A new view

This image doesn't have anything to do with today being overcast or our region's longing for rain.  It is grey outside and precipitation would be welcome.  There's no need to illustrate or to elaborate on that.

The reason I'm showing off these dark clouds is that they're descriptive of how I am feeling.  I know ... yikes for poor Tal.  Realizing I was somewhat less than cheery, I did manage not to act out.  Fortunately.  And, I was able to ascertain the reason for my interior storminess.  Turns out my normal Sunday evening list-making for the coming week, rather than helping me feel organized and ready, sent me into a state. 

I know I've written about it before, the dotting of "i's" and the crossing of "t's."  I neither have to defend that tendency nor to be dismissive of it.  Attention to detail is a good thing.  But, maybe not always. 

From my years of list-making I know I don't sort very well and have a way of giving pretty equal weight to every task on the list.  And, I seem to put everything on the list that I might ever want to do no matter how long-term, along with the everyday things that keep our household running.  Prioritizing?  I know what it means, but I'm not good at its practice. 

Beyond those bad habits, however, there's another problem, a much more critical one, I think.  I really like getting things done.  Yes.  But, the truth is I dot "i's" and cross "t's" mostly out of fear.  I am afraid that if I don't take care of all the details someone somewhere's going to say something to me about it.  Or, worse yet, they'll say something to someone else about it.  So, I work myself into a dither.  Talk about ludicrous and a waste of precious time. 

How different it would be to act out of love.  There's a commercial being run this season that has charmed me.  I can tell it's a good one because I don't remember what its an ad for ...  The main character seems to be obsessing over everything from how far the coffee table is from the most comfortable chair to the height of the flowers for the center of the dinner table.  She's a bright whirling bundle of activity.

The twist comes when her event gets started.  Come to find out she's not running scared or sorry she's having people in.  An elderly man sits down in that comfortable chair and wearily lifts his feet to the coffee table that's just in the right place.  At dinner time our hostess looks across the table and receives a beatific smile from a tiny little lady who can actually see over the flower arrangement.

Yes, the main character wanted everything to be just right.  But, she wasn't put out or scared or inconvenienced.  Every task in advance of that event was an act of love.

Maybe I need to rethink my list.  While some of the tasks can go and never be missed, most of them can probably stay right there.  What really needs some serious "surgerizing," though, is my outlook, my attitude. 

Why do I do what I do?  Because I have to?  Because I'm afraid of what someone else is going to think or say?  Or, can I make what I do  -- even the most mundane task on the list -- an expression of love? 

If I dare say yes to that impossible question, I'm going to have to be intentional about changing my ways.  Not an easy prospect by any stretch. 

I scream!

It's not what you think.  I'm not having a meltdown kind of a day.

My brother shared a photograph on Facebook.  That's what set off this one-thing-leading-to-another line of thought.  The title of the image is "Ice Cream!"  So, the title of the post could be nothing else, could it?

My siblings and I didn't grow up with this being a sight we beheld or an experience we had often. But, when we visited Mom's parents in Milford MI each summer, we came to recognize the sound of the ice cream truck long before it appeared.  I'm thinking "Turkey in the Straw," blaring tinny and ever closer.

Most evenings after supper thin dimes (how many depended on how many grandchildren were present) appeared on the kitchen table.  One for each of us.  That's all it took in the late 1950s.  Waiting on that paved driveway (a big deal to my mind, a paved driveway) was such a time of anticipation.  An ice cream truck just had to be one of the wonders of the world!

Children have their own wonders now.  I'm too out of touch to know what they are.  But, I hope some old photograph -- in whatever form images take, say, 50 years from now -- or a few bars of a song will transport them back to a simpler time the way this fuzzy picture did me. 

I returned to a sweet scene in my memory -- the street where my grandparents lived and where my mother grew up, a street where there were other children to play with, a street where, even though I was a visitor, I felt known and welcome. 

I returned to a moment of sterling security when the sight of dimes on a kitchen table equated to permission, to invitation and to unquestioned love.

Thanks, Paul.

A lament

It would be pointless to write about today's news from Aurora CO.  It's too staggering to take in.  And, we will be bombarded with opinions, images, gut-wrenching stories, pointed fingers soon enough.

It's all about loss, seems to me.  I go to bed with this touching expression of love and loss on my mind -- a portion of a tweet by Jay Meloff about his girlfriend, Jessica Ghawi, who did not survive the movie screening.

Never wanted to fall asleep because it meant missing time with you.

It might be a good idea to look at the people we love through the lens of those words.