What? This Ol' Thing?

I still think about her all of the time (I think it was this time last year that I wrote a bit about her). It's a geographical sort of remembering. I drive past her old condo and the apartment where she died. I fill up with gas at her favorite gas station and walk on sidewalks where we walked together. She lived where I live.


I think she shapes my thinking ~ invades my paradigm, maybe ~ more than I realize. She was everything that I am not: Brash. Cold. Drunk. Sharp witted. Keen eyed. Unapologetic. Always unapologetic.


Religion, apart from the odd trip to a psychic or her devotion to the daily horoscope, didn't touch her everyday. When I showed up on the front porch with cookies in one hand and Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes Jesus in the other, she didn't even flinch. We formed a friendship over time and I listened to hours of her story (A novel's worth of experience and suffering and hard living). She sometimes let me talk about mine.


At the time, I was being cajoled into thinking that I was something that I was not. The small church family that we were part of needed care and I was encouraged and praised and twist-my-rubber-arm led to believe that I was the gal for the job.


Deb saw right through the manipulation and fancy words that I, at the time, found enticing, alluring. "Why would you do that, Sandi? Nothing in it is real." She had no patience (and her impatience was something to behold!) for made-up compliments or feel good ego stroking.


But I was (and still am) looking for purpose outside of my work at home. The offer of an almost real job with almost real consequences and opportunity and responsibility was too tantalizing for me to ignore. I took the care giving role at the church. And Deb refused to talk to me about it.


She's been gone for, I think, three years (could it be four already?) and it's only been in the past month that I've begun to see what her fifty-something insight spotted right away: Flattery. I listened with hungry ears to false praise. My family is still working out the kinks that my choice then worked into the fabric of our home.


You might be seeing this in the lives of women around you, too. Women leaving their husbands ~ even their children ~ in pursuit of personal success. Women who are taking month long or repeated vacations just to "get away". Some are pursuing schooling ~ not because they feel purposeful or inspired or need to help with the family income, but because they are angry and are looking for ways to punish their men by forcing the guys to "step up". Some are openly having affairs. Some are just screaming silently, held prisoner by the duty and unending drudgery of their schedules.


For women who are pushing against the perceived confines of their circumstances, a little flattery might go a long way to convincing them that they are, indeed, capable of, deserving of, so much more than they have.


Deb would have told me that we really are capable and deserving, but her hard won experience also taught her that what we think is critically important in this life really amounts to nothing in our final days, months, years.


She had the career(s). She had the men. And the women. She was a published author and had her pilot's license. She'd done a bit of traveling and knew how to run a successful business. She'd abandoned her husband and son, too, to find herself and become all that she could be.


She was dead in her apartment for three days before anyone knew she was gone. Her son wept at her funeral, but his grief was detached, forlorn. I still don't know how to grieve for my friend who'd seen it all, done it all.

But I'm listening to her pointed interruptions as I watch the stories of new friends wind their way through months and years. I wonder if we'll see flattery for what it is and avoid being drawn into opportunities that look good and right and something-for-me-for-a-change motivating.

Is it possible to leave off that sort of temptation and just faithfully attend to what is True and future-building? I don't know. And how do we tell the difference between the thing that is going to hurt us and the thing that is going to build our lives and the lives of our loved ones?

Deb's life ~ and death ~ remind me that what we think we want or need will one day be exposed for the shadowy nothings that they are. And we will want our children. We'll want our Beloved. We'll want our sisters. We'll want our Daddy's. We'll be looking for hope beyond this side of life.

I'll keep driving by Deb's old place and remembering. She'd be so angry at me for getting all philosophical about these things! If she knew I was talking on like this she'd probably whip up the hem of her housecoat to show me how long her leg hairs had grown since I'd last seen her (Shaving was one of the many "useless" habits she'd abandoned in her final years!) or pull me over to the computer to show me her high score on the gambling site she loved so much. We'd settle into a game of Word Whomp...and she'd whomp me and gently chide me for being "actually sort of slow" at that kind of thing.

And she'd be right. And I'll keep figuring that out. But I'll get it, we'll get it, eventually. We'll figure out what's really important and give our all to pursuing that.

