Confesssions of Sponge-Woman

I admit it: I'm a hopeless sponge, drinking in my inspiration from the people, music, landscape and books around me. But mostly, people. When I come home from an event, I'm charged. I can be dead tired, but I'm supercharged.  There's something about talking with people, watching people, taking a clumsy step back and bumping into someone, then laughing about it and slapping shoulders that builds some happy sense of camaraderie. Seeing the way a lady dresses which highlights her elegance, the way she sits or stands or smilingly exits an entangling conversation, doing so as smooth and sweet as honey, the way her posture gives her the dignity of a thousand years, and her smiles and merry countenance the freshness of a mere girl - I cannot help but be drawn in and love it. Love watching people and learning from them. Immensely, I enjoy the charm of reforming myself on the way back home, and basking in the afterglow of the glimmering experience of faces and the buzz of conversations, the warmth of hearts affirming the other and such.
This summer perhaps more than others, I have thrived in mixing with my friends and family, because of realizing the sacrifice and effort it takes to see them, and because of recognizing, too, how much I need them.


 Last week JB and I sat on the couch one night, and though he'd finished work for the day the weight of burdens he'd carried throughout it seemed to hover on his shoulders like ghostly echoes of troubling business. He yawned and I sat there feeling like bursting into tears for no reason. It's that after baby thing, I know and knew then, but a gal hates it the worst to blame tears on some unseen, unknown reason.  I believe I'd rather cry over a split pea than to think I was crying for nothing. But there it was, that bothersome lump welling up at the back of my throat. He'd been talking a little, but looked over and he saw it, I guess. Maybe it'd gotten big enough to see through the throat itself.
"What's the matter, darlin'?" He asked and looked puzzled as we waded through a bog of silence. During this time I groped around in a muddy mind,  hoping I could rustle up a reason for why I'd been like this all day long - something that would justify it and have the effect of "Oh, I see why. Yes, I'd be crying too, if I were you," but it wasn't there. Just a gloomy grey all intense and miserable without reason or rhyme.
"I - …I - just feel dead inside…" I mustered, glaring through tears at the invisible Something that made me feel ridiculous and out of my right mind and petty. I thought of all the girls in the world who would look at my life and think it was heaven.  I looked around at our house, with bookshelves we'd bought with his hard earned money, the rug, the old hand-me-down couches that have seated many a person we loved.  There was the little table, given to us by dear friends all the way from Georgia, and there, the twinkle lights and photos and paintings and lamps - all the collage of things we've added that have made our little house more of a home. It is luxurious - not all the nicest things - but they are used and comfortable and - they're ours. I thought of how many people in the world now are hurting, suffering with real issues to shed tears over, and they bear it all bravely while I'm here holding a beautiful healthy baby, sitting on a comfortable (free) couch by a tall, handsome Texan with the kindest heart on the earth and I'm crying???
He reached a hand over and took mine, then asked about a trip. He said he'd work hard and take me to a church meeting in Memphis that weekend, 15 hours away from where we live, if I wanted to go. He wanted to. He would. I needed it. And he did. Driving hard during the day after work and late that night, and then some the next day, we got there. I've grown up going to this event. My family and core group of closest friends attend this event. Besides that, and the more important thing - though we don't always act like it's so - is the Spiritual aspect. Since having Bella Rose I'd missed four Sundays and at least that many Wednesday night services. My heart was dry and brittle and my insides raw from whatever eats at me when I'm not close to my Life - Source as I should be.
 I'm not dumb enough to think I don't need God for a full life. But if I were as cool as I used to think I wanted to be, I'd say I don't need people to be happy or full or inspired. That I could be one of those who seems to draw happiness and motivation from themselves. But I'm not. And honestly I don't want to be, because people are fascinating, with much to offer and to learn from. Visiting with my friends, hearing 6 sermons in three days, watching my family with Bella Rose and seeing my Grandmama, brothers and baby sister meet her for the first time - it all filled up an ache in my heart, so much so that days after I'm still experiencing the warmth of it. Still smiling over words exchanged, over memories fringed with wistful fragrance and still learning about growing as a person from my time there. When it comes down to it, I have to admit I'm a needy person. Needy of God and people and reminders of the very stuff I know, because I tend to forget it.

 "Look at those big feet! I still can't get over girls feet nowadays. Back when I was growing up, I always wore a five or five and a half, but all you girls run around in eight's or nine's! Looks like she won't be any differnt."

