ragtime etcetera

My little (tall-ing) middle school student is amazing me this year. Attentive, mature, thoughtful. What's happened over the summer (after a few dips even)? All I can say is that this is the best start of school yet. Over at the public school for three hours, Cody is doing well, being brave, managing the socialfull, sensory-filled, whole teaching delivery. His science teacher e-mailed and said that he's a delight.
And, he's been delightful at home. We've been working from 10:45 to 3:00, and he is skipping / plodding right along. I am delighting in home school this year as it's incredibly fun to be introducing some concepts to him and to see his brain stretch.
Here's yesterday's schedule for those who are interested in what a home school day might look like:

1) middle school: band, academic lab (where he did home school reading on Scott Joplin); science

2) home where I re-teach Science using the Audubon's Weather book. We create a chart and chart the clouds of the day and read about cloud altitude and mechanics of precipitation.

3) math: mean, mode, and average review; multiplication review -- not many problems, I just want to assess that he still remembers how to do it;

4) Find two Scott Joplin resources: a) a soundfile on the web to listen to Maple Leaf Rag and the Entertainer; b) look him up in the real-world Encyclopadia to improve reference skills; read aloud.

5) Continue a page in his Writing Strands work book;

6) Go to white board and put William Penn on the ongoing leadership chart. Would you call him a strong or weak leader? [Strong due to religious convictions that all people were created equal; selfless as he used his land (now Pennsylvania) to set up a colony for other Quakers).

6) Write and define the word of the day "Universal" on a notecard and tape to the inside of the front entry closet door with other words;

7) Have Cody write about his basic rights as a member of this family in his History journal (playing video games is a basic right??). Discuss.

8) Read about Isaac Newton and John Locke in Story of the World. Talk about how the word "universal" applies to human rights. Talk about early beginnings of democracy and constitutional monarch (William and Mary) vs. absolute monarchy (Louis 14th). Relate the idea of "contract" to Cody's journal entry.

9) Visit word door and have Cody make up a sentence with each of the nine words on door.

10) Alphabetize his band music.

11) Practice piano and drums.
school is dismissed!

12) Go to rockband practice from 6-7

13) Read a chapter from his book (or Bible) right before bed

Whew! Collapse! Its been a productive day, now on to the next.

There she is, tossing bread upwards, skittishly, delightedly, upon her favorite beach in Destin, Florida, where her family goes periodically. Like her other childhood photos, she can peer (or glare) into the moments that comprise her life, and she can wonder who she is in relationship to it all. Particularly in relation to that restless body of water behind her which always churns, always cycles, always invites, threatens. From tranquil to tumult within twenty-four hours. She within knows the wave types.

She can wonder particularly in relation to the mother who holds the camera, focusing upon her always, desiring her to be captured in a placid moment of unreasonable, safe joy. Perhaps so she can then be captured in writing under a photo, a yearning pressed out; a frayed hope of points and light, which may be illusory. She doesn't know.

However, inevitably, she will look at the photo which frames her, caught, always beside the sea, always with the forty three year old mother who may one day appear full of love, praying, hoping, behind the camera which records a moment with the seagulls in Destin one August evening in 2007.

Will she see?

Sleds and water balloons, why not? The sleds later became water troughs for the 23 kids who roamed around my yard yesterday, slurping up the cool refreshing liquid into their water guns, wands, later my plastic bowls. It was the beginning (and the end?) of an annual water fight and ice cream party. There were many drenched, dripping smiles and lots of splattery feet. And no whams, bams, thuds, cries, or sirens either, thankfully. Cody's vision of summer fun came true, and even though he made a new girl enemy friend ("She wouldn't stop squirting me, Mom!"), he went to bed sleepy and happy last night. My torn up backyard and raw balloon tying thumb will be just fine (although I do mention them for sympathy). The best thing out of all this is that there will be no more nightly drench-mother-rehearsal-pre-fights. I'm safely dry now and plan to stay that way.

