Luda Manda

 

My aunt on my Dad’s side was well into her seventies when she was still riding their donkey to and from working the tobacco fields and vineyards, chasing goats up and down the rocky Dalmatian mountainsides, and climbing fruit bearing trees.  All the adults called her Luda Manda meaning Crazy Manda. To them, her life and everything she was doing with it was nothing short of crazy.

To Manda, it goes without saying, everything she did was completely normal.

But, when we would descend onto their microscopic villagefrom the capital, hardly setting our shoe-clad feet across the doorstep, begging her,

Strina, make us your bread!,

now, that she found odd. Really odd.

Vrag vas odnia, what do you see in the cursed bread??? Pobenaviste od oni trula zraka biogradska nek' ga vrag nosi!

 She cursed the foul city air for causing us to lose our minds, and kept  grumbling and complaining about the strange ways of her city-dwelling relatives.while reaching for the giant vangla and stained cloth bag filled with sand-colored flour.

It took years for me to finally realize what she was making and what we went ga-ga over was sourdough bread. Panja is what she called it. She couldn't understand why would someone turn their nose on pure-white melt-in-your mouth kiflice and go nuts over her dark ‘peasant’ bread.

If I’d told her that in the third decade of the 21st century, during global pandemic, inside the fancy modern kitchens armed with digital scales and instant thermometers men and women all around the world would be making – or at least trying to make – her crusty, chewy panja, she would conclude that the whole world indeed had gone crazy.

Or, perhaps, it's finally becoming a bit more sane…who’s to judge?

The Prolific Garbage Creator

Somebody said that it is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. In the similar vein, in order to make something good you have to make a lot of garbage first.

I would say, and my family would agree, that I am an expert in making a lot of garbage. I rarely set out with that as my goal. In fact, most if not all the time, I set out to make something good. Perhaps even REALLY good. But one way or another, I end up with trash.

For years I struggled with this.  I have an irrepressible urge to create – I can’t help it. But most of what I make isn’t that good. Sometimes it feels like sheer waste of time, energy and resources and that goes against my deeply ingrained frugality. You wouldn’t know by looking on the surface, but there is a proportionate amount of guilt associated with being such prolific garbage creator. Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t resolve it. 

It became quite a conundrum… if I stopped making things, that would be the death of me. My soul would shrivel up and die. I may still look alive on the outside, but on the inside, I am as dead as an Egyptian mummy.

But burdening the world with so much unwanted garbage isn’t a way to live either… What is the prolific garbage creator to do???

Complete Idiot's Guide to Lazy Baker's Sourdough

Along with everyone else, I jumped on the sourdough bread baking bandwagon during the pandemic. Years ago, I had attempted this culinary suicide mission with mediocre results. Looking back I think my real motivation to do it was not so much the allure of the exotic bread making. I just needed inspiration, something to write about and the process promised to provide sufficient drama.  I know, writers are weird like that. 

Back then, I was inspired by a Complete Idiot's Guide to Sourdough Bread I'd stumbled upon in our local library.

Times have changed since then, we all went digital. So, one day, couple of weeks ago, as I was scrolling through YouTube,  a video caught  my eye, promising sourdough for lazy bakers. In a split-licking instant, I was hooked.

All these emotions started bubbling inside like a healthy batch of yeast.

This is going to be grea....!  But before I could finish the thought, new more ominous voices clamored their way in...

No, it's not going to be great. It's going to be a disaster. Do you realize how tricky it is to make sourdough? If it was easy they wouldn't be charging four bucks a pop for a small boule... 

But, but... they guy said that the recipe is for the lazy bakers. I qualify! 

Of course you do! So spare yourself unnecessary pain and suffering and just go to Publix...