Mama's smart new glasses remind me of her high school year book photos. And her laugh reminds me of sitting around the table at the Grey Submarine, eating roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, green beans and ocra from our garden and soaking in the general Sunday fest of stories and laughter with peach cobbler, coconut cake or homemade ice-cream and coffee to top it off. 

 This scene right here is as old as my memory and older. Grandmama, standing on her porch and waving us off with merry little chuckles and "I love you's" and "I'll see you next time's", "Don't forget your sandwich's" and "Debbie, did you get that package for Judy", will live as long in my memory, I hope, as it's been going on in real life. 

Left-Right // Melody, Merry, Dawn, Abraham, Mama (with Bella Rose), Daddy, Chris, Me, JB, Anne, Jay. And Yes, this is every time we take a picture. Me adjusting or staring mouth half open at the camera because I can't quit being a photographer just because I'm in the picture. 

 I knew he'd be the greatest Granddazzle. And he is. 

 "How about ye send me another picture of the lass?" Was a text from him the other day - he being in Ga and I in Tx.

Abe has always thought little babies look like "bald squirrels", so I asked, 

"You mean you want a photo of a bald squirrel?"

"Yes."

So I sent him one. He replied, 

"I find myself irresistibly wanting to give the lass a good squeeze and some sugar." 

I'm glad he finally did. 

 Dawn won't be called "Aunt". She won't have it. It's too "something". So she's Polly, and if you've ever read An Old Fashioned Girl, you'll see as well as I do, that it fits. 

 Uncle Chree, singing a song about how he was sure Bella was smiling because he was holding her. 

Uncle Jay vying for Favorite Uncle, and filling her in on a few of the  many stories he has to tell her.

 I guess it is one of the most heart warming things to see your family love someone nearly as much as you do. If ever a heart could expand a little more, mine did in seeing my family love this little person so much.  Are we a little baby crazy? Yeah. You could say so.

 But hey, I guess we've waited long enough.

Baby Cousins! Ada and Rosie Belle making fast friend. >>Don't let the sleeping guise fool you. Rosie was into it, big time.

I'm grateful for Mama who's taught me much and is teaching me still, what a joyful life and selfless motherhood looks like in action. 

And let me tell ya - My man?... Still can't believe he's mine. John Barrett Watson is the cream of the crop with a cherry on top, and somehow I got to marry him. 

Our Little Watson Family

"It's still surreal to come home and be handed a real live little being with wide eyes and a wriggling body and little hands that grab onto my shirt." He'd just gotten in from work and stood in the kitchen holding Arabella as he leaned against the counter and smiled at me, then looked back at our baby - wonder and glowy love in his eyes.
They told me marriage would grow a person, and it has.  Grown me if only to see the areas I want to grow in, and how looking like Christ is a long way off. It's expanded my heart, seeing the way my husband loves our baby and how he patiently forgives and displays God's love for me when sometimes it'd be easy to dish back the wrong he's been given.  But at the end of a day when I've been moody or stressed, or down right snappy, I've found him perched at the end of the bed, motioning upward with his thumb for me to pick up my feet so he could slide a towel under and massage them.  Many times in the past year I've shaken my head with wonder, puzzling over why I don't get what I deserve, because this fellow is above and beyond anything I ever could.
Then there's Arabella.  At a little over a month she is beginning to coo and smile and every morning that I wake up to her, I have to put out a finger to touch her little self and make sure she's real.
Motherhood seemed like such a mystery from the outside, veiled to all but the ones who were inside its experience. Anne Shirley saw a similar veil surrounding marriage, and when Diana was on the brink of it, the evidence of it being Strange and Incomprehensible to Anne was all too obvious in Diana's dreamy distance to All Things Present But Fred Wright.
But Motherhood, as it was with marriage, slips onto a body like a shirt, and once in it, there seems to be nothing more normal and natural and uncurious about it than to BE it. To be married is simply the most unstrange thing.