Raised arms, gasping thoughts

Those little faces looking up to the stage, gasping when a related thought hits them hard, throwing up their arm for me to call on them stays with me. The talk this weekend was on fear and trust. And, as I performed the script for three children services, the kids listened and swung their arms high, wanting me to call on them, listen to their specific fear.

My script didn't call for participation at that point in the talk, but they were insistent arm wavers : "I have a fear that someone is going to walk up the stairs and get me and take me away from my mommy and daddy," said a six year old girl. "I have a fear of losing my sister," said another one. "I have a fear of falling off an airplane," a boy said. Waving arms of fear, gasping thoughts of the innocents filled the room. But I had to keep going, continuing on with the sermon, speaking of the issue of trusting God, giving him your fears, making a wise choice to trust Him. Their eyes glazed. Fears are quite specific, it seems. Something they understand early on. God is less detailed, fuzzy, difficult to sense in the same way. Will fear be supplanted by trust one day?

I hope, but why can't God be as tangible as fear to small children? Even now in their innocence, they feel especially vulnerable to terrible things. Waving arms of fright. Please listen, Teacher, and help us all in our anxious world, especially the young children, protecting them in every nation, because of your love, despite the fallen state, despite the horrible conflicts of man, despite a generational curse, despite a harsh environment. Suffer not the little children as you once willed. Please call on the children and comfort their arms and fears through tangible signs, proving yourself the stronger and more attentive force. Amen.

Perspectus

The world revolves for those of us lucky enough to be here.

When I see the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis, I can't help but think of Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" in which he examines the lives of those who were crossing the bridge when it snapped and fell. The novel poses the question of destiny / fate / divine purpose against random occurence. The question used to bother me quite a bit. Now, I tend to believe that random occurence is a causal powerful thing which is hard to avoid in this land of natural laws and motions. Our divine purpose meets its wall. Our divine purpose occurs before meeting the wall. Perhaps God will move the wall, perhaps He won't. Perhaps we'll be on the wrong section of the bridge some time. May we live according to his plan and light until then.

But, life goes on for me. Cody finished his social skills training at the local autism center yesterday. I'm excitedly seeing timers and conversation topics and he and I conversing, with certain rules of conduct, over our reading. I think this will continue the work of the summer.

Music continues. Cody, his learn-by-play piano teacher (not the technical one on Monday's), and I whipped up a rendition of O Susannah to record on Wednesday afternoon. Cody wrote my (very haunted F minor sounding) harmony which I memorized on the mandolin. Linda played her guitar, and Cody manned the piano, having recorded also a drum part. We taped; Cody wasn't happy! We kept doing reworks. We kept laughing. He wants a mic for each instrument next week! I am grateful for Linda and call her Annie Sullivan, a deserving teacherly name for her.

My daughter is driving a friend to the KC airport today which worries me. I told her so, and she hushed me off, and I have no way to take her keys as she lives with her friends. Life goes on there. In a couple of weeks, we're all bound for the beach. I'll look forward then, away from the drive of the day.

Finally, I received my syllabus for my graduate class in English that I'll be taking online. Wow, am I crazy?! Yet, I'm idiotically looking forward to the learning goals and deadlines that this paper represents, now on the outside, soon to be swirled within the language of pedagogy. Do I have you to thank for this, Jennifer (haha)?

Life continues until who knows when or how. May God grant us perspective.

John

It's strange that there he sat in my kitchen chair with glasses, with a gentle air, with a giggle or two when the banjo clucked like a pained chicken. He gripped his guitar during his solos, attacking the new runs, participating in a singular joy of musical expression. He, in fact, was a professional trombonist, but his lungs refused to answer to the mouthpiece after awhile. I never heard him play, but he used to for a local group, going into bars perhaps, perhaps inhaling the smoke of others, never from a habit of his own.

