A Road Less Travelled

Today is Raquel’s and my first blogivesary. Raquel insists we should call it an anniblogary because the ‘anni’ in anniversary is the part that means year. I wave my hand at that and say “Bah”.

So, what have I learned in this year?, you ask. Good question, I say. The first thing I have learned is that no matter how mundane a post may be there is still someone who will read it. This can be good or bad. I have written posts about nothing more than dishes and potatoes and people read them and keep coming back. It’s weird.

The second thing I learned is that sometimes it is just nice to have someone comiserate with you. I have written some posts and had people link to them and say “I thought I was the only one”, but then they realize they’re not and they feel a little bit better. I am glad I have been that person to some folks.

The third thing I’ve learned is that there is much more to write about in me and around me than I ever thought possible. Raquel has lately been so busy with life and travels that I have been the sole poster for a couple of weeks now. And I’m not done yet. I have a couple of posts stewing in my head and just waiting to come out. Weird, huh?

I’m pretty sure there are other things I could say I’ve learned in this past year of blogging, but at some point lists get boring. I was sure when we started this blog that it would fizzle and die after a short time. But it’s been a year and I’m still writing and I know Raquel will start up again soon. And that’s pretty cool.

So happy blogiversary to us! Or happy anniblogary! Or happy, oh, never mind.

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Dinner last night was kinda a hectic affair. And by that I mean it was more hectic than usual. Theresa’s sister Donna, her husband Bruce and their four children are visiting and so were at our dinner. We have recently added another to our number, an old friend of mine named Jeremy. And then there was the usual assortment of Lansberrys and Ben-Ezras and Jon. Oh, and Raquel was back. So all in all it was a nice, intimate dinner with twenty-four people. It was such a nice day yesterday that the children ate outside and so the adults actually got a chance to talk. Sometimes I was able to follow both conversations going on, sometimes I was only able to follow one of them, but most of the time, as usual, I had no idea what anyone around me was talking about. Raquel threw water at Seth and then later at James, we talked about our strange dreams, lima beans and the most exciting thing that had happened to us that day. After dinner the women went into another room and Donna showed us how to belly dance. For some strange reason it felt like life had returned to normal.

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  Last night I was working on a project and listening to a sermon from Ecclesiastes. The pastor, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, asked his congregation if they had ever thought about their funerals, about who would be there and about what those would say.  I said, “Oh, yeah, I have” and Crystal said she has, too. We started talking about how we want our funerals and I said I want one like my mom’s. There were so many people at my mom’s funeral that the church couldn’t hold them all. And it wasn’t a tiny little building either. I estimate the building could seat about 130 people. And there were people standing in the back, there were people downstairs and there were people outside listening at the windows because they couldn’t even get into the building. That is cool. And that’s the kind of funeral I want.

Which is the reason I was working on the project I was working on. I was sewing clothing for a purse.

I was talking to a new friend of mine the other day and she showed me her purse. It is a good shape and a good size and it’s red. The only problem with this purse is that it has a pin-up girl from the forties on the front. Holly, my friend, likes the purse and she just makes sure she carries it smutty picture in, but I started wondering if there was something I could do about this distressing purse. We started joking about sewing clothes for the girl and making them detachable so you could change her clothes and make her color coordinate with your outfit. By the time we were designing accessories a little voice was piping up in my head. The voice said, “Why not?” I laughed at the voice and it said, “Okay, fine, but why not?” So there I was last night, making clothes for a purse. And I realized I was making these clothes because I can, Holly can’t and I want her to remember me if I die first.

I know I don’t have to worry about people out there remembering me. I don’t have to make anything that will last beyond me that the world can look at and remember me as some great person. But I do want my people to remember me. If I will be remembered as the crazy person who sews clothes for purses, tells wacky stories and makes you smile when it’s gray then I will die a happy person.  And I know that if I am going to get the funeral I want I need to pour myself into the people God has put around me. So today I’m sewing clothes. Maybe tomorrow it will be another project that only I can do because no one else is crazy enough to take it on. And if that’s what my life is like from here to the end that wouldn’t bother me a bit. And if people get up at my funeral and talk about the stories I told or the days I made them smile then I say that funeral would be near perfect.

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Yesterday was Mother’s Day. It really didn’t make much of a dent in my world. Our big celebration consisted of Crystal taking a nap and my mother isn’t here to make a fuss about so it really wasnt that big of a deal. But at church a man came up to me and said he was going to give me a Happy Mother’s Day to wrap up and put away until I was a mother. That made me feel special.

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It’s remarkable what just a little bit of caring can do to someone who’s carrying a little sadness. Some caring, some laughter and just a little bit of chocolate can sometimes make a world of difference. And sometimes it can mean that the grayness fades a bit and the sun finally comes out.

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Mother’s Day at Flogging Fritz

Adiel’s Thoughts 

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(I wrote this to get it out of my head. I’m not sure I want to post it. I am about to post it and I’m still not sure I want to, but what’s the point of having a blog if one doesn’t post personal stuff on it that everyone, his brother and both their sisters can read? So I’m posting it. I think.)

There are at least two kinds of sadness. There is big sadness that you can see and you can hear and you can taste it with your food. And then there is little sadness that hurts in a small corner of your heart. Sometimes I waonder if big sadness is preferable to little sadness because people know when you carry big sadness. They know and they come alongside and help you bear it. Little sadness often just looks like grumpiness. You are low and you are gray and more often than not it just looks like you had a bad day.

I am carrying a little sadnes around with me and it just looks like I’ve had a bad week. My best friend went home to visit her family and I would not begrudge her that joy for the world. But I am sad and I am lonely. I wrote about words and loneliness in part because for the past week or more I have had to communicate with everyone with words. The person I don’t have to use words with is several states away and so most of what I mean goes unsaid because I would have to say it. And so I feel lonely on several fronts.

It is odd to me that I feel this way because I went through most of life like this. I never had a friend before who would joke that in a couple of years we aren’t going to need to talk anymore and we’ll just grunt at each other. I’ve lived my entire life in my little sadness of words. But now that I know what it’s like I miss her when she’s not here. And so I’m carrying a little sadness and it just looks like I am having a really bad week.