The first year of marriage and the first month of raising a baby have come and gone quietly.  My heart is full to the brim. People have said and keep saying "treasure this time…they grow up so fast". We know it. We've watched her change every day - wrinkly hands and feet growing softer and more cushiony, thin lips growing into plumper pink ones.  Her round, swollen face growing less puffy and more oval, how she begins to follow our voice with her eyes - now turning her head - now she's turning over from stomach to side - now she is growing rolls on her arms and legs and is heavier to pick up from the bed - growing oh so much. And HOW do I treasure it - besides taking as much of it in as possible and feeling my heart 'plum swoll up t'bustin'? When people say it, I wonder if they mean "Stop time and ensure you let this phase soak in completely. When you're done being amazed by it, move on". Of course, they're not saying that. It's impossible to think any phase WILL soak in completely. I must settle for existing in a state of blissful wonder. The only way I've found to "ease the ache of joy", and help my heart expand a little more, is to thank God.  Every time she nurses, every time we sleep, every time she smiles, every time it enters my head throughout the day to do so - thanking Him for something incredible and priceless...for growing my heart to hold the joys He gives, for growing my marriage a whole year, for growing our family and our awe for Him.

"Arabella, do you know your daddy loves you? He loves you so much, darlin'.  In fact, did you know that you are my favorite baby in the whole world? There's lots of babies in the world, Bella Rose, but none of'm are as sweet to me as you."  JB walked the room with her and once again I realized life is made of "these small hours".

First Days

The whir of a box fan drones outside my door and white sunshine falls on the covers and sheets. It falls on the tiny features of a bundle lying in those blankets and a small, quick rise and fall of little breath paces gently under them. Arabella Rose was born last Thursday at 6.44 am into a peaceful room of a small group of loving hearts and helping hands. The birth is my first note of thanksgiving. How grateful I am to have had the support of people dedicated to helping John Barrett, our baby and me through that experience.  They rubbed my feet, ran a bath for me, fed me ice chips, held the bowl as I threw up multiple times, prayed for me, cheered for me and molded themselves to meet whatever need I had. My husband was my strong rock, there for me the whole time, and held his arms tight around me in our comfy little birth pool as I pushed out our baby.  Mama's hand, her words, her instruction, her calming reassurance that God designed me to do this and I was doing fine, steadied and strengthened me.  God was so kind to give me the birth I was dreaming of. Loving, calm, full of peace and joy.

All last Thursday I floated through a haze of relief and peace, pain and blood, thankfulness and awe. John Barrett and I never considered ourselves "Parents-to-be". From the time we knew we were expecting we claimed ourselves as parents already. So I won't say we "became" parents that day. But we entered into the fuller joys of it by meeting our daughter.  From the moment we met her, she began weaving more closely to our hearts. John Barrett blows me away at being a daddy. He wakes up with her, comforts her and sleeps all night with her on his chest.  He sings to her, croons out lullabies, prays for and knows how to calm her when she's fussy. Seeing him with her is one of those things where I feel my heart expanding more to be able to bear the amount of love I have for him.  Last Sunday we sat in the sunshine on our back porch.  He'd stayed home from church to take care of us while the rest of the family went. He bent over her tiny body and kissed her little head.
"Did you know," he said to her, softly, "you are the best gift I could ask for.  You are our baby…that's scary and exciting. I want you to be safe and well and happy... I love you, Arabella Rose."

These first days are hard and beautiful. The joy of having my family here for the birth and a week or so before and past it is only checked at their leaving. As Daddy read Little House on The Prairie to Arabella the night before he left for his two-day trek home, I couldn't help the lump in the throat and tears.  He rocked with her in the chair, her ear to his chest and the velvety strains of his deep voice rumbling underneath. How well I know that voice and how many times have I too laid my head on him and heard that same comforting voice. He held my hand before he left, tears in both our eyes and said, "I pray God will bless and keep your little family, through all the many miles between us."

Today marks one week of us meeting our baby.  One week of beautifully sleepless nights, of taking in the wonder of our child, of learning each day what it means to love as a parent, and as I do so, I see more of how my Mama loves me. One week of dreamy reality, of witnessing the miracle I carried for nine months and watching the gentleness of my husband which makes him great.  One week of humbling, because I see how freely people give of themselves for me and our little family, and how merciful and long-suffering God is with me, though I am horribly whiney and ungrateful and proud at times.  It has been a week of life changing before my eyes.  Simply, it is more than I can describe in words and an incredible blessing.

