Seasons

I am sitting on my porch early on a Sunday morning in mid-August. A nice "cool" front has settled on us putting me in mind of football and pumpkins and raking leaves. Faulkner was right about the light in August: it's melancholy and thick with memories.

I have not always been cognizant of seasons. I guess because I have always had my head in a book or because I was so engrossed in my current project, I rarely stopped to notice seasons and cycles. Then I married a scientist and a thinker. He caused me to stop and look around occasionally and for that I am grateful. And now that I am approaching 50, the seasons seem so short and each one is precious. I am talking about eating tomatoes in summer, going to the pumpkin patch in October, and living in my yard in April; but I also mean longer cycles of seasons.  My children's friends and my former students are all having children and buying homes. I can see their star rising and mine falling. But that doesn't make me sad or scared or in a hurry. I am surprised to find that it makes me feel relieved. Their rise and our fall is a slow, fifty or sixty year cycle and we are hopefully about mid-way through. But seeing them all develop into beautiful adults makes me want to fight for their best future.  It makes me happy to turn over the keys to another season of thoughtful, smart, caring, passionate people.  

. . . .in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and—from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone. . .the title reminded me of that time, of a luminosity older than our Christian civilization. - William Faulkner

Summer Time

I have lived my life on a school schedule. Summer time is the weeks that you aren't in school. But my administrative job is year round and August 6 IS still summer and my June has been way too busy so I am declaring Melinda's summer of 2015 to be June 21-September 21 .... Like the calendar says. 

Now I realize that that may sound silly to do but sometimes you just have to declare things so that your old habits and ruts are forced to sit up and take notice. Here are my terms:

1. I will not rush to have vegetables and fruit and jelly put up in July. It's too early!! I will plan to can and harvest all the way through September.  

2. I will not even consider putting away my flip flops and tank tops until September 21. 

3. I will plan to go to the beach, lake, pond and river through September .....I act like they put them in storage when school starts back

4. I will not get caught up in back to school frenzy. I am not on that schedule. 

5. I will squeeze every drop of hot, dry fading light out of September that I can.

Ok.....that's it.  Hello, Summer. 

J O B

Perhaps it's a cultural thing. Perhaps it's human nature. We define ourselves by our work choices. I'm a teacher. I'm a doctor. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'm a nurse. I'm self employed. I'm unemployed. I'm between jobs. All statements laced with emotion, undercurrent. 

There is a lot of chatter about "doing what you love."  But what does that mean? We can't all quit our jobs and be actors and singers and artists and professional athletes and inventors. 

Sometimes I don't love what I do at work. There is a lot of filing and red tape and organizing that is not fun to me. And I feel like I am not impacting lives like I did when I was a teacher. - I am a school district program administrator  - Of course the truth is I am impacting more lives, just not directly. The way I do my job impacts hundreds of students and lots of teachers. But that is hard to remember on days that I have to do the parts of my job that I don't enjoy. So I have been considering going back to teaching or looking for a school administrator job. Something in the trenches. Do what you love. But my job has so many many perks and so many opportunities to create systems that help and protect the weak that I just can't justify leaving it. So rather than "do what I love" I'm going to work on "loving what I do."  Look for upcoming posts to monitor my success or lack thereof. 

Emme

I have two grandchildren.  The oldest is 3 and the youngest is 1. I became a mother at 21 and a grandmother at age 45. Kind of young, but I've always been in a hurry to do everything. There are a lot of things about this life that I am not sure about - but one thing I know is that a grandmother can be an enormous influence in a child's life. Memories of my grandparents fill my mind and shape my life. My mother's parents lived 12 hours away so we visited once in the summer and often at Christmas. That grandmother died when I was only 8 years old, leaving my 29 year old mother to raise three children far away from her home with no mother for guidance. But even at 8 and only visiting once or twice a year, I have a sense of orderliness and decorum, grace and classiness that she exuded and with which her house was filled. My maternal grandfather was a writer, a journalism professor, an amateur museum guide and a comedian. We visited Florida every year growing up and I never knew that it was the home of Disney World. But I am familiar with most of the museums, historical and natural sites in and around Gainesvile. He gave me that great gift. And he taught me comedic sarcasm. They had a pool. My most abiding memory of their home is lying in bed, listening to adult murmuring and smelling the fabulous smells of toast and coffee. I would get up and eat looking through their hurricane windows (the horizontal ones that you crank open), through the palmetto plants, gazing out at that sparkling pool. They would all insist that I eat breakfast and then rest for 30 minutes - remember? - but then I headed for that glorious pool. And stayed there all day. The smell of toast cooking, a summer breeze and a sparkling swimming pool all take me back to my grandparents house. 

