A SOFT NOVEMBER MORNING

It's a soft, gray, mizzly day here at the farm. The air is cool and moist. Crows cackle in the trees behind the house and a soft drip-drip-drip plashes lazily from the roof edge into a rain-soaked trench below.

I could use more mornings like this.

Mom and I are staying home from church this morning. Mom had another one of her crash-&-bounce-back, cheat-death-again episodes yesterday. She is fine today, but she is tired.

Yesterday, we also celebrated the quickly approaching arrival of the newest member of our family. In the span of two weeks, I will have spent a weekend of fervent prayer in the hospital, applied my nursing training to revive an unconscious parent, and attended a baby shower, a wedding, and a funeral. Oh, and I also worked, bought groceries, cooked meals, did laundry, changed bed linens, and all the usual stuff.

It is lovely today to have a pause, a quiet day at home, a sabbath.

It's been a couple of crazy weeks since I last posted here at the blog. I tried to keep my once-weekly commitment - actually have two unfinished drafts from those silent weeks - but, you know, life. Both of my aging parents have commented to me recently - and I agree - "Life is so ridiculous!"

My mind is not clear enough this morning to write a well-thought-out post - am still processing so many emotions and needs and uncertainties - but I want to write something, if only to prevent two silent weeks at the blog from rolling into three. And so...

Today, I am sharing a few things for which I am thankful.

I am thankful I have a job that doesn't leave me completely emotionally and physically exhausted at the end of each day. I am thankful for a reliable car and a paycheck that allows me to put gas in the tank so that I can drive to a hospital two hours away. I am thankful for supportive co-workers, faithful friends, and precious family who check on me and who pray for me when I am anxious.

I am thankful for a son-in-law who loves my sweet daughter so very, very well, and for his gracious, kind, generous parents who love her like their own. My heart is overwhelmed at the goodness of God shown to my family through every single one of the in-laws He has given us.

I am thankful for my nursing education and work experience; thankful that a health crisis triggers a trained response instead of panic; thankful that "head down, feet up" is a reflex and I know how to "use my levers [bones]" to lift and transfer a large, unconscious person.

I am thankful that even though I STILL do not have anything to wear to this wedding on Friday, I know I will be welcomed no matter what I show up wearing, it will be a joyful celebration, and I have already been promised a dance.

And I am thankful for this quiet day at home and a slow, soft morning on the porch swing. (I think of you, Katherine, every time I sit here. Thank you!)

SABBATH

Gary came and mowed the field around the house Friday. Saturday, he raked hay into windrows, and by evening he was rolling bales.

A newly mown and baled hayfield looks so neat and tidy. And it smells delicious, like freshly baked bread.

A dear friend gave me a porch swing as a house-warming gift when my family first moved into this house-in-the-hayfield. For almost 25 years, I have sat and swayed in this swing, watching the hay grow, the seasons change, the bustle of traffic on the highway and the ebb and flow of vehicles down the long gravel driveway that we share with the house next door.

This porch has witnessed a lot of laughter, music, tears, long conversations lasting deep into the night. It has absorbed two-and-a-half decades of popsicle drips, beer-bottle sweat, and dog slobber. It has hosted family dinners, church gatherings, weddings, graduation parties, and after-funeral pot-lucks.

Pheobes come back every year to nest atop the posts lining the porch. This morning as I sit here on the swing and write, mama bird eyes me warily while she warms her second clutch of eggs. This evening, a clever brown toad will hop up the front steps to feast on insects drawn to the light streaming from the kitchen windows, while a flat green tree frog will climb right up the windows themselves.

As I sit here and sway, sipping tea and listening to the birds and enjoying the morning breeze, it is strange and somehow deeply calming to think that I have traveled almost 25 laps around the sun while sitting in this very same spot.

* * * * *

In healthcare, we preach a lot - and are preached to a lot - about good nutrition, regular exercise, sleep hygiene, stress management. In nursing school, we were exhorted to be "good examples" of healthy lifestyle choices for our patients.

Yeah, right.

In January, determined to better in my pursuit of healthy lifestyle choices, I resolved to take at least a 15-minute break every workday to mentally and physically step away from work - maybe walk one lap around a local park, or just pull off the road, roll down the car windows, and admire the beauty of a lake - in an attempt to better mange job-related stress. Should be easy, right? Six months later, I can count on one hand the number of times I actually took that break.

I am doing better about packing healthy lunches and making fewer corn-dog-&-tots runs to Sonic, but I eat that healthy lunch on the fly, racing from one patient's home to the next. I am intentional about drinking more water, but I still drink way too much caffeine.

I actually like to exercise - and I absolutely love yoga - so you'd think regular exercise would be a fairly easy habit to maintain. But the yoga mat and gym clothes camped out in the back seat of my work vehicle haven't been touched in a month: they are held hostage by long days and never-ending demands.

BUT TODAY...

Today, I have a couple of hours of rest from the stress of work (provided the on-call alarm on my phone doesn't shriek) and from the demands of my household (only two more loads of laundry to finish and one bed that needs clean sheets).

Today, I am swaying in the porch swing (Thank you, Katherine!), bathed by a cool fresh breeze, listening to the sweet, sweet music of birdsong, inhaling deeply the smell of freshly baked bread.

* * * * *

Thank you, thank you, thank you for asking, Lahrue - your checking in means so much. It's been a rough several weeks, but I am fighting to come up for air.

BROKEN AND BEAUTIFUL

Out of curiosity this morning - I'll get to the reason later - I Googled "total depravity vs. utter depravity." Let me just say, as an at-least-fifth-generation Calvinist, Professor Google does not always provide trustworthy information!

