When You Were Young

Last night The Killers were in town.

In lieu of Family Home Evening I put charcoal around my eyes and David drove me (all prickly) to the concert.  I had emailed him earlier in the day and foolishly written that I wasn't going.  He wisely ignored me.

Brilliant man.

And now a confession:  it was the first concert I've ever been to.  And I think David was out of practice because we got there in time to see the opening band and the theatre was still only half full.  Most people only showed up in time to see the Killers' first song, "Joyride."

It was a great concert.  Absolutely incredible to see them live.

I danced.  I screamed.  I jumped up and down with the drummer's pounding.  I begged for more.  David screamed at me between numbers, "This is so good!"

The Killers' latest album has been the soundtrack of my life for nearly a year now as I've shuttled kids to and from.  (David introduced me to it, of course.)  One day last winter I told David that it might be the best album ever made.  A few weeks later he announced he had tickets to their concert for my birthday. 

We crawled into bed late last night and whispered our throaty goodnights because we were hoarse from screaming.  And this morning, with a sore throat and charcoal smeared down my cheeks, I hummed "For Reasons Unknown" as I tied the girls' hair up for the day, and thought about my love affair with David.

There were a million reasons I fell in love with David.  (Someday I will tell you the story about the one at the gas station in Orderville, Utah that sealed the deal.)

But last night, I remembered this one.

He is dancer.

He was always the cool guy who listened to cool music and introduced me the joys of a really good bass guitar and a soulful melody, of the language that only a rock band has, and of the transformation of words by rhythm and electric guitar and a bass drum as deep as your secrets.  I felt like a groupie around him sometimes.

Last night in my new Bonnie Tyler voice I told him how strange it was that we had never been to a concert together, as he has been my music tutor all these years.  And it seems like the thing to do when you are young.

He smiled and reminded me of how poor we used to be.  When the choice between food and music was always food.

And so there we were.  Fifteen years later (when the choice is now between food and music lessons) with four children and a mortgage on a Monday night, escaping for just a few hours back into our early courtship.  It felt like a memory.  Like a door to a life before spelling lists and medical staff meetings.  When we were young.  I was vibrating by the time we left. 

And sometimes you close your eyes

And see the place where you used to live

When you were young.

More Evidence of My Good Taste: A Love Story

(This is the gas station where I fell in love with David.  I know, romantic right?  We stopped here on our way home from Canada this year, and I took this picture.  We spent the next 100 miles of the trip reminiscing.)

Last night after David read my post and we were lying in bed in the dark he put his hand on my back and said, "I think you've got great taste."

I asked, "In men?"

And we laughed.

And then he continued doggedly forward and hunted around a little for the right words about my writing.  I could tell it was like finding his way in the dark.  But I appreciated the effort.

This morning as he left for the hospital, I asked him to kiss me with courage and determination.

He smiled at me and then complied.

He knows I need the courage to face my chores today and did his best to pour a little into me.  I appreciated the effort.

And then a little later this morning, as I followed him out to the car and held his hand in a silent plea to stay and help (or at least stay and talk to me while I work) we passed the calendar.

He tried to be bolstering, "Hey, it's the first day of autumn."

I rolled my eyes.

"No, come on, that's encouraging.  Even if it doesn't feel like it.  We could celebrate.  Let's bob for apples tonight."

He was teasing me, of course.  But it was enough.

I felt propped up.  And a little more courageous and determined, I made a menu for our celebration.  It will include 

the solstice candles

pumpkin soup (with curry and apples)

homemade bread

fresh raspberry jam

and, for dessert, I will take a break from peach pie and make one out of apples instead (my specialty)

When your courage is failing you on a very ordinary Tuesday in mid-September, it is very nice to have such good taste in men.

Worn Out From Being Right All the Time

Bam.  The weekend's over.  (That was fast.)  I am reeling a bit from the jolt of Monday morning.

Here we are again.  Just me and the laundry and a week's worth of entropy to clean up.

David and I spent the better part of last week trying to be right.

Each of us finally conceded that we were wrong late Saturday night, and I do mean late.  But I had a lesson to teach on Sunday and I was desperate for the Spirit.  (I only repent under pressure.)  So I caved, abandoned my position, and kissed him back.  And thought if I could just kiss him everyday I would be willing to be wrong all the time.  (But don't tell him that.)

