Angels in disguise

I'm sitting in Starbucks, at the community table. A lady walks in and sits next to the man across from me. Everything is okay for a while but things soon start to get interesting.

The lady goes to the counter and comes back with a Venti hot water, a Venti cup of ice, and another empty, Venti-size, paper cup. She proceeds to reach into a rather large, canvas bag and pull out a bottle of milk.

First, she adds a couple of tea bags (also from her bag) into the hot water. She then opens the milk and pours it into the empty, paper cup. Once her tea has steeped for a few minutes, she pours that into the cup with the milk. After mixing them with a spoon (also pulled from her bag of holding), she pours the mixture over the ice.

Now that her hot tea is prepared, she pulls an array of containers from the, seemingly, bottomless bag and starts spreading them all over the table. These containers are filled with various items...tomatoes, onions (very strong ones, at that), mayonnaise, bacon bits, and a few other things I'm not quite sure of.

She begins by placing the onions and tomatoes on a napkin and chopping them up with a plastic knife. The onions are so strong, my eyes are watering. Once everything is chopped just right, she throws it all into the empty Venti cup (the one she used to mix her milk and tea). Now, she reaches back into the bag and pulls out a rather large bottle of yellow mustard. She squirts it into the cup until the bottle starts making a sound that, at first, I thought was coming from her (yes...THAT sound). She puts the lid on the cup and shakes it vigorously.

By now, the gentleman across from me is packing up his things and rolling his eyes at me as he tells me to have a nice day.
The lady slurps down her lunch, getting some strange looks from everyone in the coffee shop. When she's finished, she throws everything except the iced tea back into her large bag, pulls out a bottle of Power Aid and a laptop, and settles into her chair.

She is now watching something that has her laughing out loud while, occasionally, looking up to watch the others in the room.
I catch her eye and she smiles. What normally would irritate me, has brought tears to my eyes.

This woman reminds me of, well, me not so long ago. I don't know her story but she's made a huge impression on me. She's an angel. Unfortunately, I have a feeling I'm the only one in the shop who sees her that way.

Starting Over

It's called 'Starting Over'. Something I've done a lot of over and over again through out my entire life.

It's been a long time since I've added anything to this blog. Almost five years, to be exact. Guess it's time to get up, dust off my ass, and start writing again.

So, where do I start? So many things have happened over the past five years. Too many things to list at this moment but I'm sure they will all come up in future posts.

Right now, I want to hit on something that has been on my mind a lot lately...

JOB HUNTING

I've been on that wild ride for almost a year now and it's not fun. 

I miss the old days when you actually walked inside a business, filled out an application, and met someone face-to-face. I've been job hunting for almost a year now and I feel like I'm not closer to finding something as I was 10 months ago. I'm starting to think it's impossible to find something after having been unemployed for so long. No one wants an older woman who has spent most of her corporate years doing temp work. Add the years of being a caregiver and that makes it even harder. Skipping the face-to-face aspect is unfair to those of use who are hard workers with a good personality and a professional attitude. So, I drudge on. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Starting something new...

Sacred Community

It's been a very long time since I posted on this blog. I think it's time to pick up and start again...

Yesterday's homework assignment was to write a discussion on the college blackboard about our sacred community/space/place. This is what I wrote:

Let me first start by apologizing for starting this discussion from the end and working backward. It just makes better sense that way.

As a child and throughout my teen years, I felt like a huge part of me had been torn apart and stomped on each time I left a church service. Never did I feel happy or like I was being held in the loving arms of a lord and savior like my parents tried to make me believe. After many years of living in a Pentecostal home, being raised by a hard-core, fire and brimstone preaching father and loving, yet abused mother, I chose to leave the world of exaggerated Bible stories about a God who instructed “his people” to go to war and kill those who did not agree with him.

For years, I tried to “find” myself in different religions. I visited the Catholic Church a few times but was turned off when I received a box of envelopes in the mail along with a letter stating the amount of “tithes and offerings” they required of me each week.

I was somewhat comfortable with Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, after studying, going door-to-door, and witnessing to others for two years, I came to a realization that this was not the place for me, either.

All along, in my heart, I knew what I believed. I just couldn’t find anyone else who believed the same thing. I learned to just keep my thoughts to myself so as not to upset anyone or chance being called crazy. Maybe I was the only person in the world who thought what I thought, believed what I believed. Then, in 2003, a very brave man wrote a book and in 2006 it was made into a movie. I then knew I wasn’t the only person in the world who believed as I did. The book/movie was The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. Finally, someone pin-pointed what I had always believed to be true: the marriage of Jesus the Christ and Mary Magdalene, a sacred union.

