It is a quiet Sunday morning in my home. I love waking up and seeing such a blue sky from our deck with roses blooming and the birds singing. It’s as though the whole world is saying “it’s a glorious day, come out and play…” I go to my desk often first which faces our backyard, and begin to write knowing in an hour or three my husband will join me and we’ll have a Sunday breakfast on the deck before church.
Yesterday we had a yard sale…I prefer “yard sailing” imagery in my mind. Often each Saturday my husband Les and I go to the country towns near our area and enjoy visiting sales. We hold hands, enjoy the drives in my old jalopy and then simply delight in the road house shakes and townspeople sharing their life stories. It’s about the stories for us, and the fun of the find.
We have too much, and we share with others. We shop for others and for the joy of finding something that repairs something treasured. However yesterday we had our own sale. The teens and Les did the bulk of the work, we had gathered it weeks before but a naughty storm hit town after I had arranged the neighborhood sale then had the audacity to do it 3 more weekends in a row. Yesterday however, was a red letter day to drag it all out and let others come and have their pick. Part of it was that everything was .50 or $1 and I loved being able to bring good things to others who may not can have it any other way. I was that person once and it is good to do what we can for others, others did that for me. So beautiful was the sky that people came throughout the day and simply hung out.
Our town has been a hard one for me to adjust to. It’s a town of fifty thousand and it seemed too big to find the face to face community we had in our small town in Arkansas. Yesterday an acquaintance came by and it was so good to get to know her a bit. The delight came later in the day when she came back to simply visit a while. Our small town roots know that space. We lived on a corner of a town that grew up around the farm house in Stephens, and our home was on the way to and from the tiny downtown street. People stopped by often just because and we loved it. My standard line is “We’ll find coffee and perhaps some pie… won’t you come sit and stay while?”
Friday I spent time in labs for the second time this week. I thought to myself, “even the chairs don’t talk to each other here” as I waited. There is a special kind of emptiness when one waits for lab results, however God has this and whatever journey the results brings. My body is having it’s own civil war and I’m doing my best to support a peaceful coexistence. Perhaps weary from the battles of life, I have chosen to rest this week to see if that indeed is its issue. I am a high energy one, but even Wonderwoman needs to take off her shield from time to time. 🙂 Next week I am back on the road again late in the week. It’s a fascinating week this week, a cover shoot for Elizabeth, a studio call for one of my clients for a first television pilot, and then the joy of Minnesota and a curriculum I so believe in. Life is good.
Memorial Day is meaningful to me. From my Uncle Chester Cherry who flew during the days of the Red Baron, was put out of a WWI hospital in France to die after being shot down. He lived to tell about how being given up for dead, the snow, and the cold cured him, albeit with a shorter leg and lifelong limp. A childhood where many vets of Viet Nam came home without legs, confusing me for years and giving me nightmares about jungle machettes. To the stories of my father who was in the Air Force on a SAC team as a physician, to my husband who has served in multiple wars as a career Navy man now Department of Defense fella with the Delta Missile Systems….we know the price and the investment of lives in this country’s freedom. We honor those who have fallen and those who are forever changed and lost their youth though not their lives to the terrible things called wars.
I hope this day you will find time to praise and worship the God who gives us the choice to do so or deny Him. My own morning will be to finish up this writing, then head for the coffee call to spend a few moments with Les in our backyard deck to drink in the joy of the garden, the birds and to laugh at a bold chimp monk or two as they scurry through…..
in a joyful place…