Sunday was a blur of shirts and ties and lessons and brunch and worship and peach cobbler, topped off with a court of honor.  (My favorite way to end any day.)  There was dessert and talking afterwards, but I was anxious to leave.  I kept pinching David's butt (our universal sign that we are ready to go) until I nearly accidentally pinched a member of our bishopric.  I looked at David then and said in no uncertain terms that it was time to go home.  We gathered in a circle for prayer at eight thirty and, thinking I couldn't stand one more minute of the day, I hustled the children to bed.  It was the end of a very long week, and I was happy to see it go.

I woke this morning worn out from myself.

Yesterday in my lesson about the Martin and Willie Handcart companies, I asked my Sunday school class if they had ever felt in need of rescue. 

The class was silent a long time.

And I thought how I feel in need of rescue about every day.

Rescue from myself.  Rescue from my own hard heart. 

Someone raised their hand and said that those handcart companies had kind of brought it on themselves, they were unprepared, they didn't heed the warnings, and then they were caught by an early winter.  And I thought how I must have taught the lesson all wrong because I didn't see it that way.

Because the truth is I never heed the warnings.  I am always unprepared.  I am always stranded by early snow and a very stiff neck.

And how grateful I am to have a Rescuer who will come to my aid even though it is always my fault.

Help me, is my constant prayer.

I am sure heaven tires of hearing it.

Help me get up.  Help me face that sink of Sunday dishes.  Help me forgive.  Help me repent.  Help me to live without regret.

Of course it's my fault.  Send help anyway.

(Please.)

That is what I meant to say.  That if you read my history, you will see that I am unwise and foolhardy and too stubborn almost all of the time.  That those I travel with are suffering because of it too.  But heaven sends relief and rescue wagons over and over again.  Most often, those wagons look like a sacrament cup. 

Rescue.  Repent.  Renew. 

I am trying again.  (Send help.)

Reading Lines

Dinner last night ended with a musical number.  (Dinner and show, I call it.)  Olivia treated us to a performance of Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky", complete with matching dance steps and hand motions.

After that there were plenty of "Flash! Bam! Alakazam!'s" coming from the girls' room at regular intervals.

Ethan, who was nursing a brand-new cold, asked me to make them be quiet when I came to tuck him in, and wipe his nose, and turn on the humidifier.

By now the musical number had become a duet and so this took some doing.  Olivia said, "'Alakazam' is not a phrase I usually use, but I think I'm going to make it a big part of my vocabulary now.  It says things in a way no other word can."

I can hear it now.  "...and then after lunch, Alakazam!, we had a spelling test."

She can pull it off, too.

[Speaking of vocabulary, I know I owe you a few sentences on "truckle", but that will have to wait submissively for tomorrow.]

But after the song-and-dance and the duet and things had quieted down to just humming, David and I deconstructed the day.

It had been a trying one, and so it took a while to untangle it all.

I kept saying things like, "Start at the beginning" and "I don't understand.  Just start at the beginning and tell me everything."

But his analysis and emotions were all mixed in with the events of the day and so it took some time for things to shake out.

After a couple of hours, I made a comment and David said, "Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying?"

Which is usually my line.

I smiled, in spite of myself.

So then I said, "I just want you to be happy.  What is it that you want?"

Which is always his line.

And suddenly things cleared enough for me to see and I thought, "Alakazam!"

We have traded lines and crises.  He said all my lines from the last three weeks and I said all of his. 

This is the Sadie Hawkins of married life.  We have matching self-doubts.

Don't we look cute together?

Finding True Love at Barnes & Noble

Last night, as we were talking through my anxieties, David confided to me that he didn't like to read or write.  He said it like he was confessing a long-buried secret, that had been burdening him all these years.

I said, "I know."

He has no secrets from me.

Over the years, I have overlooked his reluctance to read (his only character flaw) and he has overlooked everything else.

We've made it work, see?

On Saturday, David and I took our boys to the bookstore while the girls ran a lemonade stand with their friends.  David got stuck for a while in the international travel and maps section while the boys and I hunted through the shelves in the children's section and got lost for a while in the Newberry's.

