Easy to Please-y

Once upon a time there was a married couple who couldn't wait to have the ability to go on regular dates and do some special things together that they didn't get to do while dating and in the earliest years of their marriage. Then came that time and on a Friday night with nothing to do they decided to go to QT (think 7-11 if you don't have QT) purchase frosty non-alcoholic beverages, and take the kids for a car ride to see the desert sunset and perhaps pay a visit to "the Hole in the Rock".

I think that says alot about where we are mentally...pretty easy to please.

Where Were You?

Where were you on Sep 11, 2001 when you first heard the news?

I was in bed. Either my mom or my sister called (I don't remember who anymore) to say "TURN ON YOUR NEWS NOW!" I didn't have cable, so I turned on the radio and got online. I had to get my girls to school, (no I was not going to be one of those who shook in fear in my tiny apartment, we were going to proceed as usual so as not to scare the children.) so I put them in the bathtub. Apparently my 15 year old remembers that day too. She said she very clearly remembers me telling her to shush in the tub because I was trying to hear the news.

What were you doing? What do your kids remember about that day?

Cow Sauce

expletive? What I should have yelled at my son when he hurled himself on my back as I bent over to tie my shoe last week? I have been telling him for weeks that he must stop jumping on me, that he WILL hurt me. He chose not to stop, and he put his mother out of commission for three days.

I went to the chiropractor on Friday. I told him my back hurt from the mid-to lower back, wrapping around to the front, near my hip.

He proceeded to refer to the area as the "left flank".

I refrained from mooing, chopping onions and peppers, or surrounding bad guys. ( you know, like "flanking the enemy".) for the remainder of the weekend, though I plan to resume these acitivities early in the week.

My side being referred to as a flank just made me crazy, like mad-cow crazy. Or was that the PMS talking? It was probably the PMS, but seriously, my FLANK was hurting and all I wanted to do was either moo at him, or cry. Fortunately my face was buried in the crevice of the head-pads on the adjustment table and he wouldn't have been able to discern either noise from the other, not that he would have noticed. (I have never had anybody talk that much or that fast for that amount of time and still be able to get their work done, but by golly I felt better when I left.)

So I spent my weekend nursing my flank, avoiding cow sauce and bending over and I *think* I feel better. Or is that the Ibuprofen speaking.

The War in My Heart

Our son Gabriel is 6 and a half years old. The war in Iraq has been being fought every single day of this child's life. This war has touched us personally. From the day my husband deployed to Iraq for the first and only time, to today, this war touches us. We can't escape it. We can't forget it.

Sure, sometimes- maybe even most of the time- we live life without consciously thinking of the Iraqi people, their war torn country, the ousting of Saddam, the tearing down of the statue in downtown Baghdad. But we never actually live free of its influence over us. Thoughts, memories, experience...its always an undercurrent, a tidal pull which threatens to pull us out to a sea of unbridled emotion. And yet, like anybody unwilling to submit to the pull of the sea, we change our course, we swim parallel to the safety of shore, we free ourselves from the dangerous rip current, and we walk away from the moment, only slightly traumatized. Mostly, we walk away exhausted from the fight to keep from being dragged under.

Its always there.

I know that the pull is greater for my husband. I know sometimes he feels lost at sea. I wish I could throw him a life-ring, pull him near, and in a method much like the Giver used to transfer the world's memory to Jonas, I wish I could take these memories from my husband.

Or do I?

These memories, they can't all cause pain. Some must give him strength. Some must give him a sense of who he is not only as a man, but as a child of God. Some must define him in ways that he would not wish to destroy. To take his memories from him would be to say I didn't think he was strong enough bear their burden. It may feel like an act of love, but perhaps in reality, it would be an act of betrayal, a message that I didn't trust him to bear the burden of witnessing human suffering, that he didn't deserve the blessing of having experienced the unbreakable bond of brotherhood. Perhaps it would be to say that I didn't believe he deserved to develop the love for humanity that can come from these experiences.

Tonight, I watched him gulp back tears as he recalled transporting a wounded Iraqi child. I so desperately wanted him to tell me all about the event. I wanted to know how he felt, how he remembered the events unfolding, what he knew about the child, where he took him, what kind of treatment he received. I wanted to know it all and I realized I didn't want to take the memory from him, but I wanted to share the burden of the memory. But as I witnessed the abridged version of the event unfold on my computer screen, so far removed by both time and place, I realized this was not a burden for me to share. This is his burden. I am not equipped to share this burden. I am a mother, not a warrior. I will never have the looking glass of wartime through which to view these events. And he knows that. He did not volunteer to tell me the story...and I did not ask.

I suspect that my husband feels as though his looking glass has been mud-stained, perhaps blood stained, that he can no longer clearly see through it. I suspect that he can't explain what he sees because he's not entirely sure how to explain it to one who cannot peer through. I have watched this documentary with him at least two other times over the past 5 years. Tonight was the first time my husband trusted me with the knowledge that he saw the nasty parts of war. Of course I knew it. I can put two and two together, but it made a difference to hear him speak what I already knew to be the truth.