All I knew of him was that he liked jazz, the Em chord, his friend James; he had a sweet wife; he sat unknown in front of me in church for a couple of years; he showed up at the same bluegrass class; then, he made a way into my kitchen on Tuesday afternoons. The cancer was already there, they say. Yet he seemed quite healthy five weeks ago as we played at his family reunion. Three weeks ago, he occupied his normal spot at our practice. Yesterday, he died; the lungs refusing any more breathful musical progressions whatsoever.

The last time, he came over, I tried out a new song learned from a Laurie Lewis c.d. called "When I Get Home"; it's a peppy tune which talks about going to heaven, finally being satisfied, about making music with a million angels, "gonna play me a harp of gold that's just like David's", etc. John heard it and smiled and commented that he really liked it.

I hope heaven is not a myth. I hope it has harps and mimosa-flower-smells and God's crushing love and reunion. I hope John is basking in its music right now, upheld, reunited, regarded as chosen, swaying, tapping, sliding his trombone once more, smiling.

I must trust that John is there. I must be thankful that for awhile, my kitchen reflected a small bit of its grace and light and welcome to him.

Thank you, God, for John's life here on earth.

Rhonda

Unwinding from the sounds at Queen City. Hearing the ring&roll of the fivestring. Hearing the doodle, doodle doo doo of the small one. Hearing the dadadadadda from the soundboard. Hearing the harmonies, clinging to one another and then rolling in the hay and back up again to do the work. A bluegrass festival. Rhonda Vincent took our money at the gate, and then she entertained us on the stage. Wonderful. Smooth. Enviable. Enjoyable. Missouri bluegrass girl making it big now.
My friend and her friend and I sat and swayed and talked, clapped and laughed and made plans for our own groups. It was super. Bluegrass is an amazing art form.

ZZzzzzz.....

Fifty-seven

As my class was leading "Panther Boy" from the alumni banquet stage this weekend, I saw my tall, strong dad in his striped polo and Levi's, at his '57 table, pointing me out to one of his fifty-years-ago sidekicks. His dimples were flashing as customary, eyes a-glinting. My sweet little mother with her natural brown hair by his side. He was indicating, later I learned "the prettiest one up there" said as a funny, but meant pridefully. And, as I see him now, the past, present, and future meld together, making me realize that I was granted that opportune glimpse.

And perhaps now I'll always see him pointing, waving back at me when I did so to egg him on, to aid him in his offspring identification. When he's no longer here, perhaps we'll still be waving, pridefully, gleefully, to signal our enduring, immortal blessed connection.

I'm counting on it.

Eighty-Two

Walking into the airport VFW Hall ushered me into a confrontation with age: faces appeared from all over to the country to reconvene again as alumni celebrating a 25 year high school class reunion. These faces were lined, fuller, interesting, inquisitive.
We stared searching for evaporated years, inquiring, collapsing the time from our joint starting gate to the present. How many children? What are you doing now? Where are you living?
I stared at my best friends from basketball, student council, band, church. Why didn't we stay in touch? I silently ask. Why did I go through a tough spell quite alone? What happened during those years to me? What have you suffered too? What have you celebrated? When will you disappear again? It was wonderful to hug them and remember, yet it made me somewhat tired and melancholy.
We arise in our different plots, set apart now, once blooming and fading together, now in another perennial bed. Rising, blooming, and falling around other forms. It's as it should be, yet the loss hits me somewhat because those friends were the early safe giggling smart loved ones. We tripped and skipped and laughed together as small town youth. We have many solid memories of equal superficiality and depth.
When I saw their faces this weekend, they were the same, but we had traveled far apart, keeping with us the memories, but inevitably replacing each other. I know that's the way the world works, but I'm sentimental and feel loss.
Yet, I have pictures of us in the year 2007 arm-in-arm. Still holding on. Still moving forward. Still planted together by virtue of the gazebo-ed Square, the long maroon building, the choices of our parents and God to plunk us in that soil, that grouping, that cycle. That infamous class of 1982.
It's the strangest thing to think about: those who are granted to be our side compansions. It never ceases to amaze me regarding its purpose.
May my old friends be blessed and safe until we meet again.