We passed a table with all kinds of writing books--there are many people with the dream--and I found a little book, which has apparently been quite famous for a decade or two in the writing world.  I added it to my pile.

When it was time to go, David asked, pointing at my considerable pile, "Which of those are we getting?"

I was thinking, "All of them.  That's why they're here in my pile."  But instead, I put a thoughtful look on my face and sorted through the pile, taking one of the paperbacks I had considered for Olivia out.

I smiled up at him.  "These ones."

We checked out.

The clerk handed me the bag.  It was heavy.

On the way to the car I was filled with that joy that only books can produce.  Adrenalin and endorphins and falling in love, all at the same time.  David took my hand.  He could feel my joy.  I looked up into his bemused eyes.  And his hand whispered to me all the way to the car, "I don't understand you, but I adore you.  See how much I adore you?  Even when I don't understand you." 

And mine answered back.

And said the very same thing.

Through A Glass, Darkly

This morning Caleb said the prayer.  It was longer than usual. 

Over the weekend our prayer list grew.

And he was reminding heaven about each of our loved ones by name, one by one.

On Sunday we went to church fasting and praying with the rest of our congregation.  I walked into church behind a good friend and thought about the comfort of worshipping together as I watched her Sunday heels enter the building.  I thought about what it means to pray together when tragedy strikes.  Of asking for help when we feel helpless.  And the comfort of belonging.

This weekend we received the news that one friend had died unexpectedly, and another two had come very, very close. 

And suddenly, in a flash of awareness, I remembered that one breath separates this life and the next.  That ordinary life is a luxury.  That asking your husband to take the garbage out is a gift.  That being irritated that he's in a meeting and late for dinner is a grace.  That most of the time, I am living blind to the real situation:  that anything and everything can change in a moment.

I thought about that all day.  I went to church and prayed with my family.  And in between my messages for comfort and healing for our friends, I asked heaven to also help me remember that regular, ordinary life with its dishes and homework and socks left by the side of the bed are evidence of the kindness of heaven.  That being able to wake up next to David and then blearily make pancakes for six is the tenderest mercy of all.

I thought about that all day.

And then we went to bed and had a fight.

(Technically, it was really just me fighting because David never participates, despite all my goading.  He'd rather kiss than fight.  And sometimes that, in and of itself, makes me want to fight.  I don't need a good reason, see?)

He rubbed my foot while I railed.

He rubbed by back while I got it all out.

And then I fell asleep and after a while, David's snoring woke me.  I pushed his heavy arm from around my waist and I thought about the luxuries of my life.  Of fighting over nothing.  Of an arm thrown over me in the dark.  Of someone lying next to me, waking me with their snoring.  Of how dark the glass I am peering through must be.  And how between that and the blindness of my mind, I must be nearly always lost.

And for a long time after that, I thanked heaven for my blessings. 

Especially the ones I can't see.

Imagine You and Me

My favorite thing about married life is the early mornings.

When the light is just leaving blue for yellow, and the sheets whisper their secrets as the mattress dips and David nudges his nose into my neck.

I love the sound of sheets in the morning.

And David's voice, right in the middle of a conversation.  No "How are you's" or showers or clean teeth.  Just us.  In the middle.

This morning I asked David if this is what he imagined his life would be like when he married me.

I could feel his smile against my collarbone.

"I don't think so."

"Me either."

"I'm not sure I really imagined anything.  Did you?"

But I know him better than that, of course.  He always had plans.  Ideas of the perfect life.  We used to break up every Thursday over this very thing.  He couldn't help himself. 

We waited a whole six months to get married because he had always imagined a June wedding.  He still thinks it was worth the wait.  I still don't.  It's been fourteen years and I still bring it up when we fight.  It was the first great offense, after all. 

I'm not sure what I imagined life would be like.  (I just knew I wanted to be with him all the time.  And wake up with him.  That most of all.)  But I'm sure I didn't imagine that building a life together would actually mean so many hours apart. 

Fourteen years ago this morning we were kneeling across an altar, making promises about things we couldn't imagine.  Promises about laundry and children and morning sickness and road trips and dishes and broken sprinkler pipes and forgiveness and emergency rooms and Christmas mornings and late meetings at the hospital.