another calm before the storm

It was  a grey day, intense and billowy, with bursts of sunshine from time to time that cast long shadows through dripping trees. Anne and I walked through the Covington streets, and breathed in long whiffs of sweet air, deep and spicy after having just rained.  In Georgia it seems to always smell spicy after a rain. She pushed a stroller carrying the little girl she nannies and we didn't say much of anything. Squirrels poked little noses in soft ground, and ran away to the tall oaks when we got too near. It was July and muggy, but pleasant in its own way. Two old fellows worked in the yard they tended, replacing mulch, mowing and trimming.  They paused as we passed, making sure no grass was flung. Two children walked with their grandmother, and I liked to imagine they were staying with her for a couple of weeks, in our dreamy little town of Covington. Perhaps they'd make lots of memories and tell them to their kids one day.
"Feels like the calm before the storm," I said amidst our stepping on twigs and dewy leaves.
"Yes, the kind the sailors talk about," AG supplied. It was three days before my wedding and there was still much to do, our house to clean, church to decorate, food to cook, last arrangements and packing to be done. Soon people from all over our sphere of acquaintance would be almost casually hanging out at our house and helping with the wedding preparation. It still seemed hazy and far away and it felt the best thing we could do was soak in the moments of normality for what we could. After all, how do you grasp or even imagine all the ways in which your life will change? You can't.
Well, here we are again. AG tends to be there for many of my calms-before, and is usually the one in the middle of the craziness, keeping her cool. We're three weeks out from the due date of Baby Watson, and though I know life will change, it's still one of those things almost easier not to attempt imagining because I know I simply can't.



AG being here has helped shape into perspective the closeness of it all. She likes shaking me up, and I need a good dose of it every now and then. Rooms have been tidied, clutter gone through and those fine baby things I had hanging on the hall tree bench with their tags hanging in order and looking so fresh and pretty? All thrown in a basket and washed, to be folded and stored in bins ready for use. "Gabe, there's a possibility of having it in three weeks, if you don't go past the due date…you need things to be ready, whenever he comes."  (You see why I need her good sense, yes?)
Everyone talks of how it changes your life and having always feared Change, some grain of uncomfortableness shades in uncertainty what to expect. They say expect never to sleep and never to have your You Time again. But a couple of recent conversation excerpts have been my repeats in my mind.
One came from a car salesman, funny enough. Tall, wavy grey hair and tan which made his teeth bright and southern accent all the more decent, he asked when I was due.
"Bout three weeks, huh? Well, let me tell ya, my wife and I were going to travel the world, and I was the most self-centered person you'd have ever met. One day she came home and said she was pregnant and I threw up my hands. Didn't want to give up my me time, wanted to do what I wanted to do. But I tell ya what, that day she was born and I saw her take her first breath and knew she was mine, " here he paused and looked to the side, pressing his lips in hard together and as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, thrust a hand to his head and scratched, then looked back at me with wet eyes and a husky voice, "That's really when I took my first breath too. My daughter's 26 years old and it's been the best 26 years of my life. Can't explain it. You just don't live til ya have kids. But y'all need to say goodbye to yourselves as you are, because they way you are right now? You'll never be again. Go spend some time as husband and wife, then box it up and send it down the river." He dashed inside his little car lot office and rummaged on his desk and brought out a few favorite photos, old and taped. Inside I think my head cocked, and I marked that little bit of conversation as one to store away and think over often.
Another piece of think over often advice came from a good friend who also has had her first and as I was talking over some of my predictions of change, like how to manage going to the pool or store and how much more complex life becomes after baby's no longer inside, she said of her own,
"I don't miss her being inside my belly. She is a true joy and adds such richness to our lives. Even though things do become more complex, I wouldn't trade it for anything, G. You will treasure every little moment. I love the inconvenience of being Ada's mama."
It was the "I love the inconvenience of being Ada's mama" that lodged just right and makes such sense. It's an inconvenience that somehow we're designed to accept and embrace and thrive in, amidst all the complexities, sacrifices, uncertainties, limitations and failures of parenthood.
Amidst this calm before the storm, I'm happy. And uncertain and full of hope. But I'm sure I cannot imagine the change.  Of one thing, I'm certain: it will be more difficult and scary and wonderful than anything I ever could attempt imagining anyways.

