My Beautiful Friends

I haven't posted anything here in AGES.  But there is something that has been rolling around in my head that completely relates to something I just read, and it's my lunch hour - so here ya go :).

I turned 35 in August.  I've spent a lot of time thinking about being a woman in her 30s (You might have noticed).  I've come to understand that whole "youth is wasted on the young" thing and wondered why I couldn't have the brain, heart, and boldness I've got now in a 20 year old body. And I've wondered why God makes us stronger and makes us feel more beautiful right after culture has told us we've peaked.  Right when all of your skin starts shifting.

I have a lot of friends who are moms to newborns and young children.  I love to watch them being moms.  This observation has answered some of my questions.  I think God makes women in their 30s and 40s a special kind of bold beautiful because that is when children are most watching them and learning about what it means to be a woman.  Because that lets us grow up with memories and images of beautiful women in our lives and what they looked like at our birthday parties and at the beach and when leading Sunday School.  Women in their 30s and 40s aren't lovely so much for the empty enticements of the world but for the hopes and dreams of the world.

I get such joy at seeing my friends' children interact with their moms because it reminds me that they get to remember these women at this stage too - while we're all in awe of them.

Not that beauty caps out at a certain age and not that we ever stop learning from watching women's plot lines as they age, just that this is a special window. 

So, when Shauna Niequist posted on what she has learned from her mom in different stages, I simply had to finally get it out of my brain.  In a nutshell, the advice from her mother is to boldly be who we were created to be even when wearing the different hats of wife, mom, aunt, sister, daughter because children are watching and taking note and children need us to be fully alive.  It's a great read:

http://shaunaniequist.com/mother-taught/

When sausagey crescent rolls become a holy thing...

You know those "I'm trying to make life less crazy and yet it's crazy so I'm going to eat this entire box of Whole Foods organic lemon wafer cookies" days?  Yeah, it was one of those. 

The words "nurture" and "nourishment" have been rolling around in my soul for a while now, but I'm unsure I've officially done anything about them yet.  I've realized it's as though I've totally forgotten how to take care of myself.  This sounds ridiculous, but it's true.  I've tried, but something real needs to change instead of being an illusion of change.

This is why I'm leading the Bread & Wine Supper club.  In hopes it will get me towards getting back to the basics of care.  And food.  Or food that isn't standing in a room shoving cookies in my mouth.

Today was such a reminder of this need.  I was at work, knowing I had a 4 hour video conference to be a part of and knowing I'd need food but not knowing what or how to get it.  I started thinking about what would be quickest, cheapest and "best" and realized what I really wanted was to go home and boil and mash some potatoes.  Or make a giant pot of soup and pour it over some cornbread.  Maybe even, dare I say it, have an entree and two sides and a glass of tea!  I desperately wanted a meal.  So, I decided to cook something for dinner.

Of course, I wound up working late, which wasn't looking good for the meal I planned.  Still, I went to the store for a few things.  Now, y'all, I don't know the last time I ate sausage pinwheels.  They were the signature dish of one of my second mothers growing up and my mom mentioned them the other day.  I had never personally made them.  As an adult, I most often avoid sausage.  But I left Winn Dixie with the ingredients for sausage pinwheels and made them like a starved dog.  I mean, I turned on the stove light and watched them cook and stared down the timer.  Then ate four of them.  Like I was in a race.

I don't want to think about whether they were a healthy choice for my heart and my rear end, but they revealed a need.  If I'm tempted to eat hot, half-baked dough just to have something real and comforting and homemade then there is a problem. 

So, we'll see what happens and how long it will stick this round.  All I know is I actually cooked and did 2 loads of laundry that I folded when I took out of the dryer - so I've won my own personal Super Bowl.  Good night.

My Roomate Was the Homecoming Queen

My town has received a lot of national news coverage this week because of our historically strange ways of going about things.  It's really about the balance of power, who has it, how they use it, and the process of successful change.  If the family is God's laboratory for learning how to love people, Alabama is the nation's laboratory for studying class, racism, and voter fraud.  It's a place where tradition has allowed it to remain easy to categorize all types of people while the outside world is ever changing.  Holding on to something familiar during shifting sands can be a comfort to humans, even when they know its wrong deep down.  We may not necessarily be better or worse people than the rest of the country but we are definitely less subtle (The 50th Anniversary of the 16th Street Church Bombing will remind you of that) (As will the details of picking of candidates for Governor).  It's a population Diffusion of Innovations study waiting to happen.

