Dec 7, 2011 | A Repat, The Good Word
Here I sit on a Wednesday morning. Freshly fallen leaves have scattered across the yard outside. A squirrel is vigorously digging to retrieve something from the ground. There’s a gentle breeze, and though this is December, and North Carolina, the Bear left for preschool without a coat this morning and I could probably open the windows for a while.
We’re in our new place. Christmas colored candles flicker here and there. The Elf on the Shelf
watches over the den with cheerful interest.
My body aches — yesterday my personal theme was “high impact” and with that in mind I vigorously attacked room after room, cleaning high and low, stacking and sorting, placing and re-placing, unpacking, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing so much I told HH at dinner “Today I came to really understand the meaning of that old saying, ‘Put your back into it.'”
But here we are, and I imagine myself an Israelite entering the Promised Land. Entering a house I didn’t build, sitting on furniture I didn’t buy, enjoying the comforts of someone else’s choices, in this mountain turned molehill of a home.
If this was a vineyard, I’d be eating the fruit.
My frame won’t allow me to go “high impact” every day — working and scrubbing and rearranging, fussy baby on my hip. And so I slow and pause, remembering to sit still and be thankful.
God has provided, exceeding and abundantly above and beyond all we could ask or imagine.
Even if there is some work involved in receiving this gift.
I cannot think of a better scenario for coming off the mission field than this one: moving into a home where you only have an electric bill to pay, already so well furnished the odds and ends you’ll need to get for settling in are few, close to family (and friends) who are constantly helping with their hands, their time, with gifts, with encouragement.
If there is a better picture to be painted, I haven’t seen it.
The breeze picks up again and a lone leaf flaps like a flag, not yet ready to let go of the branch. The Christmasy smell of a nearby candle wafts in my direction. My lips curl up to a smile.
Like that last leaf on the branch, I find myself close to settling in, finding rest, slowly drifting into the comfort of a new place called home.
xCC
Disclosure: The link to The Elf on the Shelf is an affiliate link for Amazon. “Choo-Choo” (as we named him) has been a fun little addition to enjoying Christmas around here. And the Bear’s behavior improves when we mention him. Score.
Nov 14, 2011 | A Repat, An Expat
I know the smell of the fall in this place. The air, so crisp I wish I could bottle it and drink it right up all year long. The moon high and white — sky full of stars, sometimes you think you can see them all, sometimes you wonder where they’ve gone.
I don’t remember the leaves turning such a brilliant shade of yellow. I never saw a hummingbird do a dance like the one I saw last week. Back and forth in swoops that might’ve made infinity symbols in the air if he could paint it along the way — he must’ve been trying to impress somebody. He got me.
The fields look different from how I remember them. Tufts of white, stalks of brown — they inspire photos in my heart I’d never have thought to take before.
From seven thousand miles away to the backyard of the house I grew up in, and here I am showing my little boy how to whistle with an acorn top.
{From Thanksgiving 2010}
Cold Friday night I hear the announcer, the crowds at the football field — the high school’s not far from my house. I remember this sound from a walk with my brother when I was a kid. The familiar sound of fall.
We stand outside in the cold night air with the moon high and bright, waiting at the door for two tickets to a movie, just us two. I can see my breath a little and my arms are snuggled into the coat my sister bought me last Christmas.
I see a familiar face behind me and say hello and how are you, but when I’m not sure I’m a familiar face I promptly introduce myself — I’m Dodi’s little sister.
Things have changed.
Things have stayed the same.
I watch life from the inside and the outside at the same time.
I like calling this place home.
xCC
Just a little note I want to be sure to add: I saw Courageous this past weekend. It was excellent and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend it. I also highly recommend bringing tissues. I enjoyed it so much I forgot I’d snuck two brownies into the theatre in my purse. Never even touched em. Don’t tell on me. Do see the movie.
Jul 23, 2011 | Stories, The Good Word
I have trouble loving the now. When now seems more temporary than usual, it’s hard for me to embrace it. Knowing that we now have less than two months, here and like this, does something strange in my heart.
There’s a constant voice, in the back of my mind somewhere, whispering the reminder that next time. Next time the Bear will no longer be two. Next time the baby won’t be so baby. And the reminder hinders my ability to just sit still in the now, and enjoy what is, even though it won’t be like this again. Because falling in love with a season so temporary — it feels like I’m the character on the TV show House, who married a man with a terminal illness.
I find myself keeping my heart at arm’s length instead.
I no longer hoard junk that takes up space in a closet or an attic, but I am a hoarder of moments, wishing I could somehow collect them all and store them in a recess of my mind.
When I was a kid, I used to collect tennis balls for my brother. We had a ball shooter, and he’d practice with it for hours. I’d collect balls as he smashed them strategically over the net, {occasionally in my direction} and put them back in the shooter so that he could keep going. But inevitably, I’d fall behind, and his shots would come too quickly. I’d get overwhelmed that they were coming so fast, and I’d give up trying and wait for him to stop and help me.