David's right, of course.

I don't think it is what either of us imagined.

Some of it is better and some of it is not.

But the real magic of our marriage is that every morning for the last fourteen years, we have made and kept the same promises, regardless.

This morning before David went to work, we had to take the car into the shop.  (We know how to celebrate an anniversary.)  These are the middle years of marriage, when car repairs replace a night away.  David dropped me off and we went our separate ways, he to work and me to the children and the casserole dish still soaking from last night.  With a kiss and a promise to meet up later.

This is what real marriage is, I told myself, willing myself not to be disappointed.  I was a bit anyway.  But when I came in, I found the smell of David's aftershave and another note in red lipstick waiting for me.  Dated this time.  To show he intended it for today.  On the occasion of our anniversary.

It was enough.

To tide me over until tonight.

When we will review the day, and the last fourteen years, and the fourteen ahead, I will tell him that my life with him is better than I ever imagined.

And despite his old plans for the perfect life, I imagine he will tell me the same.

On Being Dog-ged and Other Canine References

On Friday, I asked David if he wanted to make out.

He said, suspiciously, "O. kay."

I told him I needed a reason to keep going.

That was three days ago, and now I need more reasons than ever.

Last night in the dark, we inventoried the past week.  We only sat down to dinner together one night.  I feel sick just thinking about it.  Persistent heartburn.  We spent the weekend near the border at medical staff retreat, which meant that David was in meetings all weekend, while the kids played, and I tried to attack my threatening to-do list.  The hounds are at my heels, so I hauled my quilt and my starch and my computer and worked through the retreat.  We returned home yesterday afternoon, in time for me to teach Sunday School.  And then an hour later, David and I were both back at the church for other meetings, in separate rooms, while the kids rooted through the cupboards and fended for themselves.

I feel like the washer when all the wet towels end up on one side during the spin cycle and it bangs like the end of the world is coming.

But then, this morning I looked up wearily from the pancakes I was cooking and noticed this:

You have to look closely.

Just in case you missed it:

It is unbelievably, mercifully, blessedly blank.  One day in an entire month.  And it is today.

Hot dog. 

And just in time too.

I was this close to giving up entirely.

Instead, I'm feeling positively dogged this morning.

When I told David about my change of heart, he asked, "What does dogged mean?"

I said, "It's dog-ged.  Two syllables."

"So?"

I said, getting excited now, "The second syllable makes all the difference.  It changes the word from 'being hunted or chased'  to 'being persistent and determined and stubbornly not giving in'."

He's used to this.  More information than he'd ever want to know about "dogged."  Still confused about the line of logic I was following and clearly hoping for another make-out session, he said, "Well, you're definitely stubborn.  I can see that."

Which only made me smile.  I kissed him hard and sent him on his way.  But not before reminding him to be sure to come home tonight.  We have a free night.  The "can't miss" event of the season.   

SPT: Eight is Great (even a week late)

(Sorry, Lelly.  I meant to post this last week.  I believe it's never too late to SPT.)

In 108 days,

I will be enjoying the fruits of his labors. 

(Please just ignore the dark circles under my eyes, and the gray hair that desperately needs to be colored.  And just go right ahead and enjoy the shot of my generous and glorious cleavage.)

A Must-Read

David and I spent our date night at the bookstore looking for travel guides of Victoria, British Columbia.  We have a roadtrip in mind, and the only thing David enjoys reading more than the atlas, is a really good travel guide.  He is already typing our trip itinerary, and the trip is at least four months away.  He can't help himself. 

But while David was debating the merits of Fodor's versus Frommer's, I overheard a father reading a lovely book to his daughters.  I could hear him reading: "Compassionate means..."  "Envy means..."  "Patient means..."  When they left, I sifted through their pile and found this charming picture book all about words and cookies.  Two of my favorite things. 

Since then Ethan have read and reread and reread it again and again.

Ethan's favorite part is the page on "Content."   It is so lovely.  The pictures, the words.  One of them is even "Regret," which I've always been partial to.  (The pages on "trustworthy" and "compassionate" will steal your heart.)

I recommend you read it with someone you love and find out what "Content" really feels like.