not duped by the dreads

On Friday night, all four of our children spent the night with their cousins because Peter and Whitney LOVE us and let us have a night out together since it was the first and last (for a while) weekend that Taido and I will both be home.  He returns to Castle Bluff madness this weekend.   For part of our date night, we did something we realized we have never actually done together.  We attended a high school football game.  And of course, you might wonder why on earth two people who enjoy football as little as we do would spend a portion of such a blessed evening on football and I am really not completely sure why myself, except that it is just something Taido does.  He shows up at home football games and walks around and talks to people for about 45 minutes and then leaves.  I’m not sure he even sees any of the game.

So we were working it into our evening.  He said it would probably take like 30 minutes.  As he parked in a random field within walking distance of both the high school and our son’s middle school, I tried not to get too nervous.  I couldn’t really remember the last time I had been in the North Little Rock High School Stadium.  Though as I said, Taido goes to these things regularly, in six years of being back in North Little Rock, I had not yet darkened the door.   But I was pretty giddy just to be kid-free.  And I hadn’t had any major shots this week to my self-esteem, at least not that I could remember, so I was feeling pretty not too bad.

Now I don’t know how it works at every high school, but I suspect that there is universally a similar set up to the seating situation that goes down at our local high school.  The parents, grandparents, families with younger children and anyone else who is not a student sit down, taking up roughly three or four sections of bleachers.  And then at one end of the field the band is taking up another section.  But the students.  They STAND UP for the entire game in their OWN section.  There are no signs saying that only students can stand there, but it’s pretty much understood.  I know that Taido actually enters this no adult zone on a regular basis, along with his other partners in crime.  I’ve never actually seen it, as will become apparent, but I know they do it.  So as we’re walking up into the stands he tells me that he will just find me someone to sit with really quick while he goes and visits with students and then we can leave.  And I’m like, sure whatever. I have no kids!  I mean really, I look to my left and right and there is not a toddler hanging off of me.

So we walk the stadium.  After we walk through a second time, I start to feel like I’m really in high school because that’s what you do when you need a break from standing up in the bleachers.  You pace around in the front and try to see people.  Or try to get people to see you.  Or something like that.  He text messages a couple of our friends.  Neither of whom are there.  In the sea of parents, we don’t immediately see people we know.  Or people I know, which is a way smaller number than people Taido knows.  And then we are totally wasting precious time so I say, I’ll just sit down over here and wait for you.  Really.  I mean I forgot to bring a book to read, but I don’t mind. But I guess it’s just NOT OKAY to sit down by yourself at a high school football game, because he was insistent that I just come with him and go see kids, some of which I might actually know.  And so I follow him over to the student section.

The student section is tightly packed, as in sardines.  But the pathways to the left and the right of the section are clear, and so I assume of course that we are just going to walk AROUND the perimeter of the students and kind of wave.  Like in pageants.  I follow Taido up like five or six steps and kids are yelling his name and just yelling in general and I’m just standing around smiling and then he starts to do something really strange.  He starts walking sideways into the middle of this group with his back to a row of students who are watching the game and then he’s talking up (because he’s down a step) to the row of students who are facing him (but also watching the game over him).  And I’m like…wait a minute, I didn’t realize we were going IN. I’m still standing over on the steps at the side and he looks down the row at me and motions for me to FOLLOW HIM into the middle of all these kids.  This seems like a good time to mention that I don’t like crowds.  I don’t really attend concerts or fairs or go to theme parks or pretty much any place in which I might find myself sandwiched between lots of strangers.  Except for now, because I think he might be forever swallowed up into the mass and then I won’t ever find him which would make for a stinky date.  So I start moving sideways through the crowd.  I say hi to the very few students that I know.  I smile.  I try not to touch anyone, which is impossible, so I keep saying excuse me.  It sounds a little like a mouse.

We continue to sort of snake through the crowd for what seems like forever.  When Taido wants to go to a new row, he just says something graceful like, hey, I need to go through there, and then he squeezes between two people and on up to another row.  It was during one of these awkward sqeezing moments, as he is asking someone else why they aren’t going to Castle Bluff next weekend, that I hear what I think surely cannot be but absolutely has to be about Taido and me.  From a rather sassy blonde gal below me who had her face all screwed up with disgust, I heard the words, Who are those OLD people?

where have i been?

When I look back over the last few weeks I can’t really figure out where it was that I began to edge out the time in my day that I like to spend writing.  Maybe it was the four days of 3 hour sessions I spent letting my friend put dreadlocks in my hair that caused me to get so far behind in life.  But that was several weeks ago now so I am thinking surely I have had time to be caught up on laundry and paying bills and sorting through the accumulated piles of junk in my house.  Or maybe it was meeting my sister in Nashville last weekend to see our aunt and uncle, to hang out with my grandmother and to let girl cousins be girl cousins without the bother of any boys.  Maybe all those football and soccer games have pushed my precious moments of quiet to near nonexistence.  Or perhaps it was the general flurry of activity surrounding me because my husband is in the middle of fall camping season (middle school down and only high school left to go) which causes a major disturbance in the universe.  Taking 80 middle schoolers on a weekend camp is no small undertaking.  However, my own middle schooler, who went for the first time to camp as a “camper” instead of a staff brat, is doing his part to lighten my load.  Everything in his bag from camp came home squeaky clean.  He arrived home in the exact same clothes in which he left.  Apparently, the weekend was far too excitement-filled to waste time on changing clothes.

