No. 2

The right tool for the job.  It's kind of totally a hang-up of mine. 

I have been known to halt the progress of a recipe and go on a kitchen wide search for a specific red spatula that often results in finding it dirty, in the dishwasher wherein I take the time to wash it before I use it instead of just grabbing the inferior blue spatula that was clean in the drawer.  The red one works better.  I'll leave that blue one for some other sucker, or scraper as the case may be. 

Ditto for pencils.  We have a jar of sharpened pencils on our counter that are easy to reach at homework time.  An eclectic collection of free ones from Halloweens past, small town parades and birthday party goody bags.  My daughters love them.  They remember with bizarre accuracy where each one came from and I'm happy for them.  These pencils all suck.  For me, the Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 is the only pencil.  Period.  The right tool for the job; any writing job that might require revision or lengthy contemplation.  I keep a secret stash of them in my desk drawer in the basement.  I will, occasionally on rare occasion grab one of those inferior implements from the jar.  They do, in fact, make a mark on a grocery list or a smiley face on a sheet of math facts.  But when I do reach for the wrong tool, the whole time I'm using it, I am preoccupied by the fact that I know there is a better tool for the job.

It's kind of sick.

I come by it naturally.  My father would rather put off doing a job than to attempt to complete it with the wrong tool.  I inherited this trait handicap from him.  Thanks Dad.  Sorry Dad. 

Not doing a project because you don't have the right tool?  That's silly you say.  For me, it actually gets worse.

I stop cooking to search for spatulas.  I run extra flights of stairs to select pencils.  And I selectively remove myself from participating in all sorts of fun stuff because I am paralyzed by my fear that I won't have what it takes to participate.  That I won't have the right tools for the job.

Damn that was hard to write.

I opt out of sports with a lie about preferring to be on the sidelines because I am afraid I won't have a good enough throw, or a spot on swing or a nice hard hit or be able to catch that thing you threw at me.  Those are the tools of sport.  Right? 

I can't?  Or I won't?  I think I won't is closer to the truth.

How did I get here from a word about pencils?  It all comes back to having the right tool for the job.  Or not, as the case may be.  This essay feels more personal than most of the ones you'll find here on this little blog, but oh well.  There's big stuff coming for this little me.  And my anxiety level is off the charts.  I'm planning to tell you all about it...once it's over.  I have assembled many of the tools that are right for the job that's to be done; running shoes, road bike, helmet, gloves, water bottle.  There are other tools that will be required; motivation, endurance, courage.  Have I got the right tools for the job?

I am not sure.

I am sure of these two things:

There is value in knowing the right tool for the job.

There is also value in going ahead and attempting the job anyway. 









*Yes.  We are aware that technically "No. 2" is not a single word.  We decided to make a teeny exception because it was a reader submission AND because certainly No. 2 describes a single thought when referring to the lead of a pencil. Have you got a word you'd like to see us tackle?  Send it our way in a comment or post it to our Facebook page.

Storm

Storms don't appear out of nowhere.  Some kind of sign usually announces their impending arrival.  Swirling weather patterns like clouds and low pressure.  Stirred up messes like PET scans and suspicious lumps.  Dark days with eyes that won't meet your gaze and blame getting placed.  Weak systems like zero balance checking accounts and piled up bills.

There is usually some kind of sign.  The storm is coming.

How can you possibly be ready?  What if you miss the signs?  Or weren't looking for them in the first place?

Once you're in the thick of it...it's too late.  Or is it?

There is one thing that stands confidently and watches the approaching storm.  One thing that gathers the necessary supplies and prepares for the onslaught.  One thing that leans into the wind, and bends but does not break.  One thing you can see even when the visibility is zero.  One thing that spreads over you when the debris of your life is falling down around you.  One thing that does not need to to be built back up when the storm has passed because it was never knocked down in the first place.

There is one thing.

Family

Where did I come from?  My parents?  My parents’ parents?  Their parents?   Was it a place?  Was it always that place?  Or maybe a time?  Or the time before that time?  Who is my family?  What’s their story?  Is it a name?  Was it always that name?  What was the name before that name?  Before that?

How far back in my lineage do I have to go before nobody knows?  I’ve been pretty far down that list of names and dates.  We’ve got people in our family who know all of it.  I’ve gone far enough back to realize I don’t care how far back someone knows something about somebody.  Far enough back to realize that’s only part of the story? 

No matter how long the story is, no matter how much of it is known…it’s only the first part.

