Broccoli Blog (Say that 5 times fast)

My beautiful and amazing sister-in-law who inspired me to begin my blog said, “Isn’t it cool that with blogging you can just write about anything… like tomorrow, you could write about broccoli.”  So here is my broccoli post.

Why broccoli is like reality.

1.       It stinks.

2.       It doesn’t appeal to everyone, especially children. (Ok, I stole this from Donald Miller… sort of.)

3.       It’s good for you.

4.       It can make your tummy hurt.

5.       I know someone who didn’t even try it until he was 24 years old.

6.       It grows into something really cool if given the proper environment.

7.       It’s way easier to swallow if you cover it in something tasty like cheese.  (I don’t like to sugarcoat the truth.  I like to cheesecoat the truth.)

Hey, Don’t I Know You?

A few months ago, I read a poem I had written out loud to a to a group of English Teachers (no easy feat in itself).  Afterwards, a man I had never met before came up to me and said, “You know, I looked at you as you were about to read your poem and thought, she doesn’t even need to read it.  I already know exactly what she’s going to say and how she feels.”

“Am I that transparent?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess you are,” he said, realizing that he hadn’t said what he wanted to say in quite the right way.  “It’s a good thing, though.  Genuine.  Honest.  We have never met, and I feel like we grew up together just because of what you read and how you read it.  And that transparency makes it feel like we’ve been friends for a very long time.”

And I get that a lot.  I get the “Gosh, I know I just met you, but it seems like we’ve been friends for way longer than 20 minutes” thing when I’m traveling, when I meet a new mom at a park.  (And no, this man was not hitting on me in any way shape or form.  He’s just a good English teacher.  And good English teachers are observant.) 

And I wonder if this happens because I like to talk about myself when I meet new adults, because the only confidants I have these days are a 3 year old and an 18 month old, or if it’s because I’m honest.  I’m honest about pretty much everything, and I consider it to be my greatest virtue… Now don’t hear me wrong.  I lie sometimes.  But it’s weird lies like this one:

My husband: “Honey, why did you make so much coffee?”

Me: “Because you always fill up your big travel mug and there’s only one cup left, and I like to have two cups of coffee in the morning.”

Silence

Me: “Okay, I lied.  It was really because I wasn’t paying attention and I just kept scooping and counting and all of a sudden I had put too many scoops in there.”

What is the point of that lie?  And I guess it wasn’t really a lie.  But essentially, I was being dishonest about WHY I had made so much coffee, and then I immediately felt guilty about not being honest with him about it and confessed the real reason.  This is me with honesty.  Like it or leave it.  I can’t lie and tell you I like the way your hair looks when I think it looks stupid.  The look on my face will give me away every time anyway.  This is a great thing when I have something nice to say.  Everyone knows it is a sincere compliment, but…

This gets me in trouble with people who don’t see honesty as a virtue.  To me, honesty is a top priority.  I do not like dishonesty.  I do not like false or fake or any of that.  And maybe that’s the maintenance thing again.  I don’t dye my hair.  Takes too much maintenance.  I don’t tell lies.  It takes too much maintenance to keep up with it.  I have a hard time tolerating people who look too perfect, act too perfect, have homes that are too clean and organized… UNLESS that is really WHO THEY ARE.   If they genuinely ARE clean and organized people who can’t be sane unless things are tidy, then I have no problem with them… Because that makes them… imperfect.

I love imperfection because I know the list of my own faults is a mile long and when you’re not perfect, I feel better about how I’m doing in life.  When you’re perfect, I’m a failure.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be a failure.

I guess what I’m getting to here, is what is more important?  Being honest or being perfect?

I take honesty every time, because when I try for perfection, I come up short… Every. Single. Time.

Em's Sunday Poetry

We cling

To our sorrows, our pities, our woes,

Welcoming death--

Shame dripping from our bones

As

Forgiveness weeps,

Alone and broken.

Carpe Diem—What does “Seize the Day” really mean

A continuation of my thoughts from a journal entry dated August 11, 2000. 

“Henry David Thoreau said something about in the moment before death, he didn’t want to realize that he had not lived… And so often, I think that what is meant by really living is that I must be daring every minute of my life.  I must live outrageously… and as much as I want to live to the extreme, spread my wings and inhale every bit of life that I can, I want to have roots.  Stand firmly upon my solid rock of sacred ground.

It always seems strange to me, the people who are genuinely happy every day take pride in the little tedious things that most people do just to get on with their lives. Doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, happy people seem to keep it simple, let these things give their lives roots and balance.  And I think about people who’ve been crippled.  It’s watching people do the simple things that they wish they could still do… Putting on a pair of pants by themselves, making their own dinner…

As many times as I tell myself to go for it, to LIVE… I already know how to do that.  I already know how to be daring and bold.  The question is when the time comes for me to stand firm, will I mistake it for a time to run?  And when the time comes fro me to bite my tongue, will I be bold and speak my mind?

Or will I know?  Will I stay standing on my winding tightrope upon which I must walk and leap, dance and run?  My tightrope which moves in all directions at once.  My balancing act, which sometimes includes working without a net—and even a long hard fall every once in a while…”

I wrote that 11 years ago, and still I struggle with three parts of this:

1.    