But whatever the cause for the lack of posting at the Chino House, hopefully it will remedy itself soon.  November seems to always bring a very welcome slowing down.  Camps and sports behind us.  Pots and pots of soup to make.  We usually even get away, so we’ll be dusting off that camper.  Oh, I think I forgot to mention that we are now the proud owners of our summer home, THE one and only POP UP CAMPER!  I really do look forward to a little fall camping in that smelly thing.

coincidentally

So, when I got home from Canada this summer, I had all these little scraps of paper in my backpack on which I had written the names of books I had seen in various bookstores and wanted to one day read.  This is something I do often, write down a book on a ridiculously small piece of paper, or on a better day, an index card, then stick it somewhere and forget about it.  Somehow it helps to keep me from buying too many books in a bookstore.  I still buy too many books, but if all of those little scraps of paper were actually books I’ve bought, at full price, at full CANADIAN price even, then we might be eating beans and rice all fall.  (Can you hear my children wondering aloud why we are eating beans and rice anyway?)

Anyway, sometime in the last couple of weeks, I cleaned out my bag and collected many of these little reminders into a pile.  I sat down and looked all of these books up on my town library’s website.  And out of all of these books, they happened to have three of them.  Three.  And actually, that is pretty good for my library.  The bad thing about my library is that it is small and it doesn’t usually have the books I want.  The good thing about my library is that, with the exception of the bank of computers attached to the internet, it doesn’t get that much traffic, so if they happen to have a book I want to read, it is almost always on the shelf.  So I wrote down the location of the three books I wanted to check out on an index card, stuck it in my purse and ordered the rest of the books used.  1 cent plus 3.99 shipping for a book is much better than $25 right??  And it saves the environment from a new printing.  I am not sure how the authors would feel about it, but I am not going to think about that right now.

So in the next few days  I made my way to the library, quickly found People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks and Beautiful Boy by David Sheff.  But when I went to the spot where the third book should have been, it was missing.  Sooo, I looked it up on the computer in the library and lo and behold, it was CHECKED OUT.  How is it possible that in the time between when I had looked it up at home and when I actually made it to the library, someone else in my town actually wanted to read The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway?  This may not be baffling to you if you live somewhere else besides North Little Rock, but to me, it was.  Baffling.  And irritating.  Mainly because at this point I thought that it would be a miracle if I could somehow remember to look again in a month for this little gem of a book.

But I consoled myself with my two finds (and with more books coming in the mail), so I checked out my books and went home.

Then, later that same week, I was sitting in my favorite camp chair next to my friend Sarabeth, watching our sons play soccer.  Ben and WIll are on the same team, and it is pretty great to watch them.  However, it is not as funny as it used to be because their coach has finally (after two seasons) figured out that he cannot play them at the same time.  This is true for a couple of reasons, one, that they get in trouble on the sidelines together when they are off the field, and two, because their clown act that they have going is just a little too tempting when they are on the field.  Sometimes when they are out together, the soccer ball takes a back seat to some crazy joke they are sharing.  Or a crazy dance.  Ben is a big fan of a crazy field dance.  The positive attention for this behavior far exceeds the little scolding he might receive from his coach, and so he persists.

But I digress.  So there I am sitting with my friend who carries around with her a bag that is somewhat large for an outing to the soccer field.  And then out of this monstrosity she pulls out her library book, as she says, I’ve been reading this great book that I think you would like. And…you guessed it.  Seriously.  The only other person in North Little Rock who would have checked out the book I wanted is sitting right next to me.  She probably had it with her in that big striped bag of hers the last time she came to my house.

The good news is that she is a fast reader.

I now have the book in my possession.  And it is a rainy, stay inside and read a book kind of day.

next thing i know it will be prom pictures

Mary Polly has been playing with her little buddy Kindell since we moved back to Arkansas six years ago.  They were three years old then.  Over the past six years, they have fought like sisters and loved like puppies.  When they are together, they share everything…clothes, books, imaginations, dolls and hearts.  A year ago, Kindell and her family moved to Dallas, but this weekend they came for a visit.  The girls soaked up every minute of their time together and were all long faces today when they had to say goodbye.

