Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
It was a mild week in February when I started running again.
Well, let’s be honest, it’s more like walking and slightly faster walking. The fitness app on my phone registers it as walking, which is always slightly depressing because I’m definitely NOT WALKING when I’m out there, but whatever.
The first week is often the hardest, so I was lucky that I started my workouts on unseasonably warm days. By the second week though I was bundled up and running in biting winds. By week three, I was running through snow. I am now at 13 workouts (beginning of week five) of an eight-week program with the goal of running a 5K, and it’s no exaggeration to say more than half have been in some kind of rain, snow or cold weather. My most recent workout was in a cold spring downpour.
My shirt says “Chase Your Dreams.” I wish my dreams would pick some better weather.
I almost never want to leave the porch when I face the weather. I whimper. I groan.
And then I think about how far I’ve come and I go for it.
—
I’ve been a little stuck with the writing lately. There’s always something else, it seems, to distract me. Some of it is necessary. Some of it is not. This is part of what I feared when I started working part time in January. Before that, I had what I thought was an ideal schedule for writing, meaning my days were mostly free and I could spend them how I wanted.
Conditions, it would seem, were perfect for writing.
Except they weren’t really.
Sure, I churned out a lot of words in those days. I blogged regularly. I submitted a couple of pieces to other publications. I wrote a short story to give away to blog subscribers.
But I still found a lot of other things to do. Netflix. Coffee dates. Volunteer work. Hardly ever did I devote the kind of time to writing that I imagined I could.
So, it’s odd that now, when I have less hours in the day to write, I still have time for it. I may not be blogging every idea that comes into my head (that’s definitely true) or writing a ton of articles but I’m still writing.
Even though conditions are not perfect.
—
Sometimes I think about where I would be if I had waited for the weather to be perfect before I started working out again. I don’t have to think too hard. I would be stuck somewhere in week 2 slogging along trying to train for a 5K in May and running out of weeks to get it done.
Instead, I’m more than six weeks away from race day with less than half of the program to finish. I could skip a workout when the weather gets rough but I’ve built up some momentum and I want to keep it. The workouts are getting harder, but I don’t want to give up all the progress. The same is true with writing. I have a lot of words in a lot of different forms in my computer files. Too much to give up.
—
I’m easily discouraged, though.
I see other runners out on the sidewalks or hear casual talk of regular 3- and 4-mile runs. I think about how I shuffle through my workout with sweat, tears and aching muscles and wonder why I’m even out there doing this running thing. I don’t want to be a marathoner. I’m not aiming for the Olympics. I kind of sort of like running and I want to be healthier. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be trim or fast.
It’s not hard to criticize myself before I actually get out there and run. When my feet are pounding the pavement and I’m cresting small hills, when the number of consecutive minutes of running increases and I’m doing it without walking–those are the times I feel like I’m a runner, like I belong out there.
And writing is not much different. When I’m not writing, I’m jealous of all the other writers I know and the words they’re putting on pages. I’m convinced they have the perfect conditions for writing, so of course they can do that work. I look at my measly offerings of words and wonder if I will ever have what it takes to join the ranks. (Of what, I’m not even sure anymore.)
But when I’m writing, most of those doubts fade. The words connect with each other and sometimes readers and it suddenly doesn’t matter how much I’m writing or how fast. Regularly doing the writing is all that matters, and it doesn’t make a difference if my words are banged out in an hour after work or over half a Saturday or at 5 a.m.
Just doing it is what matters.
—
There is no such thing as the perfect time or the perfect conditions.
What a revelation, right? I feel like this is an obvious conclusion, but it’s taken me some time to see it.
Whether it’s running or writing or something else entirely, I can’t always wait for the perfect time or the perfect conditions. Sometimes it’s going to be sunny and mild. Other times I’ll be cursing the wind for daring to gust so much my cheeks turn pink. Sometimes I’ll start with sunshine and end in a downpour.
But every time, I just have to do it. Whatever it is.
Because if I wait until everything is perfect, it won’t happen.
—
There’s a big difference between the perfect time and the right time, and this theory does not apply to every thing in every season. The time for me to go back to work was neither perfect nor right when my kids were less than school age, and the time for running was neither right nor perfect when my back was spasming. Do not let this post be your ticket to a guilt trip. You do what you need to do.
But let it be a question you consider: Am I waiting for the perfect time to do something that only requires the right time? And is now the right time?
I cannot answer that for you. And if you want to share your answer in the comments below, I would love to encourage you at whatever time it is, for whatever goal you have.
The cafe was crowded, matching the city streets outside.
It’s been a while since the kids and I have hung out in the city on a Saturday. If I needed a visual for the word “bustling,” I had it. Everywhere, there were people. Quilters in town for a convention. Men, women and children on their way to a march. Visitors. Residents.
I’m never sure how to classify us. We don’t live in the city, but we’re regulars now, so much so that when someone asks me where the convention center is, I can answer without hesitation, and I know which streets are one way and in which direction. My heart beats in rhythm with the city.
But sometimes I’m still overwhelmed.
