Walking the Tight Rope in Clown Shoes with Angie B...
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
SCHOOL!
I am so happy to see school start. Don't get me wrong...I love my family but the thought of sending them ALL to school tomorrow makes me smile. I will be just as excited when they all get out for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Spring Break and Summer. It is simply a ritual. The beginning of something...getting into a routine, I find comfort in the thought of both. My problem usually begins when the wheels come off of the routine cart about a month into it. When I haven't got what we need for lunches and the homework is starting to be a little overwhelming...someone has lost her planner or papers or backpack. Someone else has decided she doesn't like school and refuses to admit she has homework. This is when the routine becomes un-fun.
We have an unusual situation this year. We have one child starting kindergarten and another graduating from high school. This beginning and ending is all part of life. Having seven children and now three grandchildren we are going to be celebrating graduations and first years for a long time. It is bittersweet, I am sad to see my older son look at life beyond this bird cage he has lived in for the last 18 years. He feels the cool metal of the cage door under his feet, I can already hear the lonely squeak when he leaves it open for his brother to fly out to join him just a year after. He will have stories to tell by then, of the great big sky and all that awaits them there. What will I do then? The routine will certainly change. We will still have much work to do; three more little girls.
With kindergarten comes a new beginning, it seems like yesterday I dropped the oldest off and assured myself I had done the right thing. She would be okay...which, she was. It gets easier to let them go I suppose. It is easier to be excited about this last little darling who thinks she rules the world. Our caseworker told us we were creating a monster with her because she is so socially intuitive. I hope her teacher has a heart of gold and nerves of steel. She will surely need both. She has grown so much. They all have. It is hard to believe I will be sixty-three when she graduates, twentyone years after her oldest sister. All this mothering has taught me a thing or two but I realize this is a journey to enjoy not to wish away. I can dread the future or relax and know that God is already there. It is his provision and sustainance that keeps me breathing. I can no more raise kids than make the sun shine. It is fruitless to say my daughters turned out well because of anything I did or didn't do. It is also not my effort that is shaping my boys into men. I just don't know how to do that...neither does their daddy who is a great man and shaper of people. It is the fact that we know God has them that gives us peace. It will be his voice in their ears and his hand on their backs when the going gets tough, and I suspect it will get tough. They will turn out to be good men because before they were born I asked God to just let me borrow them. It is all his business.
So as the bells ring tomorrow and everyone goes to his assigned seat I will pray, for the teachers, for the principals, the counselors, the lunchroom ladies, the aides and most especially for the children; my children and yours, who keep us going and keep us young.
Now, I have a few sandwiches to make.
We have an unusual situation this year. We have one child starting kindergarten and another graduating from high school. This beginning and ending is all part of life. Having seven children and now three grandchildren we are going to be celebrating graduations and first years for a long time. It is bittersweet, I am sad to see my older son look at life beyond this bird cage he has lived in for the last 18 years. He feels the cool metal of the cage door under his feet, I can already hear the lonely squeak when he leaves it open for his brother to fly out to join him just a year after. He will have stories to tell by then, of the great big sky and all that awaits them there. What will I do then? The routine will certainly change. We will still have much work to do; three more little girls.
With kindergarten comes a new beginning, it seems like yesterday I dropped the oldest off and assured myself I had done the right thing. She would be okay...which, she was. It gets easier to let them go I suppose. It is easier to be excited about this last little darling who thinks she rules the world. Our caseworker told us we were creating a monster with her because she is so socially intuitive. I hope her teacher has a heart of gold and nerves of steel. She will surely need both. She has grown so much. They all have. It is hard to believe I will be sixty-three when she graduates, twentyone years after her oldest sister. All this mothering has taught me a thing or two but I realize this is a journey to enjoy not to wish away. I can dread the future or relax and know that God is already there. It is his provision and sustainance that keeps me breathing. I can no more raise kids than make the sun shine. It is fruitless to say my daughters turned out well because of anything I did or didn't do. It is also not my effort that is shaping my boys into men. I just don't know how to do that...neither does their daddy who is a great man and shaper of people. It is the fact that we know God has them that gives us peace. It will be his voice in their ears and his hand on their backs when the going gets tough, and I suspect it will get tough. They will turn out to be good men because before they were born I asked God to just let me borrow them. It is all his business.
So as the bells ring tomorrow and everyone goes to his assigned seat I will pray, for the teachers, for the principals, the counselors, the lunchroom ladies, the aides and most especially for the children; my children and yours, who keep us going and keep us young.
Now, I have a few sandwiches to make.
Friday, August 6, 2010
I don't know if everyone knows my fascination with Harper Lee. I realize she is a very private person. I totally get that she doesn't want to talk to the media and be bothered by crazies like myself but I would so love to meet her. I am not a stalker. I am a Southerner. I do have some manners.