Leaning upwards

I should never feel guilty about floating around my flowers here at my lovely home. Yet last night at the Bible study I attend on Thursday, it struck me again how unfair life can be, and I'm glad for the beatitudes, promising good first to those who suffer here.

Many of the women struggle with poverty, addiction, racial, family issues which are foreign to me. When the sweet woman next to me, squirming baby in arms, tried to tell me about her DFS visit in order to find housing for herself with a drug record and an abusive man in her life, I could only listen and offer to pray. Sounds quite mild, although prayer is a rope.

The women just reminded me, though, of what is often distant to me: the trials of rising above circumstances, thick and heavy ones, the suffering. When I choose to draw near to it, and not just go to a more comfortable study in my affluent white church, I am made aware. It's difficult to be aware because pain isn't enjoyable to look at. It reminds me of the comment that Mary Sheehan, the anti-war mother who lost a son said recently that Americans are more interested in who wins American Idol than who is dying over in Iraq.

It's easier to look away and become distracted and indifferent. I came home last night with her baby's smell all over me, after taking turns with him. She's got an uphill to still press against. I pray for her and the other women there and ask for help in not avoiding how I can help. To not look away. To not become buried in my bounty.

The precious name of Jesus gives hope to us all. Amen.

The calico stepmother simply wants to clean that spot she sees on the side of the young'un's head. Yet that always gets her into a wrestle and a thump. It's difficult being a Mom at times, we think in my household.

For those of you who haven't seen this while on the Mansfield shaggy square:), here is my new Bible which I received from my husband for my birthday. We went to the Christian store to preview the purchase, and I stared at the row and row of Bibles trying to make sense of it all. I saw "The Quest", which is my beloved first NIV version, yet it was a bulky hardback with a commercial looking picture on the front. Many Bibles employed the use of a famous evangelical guide (like Henry Blackaby) who commented bountifully upon the Scripture in forms of printed sermons tucked in between books. Quite arrogant, quite idolistic, I thought, no thanks.

I saw Bibles for men, children, teens, firefighters, nurses. Pink Bibles for women with pretty fonts grabbed my eye, yet again the didactic lesson-pointers/testimonies ruined the purity of the truth-language.

There were comparative Bibles, thick study ones with Greek and Hebrew, and parallel versions side by side, footnotes filling half the pages. Marginal boundaries crisscrossed all over, aiding the analytical reader in a pursuit of heady holy hermeneutics. Not a relaxing read for my morning coffee at the kitchen table, or on the deck, or in the coffee shop. Too intricate and dizzying.

Then, I saw her. A sweet, flower-embroideried, brocaded fabric with gold threads, and a leather hold which says: Holy Bible: ESV, English Standard Version, Crossway. Opening her pages, I encountered only the words of Scripture (with a few, few footnotes) for me to meditate on as I encounter them. Perfect!

We brought her home, my feminine window into God's language of wisdom and rescue and love (which isn't alway delicate, by the way), and I'm satisfied. We should be friends for quite some time if all goes well.

Summer graces

Some of my favorite summer flowers grace the front of my house right now: scarlet bee balm (monarda); and a white balloon flower. I drive up, always participating in their glory. The bee balm blooms fairly long too, approximately 2-3 weeks.

















A summer bouquet for my table includes:


coreopsis
bee balm
loose strife
antique roses
corn flower
amaranth
daisy
stoke's aster
tea rose









The back view of the arrangement; here you can see the Stoke's astor (blue); the daisy and a tea rose.

More Grace

I just joined another online support group for parenting an autistic child. This past week has necessitated it (it's better than beer and book in the long term:) per yesterday's post). And, it's a decidedly Christian one, making it a requirement to pray for one another. It's called PREACCH, or Parents Rearing and Educating Autistic Children in Christian Homes. When I read my first digest today, these lines encouraged. Looks as if if they're from a hymn.


