SPECIAL GOD MOMENTS THIS WEEK

A FEW SPECIAL GOD MOMENTS FROM the week

 

Saturday, August 22,

Christi and I sat on my patio during a stressful time. The music of a cicada choir seemed to sing  from God to both our hearts as we stayed there experiencing His peace.

The two dogs I had been dog sitting for four days went home.

 

Sunday, August 23

Coffee on my patio on a cool morning as the street in back of me that usually plays traffic noise is still asleep.

Hearing my soon to be ninety-five-year-old mom answer her phone after she was not sure where her bed was last night.

Walking with Vivi through a peaceful neighborhood at twilight to a cricket lullaby.

 

Monday, August 24

Seeing a special friend I had not seen in twenty-five years!

Vivi and I visiting three classes and once more identifying with the energy, excitement, and fun that only nine-year-old’s can know.

 

Tuesday, August 25

Being invited by some new friends to dinner and being treated as though I were someone special.

Playing music with them and feeling their bond of marriage wrap the music we played with love.

 

Wednesday, August 26

Praying that Vivi wouldn’t freak out at the vet like she usually does, then watching her wag her tail as though it were a picnic.

Actually being able to hear and understand the person building my Subway sandwich without standing in line looking confused, wondering who they were speaking to.

Pay day!

 

Thursday, August 27.

The Dept. of Revenue called and said I owed them over five hundred dollars from my 2014 taxes. Since I had trouble with the people who filled out my 2013, taxes I shrank inside feeling like the bug I smushed with my front door last week. After calls to the bank, records faxed, etc. and a prayer of desperation, I called and some intelligent being answered, recognized that the company put the wrong SSN on the tax forms and fixed it instantly!

Watching Kevin understand paperwork that makes me crazy.

Watching Vivi and her best doggy friend, Stella Mae, enjoying life, not knowing anything about so much meanness going on in the world.

 

Friday, August 28,

Praying “Help!” as I stepped on the scales; losing the pound I gained last week.

Sitting outside singing to the birds, neighbors, and mostly Jesus, knowing He hears.

 

Even though this is not designed to be my pulpit, there are times I must speak of Jesus; not the Jesus who was just a profit, not the New Age Jesus who changes with and like the political climate, but the bible Jesus who speaks of loving your neighbor, and full of grace and truth, who is LOVE, peace on earth good will to men, never meaning for it to be only at Christmas.

 

 

BLIND LADY AND THE BUG

 

 

You are enjoying a peaceful Saturday evening rest after an exceptionally busy week when you hear something bouncing around on your front door like the glass is a trampoline. You can’t see it, but the more it bounces around the bigger it gets in your mind. What to do? Alert the dog? … She doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s on the outside wanting in, but you’re more afraid it’s on the inside wanting out. You think about calling your next-door neighbor but cringe when you remember calling him before because you heard imaginary water running outside like a pipe had burst, or the time you woke him up because there was a wood-be robber on your patio. You tiptoe to the storm door like the thing is going to jump in your face. Nothing happens, so you grit your teeth and open the storm door. The thing really starts jumping around in triple time, so you think whatever it is has left the premises. You breathe a relieved sigh, sit back down just in time to hear more bumping around on the glass. You get up again and swing the door open and shake it like it’s a lint-filled area rug. Got-chu!” Peace at last … you thought. What to do? More dancing bug; more shaking! You can’t breathe! You know you feel that bug chasing you! In a hissy-fit you shut the heavy front door, sorry you had to resort to violence for the critter.  Now you sit with no peace at all, imagining you hear a trapped insect between the doors. You realize you are trapped too, or at least may have to use the back door for the rest of your life.

…

Bugs, bees, whatever, anything that creeps, crawls, buzzes, whirs, swishes, jumps in the grass, sings a song just before it bites, are a few of my not favorite things. Now I look on facebook but every picture I can’t quite make out appears to be a bug. Once I posted a true experience on facebook which said  “The bee and I both wanted the same drink. He drowned and my nose hurts.” 

 

 

 

 

POETRY CORNER

From the children’s section of my poetry corner

 

CRICKETS

 

 

There’s a cricket in the hall!

Do you hear the sound?

Is he here?  Is he there?

Is he hopping around?

 

Which door should I open to get him out on the porch?

The front door, the back door?