Check out Tia's post, "Drawing The Line" for more perspective on this. Just click on "Tia" on the sidebar.

Hairbrush Hand Grenades

This morning, CBC radio had an extensive report on gang activity in Canada. 'Turns out, our land is rife with gangs and they are wildly out of control. The younger generation of "gangster" is not governed by the decorum of their forefathers: they are carrying their weapons as badges of honor and wielding them publicly and with no thought of anonymity. The killings that once took place in back rooms and underneath bridges and in old cars are now occurring in front of children's hospitals and in residential areas.

Our own neighborhood is feeling a little dodgy of late. Houses, just a few blocks away, are invaded, their resident's bound, babies and all. Homes are riddled with bullets. Drug deals go down in my back alley. Yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, I watched as the police drove off with one of my neighbors in their backseat.

Last night as I was scrubbing the dishes, I happened to glance up to see my sons in the living room. The lights were off, except for seasonal glow of the Christmas tree. The three of them were playing a game, content to be together and uninterrupted. At ease. Unthreatened. It was a vision of unmarred sanctuary.

For the past several days the guys have been waging war throughout the house. Sticks, water guns, air soft guns, belts, the ab roller (thank goodness it's getting some sort of workout), and a couple of hairbrushes make up their arsenal. Men rise and fall as strategies are worked and re-worked. I don't know who's at war or if the "good" guys are winning, I only know that it's a fight to the death.

While my sons lob their hairbrush hand grenades and fire imaginary bullets at contrived enemies, the sons of others are raising very real weapons, tilting them to the side, and firing ~ as many shots as they can squeeze off (another unique trait of the new generation of bad guy) ~ into the heads and chests of their rivals.

As this contrast sharpens in my city ~ on my street ~ I do not know what our family's response will be. We are affected by it. Daily. My boys need to learn independence, but they know what's out there and their not crazy about braving it alone. I know what's out there, and I don't want them to die. And I don't want them to be drawn into that world. That world. Two doors, ten doors down, two blocks over. That world that is so far removed from the peace of this home, but so unnervingly close.

The CBC didn't attempt to end their report on a positive note. There's not a lot of hope out there that this very old threat can be efficiently dealt with in new ways.

I'll hold on to hope, I think. Hope that fatherless boys will encounter purpose ~ Purpose that outranks fat bank accounts and violent power. Hope that dead morals and dull ethics will find fresh meaning in reborn souls. Hope that justice and Right will win the day.

God of Sundays

Where does your faith come alive? When does it behave like a living thing ~ a thoughtful, purposeful, active part of your life?

Is it in the quiet of nature or in a charismatic religious meeting? Summer camp, maybe, by the camp fire? Do you feel more faithful when you're dutifully meeting prayer time or reading list requirements?

Maybe Sunday morning church services are your connection point with God. Maybe you feel most in tune with God when you've held an infant in your arms or achieved a personal goal.

A friend once pressed me on my relationship with God: I just don't get you. You don't go to church. You don't attend any meetings or read any Christian books, but you obviously love God. Her tone communicates, loud and clear, that I shouldn't be feeling flattered by these observations. She's puzzled, even confused. I think to myself that she's looking for the smoke and mirrors that I must be raising to throw people off the track of my obvious rebellion.

She continued, I don't understand how you can be faithful to God when you don't go to church. I don't understand how you maintain any sort of relationship with Him without something to keep you on track.

Her soft British accent was charming even in it's rebuke. I pressed her with some careful questions, wondering if the conversation might have been more about her own struggle with faith than it was about my apparent waywardness. I asked about her own relationship with Sunday mornings and how they impacted her understanding of Jesus.

The dam of frustrated emotion quickly burst. She was wrestling with the loneliness and confusion she felt in services. She was angered by so much of what was happening there. She'd taken a part time job that required that she work on Sunday's and, relieved for the respite, had missed many meetings. But, she said, without church she was without God. She didn't think about Him at all. She never prayed. She didn't even think about picking up a Bible. Actively serving Him or worshipping Him didn't ever enter her thoughts.