Somewhat perplexed by the intensity of the opposition and the brevity of the naïve enthusiasm stage, I grabbed a bag of white and a bag of whole-wheat flour, and pushing through the noise of dissenting voices begun to scoop…

Confessions of an Artist

I stumbled upon these words that struck me as genuine and fresh, part confession, part prayer, even though they may not be introduced with 'Dear God'. I rarely hear anyone speak in these terms anymore. It resonated with me because of its courage, humility, self-awareness and determination. It was spoken by an artist but I feel like it could have been spoken by any of us, regardless of the label we attach to ourselves and others. 

I have lots of habits that are self-defeating.

I’m my own worst critic, a people pleaser.

I compare my work to others and get discouraged.

I’m a perfectionist with a bit of OCD thrown in.

I’m pretty much always afraid to step out and try new things that are outside my abilities...

I really want to loosen up and give things a try and know that others fail too.

I get really caught up in staying with what I know to the point of shutting down on occasion.

Fear of failure is so ingrained, and I need to move beyond that to become a better artist.

I want to be brave.

#BLM

To say that we are living in historic times would be an understatement.  It is difficult to keep up with the events and the subsequent emotions generated by them. We all have so much to say. We all want to be heard. But, some of us have been dominating the conversation for far too long and there are times when it’s appropriate to shut up and make room for the unheard (or heard but not heeded) voices, no matter how uncomfortable they may make us feel.

As artist, my heart is expressed through my artwork, I believe better than any words I might use.

I can't breathe

#B&W

RIP George Floyd

The Secrets of the Angels

Back in April, I thought it would be neat to do a mixed media replica of the famous monastery Milosevo fresco – White Angel.

It was Easter.

We were in lock-down.  

What could possibly go wrong when one wants to celebrate this strange COVID-19 Easter by painting an angel idling around Jesus’ empty tomb, wondering why would anyone be looking for the Living One among the dead? 

I scoured the Internet for a reference photo I wanted to use and once I found it, went to work.

I intended - to the best of my ability - to stay as close to the original.  With that in mind, I took a pencil and I started lightly outlining the image on the paper.  The head and halo around it. The folds of the robe. One wing and the other.

I am not sure at what point in the process a human photo-copy machine gave way to an artistic libertarian with a mind of her own.  All I know, by the time I was finished what (or rather, who) showed up on the page was NOT the same angel depicted in the renown fresco.

I stare at the woman, wondering where did she come from? Who is she? Why is her face sad and her robe, her hands, even her golden halo, and all around and behind her splattered with Daler Rowney Brilliant Red mingled with gold?

What kind of messy post-resurrection messenger is this?!?!!

I step back, the words of American abstract painter Robert Motherwell, now in focus. 

In the brush doing what it’s doing, it will stumble on what one couldn’t do by oneself.

Clearly both history and our daily reality bear witness that we don't live in some kind of post-resurrection spiritual Pleasantville.

When I think of it, it's a sad thing, because we don't realize that in our insistence on being ‘in control', and sugarcoating reality we forfeit the opportunity to allow a deeper and perhaps more edgy truth that wants be revealed in all its disturbing beauty.

The Art of COVID-19

Much of my time in quarantine has been spent talking (and writing!) less and making art more. Engaging in a creative process, regardless of the medium or subject, has been such an enriching experience on so many different levels. Anyone who does it knows what I am talking about.

Since picture is better than a thousand words, I am sharing just a few glimpses into my COVID-19 art-making 'routine'.

This piece Why are You Looking for the Living One among the Dead? was done in honor of Orthodox Easter. It's my interpretation of White Angel, a famous fresco from Milesevo monastery.

 

For Orthodox Easter I colored the eggs using natural onion skin dye. The process has become one of my favorite Easter traditions. 

Finally, after coloring Easter eggs in onion skins, I turned the leftover liquid into pigment which I used to experiment with negative painting techniques. This might be by far my favorite 'experiment' so far.

May the Fourth Be With You

In keeping with the tradition, I am re-posting one of our family favorites. May the Fourth Be With You!

We can thank my mother-in-law for introducing Star Wars into our children’s lives by getting our 5 year old son his first Star Wars LEGO set. He ripped the boxes open and within seconds our home was invaded by the Imperial Stormtroopers and the Droids.