The hall door of course.

 

There’s a cricket in the yard.

Listen how he begs

His friends to come over

With staccato cricket legs.

 

Now I’m going inside to sleep in my bed,

But I still hear the cricket; is he inside my head?

Somebody help!  I hear Mama call.

Doesn’t anybody hear?

There’s a cricket in the hall!

 

 

BEFORE TOMORROW

 

My first grandchild was three.

 

 

Before tomorrow all the dishes will be done,

The clothes put away,

And the counter tops cleared.

 

Before tomorrow the beds will be made,

The floor will be vacuumed,

And all the toys put in their places.

 

The doll weighs ten pounds soaking wet.

Her blue dress flops around her.

 

A few yarns of hair stick out the top of her head that once were tied with a bow.

 

I pick her up by one foot and drop her onto the porch.

Her head lands with a thud that causes me to wince.

Her eyes are fixed and blue and stare up at me.

I look down into them and see your child/play.

Her face is muddy and her lips form a permanent kiss …

Probably placed there by you.

I pick her up and squeeze water from her cloth body.

My fingerprints remain and I call her hopeless.

I put her in a plastic bag with the other garbage and bury her in a can coffin.

 

I go about my day’s work.

I take my shower, brush my teeth,

So I’ll be ready … before tomorrow.

 

I put on music to sanctify the day and hear:

“The Lord is in his holy temple.”

On his altar I see a soggy worn doll with a hug still shaped around her.

 

One day you looked at me with those little-girl eyes and said:

“I want to grow up and be like you.”

 

Oh no, don’t do that, my little child-mom.

Don’t pour your heart into words that no one understands.

 

IN the pouring rain I make my way out back.

I reach down past the egg shells, the left-over pizza, the empty carton and the dirty diapers.

I find her hand and pull her out through the muck of yesterday.

 

With pre-wash sprayed all over her, I toss her in the machine.

She comes out clean, then dried except for the water … that’s still inside her head.

 

I position her carefully on the counter top and know

The water will have dripped out … before tomorrow.

 

Like notions in a little girl’s mind.

 

Beach

I hope everyone gets the chance I had this week, to be invited by friends to the beach! Not only did a dear friend give me a ride all the way down there, but I stayed with friends at no cost to me, who provided a ride home. On reflecting about the week, I find myself wondering which thing was the most fun. To me it was spending time with old friends and getting to know them better, along with making some new ones. However, I must share a few highlights.

I try to never turn down an opportunity to sing if one just happens to jump out there. So singing karaoke at the Yacht Club was a fun surprise and listening to some wonderful voices of my friends and others while sitting near the water was fun. From what I was given to understand later, there happened to be some very interesting folks around. My friend’s dog can actually sing better than some of the crazy folks who began coming in and things got a little crazy right before we left.

A HUGE highlight was watching Vivi take to the ocean like a fish. It made me happy to let her go walking and swimming with the young girls in the group. You might think she was tired and slept all night long, but she and her friend dog, named Wilson, were up at 6 AM ready for the next fun thing.

Shopping is always on the list of things to do, especially when there is someone to read prices and explain the beauty of things I, and my blind friend Laverne, touched. I now have things for four Christmas stockings.

Oh yes, and then there were crab legs, eww! My friends were kind enough not to make fun of me for eating just one, and I know that makes me a little strange. Sorry. Not long ago a friend and I got caught in a hail storm. She is sixty-eight years old and that was the first time she had seen hail. So, now I must say, at my age, this is the first time I have ever experienced crab legs. Just as my friend marveled at the hailstorm, I am thankful to understand something new. Maybe I’ll even eat two next time.

Of course I insisted on there being rocking chairs and a porch before ever accepting the invitation. Laverne and I rocked the time away and caught up on more lost times through the years. She insisted on reading a devotion to me in Braille every morning and if I missed it, again at night. I especially love that part!

And the tandem bike? Just know that after I had surgery as a child my favorite mode of transportation was a bike. I rode a bike even after my children were born until one day I rode straight into a board sticking out the back of a parked truck. Ouch and beyond! It had been at least twenty years, probably even more since being on a bike; but going through the streets at a nice pace and feeling the wind like that just wet my appetite.

