaction was not to scoop him off his blue stool, squeeze the stuffin’s out of him, and kiss his sweet face. I doubt that he gave it another thought, he just moved on to the next, and the last was forgotten. But I know differently. I know that a little piece of innocence was chipped from him by a cold chisel, a cold chipping blade that the power of my understanding forgiving embrace would have melted away like butter. It wasn’t that he was in trouble, he was not, but he wished for a bit more reassurance in the moment than frustrated me gave him, and I felt sad about that. 

We get these babies, hungry for life, wholly confident in all we say and do, for they know nothing else. We get them in their pure, genuine, innocence for so short a time, before little by little life’s experiences, like a chisel, chip those qualities away.

Later the same day, the three of us, he, baby and I, take to the bench swing in the front yard. He brushes some debris from the seat, leans back relaxed, and finishes his apple juice. We listen, like we always do when we are front yard swinging, and talk about what we hear. We briefly discuss the weed eater and lawn mower sounds of a neighbor we could see through bushes across the canal

He decides grandma should make a grass whistle and hops down to choose a green blade. “It’s too short” I tell him, “we need a longer one”. He chooses again. We wonder if it will work this time, and happily grin when we hear that it does. Between each blow of the grass whistle, we look at each other, smile, and remark at how loud it is. Then one time it makes a funny flubbery sound. We look at each other and laugh a good belly laugh. I cause the grass whistle to make the funny sound again, and again and again we look at each other and crack up ‘till my eyes and cheeks are wet with laughter tears. Not for the funny sound that to me was only mildly funny once or twice, but to see and experience his pure joy in so small a thing as an unexpected, then much anticipated and anxiously awaited, flubbery sound from grandma and her grass whistle! His eyes lit, his whole body rocked in uninhibited delight, as his giddy smile revealed two rows of perfect tiny teeth, like lovely strung pearls. 

Thinking about it now I remember how I thought then, that his little pearly white teeth were so perfectly charming. In the recap of our day, from pearl sorting on his blue stool, to those sweet “pearls” gleaming in his wide open mouthed laughter, there is no doubt that the latter variety of pearls, are the only ones I  really need to be so concerned with sorting properly.

God, help me protect his innocence, purity and genuine heart, even as all around him unstoppable chisels are chipping these from him. May Grandma’s house be a safe place, where pearls of wisdom tether gentle learning to his heart, wisdom pearls not lost or stolen from the child him, but kept all the way to the man he will become.

 PJ

…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
Philippians 4:8