My love for To Kill A Mockingbird began in high school. I had a couple of really good English teachers who encouraged me to write, they were at the same time encouraging me to read. Since both required sitting still I avoided them both diligently. I did, however watch the movie with Gregory Peck and that little girl who was the spitting image of ME at that age. I connected with the characters in the film on several levels. I had no siblings but had playmates much like Scout. My cousin Len was my Dill and his brother James was Jem. After a few years, our little Gina came along but was more a princess than an explorer. We had no lawyer daddies but ours did go to work and understood that good and bad people came in different colors. We grew up looking for trouble in the neighborhood. We were given pretty much free reign of our street as long as either my mama or their housekeeper could be heard at mealtime.
We were strictly forbidden from Mr Taunton's apple trees, our grandmother took naps after lunch and went to bed with the chickens so there were times when the east end of our street where she lived, was off limits due to our propensity to loudness. Airport road to the west was too busy, so we were not allowed to ride our bicycles up there until we were teenagers. Other than that the kingdom of Vernon Avenue was ours. This was my Maycomb, just a little neighborhood a few miles from downtown, too far to walk but easily accessible in my mama's Impala.
I was, like Scout, a thinking child. I wondered a great deal about people and things. I am sure I embarrassed my mother on more than one occasion by wondering out loud in front of others.
But, I mostly wondered to myself. I was told at an early age that I had a vivid imagination. I always thought this was a compliment. Now as the mother of children with this same gift I wonder if it is the beginning of trouble. It can be a curse in a child who has no moral compass. Imagination and lying are close in nature depending on the situation. I pray they know the difference. I think I did for the most part. I think I was honest in my imagination. I could discern when things were possible or not, sometimes causing myself to be viewed as a coward. This was something my boy cousins next door were never accused of. No tree was too tall, no bike trick was too scary, no bee was too much a threat...of course, I was inevitably the one who always got stung. We set fire to stuff, tied strings to lizards (well, I did not do that because I had an open fear of them at the time), pilfered though things we had no business in, had wars with rotten tomatoes and plums. Summers seemed endless, falls and winters were mild and filled with school and holidays. With no central air or heat our windows were open many months of the year. We would whistle or whisper from house to house after dark. Many times our mothers would be sitting in one of our kitchens and we could play outside until bath and bedtime. Our daddies talked occasionally. They were brothers but had less to talk about than our mothers.
My aunt worked in an office, she wore pretty clothes and heels everyday. She was considerably younger than my mother but seemed much more sophisticated. She smoked, I really did not like the way it smelled though and never had the desire to try it even though I thought she looked very cool. Back in that day you could get little candy cigarettes to look like a grown-up. No one thought anything about smoking, even Andy Griffith did it.
I mentioned Mr Taunton's apples. He was a quiet man. I never heard him speak really. My mother talked to Mrs Taunton often and she seemed to like the kids but Mr Taunton accused us all of stealing his apples one summer. I was no part of it and was very offended to have been included in the brood of thugs. My mother was mad too. She did not talk to Mr Taunton for a while after that. She knew if I ever did anything wrong my moral compass would give me up every time. This continued even into my teen years. I would tell her if i was going "yard rolling" or was skipping school to go to the next town over to shop with girlfriends. She never questioned my motives. It is a rare and precious gift, to be trusted. I was given that gift and learned to nurture it. I never had to lie about where I had been or who I had been with. My dad had his doubts but for the most part knew I was an honest kid.
We had characters in our neighborhood but to ever write my story I will have to create new ones. I would never want to hurt the people I grew up around. They were sweet hardworking folks. I talk to people occasionally who lived around me. I am hoping they will share memories that will help me write a book about growing up in the south in a neighborhood that was real. None of us had perfect families, none of us were perfect people. I remember the raised eyelids and whispered conversations when the first black family moved into the house across the street from us. We all learned so much from them. We cried and hugged when a job took them away from us. I lost touch with them a long time ago. They returned up north with experience to tell about their years in the south, in a white neighborhood. I would love to find them now.
I started this entry about Harper Lee. I still would love to meet her. If you have connections, consider getting me in touch with her, not as a crazed fan, just as someone who loves her story and has one or two of my own.
My love for To Kill A Mockingbird began in high school. I had a couple of really good English teachers who encouraged me to write, they were at the same time encouraging me to read. Since both required sitting still I avoided them both diligently. I did, however watch the movie with Gregory Peck and that little girl who was the spitting image of ME at that age. I connected with the characters in the film on several levels. I had no siblings but had playmates much like Scout. My cousin Len was my Dill and his brother James was Jem. After a few years, our little Gina came along but was more a princess than an explorer. We had no lawyer daddies but ours did go to work and understood that good and bad people came in different colors. We grew up looking for trouble in the neighborhood. We were given pretty much free reign of our street as long as either my mama or their housekeeper could be heard at mealtime.