Like when we walk into a crowded cafe with no backup plan for an alternative. No tables were open for the three of us, but I spotted three vacant stools at the long hightop. We placed our orders and headed in that direction.
“Is anyone sitting here?” I asked the older couple sitting on the end. “No,” the woman replied, welcoming us. (A side note: I’m a total introvert and often hesitant to engage strangers. But sometimes I surprise even myself.)
“Are you going to the march?” the woman asked me before I’d had a chance to fill our cups with water. The question surprised me a little. It’s not the first thing I would ask a stranger but maybe it was a good one for the kind of day it was in the city.
“No,” I told her. “Not this time.”
—
Photo by Jerry Kiesewetter on Unsplash
I’m sitting at home now feeling guilty. We were in the city. We could have gone to the march, but in all honesty, I only remembered on Friday that it was happening. Most Saturday events are inaccessible to us because my husband works and has the van those days. He just happened to be away for the weekend, though, and we did have a vehicle.
But we’d made plans. Library. Lunch. A festival at the Science Factory. I asked the kids the night before if they would want to go to the march and both of them were not overly eager. Now I’m wondering if I’m a bad parent for not taking them. Am I an activist who backs up her words with inaction?
Scrolling through photos and social media posts, shame rolled over me. I should have been there. I should have made us go.
—
Our food arrived at the hightop table where my son had been babbling away about Minecraft and school to these two strangers who listened as patiently as any grandparent would. The woman confessed to me that neither of them could hear very well, which in their case was probably a blessing. My kids say the darnedest things in front of strangers, and I am secretly horrified every.single.time.
We didn’t learn much about them except the man is an artist with an exhibit at a nearby gallery, and they have family in the area. When they left, though, the woman said they had enjoyed the conversation, and I felt only gratitude. So much of what we do as humans these days is solitary or “social” in name only (I’m looking at you social media) that it was refreshing to choose connection in a crowded cafe.
Maybe this is its own kind of lesson.
—
We finished our lunch and walked up the street to market, where we’d usually find my husband. On the way, I noticed the number of people holding signs asking for help. This isn’t something we usually see because we’re often in the city in the early morning or toward the end of the work day. Once we were in the market, we waved to my husband’s coworkers and made a quick bathroom stop. The market, too, was crowded with people of all walks of life.
We left out a different door and circled the building.
“THERE’S NO WAY!”
A man was talking loudly with his group of friends and I heard the phrases “government assistance” and “food stamps” in his tirade. I can only assume he was decrying the people with signs asking for help.
His words hung with me, and I wondered how many times we use that thinking as a reason not to get involved, as a way of staying blind. If we can convince ourselves that a person in need is running a con then we absolve ourselves of responsibility. Right? How many times do I tell myself the story I want to hear so I don’t have to take action?
—
I have been reading a lot about racial injustice lately, and I am convinced that I am blind in more ways than I know. I am a white woman who can hardly see past the end of her privilege and it is wrecking me.
And waking me.
But I still have a long way to go.
I’m discovering that it’s easy to become myopic. I think this is a default mode for most of us. We can see what’s right in front of us pretty clearly, but to see farther away, we need some help. It takes some effort.
Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
Myopia is not all bad. When I was working with refugees weekly, I was full of stories and passionately advocating for immigration policies that would benefit them. When government policies lessened the presence of refugees in our community, I shifted my gaze toward undocumented youth. Now I’m learning about racial injustice. Because I now spend my days with students, some of whom have harder stories than others, my vision has shifted again. I still care about all of these things, but I’m realizing that it takes conscious effort to see them in my daily life. Like putting on a pair of glasses.
I have to want to see.
—
Our first stop of the morning had been to the library where two of us picked up books we’d requested and all of us walked out with at least one book. While we were there, I overheard a woman complaining about not having a library card and needing to use the computer so she could complete some paperwork for a job she’d just gotten.
Later, when I heard the man loudly proclaiming “There’s no way,” I thought about the woman at the library. About the little (and not so little) lines that separate us. Access to Internet seems like it should be ubiquitous by now. (I could insert “secure housing” or “adequate food” or “a living wage” into that sentence, too.) But even in the United States, a country we like to believe is more well-off than other places in the world, these things are not guarantees for everyone.
But you have to want to see it if you’re ever going to believe it.
—
We parked our van on the rooftop level of the parking garage, which made my son’s day. He’s been begging us to park up there for months and when we first arrived, we were the only car on that level. It was creepy in a sort of post-apocalyptic kind of way. For a moment, we felt like the only people on earth.
When we left, a few other cars had joined us on the top level. The sound system for the post-march rally was being tested in the park next to the garage. Sounds of life were all around us. We knew we were not alone in the world.
I steered the car carefully on the ramp as we descended back to street level.
And this I think is the point of all of this: a vantage point offers us a spectacular view and maybe even a moment of peace, but to see the world true, we more often than not have to be on the same level as the people and circumstances we’re trying to understand.
For many of us, that means a descent to street level or the wearing of glasses to give us better vision.
I still have so much work to do.