 All of this talk about who is accepted and who isn't had me thinking about my own college experience, which was vastly different from the students I teach.  It's all a matter of perspective and what you value.  In this town, if I told you I roomed with two different Homecoming Queens (one of which was Panhellenic President or something) and was elected SGA Secretary you'd probably think I owned at least three pairs of Tory Burch flats and had my pick of open doors in life.  In reality, we thought it was absolutely hilarious that we had a Homecoming Queen and we considered it a bit of a funny adventure.  As in,  they let us run a muck on the soccer field and put a crown on my roomie's head and hoop and holler and eat free pizza.  Here, the Homecoming Queen is escorted by the Governor and was the focus of an HBO documentary.  In reality, my roomate leading Panhellenic meant that we had some underclassmen girls over to the Honors House for spaghetti.  Here, it would mean determining the life path for thousands of young women.  In reality, I was SGA Secretary because nobody cared to run and I needed more scholarship money so the Dean of Student Affairs thought it was a nice way to help me out and get the position filled at the same time.  It was an uncontested race that involved zero threat or intimidation to other candidates that might be different from me.  Here, it would be a different story and involve putting my name on lots of Range Rovers with white shoe polish.  The thing that actually made me kinda popular at my undergraduate university was the fact my three best friends were cast members in the annual Fall Follies production and the guy that sat by me in class led the night's house band.  Have I mentioned it was quite a different world?

For all that goes on behind closed doors in this town, I will say that it is good that students care.  They care to be a part of leadership, they care to vote, and the students speaking out care to make things better.  My undergraduate experience was much better suited to me, but it wasn't perfect.  I remember when one of our international students wrote a letter to the school paper on how appalled he was by our apathy regarding student leadership.  He was one of the older students that would stand on the walkway above the student center and smoke cigarettes (how scandalous!).  He was from a nation with a dictator and wrote that students in his country were killed for trying to have a voice and we didn't care about student government enough to vote (which was ridiculously easy to do while waiting in line for the cafeteria) and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

I don't know if he made any of us actually care about the SGA, but his letter all those years ago regularly makes me think of democracy, freedom, and privilege.  Much like the words that have stuck with me from one of my fellow graduate students when I was the lone white girl in the department.  I admit I naively acted like I had shared life experience more often than I should yet my fellow women were so kind in their correction of me.  One told me to never forget I was priveleged and to always use my influence for those that would not be granted the same opportunities.  I hope I've done my best on all accounts.

Mmm...football

I'm starting to get excited about football season.  If you're reading this you're probably going "well, duh, yeah" or "hello - it started last week and if you were a real Bama fan you would have been counting down the days since February like everybody else."

Here's the thing - I'm a lifelong real Alabama football fan, but I've been strangely disillusioned with athletics since the winter.  There, I admit it, I said it out loud.  No, I did not fall and hit my head.  People in other regions of the world might even find this disillusionment healthy.  I didn't order tickets (meaning I don't currently have tickets to a game for the first time in my life - literally - though attendance was spotty during the Virginia years).  I haven't even given an athletically directed Roll Tide in months (though of course I've said it - I mean, I still speak and get excited about things).  Yes, of course, I watched the first game but I admit my heart wasn't in it even if I'm a long standing disliker of VA Tech.

Chalk it up to all the game day recipes on the internets and the exhaustive coverage of punky Johnny Manziel because I am now ready for some football.  I'm also ready to eat baked goods and really cheesy dips with meat in them.

I think I'll start here, with Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies from the Tasty Kitchen site.