I was mortified.

Star Wars?!!! He is waaay too young for Star Wars!

It wasn’t the complexity of the building process I was concerned about, because that never seemed to be a problem for our pint-size engineer. What bothered me much more was a matter of introducing complex adult issues into his immature mind, and the challenge that creates for me as his parent. But, like it or not, the door was open and there was no going back.

From that day on, my son turned into a miniature Star Wars maniac. So far, he’s been mostly preoccupied with recreating cosmic wars against his little sister. Along the way he somehow acquired a prodigious amount of information about the characters and the plot and various twists and turns in the storyline. He learned the difference between the Imperial and the Rebel blaster, the who’s who and what’s what of the Imperial Army and the Rebel Alliance, and all the whys and therefores of the narrative that molded the worldview of generation after generation since the first movie was released. He bought a Star Wars Visual Dictionary with his own money(!) and would spend his free time memorizing its content.

Now, all this wouldn’t be so surprising if it wasn’t until this afternoon, years after the initial encounter, that he saw his very first Star Wars movie. Watching him watch the movie was as much (or more) fun as watching the movie itself. It was as if he had all these loose pieces of a puzzle, and he finally saw how they all fit together, he could finally place them in their exact spots in the larger, 4-D story-puzzle. His delight was quite contagious. During dinner, he continued chatting enthusiastically about all the fascinating trivia he picked up during the afternoon Star Wars extravaganza. In the course of the conversation, my husband casually mentioned George Lucas and what his intent might have been for the unfolding of the various episodes in a certain sequence.

George… Lucas?!! Our son muttered hesitantly… And who is this George Lucas? 

There was no doubt that he was utterly confused. You could tell that he was scrolling down the imaginary database of Star Wars names and faces, from Emperor Palpatine through Chewbacca and Ewoks, but there was no suitable match for the name “George Lucas”.

It was now our turn to be confused. How is it possible that with all these years of borderline obsession with the Jedi and their pecking order, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and R2D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi, our son never ever heard the name George Lucas?

We looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Hmm …George Lucas…. George Lucas…. Well, he is kind of like God to the world of Star Wars. Without him, there would be no Star Wars, nor the galaxy, nor anybody or anything else belonging to this galaxy far, far away. He created it all. This amazing world exists because it first existed in the mind of George Lucas.

It took several minutes for the news to settle in his shaken-to-the core 9 year old mind screaming for a paradigm shift. Until this moment of revelation he was so preoccupied with the fascinating universe which George Lucas had created that for a brief while he simply couldn’t compute the information about the existence of the creator of that universe.

There…there is a George Lucas… there IS a George Lucas and I never even knew it!

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Resurrection Art

This year the forty days of Lent morphed into quarantine (which incidentally derives its name from Italian 'quaranta giorni' meaning 'forty days' indicating the amount of time ships had to be isolated before entering the city of Dubrovnik during the Great Plague). Quarantine (or lock-down, or self-isolation) morphed into Easter, first following Gregorian then a week later Julian calendar.

It's been a busy season of surviving. Adjusting. Flexing. Re-aligning.

And art making.

First hopped in the Easter Bunny. It was a silly, spur-of-the-moment, safe-in-the-era-of-social-distancing experiment that warned me never to underestimate the silly, spur-of-the-moment bursts of creativity.

Birthed during COVID-19, it, of course, had to have a face mask😷 .  One thing that this bunny taught me with its extra-large ears and its face mask was that sometimes the best thing to do is just cover your mouth and use your ears. 

Perhaps because the bunny knows what the poets have known all along.... that it's hard to listen while you preach.

As I said, never underestimate the seemingly silly, spur-of-the-moment bursts of creativity. You may be surprised what you stumble upon following the rabbit trail.

The Boston Prayer Garden

Earlier this year, in anticipation of an extraordinary busy summer, I didn’t think I would have time for gardening… silly me! Man plans, God laughs.

