A Duck to Water

Last Saturday Maddie and I sat on our couch for her first knitting lesson.  I was teaching her the steps, the rhyme that goes with it (see below), and telling her to have patience, that it would take a bunch of practice.  She had been begging me to teach her.  I would find her in the living room with a ball of yarn suspended in the air by two needles, floofing the yarn and asking me if she was knitting.  Uh, no sweetie.  Not.  But after our first lesson, she was off and running, er knitting.

She had several rows completed before she even had a question, and many more rows before she noticed that “somethin’ doesn’t look right!”  A minor problem to fix, and off she went again.  On Monday she asked if she could take her knitting in her book bag so she could knit on the bus ride home.  Wow! My heart swelled at her request, but didn’t know what to say…are there rules about knitting needles on a school bus like on an airplane??  Would kids grab the needles and be tempted to use them as weapons?

I didn’t know, but I said:  Well, of course you can take your knitting with you…you can take it wherever you go!  And so the yellow ball of yarn with size 10 needles goes  with her in the car to piano and soccer and to places where she thinks she might be bored. One is never bored when one has their knitting!  What a joy it is to see her knitting..she does it beautifully.  She’s even changed colors from her 16 or so rows of yellow to a vivid red.  She has plans for orange, green and blue next.  She says it’s going to be a blanket for her American Girl dolls.

Maddie had learned to crochet when she was 7…a bit more arduous work for her then.  I don’t know whether it’s because she’s 9 now or because she just takes to knitting easier than to crochet, but it reminds me of that saying–Like a Duck to Water.  It seems that natural for her.

A Rhyme for Learning to Knit

In through the front door

Run around the back

Out through the window

And off jumps Jack!

My Brambly Hedge

I loooove children’s books. I think you know this. Here and here and here, are just a couple of postings on children’s books that inspire and speak to this growing-older child.  And Jill Barklem’s stories of Brambly Hedge are among the many that continue to inspire and speak to me.

Like Beatrix Potter, Jill Barklem’s watercolored drawings of small animals in their habitat are a delight to the eye.  I love their perspective.  Beauty in brambles, take-notice-lovelies in unnoticed places:  base of trees, bushes, hedges, brambles, thickets and the like.  Jill creates a world of mice…their tree homes and palaces, their stump store, their country cousins in the woods.  I’ve been inspired to seek out these places in and around my home here in Kernersville.  Even though I live in suburbia, these unnoticed places abound, and I’m going to look for them and draw them.

The illustrations are the crowning glory to each story.  Maddie and I turned each page with a gasp at the incredible details and colors Barklem uses to bring her Brambly Hedge to life.  But the stories themselves create this fascinating world even if you didn’t have the illustrations to go with them.  Her words are crafted, much like her drawings, to show you just what she wants you to see.  You’re drawn in (haha!) and held captive.

The wonder and strength of a children’s book happens when we see ourselves in it.  I have a hardbound compilation of all four seasons of Brambly Hedge.  And beginning with Spring, I found a lot of myself in Wilfred, the little mouse who wakes up on his birthday, with a hardly-can-wait excitement about what lies ahead.  He receives his gifts from his parents in the morning, delighting in them through the early hours.  Unbeknownst to him, the whole Hedge is planning a surprise birthday picnic.  All is hustle and bustle, with no one seeming to care or notice that it’s his birthday.  They all gather at the Palace Oak with loads of provisions for a grand picnic, which must be carried quite a ways to the perfect field.  Everyone carries something.  Wilfred is given a huge, heavy basket to carry, which he can’t.  Neighbors give him a wheelbarrow to make the load a bit easier and he huffs and puffs his way up hill and down dale to his final destination of exhaustion.  Sullen and weary, Wilfred sits down on the basket as the others get everything ready for the picnic.

At some point, a mouse asks Wilfred to get the knives out of his basket so they can begin eating.  As he opens the basket he has trudged all that way, he sees gobs of presents and a beautiful birthday cake right in the middle.  All exhaustion flees, he understands what’s been going on, delight fills him and the Hedge mice as they feast together in honor of this little one’s birthday.

And I wonder-     Isn’t this so much like me?  How I trudge through life, muchtimes sullen and exhausted, carrying a basket full of what feels like rocks, getting heavier and heavier as I go along.  Yes, others are helping me, but it’s my perspective, my sight, that’s skewed.