Egg Love

I don't really like eating eggs.  Or should I say, I don't like eating most eggs.  It's a very strict egg approval system I have.  They can't be plain, they have to have stuff in them.  But no omelets please - because those are way too egg like.  Basically, they have to be scrambled with cheese, but in a skillet and not on a griddle.  Quiche totally gets a free pass because of the level of cheese and other yummy stuff and because it looks like pie and makes me feel fancy.  Stratta too - again, because it's fancy.  And the new McDonalds' egg white mcmuffin - totally my dream come true because trying to cut the yellow out of my previous mcmuffins was a very tricky process that I never fully mastered.

I have a reason for rambling on this, I promise.  Because while I am often suspicious of eggs, they are also a favorite symbol of love in my life.  My dad has the very best cheese eggs in the whole wide world.  They are his signature and nothing else quite matches them.  He takes the ordinary and elevates it with an iron skillet, milk, at least 2 cheeses when possible, a lot of patience, and knowing exactly when to turn off the stove.        
There is something extra special about your father cooking for you.  My mom can out cook most of the world, so I have lots of food favorites from her.  But I have a steady image of my dad, all 6 feet and 6 inches of him standing patiently at a stove because his family loves his cheese eggs and because he loves to make us smile.  His hands are rough and crooked from years of football, meat cutting, and farming but he carefully uses them to scrape the sides of the skillet just right to make sure the eggs keep the best texture.  It's a bit like the giant at the top of the beanstalk stopping to paint a tea pot.

The art of cooking scrambled eggs has eluded me, along with pancakes and the perfect grilled cheese.  I came close to getting scrambled eggs right last week.  I followed a tutorial and everything but they didn't hold a match to my daddy's.

This morning, someone asked me to use this week to think about what kind of legacy I wanted to leave.  To write it out.  I hope I leave people with something that is the best of version of a basic truth. Something simple that becomes beautiful in its truth and consistency.  Like love or mercy.  Or cheese eggs.

What I Learned In July

Another post wherein I link up with Chatting at the Sky and her "What I learned in July".  Linking up like this isn't really like me since I don't think I count as a real blogger, but I like looking back and seeing what I've learned over the past 31 days.  It's actually pretty encouraging and reflective, even if it's revelations about makeup :).

1.)  July has most certainly been a lesson for me on American materialism, what I really need in life, how I spend my money, etc.  It has also reminded me that an AC window unit can change the world if you live in a small space.

2.) Speaking of materialism and such - here was one of my few indulgences in July.  It's Maybelline's Color Tattoo cream eyeshadow in Bold Gold.  I had seen these recommended by a few beauty bloggers and they are only $6.99, so I tried it.  You can use them as an eyeshadow base and since it's a cream shadow it stays put in the summer.  They have lots of colors, but this was similar to a MAC color I needed to replace and was a cool-ish gold that doesn't make me look sick.  I put it over my whole lid, just a bit more concentrated on the eye, using it as a highlighter and an eye color.  Just add some brown to the crease if you'd like and you're done with your eye makeup for the whole day.  They also have crazy bold colors if that's what you're looking for.
**Ok, this is an edit update.  I don't have it in Bold Gold.  I have it in Barely Branded.  It's a really pretty golden champagne.  It wasn't on the Maybelline site when I wrote this so I figured it must be the gold, but it's not.  I got it at Ulta.  If they have stopped making it then I'm going to start a letter writing campaign.  Also, it's the perfect color for accentuating blue eyes.****
  

3.) Shauna Niequest is one of my new favorite authors and she makes me cry.  I can't wait to read her other books and to start cooking my way through Bread and Wine.  I may have also included this in June, I don't know.  But it's worth 2 months of mentioning.  And I read the last chapter on the very best day for it, when the only way I could help a friend was with homemade cookies.





4.) I was banned from my school library in elementary school due to my seeming inability to return a book.  I always thought it was my mother's fault.  If the Tuscaloosa Public Library and the Redbox have taught me anything its that I can no longer deny my own problem.  All of those penny pinching budget sites that recommend dollar movie rental and public libraries for cheap entertainment don't take into account that it is definitely not cheaper if you don't return things.  Not proud.  Just saying.  Might not be going back to the library.  And librarians don't think jokes about late fees are funny.

