Overall, I have found
Sense and Sensibility
As acid a work as I might
Ever suffer to read.
Then Mrs. Jennings
Misunderstood Elinor,
Who, distracted, didn’t pursue
The slight oddities of response,
Creating an extended scene
So screamingly funny
I had to lean on the counter
Until my mirth was exhausted.
How interesting, to revisit a book
I’d forgotten I’d ever visited.
Return to Gone-Away.
A family buys a ruined wreck
Of a magnificent home,
And happen across some
Chippendale furniture in the attic
That will pay for all their improvements.
I think I’ve always had this idea
At the back of my mind
That such things could be . . .
It must have been a seed planted,
Too many years ago to remember.
The traumas in my life have been minor,
So even to write about them makes me feel
Like Marianne Dashwood, ever making
Much over little, or nothing.
But a theme emerged:
All my traumas relate to something I failed to do,
Whether from ignorance, or distraction.
I had thought my perfectionism was gone . . .
But I don’t think it has.
I haven’t been to a homeopath
Since 2013.
I filled out the narrative
For Dr. Guess.
He asked for 6-7 pages.
I gave him 25.
I feel horrible . . .
But I’m not sure what I could have left out.
Though most trees stand bare,
We paused our reading as the clearing
Filled with leaves,
Falling, rising, floating.
Just Jadon and I went up to church.
So overstimulated—bad dream,
Emotional upheaval of weeks past,
Sick husband, loud boys—
I sang, dispiritedly,
And then went out to sit in the car
For the sermon.
I needed silent prayer.
Regrouping.
Personal analysis.
Then I was better,
And spent a lovely half hour or so
In conversation.
If there had been pressing tasks,
I could have worked.
But there weren’t,
So I spent the day on homeopathy,
Thankful for a day to spend.
I spent four hours or so,
Going through old photos:
Printing photo books,
Moving photos to the hard drive,
Saving, editing, deleting.
It was not my favorite way
To spend time,
But I am pleased to have
More computer storage space,
And a long looming task
Completed.
I left our eighth Thanksgiving
At the DeLaura’s
Feeling
Euphoric.
Good conversation,
Laughter,
New friend,
Old.
A friend asked if I would take photos
Of her family.
I said yes.
I didn’t (necessarily) want to.
But a new birth announced,
A surprisingly short disruption to my day,
Easy lighting . . .
It was a good half hour.
On to editing!
We had a meal in mind,
But when 7:30 rolled around
I realized I was in need of a break
And he would arrive home from judo
Hungry.
So I made dinner.
All were very grateful.
With limited time and hungry stomachs,
I taught Isaiah to make tacos.
The beans I had made before I left
Had, apparently, sat on the counter for days.
They were spoiled.
But those who were hungry ate,
And Isaiah was suitably praised.
My niece was sick again.
Has been sick for months now,
Ever since the family failed to adopt.
I asked her questions for almost an hour,
The looked up her most unusual symptoms.
The remedy was one I would never expect,
More useful for arthritis and poison ivy.
But the report the next day:
Cheerful, no more pain.
Entire transformation.
Phil offered a boy
Ten dollars a day
To clean the kitchen
To make the food.
One is doing each.
I am teaching.
One day soon I’ll do neither.
Buying back hours each day.
Caleb has had a wee attitude issue.
Back-to-back travel has left him distressed.
He wasn’t much interested in reading
(At least: not my way).
Then Joe noticed that some of our pencils
Change with the temperature.
Mood pencils?
Let’s do more schoolwork, please!
I think I dozed off, briefly,
In the car as we came home from church.
I remember my hands twitching, then no more.
Two hours then I slept and dozed,
A luxury of the Sabbath.
I had expected to study homeopathy,
But with production turnaround looming,
I worked instead.
Slept.
Read to Caleb.
He was needing some attention.
I don’t know what happened in town,
But I’ve never seen a traffic jam
In Charlottesville like that.
A trip that should have taken less than two hours
Stretched on another hour,
Ever so stressful.
Left me shaky and exhausted.
But it was fun to have Caleb with me
As I brought back the rental car!
I was going through airport security
When I learned that my flight
From Charlotte to Charlottesville
Was cancelled.
I was rerouted for a flight two days later.
Yeah, that’s not good enough.
So I sat in the airport and rented a car,
And gratefully drove the four hours.
I was home when Caleb woke just after 2am.
I had a plan for the day.
The night before,
Based on new information,
I changed plans entirely.
So we had a productive day,
Just not quite what I expected.
I asked for prayer.
I had a big presentation
And felt desperate.
And the presentation
Was covered.
The conversation
Productive.
Recently, Phil tried to explain his life.
Infrequent engineer
Part-time tree service operator
Casual farmer
Math tutor for a selective private school
Father of five
Husband to one
“I would wish this life for everyone.”
Hot pink streak across the sky.
I admired, then turned away.
Glanced back a minute later . . .
Gone.
The moon a clear sliver above.
The white clouds a ripple below.
An orange glow on the horizon.
Cold blue air outside my window.
Trekking through the airport,
Focused on my gate.
A woman sprawled off to the side,
Made a soft, shocked noise.
Immediately surrounded by
A cluster of concerned passersby,
I headed off to my gate,
Convinced there was nothing I could do.
The Acon 1M in my luggage,
There for shock, but tucked so far
In my bag, my brain
I gave not a thought.
And this, after reading just this morning
About the Good Samaritan,
That maybe the priest and the Levite
Had good reason to move quickly on.
