Baby Laughter

When I was a child, I loved Peter Pan. The Mary Martin version shown on television was an annual ritual, but its influence lasted throughout the year. I was the strongest and always chose to be Peter. The eldest of the family down the street was Wendy, and we forced our little sisters to play Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. I was plenty old enough to not believe in fairies, but I still lay in bed staring at the window, willing it to be flung open and Peter to fly into my room to take me off for adventures in Never Land. (It was very irritating that the window slid sideways instead of opening outwards to the stars and my bedroom was partly below ground, screened by bushes in a split-level. How pedestrian!)

 
In James Barrie’s play Peter tells us that when the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and that was the beginning of fairies. Now that I am ever-so-much more than twenty, that theory is still easy to believe when I hear my granddaughter, Bella, laugh. She hasn’t learned to smile politely at appropriate times. There is never malice in her laughter. No one is ever the brunt of her joke. The giggles and chortles and squeals of delight that spill out of her represent nothing but sheer joy.

 
I hear it when a tower of cardboard blocks tumbles down. I hear it when Mommy turns her upside-down to kiss her tummy. I hear it when she can hardly hold still long enough to get her clothes off and come into the hot tub with us or when her pink snowsuit appears and she knows she is going for an outing.

And whenever I hear it, I think of fairies.

Lunar Eclipse

“Wednesday night, February 20, between 9 P.M. and about 9:55,” the newscaster said. That’s an hour that even an old lady like me can handle.

My daughter Katie and I put on our boots and down jackets over our pajamas and went outside about 9:15. We felt our way down the steps, not wanting to ruin our night vision by turning on a light. Katie’s shape was no more than waving darkness against the slightly paler black of the snow. Stars sparkled like jewels, undimmed by the lights of any town, and the moon hung over the bare branches of our woods, full and round.

I have never seen “The man in the moon.” The face I see in its mountains and valleys has always seemed to be that of a woman—a gypsy woman in a long black cloak, or an Iranian woman with her chador swirling around her. The expression on her face is one of concern. I used to imagine she was searching for her children. But tonight her face was veiled. A pinkish-orange shadow of our world obscured hers. Katie and I spoke in awed whispers as we watched.

Eight below zero (or -23 Celsius) is too cold to stand outside for long even with a warm coat. We came back in to get warm, talked of the image of God and of space ships and aliens, then returned to check the progress of the earth’s shadow on the face of the moon. We made three trips into the frozen night before we put away our coats and went to bed, satisfied with the shared moments.

Homelessness

Homelessness is a relative thing. Last week I was feeling sorry for myself. I am preparing to leave my retreat in northern Wisconsin and return to Johannesburg. The housing we anticipated has not come through, and we will stay in a self-catering guesthouse for a month (more living out of a suitcase) before moving into the house of fellow-missionaries going on home assignment. Although we plan to use our own linens and dishes, it will be their house, their furniture, and their gardener, at least until our South African visas run out in August. Next week I will leave behind my roll top desk, my blue stoneware and the Sri Lankan tablecloth Steve gave me for Christmas and go back to improvising.

This week I traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to meet with my agent. We went over my manuscripts, discussed possible markets and met with a publisher. Etta showed me a bit of the town, including the lovely Bicentennial Mall State Park, built to commemorate Tennessee’s two hundredth anniversary of statehood in 1996. With its lawns, carillon, spray park and 1,400-foot time-line etched in a polished granite wall, the Bicentennial Mall makes a delightful outdoor learning center.

As we entered the park by the farmers’ market we were met by a man in a bedraggled gray jacket. He dragged an overflowing shopping cart behind him with an upside-down, upholstered dining room chair poking its polished mahogany legs into the nippy February air. A pair of shoes dangled by their laces from some other carefully guarded possession.

Suddenly my ‘homelessness’ took on a new perspective. I have far too many possessions to fit into a shopping cart and kind friends who have graciously stored the boxes for me. When I get off the plane in South Africa, I will not only have a roof over my head, but a very nice roof with a comfortable bed and cooking facilities. I won’t have to cart my belongings from one place to another (as we did for fourteen months back in 1984-85 when we moved to Mozambique.) After the first month, I will have a three bedroom house to stay in for as long as we need.

I do plan to enjoy my Wisconsin fireplace while I may. And next week I will do what I can to make my temporary quarters a home. But hopefully the memory of that crazy upside-down, upholstered dining chair in a shopping cart will remind me not to complain about my cushy version of ‘homelessness’.

Psalm of My Life

Writers are famous for contemplating the "meaning of life." I wrote this psalm several years ago as I thought about mine. You may want to adapt it or add verses that reflect your own work and hobbies.