5.)  I could eat the Pioneer Woman's Penne a la Betsy every day for a week.  Please note extra poundage as proof.  And I used chicken instead of shrimp.  I love shrimp, but I do not love cooking shrimp.  Especially in my own  house.

5.) It is really intimidating and challenging to dress a brand-spanking-new-born baby.  Especially when they refuse to straighten their arms.

6.) I might not be as bad at Spades as I thought.  But it may have been pure luck.



Ok, I hope you didn't lose any brain cells reading this!  Have a great August!!

The Start Experiment

I've been a part of an online experiment lead by Jon Acuff called The Start Experiment.  I'm on day 14.  My plan was to write at least something every day for 24 days.  This has not actually happened, but I have definitely written more than I would otherwise and am trying to have a big finish.  Who knew what these past two weeks would hold?  The writing possibilities have been like drinking water from a fire hose, but the real life experiences inspiring these options have made me tired.

Right now, I'm exhausted and really want to be asleep but I'm  deciding to share a couple of Start Experiment tasks I just completed.

Task 1:  Pick a theme song for my current life soundtrack:
 "On the Shores" by Melissa Helser and Jonathan David Helser.  Check it out.  Sit on top of your cage.

Task 2:  In 100-250 words, write part of the future Time magazine article about your life.

Here's a brief paragraph on where I am now (please pardon the extreme self-indulgence of writing and posting this)

Though Lea was regularly identifying “pivotal moments” in her life, she knew the summer of 2013 was truly a defining period.  She was free from her past, growing in mercy and boldness, valuing new things, and tired of defeat.   She was starting to take a more active role in her work future and tired of repetitive decisions (or quite often non-decisions) that kept her from moving forward in life.   It was less than a month until her 35^th birthday, and she was doing a lot of thinking about who she is and who she wants to be when she enters a room.  She was also thinking about what she wanted 40 to look like and what she needed to do to get there.  Now, if only she could write a dang manuscript and cut down that debt, then things would really be going somewhere.  There was to be no more sacrificing Paris and trips to far away loved ones because of impulse items in Target.  But there would be more diners around a table, more intentional time reserved for letting people into her mess and listening to the people she was so blessed to have.  More days off and no more years without seeing the ocean.  More classic silhouettes.  If that meant living a more simple life at times, then so be it.

Ok, peace out my homies.  Sleep tight. 

 

Three Women and a Wedding

Tonight one of my cousins married a girl that was in the youth group I helped lead after college.  I knew it would be a good opportunity to see family and a lot of people I had not seen in ages.  It had been a challenging week on the singleness front, but I was genuinely happy to be there and wasn’t feeling the need to attend the wedding in a long black veil.

On a pre-ceremony trip to the ladies, I ran into the mother of the bride.  It was all smiles and big hugs until her first words were “You know this was supposed to be you before her.  What’s the problem?  Are you still being too picky?”  Boom, jump right to the gut punch.  Thankfully, I was already all prayed up from this week so I had the perspective to let this roll off my back while understanding this woman is someone that genuinely wants good things for me despite her initial approach.  And, most people have given up on me by now, so to have someone still think I’m young enough to have hope  and tell me I’ve still got time is kind of nice, right?  I didn’t take the time to explain the uncomfortable ways in which I had not been too picky or what my options have really been.  I chose to leave that conversation where it happened instead of carrying it with me and went to find a seat. 
 

Right before the wedding started, a large family slid into the seats to my right.  This group included a young woman from the same youth group as the bride.  I had not seen her since she lost her husband suddenly a few months ago.  She found him dead in a chair on their front porch.  He was coming home from work when he had an aneurysm and that’s as far as he made it.  This woman is in her mid-twenties and a widow.  She has a high school education and four kids under the age of five because all she ever wanted to be was a wife and a mother.  Her youngest isn’t even walking yet.  I know that I don’t understand what waking up in the morning is like for her.  Being single has led to a lot of rejection but spared me the risk of a heart fully torn apart like that. 

