#3goodthings [14 July 2013]

9 July
son's safe arrival home from USA
hearing of his experiences at Bethel Worship School
leading to weird things that go through the wash cycle #73 (plectrums or plectri?)

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10 July
air conditioned trains
being able to take cool showers in warm weather
days of beautiful sunshine

13 July (all close to home)
greengrocers in village that always sells loads of brilliant produce and is always heaving with customers
sandals from an indy clothes shop in the village (heaps nicer than mass produced high street ones & a bargain)
that the gem of a Scotsman recognises and supports my need to create (music/art/writing)


228 gifts

take the long way home (on parenting those who are taller than you)

Since last week I have had an accompaniment earworm of ‘Take the Long Way Home’ (that song from the iconic Breakfast in America album released by Supertramp in 1979.) We had been having a conversation at work about our favourite classic rock and pop music and since A, who sits next to me mentioned that this song was playing on his ipod, it has taken up residence in my brain.

The song came to mind during the marathon men’s singles final at Wimbledon on Sunday (from the viewpoint that the trophy was finally after 77 years leaving Fred Perry’s Stockport and heading further north to Andy Murray’s Dunblane.) It returned again today when the inflection of the squeaky office door reminded me of the song’s snake-y opening mouth organ riff (courtesy of an overactive musical imagination!)

Over the past few days I have had a few conversations/text exchanges with friends on the subject of being parents to young adults and older teens (I’m not sharing specifics because the ‘children’ are all people living their own lives and active on social media). The chats were largely about sharing successes but also pains, mental and physical health and the pressures facing both us and our beautiful young people, particularly around the time of significant exams and degree results. The offpsring are navigating their way out of education and out of our regular daily lives and we are watching, holding our collective breaths. Wondering if they will break in the process and our hearts be squeezed just too hard.

Sadly there’s still discomfort in sharing too widely, those sorts of difficulties when we 'fess up and troubles come home to roost in our front rooms, even among church people. The feeling is that some others are quick to judge. Either explicitly through unsolicited advice or implicitly when a slightly superior attitude seeps out in words or God forbid in prayers. 

It makes this particular road even more of a hard slog sometimes.

And I want to say sorry for the times over the years when I have been concomitant in this this pointing fingers thing. Not necessarily externally and in words. But even by allowing myself to indulge in internal finger pointing, inner competitive parenting and smugness that I don’t ‘have these problems’ sadly: 

I have diluted grace with another 

I have racked my brains for a paltry piece of stupid advice when I should have been listening

I have judged how marriage difficulties might have impacted on a child and diminished pain in front of me bouncing off the walls

I have determined that the rod has been spared and a child spoiled

I have concluded that a sense of entitlement has been created when families are well off and that sowing is now being reaped

I'm sorry for that ugly mess friends which has been my heart at times. 

More than anything I want to get on with having the mercy to listen well when you give me the opportunity. And to thank you for the times you have sat and listened to me say the same things in different versions and dispensed thoughtful wisdom and sent texts with pants, cr*p and sorrys.

Give us feet of friendship that will walk all or some of the way alongside each other and hands of kindness that will hold and be held. For the way home is already long enough, let’s love well and not make it any longer than it has to be.

#3goodthings [7 Jul 2013]

3 July
'Loved before the dawn of time (Salvation's song)' by Stuart Townend
praying friends
booking a hotel for a weekend away

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6 July
good foodbank collection
bbq weather and eating al fresco
deciding to wear Nana's imperfect engagement ring again (see blog & photo here)

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7 Jul
sharing with friends challenges & difficulties of being parents to young adults
Murray winning Wimbledon
fresh seared tuna



219 gifts

beautiful (not five minute friday)

Late for the #5minutefriday party, life, tennis and all. But still wrote this in the spirit of..

Five minutes on beautiful

I come from a line of fine fingered women and my wedding ring size always used to be the same as the first letter of my name J. Nana’s engagement ring was a delicate, beautiful and art deco styled ring. Fascination led me to boldly ask to her inherit it when she died.

Something about all things art deco makes my heart sing and feel their beauty. Words can’t explain it. One holiday I spent an entire film roll taking photos of Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs in a museum. My children already know I am a bit unhinged, this was their final piece of evidence.

Once Nana died the ring came into my possession but it was consigned to in a box in a drawer. Her ring size was one bigger than mine, so fear of losing it in cold weather or when taking off gloves prevented me wearing it.

Years later and with the passing of time and collection of weight that goes with it, my finger size crept up. As my own engagement ring became too small to take off I started to display the beauty that was Nana’s ring, on my wedding finger.

Not long ago one of the diamonds fell out of the ring and it is irretrievably lost. Finances have meant it cannot be replaced for now, so I stopped wearing the defective jewel.

But today I am adorning my finger with it once again, because y’know when all is said and done it perfectly reflects my beautiful, flawed heart.

Usually I join in with the writing flash mob that is Five Minute Friday (on a Friday) at the home of the lovely Lisa Jo Baker. Writing not for comments or traffic or anyone else’s agenda. But for pure love of the written word. 

I've not linked up this week as I am late but do join in - it's a great community

the tainted

Don't touch me please 
I cannot stand the way you tease 

Tainted love

We made our angled moves and shapes to the staccato synthpop sounds of the early 1980’s. Fashions and make up still flouncing through yet another androgynous cycle. My best friend and I shared many Saturday evenings and early mornings in our late teens dancing away to these sounds, shouting out the words in unison with the room and stumbling bleary eyed into church a few hours later.

                                                                                 

We had spent our schooldays dressed in blue. It started out as a specific shade of royal blue (only stocked by the independent department store) but rules relaxed to more general shades of dark blue as we moved through the classes. Near the end permission was given to wear knee length blue socks, enabling us to dress from head to toe in blue.

Recently b/f and I went away as part of our 50^th birthday celebrations for a weekend away. We also met up with two other friends who we’ve not seen since schooldays. Chatting, raising glasses, dividing pots of tea and breaking cake, we shared our stories of the years. Each of us giving space for another to speak, joys and sorrows that we have known well and sometimes worn heavily. Broken and imperfect love featured strongly in the different chapters and we gave room to hear the hard things, but we quickly cheered and applauded all the anecdotes about our dearly loved children. We laughed hard until we cried, recounting our own days in blue and wondering how the path of life and love had worked for others.

Yesterday I stood in the presence of God with His people wearing a new royal blue shirt which I had bought during that weekend away. The keyboard player led into the middle of the song, and we repeated these words before singing the whole song:

Your majesty, I can but bow

I lay my all before You now

In royal robes, I don’t deserve..

I live to serve Your majesty

Tears welled up, blurring my blue eyes and dropping on my cheeks. Overwhelmed in the moment that I don't deserve. That He holds back what I really, truly deserve, all for love and to clean my tainted heart. Not only when I’m wearing blue and not in the same way every week, but even so.

(And I think sometimes I sense just the smallest hint of a gentle tease along with an eye-twinkle, when He tells us twice). 

#concretewords prompt is the tainted over at Nacole's blog & hosted by Ruth this time. Link up, join in - go on, go on, you know you want to!