 

Psalm of My Life

Praise God with your pen.
Praise Him with the creativity of your mind.
Let stories well up which glorify His name;
Choose words that guide children in ways of truth.
The Lord is your Theme and Climax,
Your Beginning and your End.
Give Him praise as you sit at your keyboard.

Praise God on the ice.
Praise Him with movement and grace.
Praise Him with your blades and with the discipline of skill.
It is He who made your body
And planted the thrill of music in your soul.
All beauty comes from the Lord,
the Creator of heaven and earth.
Give Him praise as you glide and spring.

Praise God with your wealth.
Praise Him with offerings and wise spending.
Use His gifts on what will last,
Your riches to bring Good News
To the homeless and women in crisis,
African scholars and Asian evangelists.
Praise God for His goodness and delight in passing it on.

Praise God in your home.
Praise Him at the sink and with the mop.
Open your home to His servants
And to those who hunger to know Him.
Make it comfortable for your family,
A safe place for those you love.
This house is but a building God has entrusted to your care,
Its rooms and its lawn to be kept for His use.
Your family is His gift to love and enjoy.
Together you are a team to give Him glory in your neighborhood.
Praise God in your home.
Let all of life praise the Lord.

Figure Skates and Hockey Players

Life was a lot simpler when I was a little kid. There was family and hockey and school and hockey, and in summer there was hockey camp and my paper route and mowing lawns to get money for hockey equipment.

So what happens when thirteen-year-old Ben Bradley decides he wants to learn to jump and spin? With a dad who went through the U on a full hockey scholarship and high school cousins already watched by the talent scouts, there’s a lot of pressure to follow where they lead. What will they think if they find out what Ben is doing at the ice rink in the early mornings? And what will the other guys on the hockey team say?

So far my manuscript, Crossovers, about Ben and his sister Denise (who wants to be the first girl in Rum River to make the varsity hockey team) has not found a publisher. “Boys won’t buy a book about a figure skater.” “Stand alone titles lack visibility.” It’s frustrating to think that the need for a book about being artistic and male, is the very reason it won’t sell. But since I know Ben’s whole life down to what his kids did when they grew up, turning it into a series seems to be the way to go.

Consequently, I have spent this week volunteering at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to get a behind-the-scenes view of what Ben will encounter when he makes the big-time. My assignment was transportation at the gate where the skaters, families and coaches entered the arena. I held the door for Johnny Weir and his coach, Victor Petrinko. I answered a question about the bus schedule for Tannith Belbin. I found a newspaper clipping with her son’s picture for Charlie White’s mom. The mother of one of the skaters (who shall remain un-named, but you saw her on the medal podium) apologized to me for the rude behavior of her daughter’s coach. I bought tickets for the last event so I could sit in the arena and watch my man, Evan Lysacek, get his gold medal in a tie-breaker finish. All the while I made notes on 3 by 5 cards of the kinds of details that will make Ben’s trip to Nationals feel real.

The monitors over the bar next to the gate showed far more of the competition than I could have seen at home on TV, and I had the fun of being in the middle of the excitement. When Ben goes to Nationals, he will definitely encounter a rude coach who says he’s nothing more than a hockey player in figure skates. Who knows? There may even be a tie-breaker finish.

Ben, I mean, Evan, gets his gold medal

Patience and a Return from Iraq

Have patience; have patience.
Don’t be in such a hurry.
When you get impatient,
You only start to worry.

When my kids were little they had a tape of songs about the fruit of the Spirit. This was one of our favorites, sung whenever someone in the family got antsy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about patience these last few days. I made a list of some things that require it. I would love to hear what you would add.

Mailing a letter instead of sending an e-mail
Simmering a pot of soup instead of opening a can
Reading The Lord of the Rings instead of watching the movies
Sewing a quilt instead of embroidering a refrigerator magnet
Writing a book instead of an article

Then there are such travel goodies as:

Standing in the airline check-in line
Standing in the airport security line
Standing in the immigration line
Waiting at the gate for boarding
Waiting on the plane for de-icing
Waiting for your luggage
Standing in the line to report lost luggage
Waiting for your lost luggage to be returned…

Other things that require patience:

Toasting a marshmallow so it’s melted through, but not burned
Paying off debts
Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room
Following a slow driver when you are in a hurry
Passing safely on a curvy road
Attending an African church service
Learning a new language
Waiting to hear back from a publisher after sending a new manuscript
Mastering a figure-skating jump
Waiting for results on a pregnancy test (or a biopsy)
Reading through the Bible
Remodeling a kitchen
Growing trees around your new house in a former corn field
Growing a strong marriage
Seeing maturity in your kids
Seeing spiritual growth in yourself

My daughter and son-in-law have recently experienced a major test of patience. After fifteen months in Iraq, Dan is finally home. He telephoned from the base where he had been stationed to let Erika know their unit was moving out. He called from Baghdad where he waited three days for the army to get him on a flight. He called again from Kuwait where he sat two more days. He stopped in Budapest and in Ireland and called from Newfoundland when he was finally on his way. Erika was thrilled to get the call even if it was in the middle of the night. (She couldn’t sleep anyway!) He sent her a text message when the plane landed at Fort Hood, Texas and another after the returning soldiers had stored their gear and boarded buses.