I understood, thanks to her moving frankness, that loving Jesus isn't something to take lightly or for granted. Thanks to her gentle criticism I understood that one of the reasons we have experienced so much resentment for our choice to stay home Sunday's is because people apply their own experience to ours, assuming that because they wouldn't give Him a though without a structured reminder, that we probably won't either.

One of the breathtaking truths about our God, though, is that He is wildly diverse! Think of it: the God who created toads and croc's (the critters, not the "shoes") also thought-up waterfalls and cumulus clouds. He made blond hair and red, both. He said that some of us should be so white that the blue of our veins would show through (*sigh*) while some of us should be the color of warm chocolate.

God purposed that some of us would think in complicated, multi-layered, brain-straining ways while others would have the gracious gift of simplification. To some He said, "Sing!" and to others, "Exemplify Me in your silence."

Some of us will wrestle with faith, grasping and striving and demanding and falling. Some of us will look at Jesus and know, know, know that He is our Love. Our deepest, fondest, most breathtaking Love. Some will see Him in the face of a mountain, some in the stroke of a brush on canvass. Some will hear Him with clear, cool, like-I-heard-it-with-my-own-ears clarity, some will never know for sure that they've heard Him at all.

My friend felt that her own struggle ought to mirror mine (or the other way 'round). But her choice-experience path is simply different from mine. For a time, my family and I have not employed a pastor and a series of well-rehearsed songs to bring us face to face with the Maker. We're looking for Him everywhere, every day. We look for Him when things are bumpy and awkward and painful. We see Him easily when things are even and sure and healing.

No more. No less. We're not feeling right (or wrong). We've just made a choice. A choice that's different than some of our other God seeking friends. We do not begrudge them church service encounters with Christ, nor would we ask them to walk the uncharted trail that we're bush-whacking our way along. We love, too. Just differently.

And that's why I was wondering where you come alive ~ where your faith lives. Is there room in your understanding to allow for the striking differences in God's creation and in His created? Is there room to gently agree that while you may not be fully comfortable with the way of another, it may be, no less, the way of God?

The Subtle Lure -- by Tia

The following is from my friend's blog. It relates to some things that a couple of us have been talking about...

"Lead us not into temptation" often means, among other things,"Deny me those gratifying invitations, those highly interesting contacts,that participation in the brilliant movements of our age, which I so often, at risk desire."
from the reflections on the Psalms

I have been ruminating on this for a couple of months now and I'm not sure how to accurately put it all into words. We, as women have an instinctive need to help, to nurture and to put feet to our caring. It is a beautiful thing. I have seen it in action many times and I am always amazed at the caring and generous nature of those around us. It can however be misused or abused as most of God's gifts can be. We need to be aware of what we are doing, of not seeking out conflict or making more of a problem than there is or even seeing one where there is none. It can be so gratifying to be the one who is able to help walk someone through the storms of their life or even the one who is looked to for the answers. God is His infinite wisdom has chosen to work through man. This is His way. We need each other, and reaching out beyond ourselves to serve one another is truly remarkable. My word of caution in all this is that we need to look at our own hearts and see if we are doing this with the right intentions, to walk in humility, to see the person for who they are not the problem and how to fix it.

One of Those People

Warning: Uncharacteristically negative diatribe-like editorial dead ahead. Proceed with spit-guard and Valium.

"Oh. You're one of those people."

I sigh inwardly, not without emotion. Outwardly I attempt to make eye contact. "One of 'those' people? By which you mean...?"

He determinedly avoids my gaze. "Aww, you know. We have one working as a bag boy. He can work anytime. Even during the day. 'Does his school at night." He's actually sneering as he blurts his explanation in the general direction of my feet.

I'm surprised at the instant rise in frustration in me. I resent this stranger's insinuation -- undefined, uninformed -- that there is a "those" and that I'm one of them.

My oldest son has a smirk on his face (I fleetingly wonder if he can see into my mind. Does he actually see the building storm there?) as he shifts his grocery basket from one hand to another. He's been holding to a consistent (and new) Just sock him in the mouth approach to problem solving. I can almost hear him urging me on behind that grin. My youngest is contentedly oblivious to the drama that has the potential to explode all over the pharmacy shelves.

Because that's where we are. In Safeway. At the pharmacy. I asked a simple question about a product and a very helpful, if a little pasty-white and balding, man came 'round the counter to dispense his medicines and, unexpectedly, his opinions.