HE GIVETH MORE GRACE

1. He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater;
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction, He addeth His mercy;
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

chorus: His love has no limit; His grace has no measure;
His power has no boundary known unto men.
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

2. When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

Beer and mosquitoes

It's been an evil evening here: two beers and a book about Dracula for me. And, I have mosquito bites on my legs after taking them lovingly out to the deck. The beers had been in my closet for the last five months, leftover from someone's gift at a gathering. I chilled them today for the men who come over on Tuesday's for bluegrass, intending to joke with them and set one in the middle of the table to see who reached for it first (they all go to my church), to see who was in greatest need. However, one of the men was absent and so I thought I'd save them for next Tuesday. But, the beers remained chilled, and when I popped one open, took the first swig, I exclaimed, "Ah!" And, then I thought how if I weren't a pious Christian mother that I would be swigging the wonderful amber elixir more often and out in society and laughing in a carefree manner. Perhaps I'd be in Germany over a stein. Perhaps down at the local brewery. But, oh my, it tasted good with my spaghetti and homemade bread. Before I knew it, the second top had been removed. And there I was at my table first, and then moving to the deck, lighting some candles, taking my bookclub novel called "The Historian" (unfortunately about Dracula. But, with beer, I don't care nearly as much). I've waved my husband off from talking and ordered him to play with the son and tuck him in. Now, I think I'll make the evil evening more complete and find a place against the pillows in my room and hunker in for the total-experience.

Yes, such an evil, unforeseen evening, which I am grateful to swig.

:)

Butterfly weed

Language, words, dissection, redirection, reassembly.

My life as a parent of an autism spectrum child brims with re-words, redefining, re-clarification. Re-wind. I just took my son and a friend to a laser energy/light class, plunking him into a confusing nominative-classification driven discipline. He wishes that the teacher spoke English.

That's understandable. It's a jargon for sure. I felt the same way at times, being a right-brain learner.

Yet all the way over there, Cody perseverated on a gaming issue of his, a desire for hacking, which needed a motherly ethical overview, an empathy insight, a golden rule. It's exhausting, and challenging, to help him understand other views than his own encased one. Each word, jargon, of a new idea requires slowness, examples, a requested replay back from him for comprehension. And, then, suddenly, once you're satisfied, he'll ask the same question over again. The road towards understanding resumes with the same landscape features. A tangled vine, a patch of meadow, a stand of brilliant orange butterfly weed. Perseveration is the vehicle towards eventual destination, I guess.

This summer, Cody is going to a social skills training class at a local autism clinic. I met two mothers the first night. We had a small debriefing with a staffer and then we visited, shared. I mentioned something about "incessant counseling", and one of them laughed! Ah, it's nice to be understood in this particularly unique mode of motherhood! I would be abundantly wealthy if I charged the going rate!

Onward, backwards, and onwards we go!

Mulberry and friends

It must have been the recent birthday. Perhaps it's Alzheimer's setting in (today, my daughter had to write a check from her account for both our driver license renewals as I forgot my checkbook. A sign of things to come, I told her, get ready, defend your senseless mamma.) But, old things are coming back to me, like the feelings of the sudden death of my young boyfriend, encountered again per last entry.

And just recently Mom reminded me that I liked to climb things as a girl. Ah yes, trees in particular. But instead of climbing them just to conquer them, it was best to go live up in them, for hours at a time. The ultimate was our mulberry wide-branched tree, with an old teapot hung up in the "kitchen". When the cows walked under, oh that was a mighty giggly treat of twig aimin'. There were flowers and fruit and lots of rooms to scoot or climb to in the mulberry. But, mainly, it was nice to hang out in the tree and just think. There was an elm not too far away. A stately walnut with ladder branches. An oak with enchanting seeds. I still remember them well and sitting in their branches, and no one knew where I was. Then I'd hear the yellow ford truck horn honk three times for lunch or supper or town. The dog waiting below and I'd head on up to the house.