I don't know what else he saw or didn't see. I don't know how close I may or may not have come to being widowed. I do know that there is more and that slowly, over time, I might gain more insight into the events which have unfolded to make this man the man he is today.

Lest I be misunderstood, this is no complaint about the man he has become. This is an acknowledgement that the man my husband has been molded into has come in part by way of the experience of war. This is an acknowledgement, that the wife I have become has been in part, molded by the experience of war. This is an acknowledgement, that the people we will be will forever be shadowed by the people we once were, the experiences we once had, and the bonds that we shared during wartime. We can't change it...and perhaps its wrong to wish we could.

Even still, knowing that I should not wish to change it, there will probably forever be a little war between the factions of my heart: the part that thinks it would be better had we not experienced life's difficulties, and the part that knows this is simply not true.

The Cure and a Question.

Apparently the cure for not having anything to write about is saying it out loud. Last week when I did the no news is good news post, I could not have cared less if I ever blogged, read a blog, or commented on a blog again. There was nothing interesting going on in my head or in my world. Suddenly I had too many ideas for blog posts. I have scrapped 99% of them because I figure if I don't care about the topic, what's the point?

HaHa! Imagine my surprise to find two comments on a post I thought I had deleted! Ok, so I didn't pose a question. Who cares. Make one up and answer it for me ;)

EQ "Security" Career Opportunity?

So much for ignoring this thing, I had to blog this one. Its long been a rule that whenever the women are using the church building, there will be at minimum two men there. Sometimes the men are there to wander the halls, make sure no weirdo's enter the building, break into cars, or otherwise rape, pillage, or plunder- but usually they are just there to sit on the couch and take a nap. I have never heard them use the phrase "do security" until this last week. Well, as it turns out, when you ask them to "do security" you get something different out of them.

Let me preface this with my family has a friend who's older brother was murdered by a man who stormed a Catholic church in Texas years ago. I am NOT against weaponry in the church building. I believe it should be concealed, not displayed, and only "those in the know" need to know that it is present. It should not be publicly displayed, or brandished in a showy manner.

Now let me continue.

So, EQ Security, potential job opportunity? Can I get a "H" to the "L" NO! Seriously, lets make this clear ladies, pass this information on to your junior Paul Blart Mall Cop returned missionary sons...It IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO SHOW UP TO THE WOMEN'S RELIEF SOCIETY ACTIVITY TO "DO SECURITY" DRESSED IN COMBAT BOOTS, FATIGUES, AND DISPLAYING A PISTOL!!!! NOT EVEN IF YOUR CAREER GOALS ARE TO BE A SECURITY GUARD!!!"

3 rants and a rave back to school style

I haven't done this in a while. I suppose its nicer to rave than to rant but I've got some bottled up rants ready to explode out of my head!

1. Drivers who speed through school zones at more than 2x the limit. Seriously? That 20 extra seconds it takes you to get through the school zone at the appropriate speed is worth a child's life? Don't tell me there wasn't anybody around. I was around and I had kids in my car.

2. School buses parked in the school pickup lane so that two directional traffic can only move in one direction at a time, thus making a 1 minute trip through the school parking lot a 5 minute trip because people (parents) don't know how to take turns and go every other car so that everybody can get where they need to go. Why are we sending our kids to school if we can't even take turns ourselves?

3. People who park inconsiderately because they are late and apparently it takes more time to park properly than it does to just swing into any old place on the black-top and put it in park. Dear lady who blocked my car in this morning so that I could not leave without hitting your car (and who's children also put "rude-door-dings" in the side of my car because you were taking up half of my parking space along with yours) It takes NO EXTRA TIME to pull your car in straight and allow people to move freely through the parking lot! In your defense, you were not the only one parked like a jackass this morning. About every third car in the lot was parked the same or worse than yours. Normally I arrive at school with my children 15-25 minutes early. This morning was an exception. I will be avoiding the school in the 8:00 hour at all costs in the future. You people are just too inconsiderate, and apparently selfish, to have it even cross your minds that your tardiness affects more people than just you.

...and finally for my rave, where I am compelled to say something nice after spewing all this hate.

RAVE: The many many many people who ARE kind and considerate. Each day when we arrive at school EARLY, the lot is busy, crowded even, but people take turns, wave at each other, smile, say good morning, cruise slowly through the school zone, and park nicely. They wait patiently as children cross the road, or parking lot.

end note: This really points to the two kinds of people in the world, doesn't it? There are those who plan well in advance and can take on any situation with calm and often a smile. They often times are so well situated that they can be helpful towards those who have not planned quite as well. Then there are those who are perpetually late, knee-jerking their way through life making their lack of planning everybody else's problem. I've been on both sides of that fence, I sure do like the plan-ahead side better. Its a happier way to live. I'm not saying I'm perfect, after-all, I wouldn't have discovered the late-arriver types in the parking lot today had we not been running behind our normal schedule. I'm just saying that the happier way to live is with a little planning ahead. Planning to be to school on time, planning to be to church on time, planning to prepare dinner for your family. Sometimes things happen and we must be able to be flexible and change our plans, but our homes are happier and our lives are easier when we make decisions about what we will do in advance.