On Saturday, Whitney took the Carr family photos, which I am sure she will be unveiling sometime soon on her photo blog, but as a treat, she sent me a couple of precious shots of these two dear friends.  They brought tears to my eyes.

photo by Whitney Loibner

photo by Whitney Loibner

you probably forgot i even like yoga

I haven’t mentioned yoga in a while.  Let’s just say that my yoga practice sort of lapsed over the summer, as in was completely reduced to about a down dog a week, and only that when my back was killing me from carrying the oft mentioned ridiculously heavy baby backpack for longer than was reasonable.  (Reasonable is about 20 minutes.  or less.)  Towards the end of the summer I saw this darling yoga book, and I thought…now, that would have been a good idea.

So, I have been easing back in.  It is so funny to me how something once so essentially a part of your day can get edged out bit by bit, and then you find yourself having to fight the silliest things just to elbow it back into your busy schedule.  At least, this is where I have found myself with yoga.  The obstacles I once was able to overcome to get to yoga two or three times a week all of a sudden seem insurmountable, obstacles like fussy rules about guests at the gym, because I refuse to actually JOIN when I can go with Whitney for $9/class or soccer practice and football practice being at the exact same time or Mary Polly’s having too much homework for me to be gone or I didn’t eat enough breakfast or I want to stay home and bake birthday cakes or fill-in-the-blank.

But this past week, through a series of small miracles, I have been twice to yoga, and I find myself reminded of the fact that I absolutely must not ever ever give this up.  Specifically, I cannot give up Jeanie at the gym, even though the people up at the front want me to.  Stop coming back in here or join the gym. That’s pretty much what they said to me on Monday.  It was a little nicer than that, but still.  I was like, umm, can’t you let me buy like a $100 punch card or something for 10 classes?  I don’t want to do ANYTHING but the classes.  I promise I won’t use any machines or towels or lockers or even the showers!  Please Please Please! And they were like, ummm, no. We are in a bit of a power struggle here.  But I don’t even care and here’s why.  The crazy talking ninety to nothing, head spinning around like a cartoon character, blind-eyed me that went into Jeanie’s yoga class on Monday was not even the same person that came out an hour later.

I have mentioned once or twice that I am pretty much in love with yoga instructors, as a general rule.  They are just special.  And I think that I talk about all of them the way that God talks about people that he loves in that book, The Shack. He/She says I’m especially fond of him or I’m especially fond of her. Like he/she is saying something really unique about that one person, except that he/she says it about everyone.  Well, I am especially fond of Jeanie.

I didn’t think that I was going to yoga on Monday because Whitney’s back has been hurting her, but she decided to go anyway, so I went along with her.  (Yeah, they won’t let me in without Whitney…or some other member who is willing to walk in with me AND listen to me argue my way in, which pretty much just leaves Whitney.)  And at some point in the class, Whitney folded down into child’s pose and put her head down.  Later we were talking about how that is soooo ok in Jeannie’s class.  She will like congratulate you for listening to your body if you stop following her to rest.  This woman oozes kindness, I tell you.  So, I see out of the corner of my eye that even though Jeanie has not missed a beat in calling our next poses, she has stopped her own practice to go over and rub Whitney’s back.  By rub, I actually mean that she is putting all of her weight on the small of Whitney’s back to give her some relief.  And I thought, Oh, I guess Whitney told Jeanie that her back was really hurting today. But oh no. She hadn’t.  This woman’s depth of perception that allows her to truly see the people around her is uncanny.  So many times we will do a move in class that targets an exact spot I need.  Or she will quietly utter the exact words I need to hear at the exact moment I need to hear them.  I don’t think that this is an accident.  God uses these moments in my life as powerfully as He does corporate worship or Bible study.

I have had a decision hanging over me for weeks that I have been putting off.  Eventually the lack of decision was going to make the decision for me, and result in an outcome that I think would have been disappointing.  You know how that is.  If you put things off long enough, they eventually figure themselves out or go away or fall apart without your initiative.  Not the end of the world, but sometimes sad.  Well, after moving and flowing all morning long.  After being quiet and breathing slowly for an hour.  After lying for several minutes in shavasana, barely conscious of Jeanie’s hands on my neck.  A small tear rolled down my cheek and a little bell went off in my head.  All of sudden, my decision was as clear as day.  I knew what I was supposed to do and I resolved immediately to take care of it.  Something that had seemed so cloudy just fell into focus.  It was brilliant.  I believe that I was quiet for long enough for God to speak to my heart.  And so I thanked my precious yoga instructor, asked her if I could just move in with her when they kick me out of the gym for good and floated on out into the rest of my day.  All day long I promise you, I made decisions and took actions that aren’t comfortable or even normal for me.  It was as if the clarity of the morning made the steps of the rest of my day seem all drawn out in sharpie marker for me.  Here, take this path. Or hey mouth, say these words to that person. I don’t always receive this level of blessing when I go to yoga, but if I don’t go, I miss the opportunity to have it, so ask me next week if I made it.  Or just look into my eyes, because you just might be able to tell.  At least I hope so.