   Appreciating the little things.  Seizing the day by keeping my perspective as it  be… or adjusting my perspective to what it should be.  Keeping up with the maintenance of life stuff with the right focus.  

2.      Balance.  Oprah’s favorite word.  Maybe not worth the extent of the press it has gotten in recent times, but still needs mentioning.

3.      The fact that a long hard fall is not necessarily a bad thing.  A mistake is a not necessarily a bad thing.  A Bad Thing is not necessarily a bad thing.  It can really be something David Langford calls a “probletunity.”  The hard part about that is that mistakes, problems, and crappy situations suck.  And this goes back to the first part.  Perspective.  And really, maybe the only way to gain proper perspective is to keep in mind one of my favorite lines from the movie Rudy, “There is a God, and I’m not Him.”

Coming back to my question in the first place, what does “seize the day” really mean?  Does it mean live outrageously?  Do the little things well?  Do the work of “maintaining” with proper perspective?  Find a balance?  Capitalize on probletunities?

And I think, the answer is YES.

Why Is Your Blog Title About An Ugly Tree?

There are several reasons:

1.      1.  It makes people wonder. Her tree is ugly?  Is this a metaphor for something?  Does she really have an ugly tree in her backyard that she’s obsessed with or something? 

2.    2.  It is a metaphor.

3.     3. I am promoting an eventual book with a similar title. 

Those things being said, my husband made an interesting observation relating to the tree thing last night.  He said that back in biblical times, everyone was a farmer, a fisherman, or a shepherd.  And he said that it still seems true today.

So I started wondering, am I a farmer, a fisherman, or a shepherd?

And I think I’m a shepherd by nature and that’s why I became a teacher; because I love to get a bunch of people going in the same direction to accomplish a goal.  I’m not patient enough to be a fisherman.  I am not good at throwing a line out there and waiting for someone else to bite on it.  I do not have the patience for that shit.  I love when other people have that sort of patience with me, but I just can’t do it.  Waiting for fish to take the bait?  I don’t have time for that. 

When it comes to mothering, I’m a farmer.   I plant little seeds.  “Say thank you.”  “Use your manners.”  “Be a gentleman.”  “Are you being kind and loving to your brother?”  I water those seeds.  “Thank you for being so kind by sharing with your brother.”  And if the watering isn’t enough, then I resort to fertilizing the soil with a little manure.  “You hit your brother in the head with a baseball bat?  No more baseball today.”  The problem is that I’m not a very patient farmer.  I tend to want to stand over the seeds and say, “Grow!”  And sometimes I pile on a bunch of manure to get faster results.  I’m not so sure that this is the right way to go.  The seeds don’t necessarily respond to the farmer telling them what to do, and the more manure a farmer piles on, the more crap a seed’s gotta work through in order to get to the surface to bloom.  Then again, we all need fertilizer to grow.  Some of us need more manure than others.  But some of us just need the gardener to stand beside us and tell us that it’s okay to grow.

Emily and the Art(lessness) of Home Maintenance

I freaking HATE anything that requires "maintaining." 

It is the most difficult thing in the world to me, this "maintaining" thing.  I would much rather start something, finish it, have it be done, look at it and think, my what a wonderful thing I have accomplished, walk away from it and rest for the evening.

This is all I want every day of my life.

I do not receive this gift.  Ever.

I do the dishes.  There they are clean and piled up on the other side of the sink.

I put them away.  In walks my son with an almost empty sippy cup.

Instant defeat.

I pick up toys.  As I am putting them away, an 18 month-old monster is ripping them out of my hands to throw them on the floor.

Anger.  Defeat.

I clean the bathroom.  A precious gangly 3 year old hops in the bathroom pulls down his pants and pees all over the floor, side of the toilet, and cabinet.  "Oops, mama, I missed."

Can someone tell me what the point of all of this "maintenance" is?

Because I would love to stop getting angry at my family for wearing clothes the day after I have just finished cleaning, folding, and putting away 16 tons of laundry.


I understand that many people do not view things this way.  If you are one of these people, then I do not understand you.  How do you just continue to put things away and pull weeds and do dish after dish after dish without feeling completely defeated?


More importantly, I really don't understand is how this only affects the things that I don't enjoy doing.  Or things that I'm not good at, don't care much about, etc. Because I don't mind eating when I know I'm just going to burn off the energy or poop it out.  And I don't mind sleeping when I know that I'm just going to wake up again to live a busy day and get tired again.  And I am very good at both of those things.  I am an excellent eater, and maybe an even better sleeper.


I look forward to eating and sleeping.  I know those are infinite pursuits.  I will always need rest.  I will always get hungry again.  So really, eating and sleeping are the same as making a bed or doing dishes.  The only difference is that I love one and loathe the other.  What it comes down to, and what it always comes down to, I guess, is that I must change my attitude about it.


What if I don't want to change my attitude?  What if I don't know how?  What if I measure myself by the amount of things I accomplish in any given day and hate myself because I never accomplish anything because the only tasks that could be accomplished are relentless dishes and laundry?  


Well, Em, then you are destined to be angry and defeated.  I guess I will have to change my attitude.  
Crap.  
The worst part of changing my attitude is that it will have to stay changed.  And that requires... maintenance.