As COVID-19 pandemic spread it suddenly created large blank spots in my schedule. Combined with state-wide lockdown, yesterday I seized the golden opportunity and basked in the pure luxury of rolling in the dirt for blissfully uninterrupted morning that stretched well into the afternoon.

There is a reason for the expression, Happy as a pig in muck.

I was buried deep inside my heaven, experiencing unadulterated joy of ripping things out, digging things up, tossing them in the garbage, while getting unashamedly filthy when my very much earthly husband called my name and said that the window guy was here and I needed to come in.

Everything was in place for the look. The wild disheveled hair. The sweaty/dirty clothes.  The dark-brown under my fingernails even after washing my hands twice. All this topped by the irrepressible grin on my face working together in perfect unison to proclaim to the world and the stunned Window Guy,

Here she comes, The Crazy Gardening Lady!

I am so sorry, I tried to apologize rather unconvincingly, the stupid grin contradicting my words.

Then, as if this was the most common, utterly normal occurrence I begun to ramble about all the other cataclysmic events over the course of last two decades we have lived through from the perspective of our garden. 

You can call it my version of The Brief History of Time  – from NATO bombing of Serbia, 9/11, one cancer after another, one hurricane after another, Global Financial Crisis of 2008, Boston marathon bombing…

Did you realize that tomorrow is its anniversary, April 15?,  I interrupted my history lesson, turning to now even more stunned Window Guy. All he could do is shake his head, No.

The reason I remember is because back in 2013. I was working on clearing this particularly messy and dingy area in our yard and converting it into a flowerbed. It was April 15, mostly known as the Tax Day. Then I heard on the radio about the marathon bombing… and the garden area I was clearing became The Boston Prayer Garden.

It may seem silly to you but every time I see it, no matter how bleak things may look in the moment, I am reminded by its quiet, blossoming presence, We’ve been through worser… we'll get through this pandemic too.

We chatted for a while, wrapping up the loose business ends. I might be reading too much into it, but his parting words to us were,

You know, I am glad you got to do some gardening today. I really am.

Me too, I thought, me too...

The Darkest Hour

I am sure I am neither the first nor the last one to recognize that many of us are spending Good Friday this year in isolation just the way the first disciples did on that fateful day that changed history forever.

They were in lock-down the same way we are.

They were in fear for their lives perhaps not too different from the way we are during global pandemic.

…the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of…  John 20:19

The instinctual human response when faced with a threat is to shut the doors. To hide. To self-isolate. 

Sometimes self-isolation is mandatory sometimes it’s self-imposed.

What were they thinking as they reflected on the avalanche of events that had rolled over them in the course of the past few days leading up to Golgotha?

The triumphant entry into the Holy City. The cheering crowds. The washing of their smelly feet. The somber supper. The wine and the bread. The traitor.  The prayer of agony. The ambush. The traitor's kiss.

The unthinkable.

How could something they thought so right turn into something so horribly wrong?

Now their leader is dead and their own lives are in jeopardy.

Murder and threats from without, swarming fears from within.

Were they second-guessing themselves and each other? Did they think if they had done something different they could have changed the outcome? Were they pointing fingers?

Were they assailed by every doubt fear despair disappointment and heartbreak plaguing mankind from the creation of the world??

Or was that reserved for Jesus to absorb on the cross?

In that moment of darkness did they forget everything - EVERYTHING - Jesus ever told them while there was still light?

Was all their hope swallowed by the day of darkness, with no way out as the doors were locked - from within?

Cheering and Jeering

I spent most of the Palm Sunday on our garage floor fiddling with an art project. I fit into being non-essential as a (sanitized) hand into a (nitrile) glove.  It was a gloomy, drizzly, bean-soup kind of day, unusual for Florida at this time of the year. But everything seems unusual these days, including the weather.

I felt a strange kind of relief that even heaven chose to cooperate with social distancing and self-isolation. On Palm Sunday, in particular.