What Mama Says About Mama-ing

It was tradition that every night Mama or Daddy, or both would sit on the bed or lie down with us and tell us a story or sing, and pray.  They'd pray for us to have good thoughts and good dreams and a good night's rest.  After that, we knew we must lie quietly and even if we couldn't sleep, Mama would tell us to "close your eyes at least, and rest them".  Of course, this meant falling asleep almost as soon as we thought we couldn't.  Anna Grace and I shared a room until I was nineteen, so from the time I can remember, we learned what sharing meant and without meaning to, we shared so many memories and windows of history together that we can go back now to almost any of them and look out those windows, smiling and often shaking our heads in amusement at what we see. This window I step back to look through views our room one night. She was two, and I was four, and Mama lay between us in the dim light, humming.  I liked to lay my head on her chest and listen to her voice from the inside. It was softer than daddy's, and more musical.  Mama's voice and the rise and fall of her chest made me drowsy with a comfort so thorough within, that I've often gazed through that window of time, and others like it, relishing the sweetness of moments like those. Mama wore a purple silk robe, and I stroked it over and over. Surely, there must not be anything in the world as soft and nice as that purple robe, nor so fine, I thought. She paused in her singing and guided Anna Grace's and my hands to her belly, which was several months pregnant.
"Keep your hand here and be still," she said.  In a moment we could feel a twitch from the inside and Mama explained that it was the baby, kicking. How puzzled and impatient I was!
"Why must we wait to meet the baby? Why does it stay in the belly?"  I smoothed out the ruffles of curiosity by stroking that purple robe and soon mama's singing and the gentle rocking of her intonation as she prayed, left me curled up in comfort and sound asleep.

What is so strange to comprehend now, is that I am a Mama.  I am the one with a baby in there, and I still find myself amazed, if not disbelieving. It's one thing to go from single to married, but from married to baby? Grandmama has told me so many times, "I still feel seventeen inside. When I look at the mirror and see such a wrinkled old face, I almost want to laugh! What is that old woman doing in there?" More and more I'm understanding her. I still feel like that seventeen year old too. Even younger than that, sometimes.  What am I doing with a baby? Girls much younger than I have raised babies and started families, but somehow that fact doesn't seem to matter. Self doubt slides in from the narrow cracks, if I let it.  Recently I was at an appointment for the baby, and they asked when I'd first felt the baby kick.  Couldn't say. Really just couldn't remember the first time…was it 12 weeks or 15? I felt ashamed and irresponsible, and wanted to cry. So I got home, called mama, and did just that. And you know what? She laughed at me. Actually laughed at me and said,
 "Hun, that doesn't even matter. What in the world are you feeling bad over that for?" Then she set me straight. "Having kids isn't something you go into being an expert at. You learn with each one."
"But what if I don't love it enough?" And, as unreasonable as it sounds, I've honestly questioned that.
"You will. It's built in.  You may not know how much you love it now, but you've already begun to love it. I didn't know I had such a bond with the babies I was carrying until I lost them, and then it was like a piece of my heart was torn out.  Now you're just worrying. So don't do it. The way God designed things is that when that baby gets here, you'll love it and it'll keep you company, and you'll figure out how to be a Mama. Won't even have to figure it out, really. It just comes to you."

One day a couple of months ago, I felt that fear of "what if I'm not a good mama" creeping up the back of my neck and I stopped it there.  I said to myself (because I do talk to myself),
 "You know, G?  If God puts a baby in your life, or a child, or a person, it's not because you can't do what you're supposed to with it.  He puts those people or children or babies in your life because He's already equipped you to deal with them, and to fulfill what they need from you. So, there's no use fretting that you're not the right person. You are. And that's why you're where you are, with the people and kids and babies you have in your life, Right Now."

Since then, I've felt more of a peace and a joy spreading over me - and I suppose simply the freedom to enjoy this journey. There are so many gifts to motherhood, and it's humbling to know God's allowing me to be a part of that. Sometimes my eyes get shiny from being 'eat up with the sweetness. JB coming home from work and talking to the baby, his head right up again the bump, and both of us feeling the little kicks and turns of that miracle inside.
"Baby," he says, "This is your daddy, and I love you.  I love your mama too, and we're so glad you're our baby.  We're going to meet you soon, and then we'll  hold you and get to look at you, Little Watson."

 I'm thankful. Thankful for a husband who loves God, and loves his baby and me. I'm thankful for a mama who will laugh at me when I need it, and will straighten out my overanalyzed thoughts. I'm thankful for a baby to raise, and love and learn from.  And I'm thankful God has already given me what I need to do it, by Golly.

 These small hours are the ones that count. 