Upon researching Dan Brown further, I found a quote on his website that completely fit my thoughts to a T, “Interestingly, if you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as absolute historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the point where we entirely miss the obvious--that is, that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries, and we're each following our own paths of enlightenment. I consider myself a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress.”

Since then, I’ve found a wonderful community of people who accept me and my beliefs whether they agree with them or not. These people are the members of the Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Church. We live by our seven principles: The inherent worth and dignity of every person; Justice, equity and compassion in human relations; Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all; and, Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

So, now you see why I chose to write my discussion backward. My beginning was the place of my upbringing, the space I was uncomfortable being in. The end is the sacred community where I feel at home. I feel like I’ve finally found my true family and where I truly belong.

Contractions!

The contractions have started!

Courtney's due date is exactly 3 weeks from tomorrow! It's getting seriously now! 

Yesterday, she told me the baby would be here on Tuesday. I think my chin hit the floor. I wasn't sure what she meant but it surprised me. Then she went on to say that she had a feeling it would be this Tuesday. 

She is looking more beautiful than ever! The radiant, motherly glow is the brightest I've ever seen. Courtney is going to be an amazing mother!

A true story

It started with a much anticipated knock on the door.  

When I opened it, there stood my daughter, Courtney, and her fiance', Eric.  They had huge smiles on their faces & a long printout of sonogram photos in Courtney's hand.  

My other daughters, Veronica & LeiLani, were already seated in the living room.  We were all waiting for the big news...was it a boy or a girl?

The girls & I planted ourselves on the floor directly in front on Courtney & Eric who were seated on the couch.  

Courtney asked who wanted to see the photos first.  Of course we all raised our hands & shouted, "Me! Me! Me!"

Seeing as Princess, our family dog, was less likely to blurt out the answer, she was allowed to view them first.  It was as though she understood what was going on because, after taking a glance, she gently kissed Courtney on the cheek then laid down at her feet.

Next was LeiLani's turn.  She scooted next to Courtney & looked closing at the picture.  

"Can you read it?" Courtney asked.

LeiLani's eyes swelled up with tears & she gave Courtney a huge hug.  "Oh my god!!!" she exclaimed.

I told Veronica to go next but she insisted that I take a look next.  Courtney handed me the sheet of photos & I walked to the window to get a better look.

I couldn't believe me eyes!  It was my dream come true!  In the center of the picture was a little arrow pointing to a small circle between the baby's legs.  "It's a boy!" was typed below the arrow.

I screamed with excitement, jumping up and down, nearly knocking everything off the mantle.  "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!"  I cried.

"Is it a boy?" Veronica shouted.

"YES!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

There was a long, family, group hug, combined with lots of tears of joy.  My first grandchild.  It was indeed one of the happiest days of my life.

This is a true story & it all took place yesterday afternoon :-D

The Greatest Test of All

As a mother of 27 years, I've found that I can only do so much to protect my girls. They have had their share of bumps, scrapes, bruises, and broken bones.  It's always hard to see one walk through the door with tears streaming down their cheeks, holding onto a boo-boo.  

Until last August, I always had my mom to help me through it.  While I sat there crying just as hard as my daughter was, my mother would tell me what to do to make it better. When Veronica busted her chin open and required over 400 stitches, my mother was right beside me.  When Courtney broke her toe during a scuffle and had to have a cast all the way up to her knee, my mother talked me through the rough parts.  When Veronica broke her arm while roller blading, my mother gave me the courage I needed to be a good mommy.  Through all of the fevers, sick tummies, scrapes and bruises, I had my mother to run to for advice.

Now that my mother has left me to be with my dad, it's time for the tests.  Was I really paying attention during the lessons?  Did I take the proper notes?   What if I fail?  

The tests are gradually piling up.  From finding that I'm going to be grandmother for the first time to cleaning the blood and dirt from my baby's face after she's slid across the concrete.  Each time a test is handed to me, I'm reminded of all the things my mother told me about motherhood...the laughs, the smiles, the stress, the tears.  

There are many days when I feel that I've failed my mother.  I feel that all the time & effort she put into making me a 'good mommy' has gone down the drain when I see one of my girls in pain.  Then I remember all the times that she held me close, cradling me, while I cried because of a scraped knee or a broken heart and I know that the most important lesson I've learned is to just be there for my girls.  I can't always be there to catch them when they fall or protect them from harsh words but I can be there when they need a healing hand or a shoulder to cry on.

Each day I'm reminded of the greatest test of all...will I be as good a teacher to my daughters as my mother was to me?