It began with a "Why aren't these kids in school?" We (I) brace for that question, never sure what blank stare, confusion, or open judgment we'll encounter when we glibly respond that we do school at home.

"Oh. You're one of those people." I don't even know what that means. What? Did he expect us to be rifle-toting, government hating, fear mongering system haters? Perhaps he feels we over protect our children or that we under educate them? Maybe we smell funny or look peculiar?


I'm instantly angry and when he mentions that he actually knows a home schooled boy I mask my growing ire with a smile and a joke, "So, does he have any peculiar ticks or facial twitches that worry you?" My attempt to lightly suggest that he is, quite probably, a typically developing boy despite the unorthodox nature of his upbringing goes unnoticed.


Not too long ago I was openly, publicly, and loudly criticized for my choice to stay home and school our sons (I always appreciate when both of these choices -- because that's all they are: choices. Not holy callings or fear-inspired withdrawals. Just choices. -- take a blow in one swift sentence.). A group of professional adults happened to ask an off-handed question about the kids' grades to which there was, apparently a correct answer. I did not give the correct answer. Those highly educated and successful folks spent the better part of fifteen minutes schooling me on the perils of my choice and the superior nature of their own educational preferences.


I did the same thing in that encounter that I did with Pharmacy Guy: I made light of our choice and deferred to their opinions in the moment, cloaking my own building fury with an attitude of submission. I had no frame of reference for dealing with such hostility then and I don't now.

In "Horton Hears a Who" (the recently released cinematic version) the antagonist of the story is made particularly obnoxious by her "pouch school" technique in raising her 'roo. She is intolerant, narrow minded, and snidely judgmental -- not to mention entirely irrational.

Right there, on the big screen, for all the world to see the message is clear: home schoolers are idiots.

I'm not sure how Mr. Pharmacy Guy came to that conclusion for himself. I didn't stick around to press for details (What with the full schedule of brainwashing and isolating I had lined up for that afternoon). But I'd just like to state, for the record, Mr. PG, that whatever bit you think you know about those people, chances are it's just a teeny bit of an enormous BIT and it'd be kind of you to get your informational pills all stuffed into the right bottle before you dispense your poisonous cure-all on them.

Danny

Early Autumn sun filters past urban obstacles; stray rays brush past me as I pump dollar after dollar into our gas tank. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse a loitering man: clean, just a little taller than I, black cowboy hat comfortably lodged on his aging head.

I pay him no mind (considering instead what I'll be paying at the till in just a minute), then I notice that he's moved closer and is, in fact, leaning up against the pump I'm using. He's gesturing at my oldest son who's seated in the front seat of the car. I turn to face him.


"Hey! Are you giving my kid a hard time?" I tease. I look more closely at him then. I see that he's leaning on the pump because his own legs will likely fail him if he doesn't lean on something. His brown-as-earth skin is beautifully wrinkled and weathered but, in his drunkenness, he's failed to clean the mucus and muck from his face. His right eye is seeping and crusty, both; it is milky white, blind.

I can't squeeze any more liquid gold into the tank so I hang up the pump and turn my full attention toward my new acquaintance. "What can I do for you today, sir?"


"Just need some bus fare. 'Trying to make it to Fort Macleod. Just need to get to the edge of the city so I can hitch my way."


His words are slurred and mumbled and difficult to catch. "You're looking for bus fare to Fort Macleod?" I ask with surprise. "That's a little more than I can help you with!"


He grins and then laughs at my misunderstanding. "No, no, no! I just need fare to the edge of the city!"



I laugh too and ask for his name. I ask him if he'll wait for me there while I go settle my bill and get some cash. "We'll talk about this more in a minute, Danny," I say as I move away from him.


Inside the station I'm surprised by the worry and anger etched into the faces of the staff and other patrons. A woman steps toward me and demands, "Are you okay? Do you need help?" The attendant, worried, mumbles "Is everything okay out there?"


I laugh my surprise and say that Danny and I are just having a quick conversation. I'm grateful for their concern, I say, but every thing's fine.


