Category: Life

Life · swimming

Swimming Lessons

Sally4 Comments

This is a post that I started in 2018 and never finished. It’s a draft folder find when I searched “lane way” because LANEWAY is the RDP prompt word today.

M– drove me crazy.

He was always late to practice — through no fault of his own. He lived in the next town over, so his mother had a longer drive to the pool. Plus he was only eight years old with the short attention span so many boys that age have.

He usually walked out of the boys’ locker room twirling his goggles on one finger, carrying his cap in the other hand, and looking at the ceiling, or the other lanes, or out the window, while we were finishing up the warm-up in the lanes right in front of him.

“Whaddawedoin’?” he asked while pulling on his cap. Then he jumped right in the pool without waiting for an answer.

“I’m going first,” he said to one of the girls in his lane and planted his scrawny little body in front of hers.

“You need to warm up,” I said to him.

“Nah — I’m good,” he said.

“You need to warm up,” I said again, and thus began the first argument of practice.

M– argued with me about everything.

“Every time you push off the wall, I want you to get your arms up into a streamline position,” I told my group at every practice, demonstrating with my arms extended over my head, squeezing my head, my hands overlapping to form a tight point. Then I stood at the end and watched as each swimmer pushed over the wall.

Here endeth the draft.

I remember M– well. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I was going with this story.

M– was bratty kid, but a talented swimmer. He went on to set records on the age group team and the high school — none of which had to do with my coaching. I actually tried to get him moved down to the beginner group until he could behave himself better, but I was overruled.

At the final meet that year, he swam fast, won races, set records, blah-blah-blah. He came to me and took me by the hand. “I want my picture with you,” he said. I dutifully smiled next to a scrawny kid on a starting block, but I still resented his disruptive ways.

The next year, he moved to the next group, and I stopped coaching to take care of my father.

Then there was a pandemic.

I didn’t lose sight of him. This is a small town, and the swimming community is even smaller.

I watched coaches pander to him and fuss over him. Team rules didn’t really apply to him. He was fast. Yes, he was fast.

Here’s where I get on my soapbox. There are things that are far more important than athletics. Being nice ranks pretty high for me. As does being thoughtful and listening. Respect, moral character, leadership — I could go on.

Hypothetically, if M– became an Olympic swimmer and got disqualified from an event at the Olympics, I would hope that he would take his lumps. If the disqualification call was a bad call, all the better. Those build even more character. The worse thing that could happen to him would be for the President of the United States to call the President of the Olympic International Committee to plead with them to reconsider — and then have the call reversed.

But that’s just me. There are things I value more than gold medals, World Cups, or bragging rights.

Life · poetry

The Pussy Willows

Sally8 Comments

Many years ago
During a very dark time
A shroud hung over my thoughts
Lost and confused   
I got into my car
And started to drive.

Like a horse that heads to the barn
When given free rein
My green VW bug drove me home
To Cooperstown.

My parents were away
The house was locked up
I knew where the key was hidden
If I had wanted to go inside
But I didn’t
Instead I walked across the street
Down through the pasture
Behind the barns

It was late April
Most of the field was brown
With the remnants of grass and current spring mud.
Fallen stalks of goldenrod
Broken by the heavy snows of winter
Criss-crossed in a mat beneath my feet

I can still feel that moment
Arriving at the pussy willows
In the spring of 1983.

Ah, pussy willows
Bare sticks with furry gray catkins attached
No spectacular color
No showy strength
Soft wet ground underneath

I absorbed their presence for the longest time
Reaching up
Stroking the catkins
Walking slowly through the little grove
Sighing
Pondering
Weeping

As the sun dipped lower
A chill settled over the field
I got back in my car
And drove back to Syracuse
Nothing had changed
Yet everything had
Thanks to a grove
Of pussy willows.


This poem is in response to this week’s prompt for W3:
When life becomes overwhelmingly busy, we often dream of having time to ourselves. … Have you ever experienced such a moment? …What did the quiet teach you? …What thoughts, memories, or emotions does it awaken in you?

family · Life

Hike to Star Field

Sally9 Comments

This was originally written in March 2016 but has sat in my draft file since then. The RDP word of the day is trail which led me back to this post.

Temperatures were in the high 30s to low 40s that January day. Winter has been funny this year.

The warm air beckoned, Come! Come outside and play!

My daughter heard the call.

“I’m going to go for a quick hike to Star Field,” she said as she headed out the door.

Star Field was our go-to hike when the kids were little. From where we parked, it was about a 1 mile hike over easy terrain to a field with a great view of Otsego Lake. The kids could dawdle in the woods and not get lost because the road/trail was wide and straight.

