September

Two times of year cause me to reflect: January and September. But let's forget about January. I've never met a resolution I liked-- or kept-- and I don't like being told what to do, though for pure entertainment, being told what to do can hardly be beat. As I read articles about losing weight, meeting one's soulmate or landing the perfect job, I feel smug and ornery: That would never work! How stupid! No way!

But September is another story. For many years it was the real beginning of a new year. New classes (though most schools begin in August now), new shoes, new teachers and friends. New Sunday School department. New, new, new. Having a September birthday gave the month even more importance. I'm sixteen now! Things will be different!

When our first baby was born on the first day of September, it seemed only appropriate. Finally things were going to be different. I really did have new goals, and I didn't need Parent magazine to tell me what they were. I probably couldn't have articulated them beyond the basic concepts of protect, take care of, and nurture, but I began understanding "new" in a way I never had before.

And so today begins another September. The baby lives hundreds of miles away. Most of my memories have little to do with her current reality, or even with my own. I remember watching her learn to walk, and now she's training for a marathon. I, on the other hand, am contemplating natural remedies for arthritic knees! What hasn't changed for me is the sweet wistfulness, the prayerful longing, and the passion for the journey I began on the day she came into my world.

Life. As I Know It.

Summer for me has ended, as I went back to work at the residence hall at Baylor last Monday. My computer had been moved from one end of the long desk (it's more like a counter) to the other-- my first adjustment. After that, it was new students, new numbers, new t-shirts, new IDs, and-- of course!-- new freshmen parents! Dutifully they stood in line with their offspring and asked the questions their students were too shy to ask, such as "Should he have brought his own toilet paper?" It was an exhilarating and exhausting week.

Every day after work I drive across town to a nursing home where my Aunt Netsy is living. It has been an exhausting time for her, too. My own fatigue is the result of trying to navigate the maze of Good Care. What is it and how do I help get it for her? My cousin and I talk often and plot our next moves. I am sobered by the inescapable fact that I worked in long-term care for fifteen years, myself-- if it's this tough for me, how do other nursing home residents and family members manage, even survive, it?

First Day of Summer

It's a beautiful morning and I'm.....not going to work. I'm a schoolgirl again-- free for the summer. It's a welcome benefit of this job.

What will I do?

I'd like to plant some flowers. Start cooking again. Organize and clean out my digital photo library. Blog more often. Send long overdue graduation and baby and wedding gifts. Read more books. Take more naps. Unpack.

I wish my daddy was still here, coming over for coffee every morning. I'm drinking a leisurely cup right now, thinking of him and knowing once again what time gives and time takes away.

Almost April

I used to think of April as magical. Hard to say why. There were many nights when, as a child and teenager, I went to sleep with the window next to my head wide open. It never occurred to me that this might not be safe, and I suppose my parents didn't think of it either. I only knew that the breeze on my face felt like nothing else did.

And it's only March now. Not even Officially Spring. Yet today was one of those sunny, gusty days that reminded me of why I love spring so much. It was pouring rain all day yesterday. I was soaked by the time I made it home. But today was spectacular, just in time for an Easter egg hunt.

Anna, the exquisite little person whose mommy invited me to the hunt, toddled along clutching a small box of candy that had fallen out of a plastic egg. It fit perfectly inside her tiny little fist. Who needs a colorful egg when you can have a box of Nerds candy?

Soon it will be forty years since I walked on this same campus, even in this same area of the campus, holding hands with a boy I'd just met. He was too short for me, or I was too tall for him, but it didn't matter. Still doesn't.