We were strictly forbidden from Mr Taunton's apple trees, our grandmother took naps after lunch and went to bed with the chickens so there were times when the east end of our street where she lived, was off limits due to our propensity to loudness. Airport road to the west was too busy, so we were not allowed to ride our bicycles up there until we were teenagers. Other than that the kingdom of Vernon Avenue was ours. This was my Maycomb, just a little neighborhood a few miles from downtown, too far to walk but easily accessible in my mama's Impala.
I was, like Scout, a thinking child. I wondered a great deal about people and things. I am sure I embarrassed my mother on more than one occasion by wondering out loud in front of others.
But, I mostly wondered to myself. I was told at an early age that I had a vivid imagination. I always thought this was a compliment. Now as the mother of children with this same gift I wonder if it is the beginning of trouble. It can be a curse in a child who has no moral compass. Imagination and lying are close in nature depending on the situation. I pray they know the difference. I think I did for the most part. I think I was honest in my imagination. I could discern when things were possible or not, sometimes causing myself to be viewed as a coward. This was something my boy cousins next door were never accused of. No tree was too tall, no bike trick was too scary, no bee was too much a threat...of course, I was inevitably the one who always got stung. We set fire to stuff, tied strings to lizards (well, I did not do that because I had an open fear of them at the time), pilfered though things we had no business in, had wars with rotten tomatoes and plums. Summers seemed endless, falls and winters were mild and filled with school and holidays. With no central air or heat our windows were open many months of the year. We would whistle or whisper from house to house after dark. Many times our mothers would be sitting in one of our kitchens and we could play outside until bath and bedtime. Our daddies talked occasionally. They were brothers but had less to talk about than our mothers.
My aunt worked in an office, she wore pretty clothes and heels everyday. She was considerably younger than my mother but seemed much more sophisticated. She smoked, I really did not like the way it smelled though and never had the desire to try it even though I thought she looked very cool. Back in that day you could get little candy cigarettes to look like a grown-up. No one thought anything about smoking, even Andy Griffith did it.
I mentioned Mr Taunton's apples. He was a quiet man. I never heard him speak really. My mother talked to Mrs Taunton often and she seemed to like the kids but Mr Taunton accused us all of stealing his apples one summer. I was no part of it and was very offended to have been included in the brood of thugs. My mother was mad too. She did not talk to Mr Taunton for a while after that. She knew if I ever did anything wrong my moral compass would give me up every time. This continued even into my teen years. I would tell her if i was going "yard rolling" or was skipping school to go to the next town over to shop with girlfriends. She never questioned my motives. It is a rare and precious gift, to be trusted. I was given that gift and learned to nurture it. I never had to lie about where I had been or who I had been with. My dad had his doubts but for the most part knew I was an honest kid.
We had characters in our neighborhood but to ever write my story I will have to create new ones. I would never want to hurt the people I grew up around. They were sweet hardworking folks. I talk to people occasionally who lived around me. I am hoping they will share memories that will help me write a book about growing up in the south in a neighborhood that was real. None of us had perfect families, none of us were perfect people. I remember the raised eyelids and whispered conversations when the first black family moved into the house across the street from us. We all learned so much from them. We cried and hugged when a job took them away from us. I lost touch with them a long time ago. They returned up north with experience to tell about their years in the south, in a white neighborhood. I would love to find them now.
I started this entry about Harper Lee. I still would love to meet her. If you have connections, consider getting me in touch with her, not as a crazed fan, just as someone who loves her story and has one or two of my own.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Norah Claire made her appearance at 4:57cst Monday July 25, weighing in at 7lbs 8oz and 21 inches long. Her mama(Hannnah) had a much easier delivery this time. She was a trooper, did not even have an epidural...didn't really need one and after it was all over she was glad she went natural.
I am in Virginia with them as I write this. I am so glad to have gotten the opportunity to be here shortly after Norah's arrival and to get the chance to know her.