“We’re here,” came Dan’s final text message while Erika waited with the other family members on bleachers overlooking a parade ground. A DJ played upbeat music and announced the progress of the soldiers, but the buses were still nowhere to be seen.

At last they pulled around the building and stopped on the road in front of the parade ground. Blurred faces jammed the windows, searching for loved ones. The crowd danced, screamed and waved handmade signs. The music grew serious, even heroic. In a few minutes the four buses pulled away to reveal the returned soldiers in perfect formation behind the ceremonial horses of the First Cavalry.

Erika could see Dan. He was there, looking where she had told him she was, but he still hadn’t spotted her. After a brief ceremony, including a prayer for others who are even now on their way to Iraq, the wait was over. Erika and the other adults followed the children running onto the field. After fifteen months (with a brief interlude in May), Dan and Erika were reunited as husband and wife.
 
Congratulations to you both! You made it!

Welcome home, Dan. We appreciate you more than you can know.

P.S. Although I would have loved to be there, I wasn’t. This account is based on Erika’s description of the day. The picture is by her friend, Dana Stone, whose husband is still there. Other pictures can be seen at
http://flickr.com/photos/photosoftheheart/sets/ (Choose 'Army Life')

N.B. Phone cards make great gifts for soldiers.

The Purpose of a Holiday

January is vacation (or 'holiday') month in the southern hemisphere. I wrote the following for the magazine of my writers' club in Johannesburg:

The January when my Brazilian-born daughters were twenty months and three-and-a-half years old we spent our holiday with friends in a fishing village three hours east of Rio de Janeiro. Arraial do Cabo was then an idyllic place as yet undiscovered by tourists. Located at the tip of a peninsula, the village was surrounded by seven white-sand beaches, separated from each other by scenic ridges that plunged to the azure sea.

January 1982 it rained. It rained every day for the ten days we were in Arraial. The only laundry facilities were a wash tub in the back yard. I made the mistake of hand-washing a pair of jeans early in our stay. I wrung them out as best I could and hung them in the shed. At the end of the week they were still as damp as if I had just taken them from a washing machine. They also smelled of mold.

Like many Brazilian homes, our friends’ house was an ongoing project. The walls of the lounge were unplastered terra cotta building blocks. Construction materials spilled out of corners, and a heap of sand dominated the small yard. It was not exactly pretty to look at, but we had expected to spend most of our time on those glorious beaches.

We weren’t the only guests that week. The teens had brought along their friends, and eleven of us crowded the three bedrooms and competed for the one bath with installed fixtures. Eleven people had no place to go in the rain except a half-finished house or the cousins’ around the corner. There were no hotels with piped music in comfortable lounges, no boutiques or coffee shops—only open praças and snack bars with outdoor tables dripping rain. In the evenings when everyone was home, I sang lullabies for an hour or more trying to distract my children from the noise in the kitchen and get them to sleep at a normal hour. At least that was what I told myself. Maybe I only shut myself in the bedroom with them so I could escape the confusion of the rest of the house.

One day as we adults sat in the kitchen conversing over cups of strong Brazilian coffee, we heard a cry from the younger children in the bedroom. My husband Steve got up to investigate. What he saw was three-year-old Katie clinging to little Erika, who in turn held the frayed cord of an electric fan that was turned off—but plugged in. Both girls were wide-eyed and crying. Steve hurled himself at the children, knocking them free of the electric wire.

“I tried to touch them,” ten-year-old Roselito cried, “but I got a shock.”

A blister rose on Erika’s finger. The next day it was ugly and swollen. I took her through the misty rain along the open canal that conducted raw sewage to the nearest beach—the one we never frequented—to the public health clinic. There the little girl who wouldn’t let her mother near her sore finger sat perfectly still while the medic lanced it and watched in fascination while dirty gray pus poured out.

“It must be dressed every day,” the medic told me. Thereafter the highlight of each dreary day was the walk to the clinic through the rain to have Erika’s finger dressed.

When I got on the plane at the end of that horrible holiday, I leaned back in my seat, exhausted. Tears came to my eyes. I was going home. After all, isn’t that what a holiday is for—to make you feel good about being home?