Back in the land of baby...where time stands still

I was in North Carolina- next week Josiah turned 1 ! How did that happen so fast?  Years ago as the new mom living in this same area of eastern Carolina, I thought time crawled by.  My first baby was born one day after we moved into our first house in the town of Jacksonville. I remember thinking my whole life would consist of crying, spit up and endless diapers.

 Now that baby boy's a dad.

My son bonds with his daughter

So now I'm a grandmother- soon, these cute little people will call me Bebe.  Everyone has a grandparent name now and I think it's cool.  I didn't grow up with any ethnic, interesting roots or none that anyone treasured enough to tell anyway. Grandmothers weren't Oh-ma or Ah-mah.  There weren't a host of Bubbes or Grand-meres or Nonnas. They were Grandmothers or Grandmas.  My own grandmother didn't like ma anything so Grandma was out.  Granny was especially taboo, for some reason. I don't think the Clamppetts had yet made their trek to Hollywood when she was musing gran-motherhood.


But suddenly women my generation are choosing or making up names and I am Bebe. Long story- it's loosely based on a favorite movie combined with a website questionnaire and the of course, there's the cute sound. Two long Es.  bEE-bEE.  Love it- I feel like I invented a new identity and that's something new for me.  How many times can you do that? Legally....

So Bebe was there playing hide and seek with Josiah, sharing her morning banana or maybe reading a page or two of a book before he's up and away again. And trying to take pictures. This entire blog should be done in blurry pictures. This kiddo rarely sat still!  Always on the move.  So here's some "on the move" pictures ....

Loving the corn hole game. 

I WILL get that bag out...

Although bending over and stickin your arm through the hole is pretty tough -
at any age!

And back in- again.

That face just says determined!

Check out the baby "Birkenstocks" - just like Daddy's.
(Thrift stores are addictive)

Off to a playground. Toss out all the blurry pics....

At this age, everything is a toy- this is a step.

Finally, he's still for a moment. Of course, he's on the ground. 

He insisted on trying to walk up the slide. He is persistent.
And look at the red in his hair in the sunlight!

Down, but never out. He just kept at it -over and over.
I can't wait to see what kind of a boy he will be.
Busy, strong and perseverant.

Not a bad combo.

I can flash forward and see him as a young man.
My sons were this age...just last week.

Is that the gift of age?
Looking ahead as easily as you look back?

There's something precious about my visits with these little people. Now I recognize how quickly the time will go.  I remember how easy it was to focus on my own children and think life wouldn't ever change- what? that somehow my life would be the one that made time stand still?  How foolish to miss my own shortsighted attitudes.

How do you pass wisdom on to the next generation?  Can you ever learn the hard lessons of life without experiencing them for yourself? Would I have?  Or do we just react to life as it comes, embrace the lessons or have the opportunity to repeat the mistakes until it sinks in?

Thank you, Lord that You give us time on this earth - to enjoy grandchildren, to create memories, to slow time down.

If only in our hearts.

Views of Nashville

I'm in Nashville for a writer's conference, Writing it Real, with Sheila Bender and Meg Files. Last year was Oracle, Arizona in stucco bungalows.... this year?  Gothic style dorms on the edge of Vanderbilt University. Big change! 

http://www.scarrittbennett.org/

So I took a walk- no food in my possession, dinner in two hours and I need to burn some energy. 

Emily, my niece,  knows country music- snap a quick shot to send to her....  

That gives me an idea... contrasting views of Nashville.

Yep- lots of bars....

We have the "Winners"..... notice the little white house on the left?

Yep, that's the "Losers"..... notice who has the poster. 

And the big black custom touring buses. 

And the band doing warmups- that's what drew me off the quiet street I was walking on.
What's that music? Sounds live.

For everyone who longs for the glamorous life of a musician...
this is the back side of the stage where they were warming up. 

I walked about three blocks up busy streets and found...  the Scarritt-Bennett retreat and Learning center. Ah... more my cuppa tea.

Looking forward to the labyrinth...

And better light for some photos...

Inside the chapel- lovely windows.

A view onto the grounds- through old, wavy glass.

A world away from bustle, bars and cowboy music.   But both give me something to think and write about. Life- it's gotta have both quiet and loud, the contemplatives and the party animals.  I'm just glad I'm at the contemplative season.