Real Talk…not letting life crowd your space

 
     There are boxes, papers - just STUFF, everywhere. We happily eat our food on the couch, and when we feel fancy, pull up a folding chair for a make - shift coffee table. {We have an sweet little table given to us by wonderful friends, but it we use that for special occasions, until we get the rest of the house up to par.}

Dishes are perpetually in the sink and then there's our closets. Good Granny's Ghost. They tear me up inside, chock full- stuffed full of who knows what that we can't or won't or haven't gotten rid of. 

I wonder how I'll ever get the gusto and gumption it takes to convert this house into a home. Where does one start? I feel like I'm madly paddling from one task to the next, and getting nowhere. Well, at least I'm madly paddling in my mind, but then again, here I am sitting in my pajamas at 11.30 in the morning.

abe's gift to us from Haiti. you sweet thing, you. 

Yet, I remember that Mama did it. She moved 3000 miles away from home, and lived in a basement. She had her first child and made her house a home. But HOW?  

I believe my life for the next few months will be me sorting through this question and recalling everything I can from living with Mama…How has she done it? And then learning how to do it myself, little by little. 

JB reminded me of something yesterday that I needed to hear.  I was fighting his suggestion of going to swim.

"I already have SO MUCH TO DO…look at our house!" And then I listed off 10 things I needed to do that day. But he said calmly,

"Darlin', I know you need to do all that, but there will always be Something Else to do; you gotta make time for what's important.  The rest of your time will be crowded in with everything else." 

And he is right. Life crowds in the spaces where we don't block it off and say "No Sir! Not here! This is time for X,Y,Z." Those blocks of time should be things that help you achieve what you really want to be, and that help you be you, and me be me. I mean, paint your nails, put on a little lipstick. Take time to fix your hair…Make time to do the things that will help you grow into the person you want to be…Whether that's a good cook, seamstress, healthy person, reader of books or writer - ya gotta do it every day. 

So cook every day, or write or read or exercise, sew or exercise every day. 

Mama says, "Don't put off til' tomorrow the person you want to be in 10 years. You start today.

My home and life? They're not together. But by doing a little every day, I'll see it come together eventually. Daddy says, "give yourself time. You may not see progress in a day or a week or a month; but in 6 months or a year you'll be able to look back and see where you've grown."
So today, I'm going to swim. Then take a shower and get into some nice clothes that make me feel feminine and lovely. I'm going to fix my hair, look through my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook {thank you sis. Frances!}, take some time to do some real Heart to Hearting with God and am going to paint my nails gold with the polish I stole from Dawn this Christmas. Little bit by little bit. Here a little and there a little, and we'll see progress eventually. 

Also, I'm challenging myself  to find things to be thankful for, {Thank you, Rebekah Guess}.

Today, I'm thankful for Mama's buttermilk biscuits and her strawberry jam that made it home on the plane without cracking.

And I'm thankful for this girl, who's challenged me this week, as well as hugely encouraged me. Thank you Beka…You're such a beautiful person - inside and out.  And I love taking your pictures, even though you hate me taking them :-) 

Happy Friday, y'all. And happy Growing,

-g

When they shut you out…and what Mama says to do about it.

Mama had told me about The Teenager Phase long before I reached it. We read hints of it in books, heard other Moms talking about the symptoms of this phase and how to reach their kids who seemed to draw up and in, further and further from plain sight. Sure, they could be standing there, but they seemed so far off. They were cold and distant from the warm children those mothers knew them as. It was a dark, mysterious cloud I determined against from the time I heard about it. I would never be like that.

Around twelve or thirteen, I began to feel a strange pull of sensations.  Curious and almost intrigued as to where they'd lead me or what they meant, I gave them their head.  They were feelings of suppression from the higher ups - Mama, Daddy, Preachers. They were the desire to Be apart from what defined me. Apart from my upbringing, apart from the people associated with me. During this time, I felt much embarrassment - discovered the powers of that force for the worst, and found myself being ashamed at my family, my clothes, my hair, body and church. I wanted freedom. I wanted to be someone important. None of this, I was convinced, could be found in what I'd grown up in. My parents, but my mother, especially, was holding me back. She'd keep me from experiencing my life to its fullest pleasures, and for this, I felt resentment building. I gave these thoughts their lead, letting them pull me on in whatever direction they willed. What I didn't realize - or want to realize - was that they were not leading me anywhere; they were a wedge in the form of "Freedom", which was being driven between my relationships, and especially with Mama.