She called a few minutes later. “The road is closed,” she said. I had forgotten that it was a seasonal road. “I may park in that lot off Lake Road and hike up past Natty Bumpo’s cave.”

The alternate route to Star Field was significantly steeper. I hadn’t been that way in years.

At home, I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner. My father isn’t a big pasta fan. That cuts my choices of things-to-make-for-dinner-that-everyone-likes-to-eat in half.

The phone rang again. “Hi, Mom,” and I knew immediately that something was wrong. She sounded shaky and scared. “Ummm…. Ummm… I slipped. There’s ice under the leaves and stuff on the trail.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah… I’m a little shaken. The trail was icy and I slipped.”

The more she talked, the better she sounded. She hadn’t worn the right shoes. She hadn’t figured on the ice. She thought she could find her way out by going up. She talked and talked and developed a plan.

But then she sent me this picture:

IMG_5912

“It was a slow slide,” she said, “and this tree stopped me. See? I’m right by a drop-off. The tree saved my life.”

Now it was my turn to be shaken and scared.

“Don’t try to climb up,” I said. “Let me get help.”

“Who are you going to get?” she asked. “I’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure I can climb up to the trail.”

I stared at the picture on my iPod.

“Please stay where you are,” I begged. I wracked my brain for someone who might be able to help. I even called my outdoorsy son in British Columbia. Like he could help. He had some suggestions, but I was also watching the clock. We only had about another hour of daylight.

Here’s where the draft ended — but I’ll finish the story for you.

I went to the Adventure Department at the sports center where I now work. It was late in the day, but I had the photo that I showed the guys who were getting ready to go home.

One of them jumped up. “I’ll go get her,” he said enthusiastically. Within minutes, he emerged from a backroom with ropes and carabiners and all sorts of other gear slung over his shoulder. “Don’t you worry,” he said, as he headed out the door.

Of course I worried.

I couldn’t go with him because of other people who were depending on me.

It was an act of blind trust — but his exuberant confidence set my heart at ease.

And when my daughter walked through the door less than an hour later, I was thrilled.

Life · Music

You’ll Never Walk Alone

Sally1 Comment

Until this morning, I had no idea that this song had ties to the Liverpool Football Club. It shows how much professional football (soccer) I watch — although I truly believe soccer is one of the best sports ever. I loved watching my kids play soccer!

I always associated the song with the Rogers & Hammerstein musical Carousel. It is sung after Billy Bigelow dies to comfort his grieving widow and again at his daughter’s graduation which is the finale.

For Liverpool it has special meaning because of the Hillsborough tragedy there in 1989.

I’m posting a Gerry & the Pacemakers version rather than a Carousel version because I find it easier to listen to — plus all the lip-synching in this video is fun.

It’s the kind of song that good for grads and anyone facing difficulty. We are stronger than we know.

Lyrics:

When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone,
You’ll never walk alone.

This is my response to Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt was to find a song that relates to Dads and Grads.

Karl playing soccer 2014
family · Life · poetry

Coat of Many Colors

Sally16 Comments

Middle son put three batteries
Down bathroom sink drain (C size fit)
Then squeezed toothpaste, added water —
A disaster! I laughed at it

Then there was the time when some sons
Dammed the creek, flooded the backyard
Learning experience, thought I
As I squished through lawn water-scarred

Mud-smeared faces, markered-up arms
Colored on walls even have their charms
We moms take many things in stride
Rather than sound childhood alarms

One daughter cut her bangs real short
Before a family wedding
I shook my head, bemoaned a bit
Not seeing where this was heading

Scissors wielded by this girl
Led me to rethink and relook
’cause next she cut her dresses up
After reading one picture book

Dolly’s Coat of Many Colors
A lovely heart-warming story
Of a patchwork coat made with love
Became more than allegory

My child wanted to experience
To become one with that sweet tale
Seeing all those cut-up dresses
Is the one time I wanted to wail

This is my response to this week W3 prompt. PoW Nancy challenged us to “think about a moment in your life when something truly mattered. Perhaps it was a great success, a hard-earned accomplishment, or a memorable disaster that taught you something important. Maybe you organized a major event, won a competition, survived a family vacation gone wrong, or confidently attempted a home-improvement project that ended in chaos.“

Write about an occasion when you soared, stumbled, or did a little of both.

Guidelines:

  • Use one or more 4-line stanzas;
  • Keep each line to 8 syllables;
  • Maximum length: 20 lines; (Sorry!)
  • Humor, reflection, triumph, embarrassment, and self-deprecation are all welcome.

As always, have fun and make the memory come alive for your readers.

