De-fense! De-fense!

I am a people person. Over the past three nights without my boys, this fact has been quite obvious. The silence around here is making me crazy. Oddly enough, when I was a child I was extremely shy and loved nothing more than coming home to recoup from being with people. Alone time was my favorite time of day. It's not that I didn't admire those that were outgoing and chatty because they were outrageously cool to me. Those that could perform on stage or skate at the Olympics or could be an actress were my heroes. But I never dreamed that I could be one of those people until the year that I was in seventh grade.

It was my first year at a new school and for the first time, I saw cheerleaders. Now in the early eighties at a small Christian high school, cheerleading was not the extreme sport that it has turned into today. I didn't have to do a flip or get tossed in the air by a hot guy. I only had to be brave enough to stand in front of a hundred fans on a good night and cheer for our boys at soccer and basketball. Without a doubt I wanted to be in that uniform. So I announced to my parents a few weeks before tryouts that I wanted to be a part of it.

I cannot imagine the shock my poor parents had. The girl who looked away if someone spoke to her? The girl who was oddly gangly and tall? The girl who could not speak above a whisper? Right. They encouraged me to try, but I can imagine many conversations behind closed doors about my obvious possibility of failure. In the end, I worked hard. I learned the cheers and the moves and found out that I could do the splits. I watched and listened. I made the junior high squad for Calumet Baptist High School.

And I found my voice.

I credit much to those many years of being a cheerleader (or yell leader as my mammaw always called it)...Confidence in myself and my abilities. Communicating to people during frustrating practices or leading a crowd in a cheer. Being part of a team and knowing that the bottom of the pyramid would fall without me. Supporting others with posters on lockers and excited talk before a game. Finding the humorous side of myself. Learning to tell a joke or telling a story to a crowd.

Sometimes, though, it is good to be alone. I have to remind myself of that. I cannot always have my boys around me nor do I constantly need to "be busy." I do need to stop and slow down. Often, I realize that I tend to use people as a crutch and don't allow myself that alone time. This week will be a good push for me to reflect, think and stir up my creative juices again. I can see already that is has stirred up the writer in me again. And I have some new project ideas buzzing around in my head. So, here's to possibilities for a wonderful week alone.

I promise to not talk to myself that much.

I miss the sound of your voice (with kudos to Matt Nathanson)

A voice. The subtle nuances that define the one person in the world who knows you best. You wait to hear it from halfway around the world and it finally comes. Listening to it you can breathe again. A silly grin jumps across your face as you realize there is no delay in hearing him, his time is your time. It is as if he went to pick up a pizza or called on his way home from work.

There are a few differences: his Tuesday is your Monday. His day is your night. Bicycles buzz past him on a busy street. A family of four clings to a motorscooter and they somehow arrive at their destination in one piece. You hear the odd beeps of another place that exists beyond your imagination. Shouts and banging; birds singing at a new morning. He describes women washing their clothes in the river in front of him, up early with the dawn and facing a day that you know nothing about. Tonight you will put clothes in a washer and dryer. The hum will distract you while you watch a silly television show. There will be no manual labor. He is a window to another time, ancient in some ways yet modern in others.

There are more stories and laughter, but for now the voice is all you hear. A connection across thousands and thousands of miles, an ocean apart. He is yours. You are his.

Ruth Homer

Today I had a blissful afternoon digging around antique shops in Mason, Michigan. My family does not enjoy this and was more than happy to let me enjoy it alone. It pleases me to see glassware and beautiful oak furniture, funny old signs and quirky figurines. I tend to gravitate towards books and postcards and jewelry, always on the watch for ancient Revell books since I work for that publisher. A surprise pops up every now and then that makes me laugh: an old orange Crockpot like my mom used for years with glass lid intact (hers broke), a pink metal trunk like the one that held my doll clothes, a Fisher Price plastic barn with the mooing door, pristine McDonalds and Burger King glasses with Star Wars or Strawberry Shortcake on them. I never buy these items, but they stir up the nostalgic heart in me.

One of the coolest items found this afternoon was a suede photo book with black construction paper pages on the inside. The cover was wrapped with a suede strap and had the name of the girl to whom it was given, Ruth Homer, burned on the front. The suede is a bit beat up and stained, but I had to have it. I have no idea whether this is an old prize or not, but it spoke to me.

I can imagine a young girl giggling with glee as she received this as a gift. Maybe her dad knew how to burn her name on it. Or maybe it was from a boy. Perhaps she learned how to do this as a craft project at camp, but yet it seems far too detailed for an inexperienced person to have completed. But wasn't it the best to have your name on something you owned? Since my name is highly unusual, I remember the pain of NOT having my name on something. HA.