My life grew, changed, molded. God got a hold of me and broke a very hard heart. Still, remnants of a deep seed kept their hold, as they always will when a person is not committed to rooting them out.
I kept a coldness toward Mama for years. Only in the past few years have I worked through it, growing more and more in awe of the person my selfishness kept me blind from seeing. That curtain is drawn back more each time as my eyes are continually accustoming to the amazing person she is. She teaches me many things on a daily basis. I've written her words in my book, I've asked her advice, I keep studying what makes her great.  Feverishly I write and rehearse and think of what she's taught, because there is much more to learn from her than I can in a lifetime.

She was never one who things just came to - except for amazing balance on bicycles at 1 year old and winning the beauty pageant at 4 years old, when she would have rather have been racing around the yard and playing in mud. In high school she worked hard for good grades, to make friends and to do well. She wasn't the beauty queen, she wasn't popular to the popular kids and those good grades didn't come easily. But she was determined. Mama has always been determined. She recently told me something that has made such sense to me.  It made Mama and her ways, make sense.

"My homeroom teacher wasn't popular on his own merit, but he had a saying he kept up on his board that said, 

'They formed a circle and shut me out; 

But I formed a larger circle

And shut them in.'

 I've seen her do this over and over. Every cold look, every stiff hug I've given, every clipped answer to her compassionate, inquiring one.  Every time I've treated her without respect, been moody and unkind, I was baffled by this circle, which she quietly drew around me, then filled up with her love, her compassion and forgiveness. The thing I never figured out, was how she never treated me the way I did her. What would my life have been like if she did? How different it would be - and I would be.

Not until that day when she recently related her homeroom teacher's advice, did I realize what she's been doing all these years.  She's been shutting people in with love - no matter how many times she's shut out, she only draws the circle bigger.

If you have a Mama who's done this for you, Thank her.

If you're on the outside of the circle, be brave like she is, and draw the circle bigger.

Thank you, Mama. 

Thank you for your example.

Thank you for changing my life, one kind word, one prayer, one circle at a time.

I love you,

-g 

Mama's Words... my own thoughts, and the state of the blog.

I've found it amusing when people ask, "So how was your trip home?…", or "How are you enjoying being home? What is it like?" ... Dear people. I love them to the hilt, but I never can decide how to answer. My verbal thoughts point blank would be along the lines of, "Home…feel…how do I feel…well…uh, you mean this burning of my throat? the heaviness inside and feeling of choking? The sudden bursts of crying - and then wondering why I'm doing that at all, because I'm so ridiculously happy being married to my amazing man…? That's how I feel."
But of course, you don't say that. I reply in terms that can be understood "Great! Good to see everyone. Sure - kind of strange after such a big change."
Every bride who's moved from a wonderful home has felt a little this way, I think.
 It's been two months - two wonderful months that I've been married. Two months of discovering how much laughter, pleasure, sweetness, mixtures of joy and sorrow, adventure, comforting companionship and beauty there is in marriage. Two months of change. Two months of unpacking, meeting new people, seeing new places, figuring out how to thrive 1200 miles and 20 hours away from what I've always known as home.  I feel raw. Raw from change. It's unrealistic to say I don't miss home; but I also see, plain as day that I've been given the beautiful beginnings of a home, a family, a new life.

She was sitting across from me at the booth. I'd had a lump in my throat all week. Now was my last day home, and Mama had set aside some time for "Real Talk". She was saying,
"...Sort of like what I've said, 'Don't wait for normal,' well,  Don't wait for tomorrow to settle your home and make it what you want. Another big thing to remember is that we are not promised tomorrow. You have to Endeavor today.




These two months I've gone back and read every scrap of advice I could find from Mama and others, but especially Mama.
"It's time to get your hammer'n nails out and get busy.  Get busy on what you can do."
So here's to a new phase of life, and doing what I can, today.

This morning I heard the sink running, plates and pots clanging. JB was washing my three day pile up of dirty dishes. I've been blessed. No matter what, I've already been blessed.
A man like that comes straight from the windows of heaven.

Mama and Abe

i know our cats just gotta wonder sometimes.

our band, of one night in which Abrum played his favorite Ranchero music, and we three girls danced around for half an hour, then followed Abe outside with yips and howls.  

yes, law. Mama's peach cobbler. 

JB, my Man. 

my gift and husband and best friend.

{While this blog will remain mostly for entries concerning Stories of the Grey Submarine, I will, as I have been wont to do in the past, enter my own thoughts and updates, when the notion takes me.}