I make my way back outside and pull the bills I've just received in change back out of my purse. Careful to shield the transaction from the growing number of curious eyes both in and outside of the station, I press them into Danny's hand and suggest that there's enough there for a good supper and fare to the edge of the city, if that's where he wants to get to.


I tell him I'm glad to have met him and suggest that the few dollars I've given him won't get him very far. Would it be okay, I ask, if I talked with my God with him? He readily agrees, immediately taking my outstretched hands in one of his own and removing his hat with his other.


We approach God then, Danny and I, in the gas station parking lot. I ask Jesus if He'll heal Danny's blinded eye and keep him safe as he continues his travels (Why does inspiration always fail me in these moments? There are never any sparks or blinding lights or flashes of insight. Only mumbled, stumbled attempts at drawing God and man into the same moment.). We say our amens and our goodbye's. I jump into the car and he staggers on his way ~ not toward the bus stop, but toward the corner pub.


Just days later I received this in an email from my friend. She said:


Last night I had dream. I was sitting on the ground, just in the dust or dirt with an (East) Indian woman. We were, together, taking one of my cleaning rags and cutting it in half. In my mind, I was cutting it in half to give a piece to a man who had lost an eye. This rag would serve as a patch to cover over the place where his eye would have been. Then I realized that the other half of the rag was for ME to do the same thing to my own eye. I was no different from the man who was poor and blind.

Here I was thinking I was "saving" him (or rescuing him or helping him) and at the same time, reminded of my own need for rescue and of my own imperfection. The rag was for both of us! There is some sort of significance in it being shared.


When I read her dream I thought of Danny. I thought of how easy it is to feel sanctimonious. Good. I love the reminder that my "eye" is as much in need of clean rags as ever his was.

The exchange of stories and gifts and prayer between ourselves and hurting strangers -- they are as much (more?) for us as they are for the ones we are reaching out to. God reaches into both lives with different lessons, kindnesses, convictions.

We need that clean rag, split off from the one we've used to serve another, to bandage our own eye: an eye that sometimes skews our vision and indulges temptation and looks for glory.

Intersection

I hadn't thought about it for ages and ages, so I'm not sure why, at that particular intersection, on that particular day, in broad daylight, it came to mind, but there it was.

My memory kicked in abruptly and took me back in time. I was coming off of a late night shift. I'd spent my evening caring for a wonderfully bright and challenging Down's Syndrome baby. The proximity of that shift to my earlier client had left me without a dinner break so I steered our mini van into the nearest Wendy's drive-through for a near-midnight supper.

Keenly aware of the extra weight that saddled my stressed muscles and bones, I was embarrassed by my fast food forays. Pounds settled on and around my taxed frame, causing pain, mobility problems, and constant humiliation. But I was hungry and alone and looking for the comfort that only a carton of fries and a tub of coke could offer.

Eating and driving requires some skill. I had a system of balancing and lodging and placing my various treats so that I could access them easily and safely and in the exact order that I always consumed them: fries in the cup holder nearest my seat, Coke in the one beside. Burger in hand. Bite of burger first, then fry, then a sip of soda.

I was shoveling food into my mouth -- fast. Shoveling and driving. Scarfing the food down without taste or awareness. Madly seeking the comfort of carbs, I pulled to a stop at a well-lit intersection, stuffing a particularly large mitt full of fries into my mouth when I felt that I was being watched.

I was being watched. A small car loaded with young, beautiful, sneering girls had hit the red light at the same time. They were watching. They were pointing. They were laughing.

A fat woman stuffing her fat face. Or some such. I couldn't hear their words or read their minds. But I think I made an accurate assessment of their thoughts and intent.

I was...what? Destroyed? Crushed? Humiliated? I was sick. Sick of myself and my killing behaviors. Sick of the pounds and the pain. Sick of being stuck and ashamed. Sick of depending on seat belts that weren't designed to support my girth. Sick of hiding. Sick of ugliness.

All of this came over me in a wash of fear and relief and uncertainty and hope while I sat at another intersection just the other day. Excess pounds have disappeared (and stayed disappeared for almost two years). I don't snarf fast food as though my life depends on it -- often -- and never at night. I don't fear the jeers or cruel glances or averted gazes of an embarrassed public so much any more.