I guess that's why Ruth Homer's little scrapbook spoke to me. She viewed it as too precious to mess up. It was difficult for her to paste pictures in this album because it would "ruin" it. I remember that feeling to well, being torn in your decision to keep something special because of your love for it. Today it was a great reminder to me to use the things that I love. They won't be ruined, only loved on. My friend recently hung a chandelier of her grandma's in her favorite place in her house, the sunroom. I use my antique tea cups to drink my tea or brew a pot in the Brown Betty that was Dan's grandma's. I wear Grandma Boydston's costume jewelry to work when I miss her.

We only have one life. Don't let that special scrapbook sit unused--fill it with the photos of your life. Drink tea from that cup. Use your grandpa's fishing pole. Write in the journal you were saving because it was pretty. Bring out your wedding china for your teenage son to eat on at dinner.

Use what you love. I think it will make your day.

On Love

Kissing you goodbye, the tears stream down my face. I won't cry. I won't worry. I won't be overcome with the emptiness of you not here. Two weeks is significantly less time than a soldier going off to war is gone. The danger is not their danger. But flying to the other side of the world might as well be the moon. Or Flint, Michigan.

We have had to say goodbye so many times this year. I don't want to get used to it. In fact, tonight I am at a loss.

Over the next few weeks I will feel as if a part of me is missing. My arm. My leg. My heart. Brad Paisley has a song out now that says, I Loved You Then, speaking of the times along the way that we thought we loved that someone in our life. We thought love was profound and real, and then we are moved by our capacity to love more. We take love for granted. And then we are surprised by it all over again.

It's been over 17 years since I first fell for you. And I am surprised again by love.

Next time, I think I will stick with a can, thanks.

After a blissful upgrade to first class from Denver to Grand Rapids, I thought my long day of travel would be full of great reading and a nap or two. Instead I became a soggy mess. Let me tell you the story...

I had settled in for a long flight. Library book (Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy, if you would like to know) was on my lap and my Bose headphones were on while my iPod played some tunes. The businessman next to me had walked away to the bathroom. The flight attendant had asked me if I would like a drink. Ginger ale, thank you.

In first class, the middle arm rest is quite wide and allows a small area for drinks. My seatmate and I each had a glass and two cans resting there. The area was crowded and since I did not want to spill my drink, I decided to pull out the table from the other armrest. As I maneuvered it out with my right hand, I held my glass in the other. And that is when everything went horribly wrong. As the table moved to a flat position, the corner of it knocked the tip of my glass. The next thing I knew my lovely library book was filled with chunks of glass, ice and ginger ale that was beginning to run into my lap. Did I mention it was full?

Oddly enough, I never heard the glass shatter since my Bose headphones block out sound. It was as if a crash scene happened on TV without the volume up. One minute all was well, then smack. It wasn't. In reaction, I lifted the book up and when I did, all the ginger ale rolled onto my lap. I looked across the aisle at the other businessmen across from me. They were surprised as well, but did not move from their seat to give me a hand nor did they jump up to get a flight attendant. I was frantically looking around for help. I couldn't really stand up until someone took the book from me! I asked the men to get the flight attendant. And they looked back down at their reading material. Don't get me started on how I wanted to throw that glass at them.

Eventually the flight attendant and my seatmate arrived at my seat. The flight attendant grabbed the book and left to dump the glass. I got some thicker paper towels from her to soak up the ginger ale. My seatmate and I began to pick up pieces of glass from the floor, my seat, my clothes, his seat, etc. What a mess. To top it all off, my thumb was bleeding all over the place. After a quick bathroom cleanup, we put blankets on my seat and I got the joy of flying another hour or more with wet pants.

I looked as if my water had broke and I was about to give birth to a 7 lb 10 oz baby boy.

Next time, I think I will stick with a can, thanks.

Life

It felt so good to blog last night. I am finding that the longer I take between making myself sit down and write, the more stuff pours out. Long post last night but I had fun remembering those bike rides. On Friday we will be visiting Dan's mom and step dad at their cabin. They don't have internet but I think that I shall take the laptop along. Sitting on that front porch looking out at the pond and fields might be quite inspiring. Although I have so many books now to read that I might end up shutting out the world with a few novels!

Zach is enjoying a summer free of the day care center. He's always gone to a summer program with field trips and adventures, but last summer he declared that he was too old. Dan and I didn't feel that it would be wise to let him be alone every day all week though, so we found a friend of his whose aunt lives next door. The aunt watches him two days, sometimes three, and he is a happy camper. He is pretty stunned that month one of the break is already complete. We have a week planned in July for him to spend at his Nanny's cabin, and he cannot wait. So cool for him to have that deep of a relationship with her and be able to swim in the pond and fish and do fun boy stuff. She will spoil him rotten and we are happy about it.