Off to dinner- even a contemplative/photographer/writer person needs to eat!

Peace after the storm

 I rode back from the hospital yesterday with my sister in law, no, my sister in LOVE.  We were crazy, foolhardy, but  still protected... the road was a mess. I wasn't in the frame of mind to take pictures in the worse of it but this is about what our visibility was-

This is, honestly, out my fogged window after we were relieved to be on the home stretch. 

This was after it got better- thank you, Jesus, we can see the road.

And there are tracks! We aren't alone!

Five miles to go and only one more big hill and slick turn.
Practically giddy with relief. 

We were in her really big truck- Clyde's size big- with 4wheel drive and a experienced Alaskan snow storm driver.  Well, two experienced drivers but I let her drive. I did suggest we pick up food, just in case - if you slide of the road on an afternoon like yesterday, they may not find you until daylight. And her truck is white.  So we had pizza with us for carbs. just in case.... I'd have to be desperate to eat what we picked up. 

And we arrived safe and sound. We had to stop several times and fix frozen wiper blades, one which popped off into the snow twice. We did get gas before we left Rapid City- thanks Dad for nagging me about keeping a decent amount in the tank. We had boots and gloves and a sense of humor.  

We bonded. 

And this morning, the dry crystalline snow is blowing around my yard.
For a brief moment, I had sun.

Winter isn't over yet.

I've never had it drift up onto the door.
Hey, the porch is COVERED.

Wind

I judged the wind would come from the south so this is my north porch.

That's my firewood.
I misjudged.
(Just talked to my mother- I didn't misjudge the wind, I'm directionally challenged.
This is south.  EIther way... duh)

And this is my view INSIDE my house. 

I'll love to stay in all day and writer but I'll go in and take my mother to the hospital later. My driveway is pretty drifted and I'll go ski some tracks into it for the car to get out. I have all wheel drive and it handled in the last drifts just fine. The skiing is just my excuse to get out there in the white stuff.



I'm feeling grateful- for a sister in love who cares so much for my brother; I'm grateful for my brother who is still with us and will come back with his wife to their cozy home across the road.  I'm grateful that God protected us when clearly we were out of our minds to travel yesterday.   I'm grateful for a God who dwells with us in these cozy homes, in big trucks, in scary hospitals.

Once again, I'm reminded of the Creator God who came down, 

as a Babe, 

to dwell among his Creation. 

To create peace on earth and goodwill to men.  

And I'm grateful to be one of His "men", His human creation, 

that He dwells right here with me. 

I have His peace, I have His goodwill.  

The calm before the storm

It looks like they weren't kidding about some snow....

Feeling warm and cozy inside,
starting to snow outside.

Always plenty of books to read.

And candles for atmosphere.

Ready for anything....

Or so we think.....

My plans were to stay in, write, read, enjoy the fireplace all day long-

Instead, I wrote this....

I’m sitting in another hospital room. My brother is wired to machines and nurses search for veins in his strong arms. He sucks oxygen to counteract the carbon monoxide he inhaled when he sat for two hours in his road grader, waiting for the weird pain in his arms to pass. He was having a heart attack.

Twenty five years ago, our father was hiking in New Zealand and had "indigestion" for three days. After he and our mother returned home, she insisted on a doctor’s visit and he had had a significant heart attack.

I was surprised when I walked down the hospital hall to my brother's room. It was a bittersweet sadness that crept over me. For months a hospital, not this hospital but another, had been my familiar place, the place of fear and comfort for my husband and me.  And all hospitals feel the same. 

Do doctors and nurses feel at home at any hospital? Ho do they respond to the smells, the squeak of shoes on tile floors, the underlying burble of voices and pages?  Do they feel the fear, the hope, the weight of emotions as our babies are born, our elders die and the rest of us fight for the life that is left to us?

So today, my plans have changed, the weather continues to storm outside and once again, I am in a hospital.  But this time a life has been saved- perhaps changed forever but saved. My brother's heart had minimal damage, he is lucid and harassing his nurses, and should go home this week.   Connie, his wife, is shook but calm now that she is with him.  We are in the calm, literally in the midst of a storm.  God is good. 

And we never know when our days are not what we expect. 

We have hope because of a baby that came-
without the benefit of a hospital.


His grace needs only a needdy heart.