I imagine, on some level, I have those girls to thank for that. I don't know what part that snap-shot memory played (plays?) in this journey toward health, but I'm guessing it does play a part.

We can be so quick to fuss and bother about the painful, prickly, jarring moments of our lives. It's easy to believe that God is unkind and mean of spirit. It's not a stretch to think that He's orchestrated circumstances to somehow get us to shape up or get growing -- or, much worse, to simply harm us.

God is no such God. Rather, He'll change those awkward, tearing, cruel times into something seamless, healing, and productive. He didn't put those french fries in my hand, nor did he put the sneers on the faces of those young women. But He transformed a moment of ugliness into a part of the catalyst that would move me toward healthy change.

I adore Him for that. Wildly. Deeply. Gratefully. He is such a God. You have a sorrow right now. You have a physical wrong, a mental glitch, a brutal addiction, a festering offense. Your God did not heap those things on you, but He will redeem them for you. He is good. Always. And this dark moment will, in time, become a reminder of Light. Of salvation. Of rescue. Of healing.

Set the french fries aside. Dump the burger. Look those young and so-much-to-learn women square in the eye and grab 'hold of the truth that this time is not for always! There are other intersections with other you's not so far off.

Dragons in the Pantry

I noticed the beginnings of the offending smell during school hours on Monday. On Tuesday Ben mentioned something that "smells like our old hamster" in the pantry. By Thursday, Jamy was taking dramatic breath-holding measures whenever circumstances required that he rally toward the offending closet.

But hours are quickly filled and schedules demanding and I did not have enough minutes in the day (and was too weary to make use of them by the night) to deal with the offensive, albeit organic, smell of rot coming from our kitchen storage.

Friday came and, busy or not, something had to be done. Heaps of recycling were disassembled and smelled and the breadmaker thoroughly examined. Canned goods and dog treat bins were sniff-tested and cracker boxes checked for peculiarities. Nothing.

And then, there it was: a slender, yellow cardboard box with beautiful Chinese figures tracing its surfaces. A gift from some of our world traveling friends, we had tasted its delicacies and left the rest for another day. "Dragon Cakes" they were called. Small, round balls of paste and flour and many mysterious something-or-others.

Dragon Cakes don't age particularly well, it turns out, and they were alerting us to that fact with an unholy scent. They found a new home in the trash, but despite my best coffee bean efforts (a trick I learned post-house fire last summer), the smell lingers still.

Almost two weeks later (This would be a good time to start formulating appropriately biting "Get your act together, Cinderella!" comments, as you'll find them useful in the next few minutes.):

It's late and I'm tired. I shuffle my way to the pantry to scavenge something that could resemble a tomorrow's-lunch for my hard working husband. A yank on the door and I am rudely, cruelly assaulted by a worse-than-dead-hamster smell. Bob catches a whiff, too, from his spot across the room.

"What on earth...? The smell is back! I thought I took care of that ages ago!" I start my search from where I left off upon the discovery of rotting Dragon Cakes. I yank, I haul, I complain, I shift things around.

There it is. Of course. A long forgotten bag of what were once potatos. They've deteriorated so thoroughly that their putrid juices are seeping through the bottom of the bag and into the wicker basket that holds them. Mush with eyes ~~ that's all that remains. I scoop them, basket and all, into the waiting garbage bag and leave the pantry to air out overnight.

Somewhere in my tale of questionable housekeeping there's a lesson on what happens when things are left to fester in us. Tiny offenses can become overwhelming problems. A thought sneaks in, too, on what happens when we are distracted by false solutions or Dragon Cake issues instead of pushing forward until we find the real source of the stench in our hearts, our minds.

I could spend some time ruminating there (I probably should if the care I take of my soul is anything like the attention I pay to my kitchen storage!) but I've just realized that in my haste to route offending vegetables I forgot to finish making Bob's lunch. Mindful meditation will have to wait for another metaphorical moment while I make up for the missing lunch with a spectacularly filling dinner. Unfortunately, we'll have to do without the potatos.

Errands

We're at the mall. Welcomed with a warm variety of food court aroma's and perfectly controlled temperatures, the boys and I go our separate ways.