Dan is still working on contract at Eastman Outdoors. He seems to be very close with signing on full-time with them if we can get all the details worked out with the company for him to work from home. He would be in the office on the other side of the state twice per month for a few days. Even though they have not made the job official, he already has plane tickets for China at the end of the month! Who knew that my country boy would end up traveling overseas to a city of 17 million people! He will enjoy it I know as his adventuresome heart longs to try new things. Mine...does not. I like my house and these United States, thank you very much.

And so I will have some time to myself at the end of the month. Am planning lots of catching up on photoshop and photo saving. All that boring stuff that I have been putting off. A bug on my work computer scared me enough to make sure that my photos on my home computer get backed up soon. We have a separate hard drive but I need to burn them to disc. Gosh, I hate doing all that. Bores me to tears!!!

Worked hard at cleaning my desk off today before the long weekend. Feels good to have it done. Tomorrow will be cleaning out and filing a backlog of email and deleting a bunch of files on my harddrive. Again with the boring stuff, but I know that it will be good to get it over with.

Half day of work tomorrow--yippee!

I *heart* libraries

I work at a publisher and I love libraries.

There, I've said it. Seems like an oxymoron for a woman who makes a living marketing books to the masses. But it's true.

Tonight I had to drop off a few books at that library that were in danger of being overdue. As I walked out--with two new books in tow that I happened to see on the express shelf--I let out a happy sigh. Oh, how I love the library.

As a girl, there was no place I'd rather be in the summer than the library. My parents didn't have much money, so obtaining books for an obsessive reader came either by donations from friends cleaning out shelves or by borrowing them. I don't exactly remember the first time I was allowed to ride to the library on my bike, but I do know that for years after I took liberty with that freedom. First on my banana seat bike and then on a larger one with a basket, that trip was my own little piece of heaven. The library had blessed air conditioning and since my house had none, I could get away from the stifling mugginess of Indiana summers with a 15 minute ride.

I lived in a subdivision that had sprung up in the early seventies with road after road of identical ranch houses. The long roads were connected by shorter ones that made a back and forth path for me to get to my destination. I liked to ride and spy on my neighborhood, wondering what certain houses looked like on the inside. I was never afraid nor did my parents worry for my safety. I would be okay. Nothing bad happened in the seventies to kids except perhaps poison in Halloween candy, but we checked those before eating. My rides were uneventful, yet big events.

I hated all the rules of my parents and church; the library was a place for me to be myself and be on my own. I discovered many writers during those visits: Catherine Marshall, Nancy Drew, Louisa May Alcott, Anna Sewell, Grace Livingston Hill, Marguerite Henry...such a variety! It was escapism at its best. Horse books and mysteries, romance and humor--I read it all. There was one summer in which I determined to read all the books in my section of the library. Don't know that I actually did it, but I started at A and kept going until school started.

Once I had grown up and had a baby, I determined that my boy Zach would experience libraries as I had as a child. When my husband would travel, Zach and I would go over to the itty bitty library by our house and pick out books. It became our own little tradition--a date night that was our sacred routine when we were on our own.

The library where I now live is not a big place, but it has character. There is an arch over the doorway with neat little windows. That archway desperately need sweeping since the cobwebs make it look haunted, but I guess it adds character. There are a few little side nooks throughout the building where a comfy chair has been placed to read. One such place is Zach's favorite. It looks as if it was a closet at one point, but now it is a sweet spot just big enough for a chair, table and lamp. A very tall, thin window is centered on the wall that looks out into the yard where a tree shades it in summer. A few years ago while waiting for swimming lessons to start, Zach and I would often stop at the library to wait and kill time. He still claims that corner he discovered as his own special place to read. An obsessive reader himself, Zach once told me that he didn't like going to the library. He only wanted new books. Why? I asked. Because the new books haven't been read by anyone else. He's a book snob at heart. Publishers of America love him.

To me, the fact that hundreds or thousands of people have read or will read the books that I handle, remains one of life's greatest mysteries to me. Where has that book been? The beach? Someone's backyard? To Europe in a carry on bag? Did that person love this novelist as much as me? As an adult, I now choose to escape with writers such as Anita Shreve, Adriana Trigiani, Maeve Binchy, Anne Rivers Siddons, Cecilia Ahern, or Elizabeth Berg. Often times a cookbook or craft book makes its way into my bag along with a few magazines for good measure. These books are loved on and don't have crisp papers or sharp jackets anymore. All have ugly plastic covers that crinkle when you crack open the spine. But with each and every stack that makes its way to my home, I feel the same thrill.

Potential. Adventure. Escape. Dreams.

Freedom.