Crossing the finish line

     

This calico clucker has been roosting in my sewing box for 40 years.
       When I began the project I was living in Toledo, a stay-at-home mom caring for my toddler son. Sewing projects were my creative outlet. Remember those crocheted dolls that used to disguise a spare roll of paper on the back of the toilet? Well this homespun hen is from the same genre: kitchy coverings with a useful purpose. This quilted fabric chicken is designed to perch atop the bread basket to keep fresh-from-the-oven biscuits and buns nice and warm. To get a bun, just lift a wing and reach into the basket.
        Unfortunately, over the years I have started many more projects than I finished. This crumpled hen, lacking only a few finishing touches,  was under a stack of fabric scraps with several other unfinished embroidery and needlepoint. I'm embarrassed to admit I have hauled that box of sewing stuff to six homes in four states, through my divorce and journalism career and into 10 years of retirement.
        Last summer I opened the box searching for a piece of fabric. I realized, reluctantly, that I should pitch all those unfinished projects. But I just couldn't. Each piece I picked up rekindled that spark of interest that had inspired me in the first place.
     The de-clutter edict says to get rid of anything that doesn't give you joy. To my surprise, since opening that box I have found enormous joy remembering simpler times, solving the conundrums that caused the projects to be set aside, and completing pieces that joyfully add to the clutter of my couch and kitchen.
       

Where ya headed?

   

If you are getting tired of all the anger on Facebook, Twitter and the nightly news, turn it off and go on a trip.
      It doesn't really matter where you go, just some place different where you're surrounded by people you don't know. Strangers. I took a day trip on an Amtrak train from Grand Rapids to Chicago this week to enjoy a play at the Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier. It's a long and grueling day --18 hours from start to finish. Yet the trip reminded me over and over how nice and friendly strangers are.
       I'm pretty familiar with the Windy City but I still need to consult a map now and then or read a street sign. Whenever I would do so, some friendly soul -- unbidden -- would smile and say "Where ya headed?" People are eager to be helpful.
        "Oh, you can't walk all the way to Navy Pier, " said a woman on Michigan Avenue. "That must be five miles. You want to take a bus, right over there. Get the 124."
          She didn't know how much the fare was since she uses a bus pass, but another guy overheard our conversation and interjected "It's $2.50. Correct change."
        Helpful strangers don't limit themselves to directions. They will show you how to work those complex train seats. Suggest a favorite place to eat. Even stop what they are doing to offer to take your picture when the selfie isn't working out too well.
          When we took the bus back to Union Station after the play, the stop wasn't the part of the terminal we were expecting.
        "Just take this walkway about two blocks," said a commuter in a business suit rushing for the stairs.
          Looking around the terminal I saw a cross section of America, every age, race and religion. There were a couple little boys chasing a pigeon. There was a large group of Amish in black, including a man with a beard so long and wild it looked like a cheap Halloween costume beard he had tied on. A dark-skinned man in a turban was quietly reading a book. A mother and daughter from Texas were struggling with half a dozen suitcases enroute to a wedding in Grand Haven.
            No one was talking about Impeachment or Syria or Mar-a-Lago. I don't know or care about each person's political party or who they voted for in the last election. We're just people, waiting our turn, helping each other if we can, smiling and sharing small talk.
             No matter what social media says, this is the real America.

Nevertheless...

   

"Choose the path of most persistence."
      I'm not one to plaster political bumper stickers all over my car, but that one from the Elizabeth Warren campaign made it to my bumper. It's not just because I support the candidate but I also identify with the sentiment.
        I thought of that today as I unloaded a folding table, stool and giant book bag for a local author event at an area bookstore. Selling books is about as frustrating and time consuming as a political campaign. And it takes a lot of persistence. Authors need a double dose of ambition to stick to their guns and get that book written in the first place. But that's just the beginning. Then you have to find the buyers. And that can be slow going.
        So why do we do it? For that one reader who says my story was too scary to read alone at night. Or the one who said she could imagine it being a television series. Or that Italian reader who claimed my characters' response to a serial killer was "so American."
         We write because these characters talk to us. The only way to silence the voices in my head is to write them down. As a mystery writer I HAVE to figure it out. How did the criminal do it? Why did he/she do it? And how will my protagonist solve it?
          We write because we chose the path of most persistence. As Robert Frost would say, "that has made all the difference."

Thoughts on prayer

      

           I can't read the news without praying. I pray for a family in Minnesota that is struggling to keep a farm that has been in the family since 1888. I pray for a black couple in a Philadelphia suburb who were hassled by a new cop for driving in the upscale neighborhood where they live. And all those people who were shot in El Paso and Dayton! OMG!
         Then there are the emails. Two wonderful ladies from my church are in hospice. And the Facebook posts about illness and depression and the death of a younger brother.
         With all these new requests popping up daily I try to remember the general prayers for the hungry and the persecuted.
          And of course prayers for the powerful. I pray for Mr. Trump every day because I believe in God's ability to transform anyone. I don't agree with most of Trump's policies and certainly can't approve of his behavior, but when I pray for him I find my heart softened a little. It calms my anger and kindles my compassion. Even for Donald Trump.
          All too often, however, I forget the purpose of prayer.
          A Hindu friend -- yes, Hindus pray too -- told me once that too often we treat prayer like a trip to the mall. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Heal this one, change that one, comfort another. We skip praising our amazing God. Slide past thank yous for all our blessings. And ignore the real communication: confessing our failures, opening up about our fears and listening for his guidance.
          To paraphrase Kennedy's famous line: Ask not what God can do for you, ask what you can do with God.

Waves of wonder

        

Living by the ocean makes everything else seem small.
         I  have only been in Panama City Beach for less than a month, but I've already observed a few of the ocean's many moods. From roaring storms to mirror-like mornings, diamond-studded afternoons and sumptuous sunsets. The power and enormity of the ocean drowns out hateful headlines and Facebook furor.
          Shutdown? Neither President Trump nor Nancy Pelosi have the power to interrupt our country the way wind and water can. We had an example just a few months ago with hurricane Michael. Panama City Beach survived with only a few scars, but across the bridge in Panama City whole neighborhoods were flattened. Huge churches and restaurants and stores are crumbled heaps of bricks and beams and twisted metal. Makes a border wall seem pretty insignificant.
          When I arrived on New Year's Day a rivulet wound its way through the famous sugar-sand beach behind my 20-story highrise. One of the residents told me it was a drain from a wetlands on the other side of the road that had to make its way to the sea. The flowing water had dug its own mini-grand canyon through the beach creating walls kids would climb and seniors would curse.
            One day, in a sand box fantasy, a bulldozer arrived and smoothed away any evidence of the curvy canyon, replacing it with a simple straight ditch. It seemed so logical and orderly, but before 24 hours had passed I noticed that wind and waves were already changing the course of the man-made ditch into a slight curve. Within a few days the curvy canyon was back and getting a little deeper each day. Seemed like the persistent rivulet had won.
          Then today a strong wind erased the walls and blew the sand smooth again faster than any bulldozer. The rivulet will have to start carving again tomorrow.
           I know mankind has been mean to the ocean. Discarded plastic straws, bottles and bags are piling up and creating islands of trash in the sea. Emissions from our cars and smokestacks have created a greenhouse effect that is causing the oceans to get warmer, melting the polar ice and bleaching the coral. These problems are not small by any measure.
             But as I watch the mighty ocean adapting to every weather whim, I am confident  she will survive any onslaught we devise.  Mankind, on the other hand, may not.