These days, in this place, precious moments feel like they are coming at me that quickly. The baby is standing in Goo-Goo’s lap, drooling and smiling, reaching for his nose. The Bear is outside, rolling a toy car around the table on the patio, and Goo-Goo with another car in tow, follows Him. Gammy tickles a four-month-old tummy, he laughs and both their faces are alight. The living room is chilly but filled with light in the early Bloemfontein mornings, and three of us have breakfast at the table while the little one looks on from his stroller.
So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. {Psalm 90:12}
It is the eve of four months becoming five for the new addition in our family. These days he pauses nursing just to look up at me. He looks up, his whole face changes with a big smile, and then he laughs at me as a tiny stream of bright white milk rolls down his cheek. I love it, and yet it makes my heart so sore.
I struggle at the thought that these moments can’t all be captured. I can’t pick up the tennis balls fast enough. He won’t remember me holding his finger and us giggling together in a bedroom in Bloem. I might not remember either.
But maybe somewhere down the line, ten years from now, he will be a more secure and peaceful individual because when he was a baby his mother held him and loved him and laughed with him and treasured his smiles, and his father cuddled him and rocked him and played with him until he squealed with baby delight. And his grandparents held and snuggled and walked and loved him, too.
Which would mean the moment isn’t gone or forgotten, it’s stored inside somehow. Captured in a way that megapixels can’t. Stored in a place that doesn’t have a hard drive.
And even the parts of life that are too brief to recount or even remember — a smile from a stranger, the first coo of your firstborn — those parts you might not always be able to hold onto, there’s still so much value in them. In the now, which is all we really have, after all.
I realise I can’t decide not to show up just because now isn’t forever, and can’t be held onto forever. Why drive to the beach and decide not to get out of the car just because you forgot your camera?
It seems my greatest challenge is learning to live right here, right now. If you number your days, I suppose you’ll begin to realise the best one to focus on living is this one.
xCC
Jul 6, 2011 | The Parenthood
Lil’ Note: I wrote this post while we were still in our place in Gordon’s Bay.
I‘m constantly taking snapshots with my mind these days, savouring these last few moments in this special place…this home where three became four, where words became sentences, where diapers became potty-trained just in time for more diapers.
He wakes up later these days, warm and cozy and sometimes grumpy. He still cries for us to come get him, even though he’s in a big-boy bed. Occasionally all we hear is a loud, “Hey! I wake!” He’s never quite sure about breakfast…no Pwo-Nutwo … no yoghurt … yes Pwo-Nutwo. Yes Yoghurt. I want deez, deez deez!!
{First week in Gordon’s Bay}
Something clicked funny in the “May I please…” training, so when he is prompted to ask for something properly, he quickly rattles out:
May I please get down, yes, may, youuuuuuuu.
That’s been the story for a month and half and he’s sticking with it.
At breakfast one morning, we held hands and I decided to pray with my own special rendition of a Veggie Tales song:
Thank you, God, for this day, for the food in our bowls…
but before I could get to the second line of my special song he interrupted with a loud
NOPE NOPE NOOOOOPE!
And before I could finish saying, “I can pray how I want…” he interrupted again with an assertive
“Pway Ploperly, Mama. Do it ploperly.”
I could only laugh in response.
The baby that learned to walk and to talk, to dance and to run right here, is now a little boy. Full of life, and spunk and personality, and so different from the toothless wonder that arrived in ’09.
I pause listening to him speak as he uses the ‘a’ from ‘Father’ in words like fast and dance. In my American accent I ask “Are you dancing, Bear?” {with the a sound like the word ‘an’} and he replies, “No. I dancing.” with the ‘a’ sound from the word ‘father’ again.
How soon will that bit of South Africa fade? I wonder.
{near the end of our time in Gordon’s Bay}
***
Now here we are in Bloemfontein, those days have passed, and the last two months of calling South Africa home are upon us. I’m reminded to slow down, and to be thankful for this day.
Whichever they are, these days pass by so quickly. Kiss your family. Hug your kids. Slow down and be thankful for today.
You may not pass this way again.
xCC
Jun 3, 2011 | Baby Photos, Stories
Sometimes things are worth taking a little extra time for. Like paying attention to tax deductions and saving your receipts. Or reading a menu at a restaurant, and then looking at the prices. Or watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you know, every once in a while.
I have a story to tell you that I think will be encouraging, but I haven’t had the chance to give it the proper justice of thoughtfully typing it out. I’ve had about thirty-seven false starts on that one. I have been making pizza from scratch (sauce and dough & everything!) and lemon poppyseed muffins and doing crock pot magic and enjoying Pioneer Woman’s awesome Beef Stew with Beer and Paprika. And I’ve been enjoying seeing the boys enjoying their grandparents, and vice versa. And those are good things.
But behind the scenes, the Lord has been busy making molehills out of some of those mountains I’ve been telling you about. I am encouraged, and I think you will be too.
In the meantime, please enjoy a slice of life ’round here at the moment. And if you’re keen for the big long story of God making molehills out of mountains… let me get back to you on that.
Cootchie-cootchie-coooooo.
My African baby-wearing skills have not yet been perfected.
That “It’s a Girl” balloon is NOT mine. Not this week anyway.
Wassup?
Happy Weekend!
xCC
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