I, like Wilfred, have no clue what’s inside the basket.

I, like Wilfred, have no clue where we’re headed.

Yet unlike Wilfred, I have Jill Barklem’s story and Ann Voscamp’s book, to open my eyes.  To help me see the unbelievable gifts in my basket.  To encourage me to stop and open this basket along the way.  To name the presents one by one.  Yes, it’s all in our perspective and our ability to see.  I’m blinded by everyday’s trudging.  I’m being reminded to open the basket and be delighted by the gifts given just to me, for me, and it’s not even my birthday.

In fact, I’m beginning to see new things, each day, being added to the basket.  And somehow it isn’t making the load heavier with each new gift being tossed in.  Somehow, just somehow, the load feels a bit lighter, not so grueling.  Yes, there is exhaustion, but it’s tinged with contentment rather than resentment.

And though, I’ve still no clue where I’m headed during this life, I do know it’s something good.  And on that Final Day, it’s gonna be a grand picnic, a huge celebration of all our birthdays!  I can’t wait to peer into my basket and see all the gifts I’ve counted and revelled in along the way.  It’s gonna be stuffed to the brim!

In fact, I think I’m gonna need a bigger basket!

More Gifts

There are times when a comment left on my blog leaps off the screen, splashing my face with the cool water of affirmation, of prophetic words and inspiration.  Such were Alex‘s words on my last post, “..kinda like storyboard…”  I’m sure that those who leave comments have no idea their words could be so meaningful to the recipient.  But a plethora of puzzle-piece-thoughts locked into place when I read those words.  THIS is what I’m doing, when I sketch out these thumbnail gifts I’m given in the course of a day: I’m creating a storyboard of my life.

I’m familiar with storyboards.  I’m currently writing storybooks.  Books which definitely have a kid-appeal with Genevieve as their main character, but which have a message that reaches across ages, as all good children’s books should.  For these books, I’ve created storyboards, small thumbnail sketches that lay out the ebb and flow of the book’s images; a way to see the whole of the book as it is portioned into parts.  A visual chronicling of the book’s scope.

Thus is the splash of recognition here:  these numbered small squares, with scribbled words and images, chronicle my life.  Not merely the events of my life, not really even that at all.  But behind the scenes, or under the surface of the water.  The places where I often forget to look.  Places where I must dive down to see, swim around in for a while to capture the beauty that undergirds me, to feel myself buoyed and buoyant by the sustaining waters.  My tendency is to whirl around on the surface like a water bug, jet-skiing hither and thither.  These small squares are moments where I jump off the ski, swim for a bit, float around, and experience all the treasures I’ve been given, right here, in the midst of now.

I’m continuing to read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voscamp.  What a gift this little book is in and of itself…reminding me, calling me to what I’ve surely known before and what I’ve made efforts to do in the past, but needed sorely to be re-born to.  And this is where Alex’s comment splashed again:  I have, in many ways, been about this for many many years.  All the paintings, all the drawings, all the sketches, journals, creations in knit and crochet, cloth and paper have been chronicles of the beauty I’ve been granted.  And the beauty that I seek.  Some creations were executed in the frantic search for the beauty–where is it, where is it, where is it?  While others have been a proclaiming—it’s right here, it’s right here, it’s right here.  The continuous line drawings come to mind.

The difficulty lies in the not-so-beautiful parts of our lives.  Places where pain and weariness meet.  As I’ve been making these thumbnails, I’ve been asking, “How do I see gifts in the midst of the ups and downs of diabetes?  How do I see beauty there?”  Two nights ago, we had tornado-like thunderstorms roll through waking me at 2:45 am.  I crawl downstairs to watch the news and see if I need to gather my family into our downstairs bathroom.  No, it has passed just south of us.  But I’m awake.  I walk past my youngest daughter’s room and think…perhaps I should test her to see what her blood sugars are.  My husband had taken the midnight shift and she was  a bit high, but not terrible.  Something held me there.  I tested.  81.  Not horribly low by any means, but when she was 197 less than 3 hours ago, where her sugars were headed was evident.  I wake her, feed her sugar and milk, kiss her off to sleep again, and hope that I sleep for another hour or two before having to get up and start the day.