I made a dance circle with her and her daughters at the reception because it just seemed right.  The kids stayed out of trouble and I got to dance so it was a win-win.  And while I may not always have the right words, I’ve always got a dance so it was something I could give.  She had almost not come to the wedding because she didn’t want to take any attention away from her glowing friend on her wedding day.  She was also really nervous because she’d brought a date so quickly and she knew people would have opinions about that.  I didn’t judge her.  How could I?  Because if I understand anything I understand lonely and needing all the help you can get. 

While we were dancing a widow in her late sixties came over to tell us she was engaged.  She was giddy like a teenager and gushing.  I’d never seen this hard-working farmer lady dressed up, and here she was in a formal black gown with sparkles.  It was one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen.  She hugged the young woman and whispered something in her ear and they stood there holding each other, both bawling.  Later, the older woman found me.  She had been sitting on a bench with her fiancé outside the women’s restroom and heard my whole conversation with the mother of the bride.  She told me I might have to eat some of my words (she had sworn she’d never remarry) and it may come from the last place I expect (this man is the widower of her former husband’s sister), but hope is alive for me.

Sure, the wedding was nice.  They served a great spinach artichoke dip and a good chocolate groom’s cake, but twenty years from now I won’t remember those.  What I will keep is a snapshot of three women in overlapping stories of loneliness and redemption and how God used us to keep His promises.

Of Costumes and Super Heroes

I had a definite “Oh my goodness, I’m becoming my mother” moment recently in the parking lot of Hancock Fabrics.  It started because I was one of the only people that showed up for work on a Friday after a holiday, and my brain kept seeking a diversion.  I remembered that we could dress up for the hero themed Vacation Bible School the next week and I went straight to figuring out the best no-sew way to make a cape.

In the back of my head I just knew that everyone had talked about dressing up and this was something I was supposed to do.  Just to be safe, I texted the director who is a totally sold-out- to-dress-up kind of gal, and then foraged on to the fabric store regardless of her response.  I totally won the lottery because they were having a mega sale. It was my destiny.

When I got in the car with my haul the director texted back that she wasn’t planning to dress up (though she might throw on a tutu) but she thought a few other people were planning to wear capes.

There I sat in my car in the rain with my discounted gold lame, 2 yards of red sequins, and way too many star appliques.  I thought “How am I here again?!  How am I the one with the over-the-top costume?” Then I wondered whether I really heard the plans about dressing up or if the miniature version of my mom in brain told me it was so.

I texted back that it wouldn’t be the first time for me to be the only one in a costume, because let’s face it – that’s the story of my life.  That text was straight truth.  The scenario usually went one of two ways: 1.) my mother gave no option but dressing up, or 2.)I desperately wanted to be the fun and free person wearing the costume that was bold enough to show up anywhere and own it (adolescence made this waaaay more difficult to follow through with).  So there I sat again as an adult, afraid of being the one to really stand out but desperately wanting to wear a sparkly red cape.

My mother is famous for boldly owning these kinds of moments because she couldn’t care less what people think and she could sew like nobody’s business.  When I was a kid she had that parental quality of being both wondrously enchanting and embarrassing at the same time.  That touch of being a little to the right towards eccentric but not caring because she was going to have fun.  And it was always fun.  Only my fear of the teasing from other kids made it less so, and thankfully that took a few years to kick in.

Today, a distant cousin I’ve only met once in my life posted some old pictures she found on facebook.   I’m in 3 of these pictures and I am wearing a costume in each of them.  One is an old timey family photo where we are all in costume.  Another was my 2^nd grade spring picture where they sent a letter home informing our parents these pictures would be representative of Tennessee’s bicentennial celebration on Pioneer Day – which translated to me being the only kid actually dressed like a pioneer for her picture.  But hey, do you have a picture of yourself dressed like a Victorian librarian with a rocking chair draped in the Tennessee state flag? Boo-yah!  I didn’t think so.  Thanks mom!

The third picture most represents who I hope I really am.  It’s a family picture in the front yard and I am proudly wearing the neon orange overalls and giant straw hat from my 4^th grade tap routine. I am clearly enjoying said overalls and I even appear to be wearing them by choice and I don’t care who knows it.  I first learned how to jump and kick my heels together for that dance routine.  Ironically, that move is what I used as my special teacher skill while wearing my homemade Wonder Woman costume last week at Vacation Bible School.  