Why do I just ramble on and on when everyone has been to the beach many times? It is my goal to bring the worlds of the blind and sighted into one world, or at least one place of understanding in a better way, and to let everyone know we just all are people doing the things we love. I am truly blessed to have such good friends to write about, a family to do things with, as well and most of all, a God who understands best of all.

SEA FOAM

What can you get from the ocean?

The mud is grimy; the fish are slimy.

The ground you stand on washes away

And the sun burns your skin instead of the day.

The wind is a bat and the clouds are its ball;

The smell of the salt wets the seagull’s call.

What can you get from the ocean?

It’s voice is strong, yet soft as a spirit;

Trying to talk to the hearts that can hear it.

It rises and falls like the mood of a soul—

Waits for permission—its tides to roll.

It washes your feet—then off it goes;

Takes the sand from between your toes

Out to the breakers and lays it down

Giving the starfish another crown.

It makes a bed where the ships can sleep

And coughs up food from its cupboard deep.

It tumbles into restless hours

Showing off majestic powers.

As its white foam crests turn into blue

Humanity sees an angel’s view.

It still keeps its secrets while it tosses and roars.

And leaves a playground of joy on its shores.

TRIP TO THE IRS

Once I wrote a poem in which I said: “the devil appears to me wearing a coat designed by Hershey’s.” That poem is out of date because he now appears to me wearing a coat with the IRS emblem. The one thing that can exasperate me to tears the quickest seems to be a lot of papers that are unreadable to me. With all the OCR apps that are out there, I haven’t found one yet that services my needs, even the newest later and greater ones. Of course there are twenty-five hundred dollar ones that probably work? Well that’s out of the question, especially since now, due to papers I cannot read, I owe the government even more than that. It’s awkward enough to realize I sat across from a young man who totally messed up a tax return for me, but here we go, my trip to the IRS. I order my cab the day before the trip because that’s how our city transportation program works. The cab pulls up and Vivi and I get in. We ride for about ten minutes and as we get out the driver tells me to just walk straight for a while. Vivi finds the door. Inside it feels like an empty hallway. It probably feels that way because that’s exactly what it is. I hear a voice coming around the corner and it smiles at me as it asks me if I need help. Vivi follows the nice gentleman to the door of the IRS Service. It’s as quiet as midnight in here. I see nothing but a blaring overhead fluorescence. Another nice gentleman puts a slip of paper in my hand. “Is this a number?” I say. “Yes, he answers as he sends someone to get me a chair. “What number is it?” I say as I hear squeaky wheels rolling across the carpet. “501” he says. “Is there no chair empty?” I ask. He doesn’t answer but I feel the chair arrive as it bumps against the backs of my knees and I do a little shag step to keep from losing my balance. I sit down with an undignified flop. My feet don’t touch the floor. I feel conspicuous knowing I’m somehow sitting alone, outside a group of people. Vivi’s head turns this way and that as she takes her place on the floor beside the squeaky wheels. Immediately I begin fumbling for the controls on the bottom of the chair. It must look like my parachute didn’t open as my body drops at least four inches and my breath doesn’t. Nobody gasps or even laughs but hey, my feet now touch the floor. Still, I find that somebody could drive a small truck between the bottom and the back of the chair. I lean back and the back of the chair does too. I am searching for more controls; they are all stuck. A young man is standing somewhere in the front of the room I presume, telling us the wait is going to be twice as long today because some people are out. I’m looking for my ear phones so I can read a book if I can stand to sit in this awkward position. I wonder if someone would go to my house and get my head set, but realize that’s not an option. I’m contemplating leaving as Vivi suddenly stands up and starts pulling me forward as though she sees another dog or something. I take four tentative steps, reach down and touch Vivi’s pretty head which is now laying on a padded chair seat I should have been taken to. I sit down and try to be quiet. My phone vibrates but I have no ear buds. A bell rings sounding like a door bell. Silence. Soon another doorbell sounding ring. After several rings I go to the place I came in. Someone is standing there. “What do those bells mean?” I ask. “Every time one rings it shows a number up front,” someone explains. I’m wondering how I will know when mine shows 501. I continue my walk toward the door. “Oh let me help you,” the bell lady says. “NO thank you,” I say, smiling as I tell her Vivi knows the way out. She follows us out anyway. Next time I go to the IRS I hope I remember to pack a head set, a sun visor, a pillow, an inflatable chair, and patience.