Caleb’s favorite socks
Now years old and
Many sizes too small:
Lightning bolts on a field of blue.
“You’re getting struck by lightning,”
He said, while kicking me.
Longtime friend Denise Bush
Invited me over to eat a light lunch,
Then hike.
Through the late afternoon sun,
We walked briskly past
Gorgeous vistas of mountains,
Silver fronds of grasses,
A few remaining golden leaves.
An autumn time.
“No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” —Jeremiah 31:34
The Great War began with a shot:
An angry, dying man assassinating
Someone, to start something.
This snowballed, as alliances held.
The number who died,
Both civilian and military:
Almost 40 million.
Remembering sins leads to death.
God shows us another way.
When Ahab’s son goes to war
Without enough water to cross
The desert, the prophet tells him,
“Dig trenches.”
These fill with water enough
To let the men and beasts live,
And the redness in the early
Morning light tricks the enemy.
Believing the red to be blood,
Their enemy defeated,
They attack unawares and are killed.
It’s an amusing story.
Juxtaposed against the Great War,
Also known for trenches,
These ones filled with mud and slime,
Running, in truth, with blood.
The mind cannot comprehend.
All the guns fell silent,
Though some had been shot
Even that morning (foolish loss).
We were singing in church at 11am,
Though a few boys and I stood outside
For a minute, in silent,
Remembering that time when all did this,
To commemorate the dead,
The Great War,
The folly and the pain
At an end.
Except it is not really at an end.
WWII, that outspring, is,
But border conflicts
Established then
Continue.
Caleb had an excellent Saturday.
All those who most amuse him
Were returned to him.
So though he needed me to
Help him show off his learning,
He played and hiked and read
With Dad and Jadon,
Those who amused him
Finally returned.
I went to the barn to get the book I ordered.
It hadn’t been delivered yet,
But in its stead: two large boxes of books,
Only mostly out of the rain.
Incredibly, the side most damp
Held two plastic-wrapped collections:
No damage at all.
Joe made a paper boat.
He floated it in the bathroom sink
For probably an hour,
Rejoicing in its (temporary) durability,
Which was, in truth, far longer than expected.
He came in to show me his white and wrinkled hands,
Mentioned that the boat was gone . . .
Down the drain.
“But it’s just paper . . . It will be fine,”
He said, as the remaining water
Drained
Very
Slowly
Away.
I haven’t noticed a huge change
In my face, following the elimination diet.
Not that I’ve been perfectly strict.
Just saying.
But I am traveling next week,
And need to offer some flexility of diet.
I had an arugula salad with
Tomatoes and balsamic,
Two forbidden ingredients.
Did not notice a change.
Had it again for dinner,
Along with homemade French fries.
My face flared.
Could I be allergic to potatoes?
Or did I overload on tomatoes?
Moderation is not my strong suit.
Caleb sitting on the floor,
Singing “Glory to God,
Heaven and nature sing.”
His brother has played
The Christmas cantata
Around the clock
For several days.
All my sons are well-prepared
For worship.
The photos I took
Of an office building,
Empty . . .
They are lovely photos.
Makes me glad of my skill.
At the end of a long day with stress,
My exhausted son, fussy and grumpy,
Kicked out, heedlessly,
My computer in the way.
I didn’t take it well.
We both needed comforting.
In the past, I’ve heard things like,
Today, people have a nine-second attention span
Or Sales copy is better if it’s short.
But I haven’t put it into practice.
I took a brochure, already slim in text,
And almost cut it in half.
I’m putting my learning into practice.
I had vaguely known of speed reading.
Despite thousands of books read,
I had never been taught.
Energized and on edge, I purchased the course,
Started and completed in a few hours.
Let the eye travel backwards and forwards,
Let the brain take in what it needs to know.
I started at 410 words per minute,
And ended at 920, or thereabouts.
A fascinating exercise that I hope will pay dividends
For the rest of my life.
Our beloved friend turned 60,
And so we two joined ten others
To celebrate.
Tears, swear words, laughter,
Joy, and honor . . .
A fitting tribute.
Into the warm fall afternoon,
Joe headed out, clad in winter jacket
To hold the audiobook player
As he pulled the wagon up the hill
And rode the wagon down.
“My stomach is sticky,”
He commented later,
And immediately was struck with the giggles,
Made worse when I said, ironically,
“When I woke up this morning,
The thing I hoped for most
Was hearing an unusual sentence
That I had never heard before.”
When Caleb wants to listen to a book,
He comes and asks for
Earbugs
Which is both adorable
Or disgusting,
Depending on your point of view.
Earlier this week, I noted
The complete lack of sight of falling leaves.
To look out the window, then, in a breeze,
And see the air filled with fall . . .
That’s what I’ve been
Longing for.
Years ago, Jadon and Isaiah
Would sit in a red wagon,
Calvin-and-Hobbes style,
And ride down the driveway.
In my mind’s eye, they wore helmets
And carried stuffed animals.
It was adorable.
Today Abraham took another red wagon
And went to the top of the driveway.
Caleb gave a push, and Abraham rode,
Screaming,
Down the driveway,
Around the gravel pile,
Past the chicken pen and chicken run,
Around a few trees,
And down to the trampoline,
An open-air, seat-belt free roller coaster.
And in the clear autumn air,
Surrounded by colorful trees and blue skies,
By excited and happy watchers
For the one enthusiastic rider:
It was a sight of peace,
Of blessing.
