Good-bye House

I took a sick day today. I don't have a temperature or a cough, but I didn't sleep well last night and my emotional well-being is pretty fragile. So here I am. At home. Looking around the almost-empty rooms. Grieving the end of 16 years in a place where we laughed and cried and fought and played. A place where love flowed through the rooms and out the doors onto the porch and patio.

Where teenagers gathered round the table to eat quesadillas at 11pm or smoke cigars and drink wine around the chiminea on the old brick patio. Where friends and family joined us to make hundreds of cookies, the children trying to outdo each other with the most outrageous icinged offering. Where we played scrabble and spades in front of the fireplace, eating popcorn or homemade cookies. Where people ate hamburgers and hotdogs at graduation parties, or finer foods at Jubilee's famous backyard dinner parties.

Where a colorful garden of bee balm, daisies, cone flowers and bright yellow yarrow, complemented by the addition of annuals carefully selected by my daughters at the greenhouse, brightened our small backyard. Where the children hung out in the kitchen while I made breakfast, and then sat with me around our table to eat and talk and talk.

A prospective buyer noted that the woodwork needs to be painted; it does. But I remember all the painting that we did. The dining room, where we thought we were so creative painting one solid wall a different color. April's room in two different colors of her choosing. I hired someone to paint the deep red walls in Jubilee's room, not wanting to leave it two-toned or streaked. Maybe the next person will see past the chipping woodwork to the possibility and the joy of making it their own.

Hard times came and went and lingered within these walls. Sickness and suffering of a different sort brought family and friends into our lives with empathy and shared tears and embrace. Words of comfort and encouragement entered our conversations, and our hearts were broken and mended and stretched and sometimes broken again. Children left and came back and left again. The times of return always bringing joy to my heart, with pride in their accomplishments and youthful wisdom.

So many people passed through our doors, slept in our beds and ate at our table. We were blessed to have best friends live next door for ten years, forming a mini community that included taking down the fence between our back yards, and shared meals of mac and cheese and sloppy joes or pasta dishes and wonderful salads. Family from the south came, sometimes unannounced (to me at least), and we ate collard greens and potato salad and sweet corn. Friends came and visited and we reminisced and laughed and cried together.

So here's my desire for people who walk through our house as prospective buyers. May they feel the warmth and love that permeated these floors and walls. May they hear echoes of the laughter and conversations that are part of its fabric. May they sense the hearts of love that offered invitation to everyone and provided comfort and respite on shabby couches and chairs. May they see beyond the necessary cosmetic fixes to the character and solid foundation, where they can begin or continue their own stories in a wonderful place.

Mystery

What will you do?
Hmmmmm
Will you write? Will you work?
Hmmmmm
Will you like living in the country
Where it's dark at night?
Won't you miss the sounds of passing cars
And neighbors passing by?
Hmmmmm
Won't you miss your solitude?
What if you and Maggie disagree?
Will you have your own space,
And will it be enough?

Maybe I will learn to meditate
Spend early mornings in a yoga pose
Maybe I'll find a job at Starbucks
Or at a small bookstore or as
A greeter at Walmart.
Maybe the moon will shine brighter
And I'll see new constellations
In the darker nights
Maybe I'll hear new bird sounds
And maybe I'll walk new paths to meet new neighbors
Maybe Maggie and I will find even deeper
Love and respect for each other.
Maybe we'll teach one another
And maybe space will be more fluid
And we'll be surprised at where it happens

I look forward to newness and
Hope to embrace what I don't now know.
I've seen the sun rise off the deck at Maggie's house
And watched it set in splendor from the front porch
I've heard and watched new birds
And reveled in the gorgeous flower beds
I've even met new people who await my coming
With words of invitation and friendship
I've seen my space and the possibility of
New and different spaces
Questions don't need answers when you
Move toward people and things you love
There's mystery in the moving
In the arriving and in the living

I love a good mystery!

Changing

Sitting on my porch in the sunlight safety

Drinking my familiar morning coffee
Change is happening
I'm jumping off the edge of all that is known
Into the next step of my life
A step I've planned to take for a long time
That now feels like it's coming too fast

Will my new porch be as inviting?
Will I find friends as willing to accept me
As those ones I'm leaving behind?
Will the moon shine just as bright
And bring me joy in the seeing?
Will I find a rhythm that feels
Fresh and yet familiar?

Change is such a mixed bag
Of sad and strange
And eager and exciting
Of leaving and longing
And tears and joy.
I bravely open wide my arms
To all that lies ahead

The trust I have in my Father
Is the rope I hang on to
His hand, His wings' embrace
Remind me of His love and faithfulness
This movement forward
This leap into the future
Is written in my book

I walk on in the words of a beloved saint:
All shall be well, and all shall be well
And all manner of thing shall be well.

Prayer in the New Year

The sun shines through
the slats of the blind
creating shadows
on the chair
on the floor
on my shirt
Light and dark
together make up
the pattern that is life
And in this new year
I will embrace
what comes my way
the days that form
the work of my life
gray and bright
sun and shadow

I wrote this in my journal on the first day of 2015, but it never made it to my blog.

Insignificant

I wrote this poem during a heart struggle, recognizing finally, a deep wound. A feeling of insignificance that colors my interactions with others and brings grief and anger when I experience a slight or perceive someone's greater importance. I called it pride, until my sister, Naomi, suggested pulling up that weed of pride and noticing what lay buried under those roots. The word, insignificant, came to my lips almost immediately, without thought or study. Later that day I was moved to give word to what I was feeling:

Sit in your chair
you ordinary insignificant fifth girl
Behave yourself
Read your Bible every day
Clean and dust; do the dishes
Empty the wash tubs
Braid your hair
Cover your knees
Be quiet, behave, be good
One day you might be a
missionary or a Sunday School teacher
And surely, someone's submissive wife.

There is freedom and release in recognizing one's self. There is love and grace in the embrace of my true self, even those feelings of insignificance. For in the denial of those feelings, are buried the seeds of anger and contempt that fill my gut, and spew from my mouth.

I No Longer Fear

I no longer fear the dropping shoe
They’ve both dropped—or should I say all?

And here I am.

Dropping shoes are a sure part of the journey—

The waiting, the dropping, the picking up again—

Weaves a blanket so incredibly mine

It warms me at night and 

Wraps around my shoulders as I walk through my day.

The bruises and the scars from the 

Falling down and getting up and falling down again

Can be covered with long sleeves in shame

Or worn defiantly like tattoos

Mementos to those dropping shoes that now bring smile to lips

and streaming tears in the telling

For now I know

Or should I say that I am learning

That cracks and broken pieces are the bearers of light and joy

When one sits down on the couch with them

And turns toward them with accepting embrace

And asks what brings you here, or maybe what gift do you come bearing?

Almost 3 years ago I wrote a post Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop. Time passes and our understanding and wisdom deepens. I'm seeing now the connection between sorrow and joy in life; dropping shoes just might be opportunities or invitations to something new. It's a work in process, but inspired by some recent Lenten reading and introspection, I put the above words to paper.

Nancy Perkins

A Cabin Wonderland

Did I like Alice fall into the rabbit hole

I’m in this wonderland of snow and ice

Trees like pencil slashes

Reach into the snow filled sky

I step onto the frozen pond

Like Peter I’m afraid I’ll sink—I won’t of course

In the middle of this lake of ice

I turn and look at the cabin

Cold burns my cheeks

But I still smile

As warmth floods my heart and soul

With love and wonder for this place

This is not a dream

I am very much awake and alive

And this is truly wonderland

Exceeding every expectation

Nancy Perkins

February 2015