The joys of being a mother

Faith · family · Life

Growing Pains

Sally1 Comment

The RDP prompt for today is kindness. I searched my draft folder and found this incomplete post that had been written in October 2011.

When I read it this morning, I remembered some of the difficult circumstances of that time. It was years before my brother died, years before I was helping care for my mother, years and years before my father died.

Just because I wasn’t dealing with death, it doesn’t mean life was easy. I had my hands full in other ways. My children at that point ranged in age from 7 to 26. I was homeschooling two, had one in public school, some in college, some working, one married.

Without further ado, here is the unnamed post which I will call “Growing Pains.” If it feels incomplete, maybe it is.

One of the most profound things I heard Andrew Peterson say was not at Hutchmoot, but at a concert in Cortland.  He was talking about his books, the Wingfeather Saga. (Note: he was still in the process of writing the series. The final book wasn’t published until 2014.)  I didn’t write this down or record it so it may not be verbatim, but I think it’s fairly close.  He said,

The main character in these stories is a boy named Janner.  When I started writing, I saw the man he would become, but I knew that he would have to go through many trials and difficult situations to become that man.  I knew that he would have to suffer some terrible things…

I have been thinking about some of the difficulties my own children have had to endure.  They are rather small in comparison to Janner’s battles with Fangs and Gnag the Nameless, but they shape my children nonetheless.

And then I started thinking about that whole idea conversely.  If my children didn’t suffer anything, how would they turn out?

For instance, in order to develop perseverance, they need to stick with difficult situations and work them out.  If I allow them to quit every time the going was hard or not fun or required something of them, they would become the kind of adults who always take the easy path, who quit, who are unreliable.

In order for them to develop compassion, they need experience some hard times and also experience unwarranted kindness to them.  I imagine that the guy in the Good Samaritan story who had been attacked by robbers didn’t later cross to the other side of the road to avoid helping someone who was different from him, although without his experience, he may very well have looked the other way instead of helping.

To develop patience, they need some annoyances.

To develop peace, they need some turmoil.

family · Grief · Life

Terrible

Sally6 Comments

The RDP prompt for today is twelve. I searched my draft folder and found this incomplete post that had last been edited in February 2016. My mother died in November 2015. I wrote so many posts following her death. I think it was my way of untangling the knot—and it helped.

This post was never completed. When I read it this morning, a flood of memories engulfed me.

Here’s the post which I called “Terrible.” At the end, I’ll try to complete it — though the 10 intervening years surely have changed where I was going with the original.

THE ORIGINAL

The one nurse said, “Well, I guess you’ve never seen a dying person before.”

She was matter-of-fact. Tart. A little smug. Definitely too cheerful.

The other nurse was different. Compassionate. Caring. Gentle.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asked every time she checked on my mother. “Can I get you anything?”

With twelve hour shifts for the nurses, we mostly saw only these two.

When I would ask the first nurse

THE 2026 COMPLETION

When I would ask the first nurse for anything, she did her job, but with so little compassion that I ended up avoiding her. Truth be told, today I can’t even picture her.

Forgettable — that’s what she was. I’m glad I didn’t spend time dwelling on her.

What I remember about my mother’s final hospital stay are definitely the kindnesses:

The other nurse bringing food in for us.

The doctor who called a family meeting. She began with these words, “Mom is very sick, and she isn’t going to get better.” She went on to talk about the fact that modern medicine could keep her alive, but we should think about what was best for her. One of my brothers still refers to her as “the doctor that told us to kill Mom.” It’s that dark famiy sense of humor that we have. I have no doubt in my mind that it was the right decision.

A group of women from the church came to the hospital room and sang to my mother. They had all been in the choir with her, and now they sang for her. It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Out-of-tune warbly voices of older women joined in some of the most beautiful music I’ve heard.

My siblings and I gathered around the bed, each telling my mother that we loved her. My youngest brother told my mother that it was okay for her to go. I had heard that it can be important to say that, and he said it, all the while rubbing her foot as he stood at that end of the bed.

I feel pity for that nurse whom I had labeled “Terrible.” Her words, I guess you’ve never seen a dying person before, are so hollow.

I don’t know what prompted them, but today, I would take her hands in mine, and say, “I hope that some day, you can gather with your family around the bed of someone you love very much, and you can be with them when they pass. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Terrible vs. beautiful. I’ll remember the beautiful.

Life

Coincidence or Providence

Sally1 Comment

I have a friend who can list off coincidence after coincidence in his life. He tells me stories of stopping at a gas station in Nowhere New Mexico and meeting a grade school classmate that he grew up with in New Jersey.

