Sunday's Past

When I was a little girl, I remember staying after church, at times, for Sunday dinner. It was always warm, and after everyone ate, the kids would run around the church yard and play tag and hide-and-seek in our Sunday clothes. On a regular Sunday, we would go home to pot roast with potatoes and carrots, and Mama would make cole slaw with fresh cabbage from the garden. We had home baked bread and green beans, too. It was family day, usually, but in the summer if nobody came over for dinner, Daddy would take Mama and I on a drive to the ocean across the old wooden bridge over the St. Johns River on 192. I would close my eyes and lay down on the back seat when we crossed the bumpy span and any other bridge along the way, but the water was always warm, and when we swam, Mama wore her white tennis shoes and floated like a cork.

Yesterday, we sat at the traffic light at the corner of Sand  Lake Rode and Universal Blvd, waiting to make a left and finish the last few miles to the home where my father-in-law stays in a memory care unit. We sat quietly for a minute, then my mother-in-law said, "I may have told you this before." She had, at the exact same location two different times, some trigger I haven't identified. "Sundays, especially gray ones like this, make me feel strange. Maybe it was because we didn't have school and there was nothing to do. We had a banked hill that went down to the rode in our front yard, and I would lay in the grass and look for things in the clouds. I always felt closed in."

One Easter Sunday, I think I was seven years old, the high school band played at the park on the highway.Our neighbors asked me to go with them after church, and Mama said I could. I had a new dress, red, white and blue with sailor buttons. I had white socks and new white patent leathers. The park had several fish ponds, and we were playing dangerously close to one. My shoe slipped on the green slime covering the rocks that edged the pond. I fell into the water and couldn't get out because the edges were slick. Someone started screaming for an adult and one came, I don't know who, and pulled me out of the water. Green slime covered the front of my new dress and my shoes squished when I walked. I cried all the way home. It wasn't the best of Sundays, but  Mama made everything OK when I got home, even though I know now, they had to pinch pennies to buy my new Sunday dress and shoes. She didn't even get mad.

Mama died on a Sunday almost seven years ago. It was a perfect day for her to go. She was peaceful, and it was warm that day. She floated away like a cork.

Peace. Love, Linda

Words Out of Context

Funny, well not always ha!ha! funny, but funny, strange funny, how some words change meaning when taken out of context, or they are used in another context or used without a context, whatsoever. Sometimes, it's funny ha!ha! I heard these words spoken by a newscaster just the other evening, "Her only relief is to stay away from her electric meter." Yeah, that's what she said. Don't you wonder what that's all about, but I'm not telling you. However, I wanted to remember the line so much that I jumped out of my recliner, ran to the erasable calender on the refrigerator and wrote it down. Accuracy in reporting.

Here is an example of words that change meaning when the context is muddled due to too many skipped grammar classes. Oh, the value of the period.

I have always preferred my wi fi without bacon. It gets the keys greasy.

There's another short piece I read once from the Gospel of Thomas that was offered without context. The whole gospel is pretty much a collection of sayings from Jesus written more like a shopping list. Thomas did not want to forget exactly what Jesus said.  The one I'm sharing is numbered 37, but I'm not sure just what that means. The first time I read it, it didn't reach me then, but where I am at this moment right now is different, and today, it makes sense to me. Here it is:

  
His disciples asked him:  When will you appear to us? When will we see you? Jesus replied: When you strip naked without shame and trample your clothing underfoot just as little children do, then you will look at the son of the living one without being afraid. 

 Thank you, Thomas, for writing this some place more permanent than an erasable calendar.

Peace. Love, Linda

Breath of Life

Twice in my life I felt miserable, not bad, miserable. The first time I was giving birth to Nikky, and the second time began in the middle of a sleepless night when poisons of my first chemotherapy went  running wildly through my body like bugs on hot asphalt. It ended six months later. I credit my survival in both situations to this advice: breathe.

Ha, ha, ha, whooo, ha, ha, ha, whooo. That's how I pushed through childbirth hearing the voice of my La Maze class insturctor, "Concentrate on your breathing. That's it. You'll be fine." Ha, ha, ha, whooo, ha, ha, ha, whooo. And I was fine. Nik is almost thirty, and I survived without any ill affects, except sleepless nights, etc., but those are other stories. This is about breathing.

To help me through the horrendous effects of Adriamycin and Cytoxcin (Sp?) running through my veins, my adjunct therapy after my right breast was polluted with cancer and lopped off my body, I went to a Chinese herbalist. She gave me teas of stinky mushrooms, herbs and special remedies doused with gallons of water, acupuncture and deep breathing practice. She taught me how to pull air slowly into my lungs and relax away the nausea and discomfort. I would lie in hot Epsom salt baths at night, after my mastectomy wounds had healed, and breathe. In two,three, four; hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven; out, with a swoosh two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In... It didn't take me to heaven, but it quenched patches of hellish fires flickering in my stomach and my muscles and my bones.

Sometimes when I'm driving to work in the morning, I sing to myself these words straight from Sunday night services on warm summer evenings,

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

So simple, peaceful. Breath. Could it be synonymous with spirit? Who knows, but it feels so good. In, two three four; hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven; out with a swoosh, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In...

Peace. Love, Linda

The Big Dipper

Just above the tree top at the end of the driveway a single star peers out from the greenery, and I know it's back.  Winter wanes, spring teases, and I'm almost a year older. I step off the pavement and tiptoe sideways looking for more of the ancient design, but the tree blocks me from seeing any further. I go inside leaving the heavens behind, but not really. It's in my thoughts like the moss on the big oaks by the street, and I ask myself why I didn't walk further into the back yard and stand still for just a moment to breathe deeply and stare at my Big Dipper. Before the day ends tomorrow, I'll do that.

Let me hear what God, The Lord, will speak for he will speak peace to his people. 
 Psalms 85: 8a

Peace. Love, Linda

The Green Jeep

I found myself moving from an ordinary car to an army-green jeep. Other people and issues were connected to the jeep, but I don't remember them any more. The jeep was really just a framework like something from a movie set. I took hold of the steering wheel and the jeep began to roll down a steep incline. I realized I was in a parking lot on a hill. As I began to roll, I saw, across from me, a group of people sitting in a large car. I knew they were the people that had just been in the jeep. The car started, turned into a small Volkswagen bug with a laced doily roof, and rolled away. I picked up  momentum as I rolled and took a quick turn in the road. I put my foot on the brake. There was no brake in the green shell. There were no controls, so I steered  as carefully as I could and used the turn as well as the grass on the side of the rode to slow me down. I reached the bottom of the hill and a decision. I could continue straight and drive into a giant puddle or maybe it was a small lake. My other option was to roll down a ditch and into the woods, stopping with the help of a tree. That's the choice I made, and I left the jeep to search for Darren. I felt I had to tell him I crashed the jeep.

I couldn't find Darren to tell him about the jeep, but my sleep self convinced me that I should walk away from the jeep, and that I never had to deal with it again because it was just a dream. Who knows what it means, but for some reason, I feel lighter this morning. Good bye green jeep. I'm not even sure I can say, "I'm glad I knew you."

Those who live at earth's farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy. Psalms 65: 8

Peace. Love, Linda