As I sit in the 5:30 am bleariness with three empty boxes drawn on the journal before me, I chronicle some gifts.  The haunting question rolls in: what of the dark places? What of the 3 am testing and the near tornado night?  And it dawns on me as it comes up the horizon:  The storm was a gift to waken me.  To wake up my sleepy senses so that I would test my dear Type 1 daughter.  Diabetes does not sleep.  My Father knows this and knew I needed to be wakened.

I feel a sense of awakening with each thumbnail I scribble down.  I find I’m leaving my journal open to run over and sketch them down.  I’m writing words in a tiny purse-book so that I can make thumbnails later.  I’m realizing there are many ways to chronicle these gifts:  sketches, words, colors, photographs, yarn, cloth, songs.  I’m sure there are more.

I sincerely hope you can to find a way to see and chronicle the gifts that lay at your feet as you sail through your day.  These tiny gifts are having a huge impact on me.  I know they will for you.

Gifts

I received a gift this weekend…a book titled, One Thousand Gifts by  Ann Voscamp.  I have only read the first 29 pages, but I’m caught by her poetic voice as she tells her story of “daring to live fully right where you are” (subtitle).  I don’t know exactly where she’s headed with the 1,000 gifts…but it has inspired me to chronicle the gifts I see in each day as a thumbnail sketch, or more developed if I should so choose, or have time for.

This book is very timely.  I’ve been screaming inside lately, “Where’s MY life?…the life that I want to live? Why do I constantly seem to live OTHER’s lives? When will things EVER slow down enough for me to pursue the things I’d like to?”  Of course, I recognize that I, MYSELF have signed up for many of these things that are taking up so much of my life.  Family events and activities are a given; I don’t want to miss out on those.  But I have way overcommitted in other things, and it seems to be a pattern.

Voscamp’s call to LIVE FULLY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE resonates hugely in my heart.  Yes, yes, and yes.  I do NOT want to squander my life, even the busy one I’ve concocted, and let it all pass me by.  I want, and indeed CAN, look for the gifts I’m given every day, every moment…if I’ll just look and see and open my heart to them.

So here’s what I’m doing…maybe you’d like to join me?  I’m going to make little thumbnail sketches of these gifts as they come to me.  I’m NOT going to make a production out of them, because I’ll never do them if they seem like they will take gobs of time.  I’m NOT going to say I’ll do ONE a DAY, though you may want to.  I want to be free from constraints of any kind…just log them, a little tiny breath of a sketch, with some words if I’d like, to record the gift as it came to me, or at the beginning and end of each day.  Maybe there will be several a day.  Maybe there will only be one or two.  Maybe none, on days when the busyness and the resentment of that busyness blinds me from seeing any light.

You may also want to read her book.  A note of warning though:  I was not prepared for the right-out-of-the-gate, page one stories of horrific tragedies in her life and those of her loved ones.  Although poetically rendered and masterfully redemptive, her accounts of tragedy touched my own “holes in the canvas of my life.”  (pg. 16) But her writing is redemptive.  She does not merely fling her pain in our faces for us to then flail around finding some meaning…no, her writings point us to hints of healing:

“I wonder too…if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see.  To see through to God.  That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond.  To Him.  To the God whom we endlessly crave.  Maybe so.” (pg. 22)

And then: “How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy? Self-focus for God-communion.  To fully live–to live full of grace and joy and all that is beauty eternal.  It is possible, wildly.” (pg. 23)

And I have 200 more pages to go.  This book is not preachy.  It is not full of platitudes.  It is a poetic account of a farmer’s wife’s story.  Go figure.

Last week, our family spent a few cold, rainy days at the beach.  I began this thumbnailing idea then, as I struggled to find the beauty in a trip to the beach where it was 40 degrees and raining just about every day.  On top of that, Maddie’s blood sugar numbers were sky high! My husband and I struggled to figure out why and hence bring down her blood sugar to a healthier range.  We were not successful. Thus, the two boxes drawn above…sweet gifts to me as I tested her in the middle of the night last night.  Brothers and sisters everywhere…we MUST, if we are to truly LIVE, we must look for and really SEE the gifts we are given each and every day, no matter the weather of our lives! Will you join me?

P.S.  And another gift to me today…check here! It’s gonna be in the 80′s here in North Carolina!