Or the time he was hiking in New Zealand and ran into someone he had worked with on Mt. Rainier in Washington state.

Or of running into a woman he first met in Germany on an exchange program in his teens. Running into her twenty years later. In America. By chance.

It seems to happen to him. Former students, former co-workers, former teachers, distance relatives all seem to show up in faraway at unplanned times.

I think he has a memory for people, plus he is very outgoing.

So is it coincidence? Or is it good memory and a lack of fear?

Plus he would never credit God’s hand as playing a role in any of it.

For me, I just read the other morning something Augustine said about looking at chicken tracks in the mud of the hen yard, and how it looks like chaos, but if you look at those criss-crossed nonsensical paths through the eyes of faith, you can see Providence.

Is the fact that one hen gets a slew of tasty bugs scratching in the hen yard, while another hen seems to miss all the good ones in the same hen yard a matter of skill, or coincidence, or Providence, or sheer luck?

Life is such a mystery.

This is my response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: coincidence.

Life

Sewing With Burlap

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The good thing about burlap is that it is inexpensive.

The bad thing about burlap is — oh, where to begin?!

Burlap wears its flaws on its proverbial shirtsleeve, although I shudder to think how uncomfortable a burlap shirt would be.

It is coarse and crotchety, like an old man who has worked hard his whole life and never been been appreciated for a single thing he has done.

It frays easily and often.

It does not like to be straightened.  Lesson #1 in 4-H sewing decades ago included straightening the fabric.  Burlap is just ornery enough to say no.  It sort of looks like it is willing to comply, and then, BAM, an in-your-face refusal when the cutting begins.

Despite all that, burlap is quite lovable — especially if you’re partial to cantankerous types.

I’m sitting here, staring at various burlaps, trying to think how I can get along with them.  How can I coax this rough piece of fabric into something beautiful?

IMG_4499[1]

In my first attempt, I lined it with a cheery cotton print.  The burlap lost its burlap-ness.  It was like taking a hobo and dressing him in a business suit.  What makes a hobo appealing is his relatively carefree life, hopping trains, bumming food, answering to no one, but a businessman has to present himself just so, and answer to all sorts of people.

No, I was glad the lined burlap cone was nixed. It was too incongruous.

DSC02204

My next attempt was a simple burlap sack.  Simple. Hah!  To make a casing for a ribbon to go through was nearly impossible. And then, I didn’t cut a long enough piece of ribbon.  And then I kept wondering if jute would be better than ribbon.  And then I just got mad at the whole darn thing because it refused to look like what I had pictured in my head.

I had an idea for my next attempt.  I would work with the fray-happy fabric. I saw it on Pinterest.

Except… I’m pretty sure all those wonderful Pinterest ideas require fingers, and, as it turns out, I’m only equipped with thumbs. Ugh.

The more I fuddled around with the burlap, the more I saw this as life.  Things don’t always turn out the way we hope.  Plan A becomes Plan B becomes Plan C.

And still we remain hopeful. Still we try again.

[I decided to started searching the Ragtag Daily Prompt word in my draft folder so I could relook at some of the things written years ago. Today’s word was HOPEFUL — and this post came up. This post was originally written in August 2014 as we were getting ready for son #2’s wedding.]

Life

Come to the Table

Sally7 Comments

[A week or so ago, I decided to started searching the Ragtag Daily Prompt word in my draft folder so I could relook at some of the things written years ago. Today’s word was FOUNTAIN — and finally a post came up — this one. This post was originally written in May 2019 and has been sitting in my draft folder ever since. I don’t know what prompted the post back then.]

Back in the 1980’s, when the AIDS crisis was sweeping across the country, some churches took up the cause by proclaiming it was God’s judgment. I know because I heard it — not whispered, but spoke aloud — “This is God’s JUDGMENT.” Homosexuals were considered a particularly nasty subset that fell under the heading of SINNER.

And no, I did not attend Westboro Baptist.

My brother, Stewart, responded differently. He was a pastor at the time and he began inviting people with AIDS and their caregivers to church suppers.

This may not sound like much today, but it was big. There was so much misinformation and fear around the issue. People were afraid of drinking from the same water fountain as someone with AIDS. Or being anywhere near them. Like the virus might leap from them to person to person like a strange deadly flea or bedbug.

But my brother invited them in — and I was shocked. “Aren’t you afraid?” I asked.

He answered my question with a question. “Don’t you think Jesus would have spent time with them? I think they are exactly the people He would have sat down to dinner with.”

I knew he was right.

Mine is a slow and heavy ship that takes years to change its course. It may have taken decades for me to totally rethink the issue, but I think Stewart moved the rudder just a little with that conversation.