What brought me here and where am I going?  I’m learning painfully scraping along the journey of releasing, without forgetting, where I came from.  And all of a sudden there are new things I can do.  Things that I didn’t think I was supposed to be able to do.  Because of where I came from.  Things I didn’t know I wanted to do.  Because of where I came from.  

There’s the family I came from, and the family I made.  The man I chose and those precious children?  We made them.  They are of us.  We are of them.  These things we made are making us into who we are. 

That’s the next part of the story. 

I left one family.  And made another.  That’s just simply the way it’s done. 

As if any family ever gets made any other way.

Summer

What fun is breaking the rules when there aren’t any rules?

How can you enjoy a change in routine, when you have no routine?

Can there be unstructured moments in a life that has no structure?

I say, “No” a lot.  It’s a terrible drag.  Terrible.  I’m the Mom.  That’s a big part of my job.  But sometimes…I get to say, “Yes.”  And they are thrilled.  It’s elicit.  An incredible stroke of good fortune.  And they love it.  Because they know it’s not normal.  We are fiercely protective of our rules and our structure around here, because it gives us order.  That order also provides us wonderfully safe opportunities for chaos.  The fun kind of chaos.

I love summer.  I love the chaos of summer.  I love the YES of summer.

 

I love children that smell like chlorine and have terribly dirty feet.  I love bedtimes that get breezed right by in favor of late nights with the neighborhood running, screaming through the darkness with flashlights and firefly jars.  I love popsicles in the middle of the afternoon.  A shower in the yard?  Sure.  With soap?  Why not.  And no clothes?  Absolutely!

I love the YES of summer. 

First

Last Friday was the first Friday of August.

My Love and I showed up way early so we could be the first ones in line.

I took my first daughter to a rock concert.

Her first rock concert.

To see the first band I have ever been crazy about.

And we stood in the first row.

And they played her very favorite song.  First.

I was so over whelmed with stupid joy that I stood there and cried.  

Thank goodness for dark sunglasses. 

It was quite simply one of those moments I was talking about last week.  

One of those extraordinary moments on an ordinary day 

that is worth stopping to celebrate.  Woot! 

There will be lots more Fridays.  And long lines to stand in.  

She will fall in love with other bands and go to many concerts.

But there will never be another first rock concert.

  

For the rest of her life, people will ask her which was her first one.  

And she'll tell them about standing with me.  In the first row.

How much do I love this?  

More than alot.

Celebrate

All I've got is questions this week.  Who do I celebrate?  What do I celebrate?  When is it time?  Who decides?

There is so much to celebrate.  So.  Much.

Little stuff though.  It's not always banners and parades.  Sometimes its a birthday candle in a granola bar.  It's the birdseed that fell in just the right place to grow the most spectacular sunflowers in the middle of the too green lawn.  It's the fact that my autocorrect now recognizes 'woot' as a word because I use it so often.  In celebration.

You could thank God for them.  I celebrate them.  I'm mindful of them.  That celebrates them in the simplest way.  Either way...I think it works.

What if the only things you woke up with tomorrow were the things you celebrated today?

Would it change what you were grateful for?  Probably not, but it might make you change the way you acted towards them.  In response to them.

How about we start celebrating without warning.  Stop planning it.  See the magic in everyday and Woot, Woot, Woot about it!

No pomp.  Just circumstance.

Nuts

Have you ever had the pleasure of watching a baby learn to walk?  Those tentative first steps?  The moment they let go and step out.  Hands free.  What are the parents doing?  Are they modeling the walking?  "One foot in front of the other Junior.  That's it.  You pick up your foot like this and then move it forward and put it down."

No.  Probably not.

How about when a baby learns to talk?  The babbles.  The sputtering.  What was mom doing?  Was she bent over him, "Move your jaw Junior.  Lift your tongue now.  Put your lips together and push out some air." 

No.  Probably not.

There's a whole bunch of stuff out there that gets learned just because it gets learned.  They learn it because we live it.  We are not teaching it.  We are doing it.  Are they following our lead or just doing what comes naturally?

Who knows?  It doesn't matter.  It gets done.

The tiny acorn lands where it lands and simply does what it's made to do.  The mighty oak does not stand over it and instruct.  The mighty oak rises in what can only be imagined as a living example of what's supposed to happen.

The things that acorn does not learn from its parent tree are in fact the mightiest of all.  How to grow.  How to root itself firmly as a foundation.  How to spread its branches and look for the sunlight.  How to grow leaves, and house creatures and drop acorns.

What the tiny acorns knows, without having to be told, is how to grow a tree.  And a well tended tree grows.

How to grow a tree is how to grow a life.