But the wind is lovely up high, and you're like a bird almost, and you make squirrels curious, and the tv wasn't blaring so Dad could hear it. And there were no other annoying sounds like the water faucet continually dripping. But the sounds were pretty and relaxing, and I wished to not be human and to be something more like a fairy.

I semi-forgot all of this; but, when I went to Europe two years ago, I kept exclaiming to people how the climbing of things was one of the best part of the tours. Comes back somehow.

I'm going to climb a tree before too long, and if my bones permit, just sit and think. That would be lovely.

Hensley

The fact of the turnoff, behind brushy hilly growth, materialized at the last minute, and I swung the wheel to the left, to the narrow gravel road, up a jot, to the drive, though the open ornate gate. A small rectangular really of a field. Could not have been more than 50 markers. I drove up a faded, grassy, gravelly lane to mine and spotted his face smiling above his sixteen year old shirt selection of a day, of an eternity. Wide white collar above a tan bodice with white sleeves. His hair feathered into style, longish in the back, wide wings. His eyes' sparkle hidden by the glaze, yet known to those who remembered, whom he loved. Including me, a young and everlasting girlfriend.

Old plastic blue dirty flowers were leaning over next to his stone, contrasting with the bright new Memorial Day attire of those next to him. I pushed in my bright yellow irises and saw a future mission. Where were his parents? I think they moved to Ohio. They haven't visited for a while. Am I the only local one left for him and this cold stone? Why is the cedar tree closely planted? What are the roots destroying down below? The practical questions when one suddenly becomes a steward again. And then it hit boldly: the short life, one unlived, the parent's dream cut short, the wreck, the sadness, the unfairness snuffing a bright spark.

My son and I drove on, up curvy Highway 5, where trucks sail away, where tears are blinked. Twenty-six years ago. It still appears to shock.

As I drove quickly through Lebanon, Missouri, enroute home today, I spied a sign which reminded me of the essential. It said,

Jesus is preparing "myspace" in Heaven.

Only in the Bible Belt would all things be perceived in evangelical vibrant possibilities. At Silver Dollar City, a basketball one-man show dimmed the lights to narrate a one-on-one to 21 between Jesus and Satan. There was a resurrection, after Satan won, but Jesus arose to win by two. He slam dunked, of course. The angels roared. A small sermon ensued, and then the lights came up and we were allowed to leave the theater. Transformed? Well, not quite, but sweetened by a dribble of faith syrup.

Perhaps it was to prepare us for the funnel cakes just around the corner. Everywhere, people were eating. I heard a man crunch pork rinds across a wide walkway. A group of cousins slurped some honey sticks. A family ate kettle corn on the green tram to parking lot C. We carried taffy and peanut brittle back to our men. I think I dreamt that night about swirling in a potato and sausage skillet hash, with a man hacking at me with a big wooden knife.

I think I screamed for escape, but, yet year after year, I ended up sizzling once more, jumping in due to some foolish nostalgia, paying the $43 entry fee for such an experience as this.

The cycle needs to end.

Silver Dollar City (aka Steal Your Dollar City) farewell!

Cody happily asked me to categorize people in soil types this evening after our bedtime reading of the parable of the sower. "That's Dad!" he yelled after a review of one category. "There I am," he said about the thin soil description. I enjoy that Jesus made it quite obvious of our location on the sower's seed-scattering path. It's a parable that clearly tells us to "Quit it!' if we have too many thorny worries, or to stop being superficially delighted only in God's message. It tells us to press on towards the dark loamy nutrient-full soil which produces the fruit of paradise for others to taste, for ourselves to joyfully experience. All it seems to take is full and endearing reception of the seed, an obedience to the sun and rain, and a thrilling upward unwinding towards fruition.
My son seemed to take this passage as a movement of becoming. I liked that.