Whether you are contemplating the people around you or the world in which we live, it doesn't take more than 5 minutes of honest observation to realize that everyone and every thing is broken. It also does not take long to realize that there is, alongside the broken, much that is right and good - what Jerram Barrs calls "echoes of Eden" and what Yours Truly refers to as "fingerprints of God" - in the people, places, and circumstances we encounter.

My tiny patient, who is a frail dried husk of tissue-thin skin stretched over protruding bone, who would as soon bite my head off as tell me her name, she has more courage and strength of will than any fairy-tale knight or big-screen super hero ever created. I tell her at least once a week, "I want to be more like you when I grow up."

The man lying in his bed day after day, fighting intense chronic pain as his bones are eaten away by an invisible tormentor - he might have been something of a hellion in his youth, but today, he smiles through his pain when I visit him, and says "Thank you. I appreciate you so much."

It is weird - and beautiful - how death gives strength to the weak and softens the mighty.

Totally broken/fallen/depraved does not equal broken/fallen/depraved to the uttermost.

[Aside - Speaking as someone who once struggled desperately to categorize everyone and everything into categories of black or white, good or bad: If you find yourself also struggling with this tendency, nothing in life is that simple. Beware the compulsion to embrace or promote your own or someone else's person/cause/experience/insight/whatever as Perfectly Good or The Ultimate Evil.]

Anywho, I ran away from home yesterday afternoon, away from the exhausting demands of work and away from the heavy neediness that is the one constant when I get off work and away from the weekend routine of painful chasm and silence to a place where my head and my heart can find quiet and rest. Even in this sweet haven, however, I did not sleep well last night - coffee too late in the day yesterday, to help me push through the end of the work week - but lying awake through the wee hours, I felt loved and safe.

I woke up this morning in our big, beautiful, broken world to birdsong and the soft drip-drip-drip of last night's rain falling from a forest of green leaves, to strong black coffee and waffles and gentle people who handle my heart tenderly.

My life is a total mess. It. Is. So. Broken.

But it is not utterly broken. 

It is also so incredibly beautiful.

Thank you, Lord, for birdsong, spring rain, the riot of green outside my window, and rest.

* * * * *

"We are all broken...that's how the light gets in." - Hemingway

PEEL

 There is something strangely satisfying about removing a gelatin facial mask. Maybe it's the challenge of seeing if you can gently peel the entire crunchy-gooey mess off in one piece.

Maybe it's the anticipation of how incredible your skin will feel when you're done. 

I wonder if this is how a locust feels shedding its exoskeleton.

* * * * *

One assignment from my therapy sessions is to ask myself two questions every day: How do I feel? What do I need?

I am not used to asking these questions, and I find them difficult to answer.

How do I feel? I feel tired. All the time. My back and my neck hurt, and my jaws are tense. I often do not sleep well at night, and I have digestive issues.

But the assignment specifies that I must answer "How do I feel?" with not only what I feel in my body, but with at least one emotion. That part is even more difficult because I have a really crappy emotional vocabulary. We're working on that.

I went for a walk at the park yesterday afternoon, and while I walked, I tried to answer my daily assigned questions. Q1. "How do I feel?" After a lap around the walking track, I had my answer: "I feel disquiet." There are way too many voices inside my head, all of the shoulds, oughts, and must-dos of my own and others' expectations.

Q2. "What do I need?" I. Need. Quiet. I need space and time to be still, to turn down all the voices inside my head and simply breathe.

* * * * *

Mom, Steve and I watched another episode of Endeavor last night after dinner. The series is a British production about the life of young Endeavor Morse, before he became Detective Chief Inspector. Old-school British detective series is a genre the three of us can agree on - interesting enough for Mom and Steve, but not too violent or graphic for me.

On last night's episode, we learned that Morse used to attend a Quaker meeting house with his mother as a child. At the meeting house, they would sit in complete silence with other parishioners. Morse explained that the point was to "still your mind," to quiet all the voices inside one's head. Morse concluded his observations on Quakerism with a comment to the effect of, "It never worked for me. I never figured out how to quiet all the voices."

Endeavor Morse is not a real person. He is the fictional brainchild of author Colin Dexter. Morse is not real, but somehow, with that comment, he made me feel ever-so-slightly less out-of-place and alone in this world.

* * * * *

I'm on-call this weekend. That means that I'm working, kinda. I have to keep my phone with me and turned on. I can't leave town or get involved in some big gnarly project. I have to be ready to pull on scrubs, grab my bag, hop in the car, and go at a moment's notice, day or night.

It's not a bad gig. Actually, it feels more like a gift. I am not at work - at least not until the phone rings - but I am also NOT doing the usual it's-the-weekend-&-how-many-things-can-I-knock-off-this-never-ending-to-do-list routine.

I stayed home from church this morning to sit by the phone. No push to get out the door. No hauling stuff into and out of the car. It's been wonderful to have the entire house to myself, so very quiet, no spoken or unspoken demands hanging heavy in the air.

I did a gelatin mask for the first time in years. My skin feels sooooo good.

I did yoga on the front porch for an hour, complete with blocks, bolsters, and bands, loosening the tight cables tensed in my neck and back. During savasana, cicadas, hummingbird wings, carpenter bee buzz, a flock of geese honking, the neighbor's beagle chasing rabbits, wind through the hayfield...all these things drowned out for a moment the standard cacophony of "do more" and "not enough." I haven't done yoga at home, by myself, in a quiet house in years. Why?

* * * * *

Mr. Morse, I haven't figured out the trick, either...but I am working on it.

This morning was a gift.