Making It All Better

My recent quiet Saturday morning shopping at the farmer's market was suddenly interrupted by the cries of a little girl.  She had stubbed her toe and her tears came quickly.  Her dad, one of the vendors, walked quietly over to the tiny child, asked her what was wrong, embraced her, rubbed her foot and scooped her up into his arms.  His love made all that was wrong so much better for his small daughter.  I recalled that special time in my life when all that hurt or upset me could instantly be resolved by the love of my parents, kissing my owies and boo-boos away.  Now that I'm well beyond those years and my parents can no longer kiss my owies, I wondered how much I reach out or make myself available to others to listen and help them heal their hurts and pain.  I may not be able to make it all better for them, but that brief, intimate interaction recently between a father and his little girl gave me some good food for thought.

I Agree with Henry

I agree with American author Henry James: "Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." I've been taking some randomly scheduled days off from work this summer as an opportunity to pursue my writing and to spend time with Larry and with friends. At least a portion of each of those days is spent simply relaxing and reading in the rocking chair on the sun porch. There is just something about a summer afternoon that draws me to exhale and to simply be. It's not as if it should have to be a seasonal thing or that I should have to somehow get permission to spend time doing nothing, but summer afternoons just seem to be made for letting time pass by without my exerting too much energy. In the delightful, little Abbey Press book, Slow-down Therapy by Linus Mundy and R.W. Alley (1990, ISBN # 0-87029-229-3), Tip Number 11 states: "Allow yourself time to be lazy and unproductive. Rest isn't a luxury; it's a necessity." So, as I enjoy this summertime, when the livin's indeed easy, I'll relish those afternoons in the rocking chair doing absolutely nothing, but rocking.

Finding My Way

Have you ever tried to fold a map, only to realize that no matter how you fold it, it's not going to go back the way it was originally?  I read in a magazine recently that there are now waterproof maps  that are intended to be wadded into a ball and stuffed into your purse or travel bag.  The benefit of this new style of map, according to the magazine, is that, unlike one's smartphone where you can only see a small section of a city at a time, when you use a real map, you can see the entire city or area at a glance.  Nowadays, we're increasingly dependent on our smartphones, Internet directions and GPS, making paper maps seem to be destined to extinction.  But not so fast. I had to laugh lately when traveling to a conference with someone from my workplace.  Despite our printed Internet directions and the GPS, we still got lost!  We finally stopped at a local chamber of commerce to get directions, which seemed so much easier when explained by an actual, live human being pointing down the street.  Then, while out of town for yet another conference, one of the presenters asked the audience how they found their way to the conference center.  As expected, people mentioned GPS and various Internet way-finding methods.  Then, one woman in the back of the room stood up and proudly yelled out that she had used a paper map.  Everyone in the audience applauded!  In a world of so many newfangled things, it's nice to know that good o' maps are not only surviving, they're thriving, neatly folded or wadded up into a ball.

Back by Popular Demand: Rain

Today, I'm not only celebrating my 200th Time to Be blog post, I'm celebrating the first rainstorm in I don't know when.  Our dry, arid countryside received a great gift of an honest-to-goodness storm last night -- real, serious rain with dashes of thunder and lightning.  It had been so long since I'd felt rain on my skin or heard it slashing against the windows that I stood in awe.  And I was not alone.  Facebook was filled with posts from ecstatic souls celebrating the return of rain, back by popular demand.  We take so many things for granted, including our verdant Wisconsin landscape, rainstorms and water tables that are usually on the abundant side.  Recently, there've been bans on outdoor cigarette smoking and talk about the pressing need to conserve water.  While no one wants to see our farms suffer as they have this summer, one possible blessing hidden in all of this severe drought may be that many of us who are used to having so much have now discovered a newfound appreciation for our water supply.  Rain, Glorious Rain.  Back by popular demand. What a wonderful thing to celebrate today!

Magnetic Attraction

My grandpa always used to say that you should wash bird droppings from your car as soon as possible to prevent the paint from being ruined.  So, when my car had been decorated with some droppings recently, I thought I'd better get to the car wash. We hadn't had any measurable rain for weeks, so it seemed like a good day to wash the car.  As you might expect, the minute I got out of the car wash, it started to rain!  We didn't get very much precipitation -- certainly not as much as we needed to quench the dry land and restore the brown, crinkly grass -- but enough to make spots on my freshly washed car.  I decided I could laugh that off, attributing my timing to Murphy's Law, so I drove around and parked my car in various locations as I did errands.  Following the last of my stops, I returned to my car only to find that it was not only rain spotted but now dotted with a fresh supply of bird droppings!  I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, but I now have several people asking me to wash their cars, just so it will rain.

By the Number

While looking through the note cards at our local St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store the other day, I ran across some cards featuring colorful paint-by-number pictures, and I immediately thought about my Grandpa Joe.  Grandpa really embraced the paint-by-number phenomenon of the 1950s and 1960s, painting many lovely scenes, framing them and either displaying them in the downstairs rec room of Grandpa and Grandma's house or giving them as gifts to others in the family.  Grandpa gave one to Mom, Dad and me that depicted Jesus Christ.  The back of the note cards that I saw at St. Vincent's described paint-by-number pictures as American folk art that reached its pinnacle during post-World War II.  I recall painting by number myself, thrilled with the thought of being able to make a painting (with my limited talents) simply by following the numerical instructions.  As I recall, Grandpa's paint-by-number creations were mostly landscapes, often with snow in them and they frequently featured light turquoise blue paint.  So, when I saw that at least one of the note cards at the thrift store featured a snowy rural scene using light turquoise blue paint, I had to buy the card for 25 cents.  I'm not sure to whom I'll send the card, but for now, I'll enjoy looking at it and reminiscing about Grandpa Joe and his artistic talents.

Fragrant and Lovely

In early summer, I seem to sniff my way around.  At that time of the year, I can't seem to get enough of the fresh and fragrant scents.  As we walked at Devil's Lake State Park many evenings earlier this summer before the temperatures soared to sweltering, I commented nearly every time to Larry (who was probably sick of hearing it, but politely agreed anyway) that the air just smelled grand -- sweet, fruity, fresh and lovely.  The commingling of trees, grasses and wildflowers must have made this delightful concoction.  Those fragrances are lovelier than most anything I can imagine.  As I would breathe in the air as deeply as possible, I would try to imprint that scent in my mind so that when winter comes, I'd be able to retrieve the smell of summer freshness.  And with it, I'd see the darting dragonflies, hear the giggles and splashes of children swimming in the lake, and see the beautiful place that we call Devil's Lake.  Now that mid-summer is here and the ground is brown and the vegetation stressed, memories of those early-summer scents are even more precious to me.