I wish I could say I fully owned my sequined cape and gold cuffs at VBS, but I was still scared of being the weird one.  I got over myself enough to wear them for at least the opening service each morning.  I did it for the little girls that need to see a grown up being silly and not caring what people think and for the part of me that thought it was so much fun.  The payoff was enormous because for three days I looked down to find a string of little ones standing quietly by my side just to touch the sparkles.

Evidently it's a Plagarize Taylor Swift Kind of Day

I woke up this morning feeling a little set free from something.  Feeling like I'd turned a bit of a corner and it was a new day.  Like maybe adventure could be all around me.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought "It's like I'm reborn on a Wednesday.  Hey, that's a good title.  That's so cool and original.  Look at me.  Oh - wait - it's really a Taylor Swift song."

Otherwise known as Begin Again, where she sings "On a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again." 

There you have my proud moment of the day.  That girl really does write the human experience so well ;).

Home?

One day last week I realized I have lived in Tuscaloosa longer than anywhere else in my life.  This may or may not have induced some shortness of breath and an urge to grab some essentials then jump in my car and keep driving.  I love this place.  Really, I do.  I’ve had the joy of going from someone that didn’t think she’d ever belong to being somebody that can’t go to the store without running into somebody she knows.  But understanding I’ve been in one place this long, especially after a rough patch, was a bit of a shock to my system. 

That same day I was driving the road along the river during sunset.  It was one of those July dusks that you can feel, almost as though the folklore of this place was tangible alongside the water and the trees and the tug boats.  That view reminded me being from this place means something.  It has a funny name and a history. People write books and make movies about it. You can’t just brush that off or discount that truth.  I thought of when we lived further North and my mom and I would tell people we were from Tennessee because it technically wasn’t a lie and it was so much easier and came with fewer preconceived notions.  Then there are all of the other times I’ve publicly defend this place. You can’t claim Tuscaloosa then melt into a crowd unnoticed.  It comes with responsibility and some days I'm tired.

The road along the river was taking me to a friend’s house.  She was one of the first people I met in this town and I was going to her house because we’ve been meeting with the same group of women of and on in some way for twelve years.  Driving there was my saving grace that afternoon because it reminded me that true community is why I am still here.  Or, as my mom put it, “If you move, who will bring you ice cream when you’re sick?”

There is value to truly living and serving in one place and I have the gift of being a part of a precious handful of lives.  Last Wednesday I witnessed the baptism of two precious little brothers.  I had watched their parents date, fall in love, then survive and overcome a horrible accident before marrying.  For the longest I thought the mother would be defined in my mind as my Alabama friend that had to sit in a chair for her own wedding.  After that there were their struggles to have children and I thought that redemption would be how I remembered their family.  These days, I don’t think about any of that stuff anymore because I’ve had the chance to live more of their story.  I’ve been the boys’ church preschool teacher and have their artwork on my refrigerator, I have their mom’s artwork all over my house and have a deep appreciation for her soul that lives in peasant skirts, and I tagged along for their trip to Despicable Me 2.  Sometimes I forget their past because that relationship has moved so far past a snapshot to an entire narrative.

This expanding narrative is the same reason I had to contain the ugly cry twice this week when I watched a certain foster child testify at VBS (aka Summer Blast) and then later blow out the candles on his birthday cake while surrounded by people that love him and who work tirelessly to create a safe place for him.  (Not to mention the privilege of seeing his momma throw her first kids party).  This community is also how I had the opportunity to stand by another friend at this birthday party while she said whatever she needed to say about watching her mom fight her last days of cancer.  Furthermore, living in this town every day is how I have finally convinced my 18-month-old great nephew to not be afraid of me, even if I do paint my toenails bright purple.

So, the place I now officially call home is a small-to-mediumish size town most often defined by the outside world by football, civil rights, and natural disaster.  We always have the choice of perspective.  I came here thinking this was a temporary place holder until I learned my next move.  I can see this place as suffocating or I can see it as a place holding untold adventures that also makes one heck of a home base.  I’m choosing to see it as a place that daily proves to me the promise that God puts the lonely in families.