And then there are my other grandparents. I will have to write a separate blog (or series) to fully describe my memories of them. They are the ones that I grew up with. Our extended family gathered frequently when I was growing up, and I also stayed with them as often as they would let me. I really will make those memories a separate post because there are just so many and the point of this post was intended to be that I want to make sure that I offer my grandchildren that same rich experience of being with grandparents. There is just a magical connection there. 

Weddings

Yesterday my second cousin got married. She is 22 and the oldest of her 7 first cousins. She has planned her wedding for a long time and the planning and preparation paid off. The whole day was calm and organized and well executed.....three things that are very elusive on wedding days!!! It was also very sweet and special. They both are strong willed and mature people and really took the wedding into their own hands and made it what a wedding should be.....a glimpse into the future that they intend to build for themselves! And the future looks great!

That is in fact what I liked most about yesterday. I got to see a lot of old friends and lots of my favorite relatives.  But, as always with the oldest, I got to witness the beginning of the changing of the guard. Just as my cousins and I at some point moved from the kid table to the grown up table, now our children are beginning to take their place with us at the grown up table. And it's comforting to see. 

JL Seagull

I am 48 years old. I have 2 kids and 2 grandkids. I have lost 30 pounds in the last year. I am in the best shape of my life. I decided at Christmas that I needed to dedicate 2015 to having fun.  I now have a kayak, a jeep, a bow and arrow and a bicycle. I wouldn't have any of that if I hadn't lost 30 pounds and gotten in shape. I wouldn't have done that if my friend, Allison, hadn't dragged me along to her new trainer for moral support.  I am very thankful for the events of the past year that have led me to today.  

I haven't written about this journey as it happened because I always think that there are enough people out there living their lives on blogs without me. But then I realized that writing your story is just something you do for yourself. To help you remember and be grateful for all of the people and steps that got you to this place. To remember that struggling and tears and bad days are temporary. 

So I will try again. 

Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses

Over the past 6 months a group has formed of which I am a part. It started with a wine tasting party at my house last November. It developed because we started a Facebook thread in January to discuss details of the next planned party. The thread became an ongoing conversation that is now added to daily. Many of the people in the thread were strangers before but now we are all connected in a way that could only happen in the digital miracle we enjoy today.  

When I came back from Natchez in January, I couldn't get St. Mary's Basilica out of my mind. All over the basilica were statues of saints. Rows of them.  Tiny ones placed way up at the vaulted ceiling. Enormous ones that took you down the center aisle. Each one beautiful and intricately carved. The whole place was so intricate. Why would craftsmen go to such trouble?  I feel the same when I stop to look at tiny intricate flowers that we just walk on.  Why would God go to such trouble?  

But participating in our ongoing thread has given me a feeling of being in that Basilica. The statues of Mary and Francis and Peter are replaced with my friends in this thread.  We are each standing alone on our pedestals in our chosen spot of the sanctuary, but we are connected. We are alone together.  And it is the same as the single statue and the single flower. Beautiful, intricate and devinely unique when looked at separately. But exponentially awe inspiring in combination. 

Jack Shepherd said on the TV series, LOST, "Live together or die alone."  It is my goal this Lenten season to see every soul that I encounter as an intricately carved statue carved by the same craftsman that carved me and placed beside me in the same sanctuary.