I take my place in line at the Telus store.

The couple in front of me are patient and engaging. She, in her too-tight navy sweat pants and almost-matching tank top, scratches insistently at her sunburned skin; he in his cycling muscle shirt, thick silver chain necklace, sweat socks-and-sandals. They are attentive to each other and clearly in love.

I carry on past groups of shoppers lounging in rest areas. A weary mum tends to her feeding infant. A bored husband waits, eyes glazed over in acquiescence, half-awake in an easy chair. Children shrill; parents soothe, bribe, threaten.

Wandering past a mother and daughter as they clear the escalator exit I hear, "Sometimes I hate you so much." I do not glance at mom's face to see the toll her daughter's cutting tone has taken. I do not doubt the truth of those words, but cannot bear to see the pain they are causing.

The clerk at the department store counter has a ring on every finger. I comment, wondering aloud if they each have a story or if she's wearing them just because she likes them. She lights up at the acknowledgement and quickly shares a story or two about her favorites: one a gift from a friend, another because it's silver and a frog! and she just loved it.

I wait, bored and ready to go home, outside the boys' favorite gaming store. A young boy, eleven? twelve? is throwing a royal temper because his mother is insisting it's time to leave the game demo. He defies her, his father standing by, smirking and silent. Mom insists. Junior complies -- loudly, angrily. As they move past me, he hits his father repeatedly, shouting his frustration. The layers of complexity in that stumbled upon drama!

My own sons weave their way through the crowd of merchandise and eager shoppers toward me. Requests for lunch in the food court are denied (feebly...I'm terrible at saying no) and knowlingly accepted (They'll pursuade me to stop for slurpees on the way home instead!). We're ready to leave and set our course for the exit.

A teeny, startlingly lovely child, clutching her so-big stuffed monkey tightly to her chest, catches my eye. I smile at her and give a little wave. She rewards me with a fully engaged, reaches-to-her-eyes grin. There is healing in such a smile.

A mother, face dark with isolation and uncertainty glances my way. I catch her eye. She reaches for her head covering, self aware, defiant. Again with a smile. Shadows vanish and the light of connection shimmers instantly. For a moment she is alive, part of something larger than the world of stroller, bottle, bills, and drudgery. We are the same, she and I: sisters, daughters, mothers, lovers. I pray her well as we carry on our separate-and-the-same paths.

Brief exchanges at every turn. Rude exchanges -- one woman dominates and belittles another. Kind interchanges with both parties moving on satisfied, looked after. Men ogling women. Courteous men. Kind fathers. Negligent fathers. Teenagers sighing contemptuously as parents fail them in ways real and imagined.

The guys and I are walking too fast, as is our habit. A man and his wife turn sharply into my path, drinks in hand. He jerks to a sudden stop and I dodge just-in-time. "Oops! My bad...So sorry!" I offer. They giggle...a light hearted, forgiving, it's-completely-okay sound that rights all wrongs.

We're down the stairs and moving through the parking lot. A simple errand accomplished; a part played on a peculiar stage, a busy stage. Life touching life, for good or for naught. We go our separate ways.

Thirteen Going On Forever

Disregarded. He is ignored, dismissed. The wordless message: Disappear. The murmured message, grumbled by those he should most trust: Shut. Your. Mouth.

She hides her face behind a mask of licorice-black hair. Strong, afraid, searching. An impediment of speech ensures that telling her side will be complicated, slow. There's no one to tell anyway.

His need for belonging and adoration eclipse rational thought. He tells tales to weave a reality that is livable. Safe.

Her need to understand, to fit, to breathe, overshadow restraint. She begins the tightrope dance of belonging in the world of men.

Who will hear? Who will enter into the web of fantasy and choking silence that winds 'round his lips, his mind -- soon his all. Who will be on his side first; who will shout his worth?

Who will reach? Who will call her down from that too-high strand, that too-risky place, and invite her into safety? Who will listen, beyond shaking lips and stilted words, and understand that she already is; that she is becoming?

The hearing, the reaching: they take time.

It is inconvenient to love.

The leaving, the ignoring: they are effortless.

Play blind, dumb, mute. For the sake of ease.

It costs all to withhold. It is inconvenient to love.