I have had fun with Aidie. We have had a couple of real adventures. One on Tuesday when we set out to the hospital to visit the rest of her family. Please understand that I drove to their apartment after dark. I was tired and was not paying too much attention to anything more than the directions Michael S jotted down on a piece of scratch paper. I made it to the apartment fine but when we left the next morning I went the wrong direction toward West Virginia...It took me about ten miles to realize something was not right. I had absolutely no idea where I was so I consulted the trusty TomTom. It told me right away my location but that did not help since I am not familiar with any of the streets or little towns surrounding Blacksburg. I tried to type in the name of the hospital. It recognized the name and proceeded to take me to the nearest library. Perhaps I should have just gone in and asked directions. I typed in the name of the hospital again. This time it took me to within a mile of where I started, the apartment complex. I was about to get really frustrated...it was now lunch time. Aidie had been a complete angel in the car but was showing signs of distress. I figured we'd find her some chicken nuggets and milk and she'd perk back up. I started looking for golden arches or something, somewhere to get food fast. All I came up with was Hardee's....not my personal favorite for lunch (although you can't argue with their biscuits in the am. I whipped in and ordered. I pulled into a parking space, gave Aidie her lunch, refilled her milk cup and consulted TomTom again. He is an idiot!! He said the hospital I was looking for was .85 miles away. That was a lie and I knew it. I could practically throw a rock and bust out a window at the kids' apartment from there. I knew it had taken me about 20 minutes the night before to get home from the hospital. I finally gave up and called Hannah. I asked which direction I needed to go and she told me. I made it to the hospital in just under thirty minutes this time...because I started going the wrong way again a little further down at another change in the road...I realized it by the way the mile markers were going and turned around in one of those little turn arounds the state puts on highways and then tells you you can't use them because they are only for "authorized vehicles" which I'm sure means Troopers but I did not care. I had my story all ready if I got stopped. The state of Virginia not only owed me this privilege of turning around, they also owed me half a tank of gas for bad signage! A person should be warned if she's headed to West Virginia! Thankfully I didn't have to use it. We made it to the hospital, visited and found our way back without incident...on the road anyway. Going to Target was another story.
I am in Virginia with them as I write this. I am so glad to have gotten the opportunity to be here shortly after Norah's arrival and to get the chance to know her.
I have had fun with Aidie. We have had a couple of real adventures. One on Tuesday when we set out to the hospital to visit the rest of her family. Please understand that I drove to their apartment after dark. I was tired and was not paying too much attention to anything more than the directions Michael S jotted down on a piece of scratch paper. I made it to the apartment fine but when we left the next morning I went the wrong direction toward West Virginia...It took me about ten miles to realize something was not right. I had absolutely no idea where I was so I consulted the trusty TomTom. It told me right away my location but that did not help since I am not familiar with any of the streets or little towns surrounding Blacksburg. I tried to type in the name of the hospital. It recognized the name and proceeded to take me to the nearest library. Perhaps I should have just gone in and asked directions. I typed in the name of the hospital again. This time it took me to within a mile of where I started, the apartment complex. I was about to get really frustrated...it was now lunch time. Aidie had been a complete angel in the car but was showing signs of distress. I figured we'd find her some chicken nuggets and milk and she'd perk back up. I started looking for golden arches or something, somewhere to get food fast. All I came up with was Hardee's....not my personal favorite for lunch (although you can't argue with their biscuits in the am. I whipped in and ordered. I pulled into a parking space, gave Aidie her lunch, refilled her milk cup and consulted TomTom again. He is an idiot!! He said the hospital I was looking for was .85 miles away. That was a lie and I knew it. I could practically throw a rock and bust out a window at the kids' apartment from there. I knew it had taken me about 20 minutes the night before to get home from the hospital. I finally gave up and called Hannah. I asked which direction I needed to go and she told me. I made it to the hospital in just under thirty minutes this time...because I started going the wrong way again a little further down at another change in the road...I realized it by the way the mile markers were going and turned around in one of those little turn arounds the state puts on highways and then tells you you can't use them because they are only for "authorized vehicles" which I'm sure means Troopers but I did not care. I had my story all ready if I got stopped. The state of Virginia not only owed me this privilege of turning around, they also owed me half a tank of gas for bad signage! A person should be warned if she's headed to West Virginia! Thankfully I didn't have to use it. We made it to the hospital, visited and found our way back without incident...on the road anyway. Going to Target was another story.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Lots of new things happening around us. We are presently waiting on word from Virginia that baby Norah will be here soon.
Michael has started his second year teaching Auto Tech at OHS. He went back today. We thought he had this week free, nothing like being called and told you were supposed to be at work yesterday.
I am still writing for our hometown paper and putting feelers out for other things. I am talking with a young friend about a new project...also creative in nature so I'll share that as soon as we get something solid. In the meantime I'm plugging along, ready for kids to get back into a routine, ready to have a quiet moment now and then (as I write this I hear my three little girls laughing in my bedroom...a sure sign they are destroying something).
I hope to be more committed to my blogging but I can't promise. With a life as crazy as mine I'll just promise to do what I can.
Thanks for reading.
Michael has started his second year teaching Auto Tech at OHS. He went back today. We thought he had this week free, nothing like being called and told you were supposed to be at work yesterday.
I am still writing for our hometown paper and putting feelers out for other things. I am talking with a young friend about a new project...also creative in nature so I'll share that as soon as we get something solid. In the meantime I'm plugging along, ready for kids to get back into a routine, ready to have a quiet moment now and then (as I write this I hear my three little girls laughing in my bedroom...a sure sign they are destroying something).
I hope to be more committed to my blogging but I can't promise. With a life as crazy as mine I'll just promise to do what I can.
Thanks for reading.
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