I always struggled with ‘celebrating’ Palm Sunday. One day, Jesus is exuberantly welcomed in, few days later, he is equally emphatically jeered out and eventually crucified.  I often wondered if it was the same people who cheered one day were jeering by the end of the week? 

Maybe. 

Maybe not.

Sometimes those of us who cheer the loudest are the biggest traitors.

Take Peter.

Master, I’m ready for anything with you. I’d go to jail for you. I’d die for you!

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me.

Or Judas

…a crowd showed up, Judas, the one from the Twelve, in the lead. He came right up to Jesus to kiss him.

Jesus said, Judas, you would betray the Son of Man with a kiss?

Or really, all the disciples.

Which pretty much puts a spotlight on each of us.

Humans are so fickle. You would think that with that kind of track record, one would find a bit more humility in the ranks.

One would think…

It's All My Fault

Congratulations! We made it to April.

Some of us wish that today we find out that entire month of March was just a big fat April Fool’s Day joke.

Some of us wonder if this was just a prelude to the Hunger Games reality show in which we are all participants. We just need to figure out which districts and people are essential and which are non-essential.

Some of us are wondering WHY is all this happening, while self-examining types are doing deep soul-searching and beginning to question whether this is really all their fault.

When I was a child and my sister and I would start arguing whose fault it was that this happened or that, my dad would always say,

I did it! It’s my fault.

Growing up this was exceedingly confusing because it was very clear that nothing could be further from the truth.  Whatever caused the raucous, had nothing to do with him.

Now that I am a parent, I am finally beginning to understand why he did that.

So in our current situation, if blame needs to fall on someone, why not it be me. It’s all my fault.

You think I am joking? No. I am not.

Earlier this year I admit I was griping A LOT about how busy this spring and summer were shaping up to be. We have a junior and a senior in high-school. This means graduation and all the accompanying mayhem, college/scholarship searches and applications, testing, pre-college programs, my 98 year old father-in-law’s visit, then keeping him company in Maine, other visitors, travels, back and forth, back and forth, on top of just regular survival stuff, school, rehearsals, after-school activities… Our 25^th wedding anniversary is this year, and we should do something special, maybe book a cruise, but who is going to take care of the cat and….Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh…. Our lives were moving way too fast for my taste and quickly getting out of control. 

Moreover, it felt like there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

GOD! I CAN’T KEEP UP! THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!

Just. Like. That. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, but as they say, be careful what you pray for… I didn’t mean ‘global pandemic’ when I said, ‘this needs to stop’… I just thought my little craziness, our little circus.

Free Lunch

Restaurant Tokyo in the Publix plaza on Lee Vista is closed for business, I said, but they are providing free lunches for school aged children Monday through Friday. We should go…

What do you mean ‘we should go’? Those free lunches are meant for people who can’t afford to feed their kids through this craziness. We have plenty of food! reacted my Mr. Ever-Responsible, Never-Take-More-Than-Your-Share husband.

I know. But, I want to go there and show support, both to honor their initiative and effort and give a donation. It’s not about free lunch! They are trying to do their part to serve our community and we need to do what we can to support them! They may have a donation box or something…

Our high-schooler looks up from the phone and offers the best compliment any parent can ever dream of receiving from this age group,

Big brain!, than adds, Maybe it’s going to be sushi…. Yummmmm…

Still not fully convinced but outnumbered, Mr. Responsible watches us leave. We arrive at Tokyo just as the 6 feet spaced out line that had formed started moving.  We hop onto the caboose and wait our turn. The young lady wearing gloves, mask hiding her face hands us the bag. We thank her and ask for a donation box.

She shakes her head, an incredulous, No.

Please… we want to help out. We WANT to support you and what you are doing as a small business in these times. 

I can be very persuasive at times but this time I sense something bigger, something far more noble and generous than few crumpled dollar bills inside my hand pushing me back.   She shakes her head one more time, No, softly, quietly but firmly, immovable like a granite rock.

If you want to support us, you can do that when we reopen, she adds.

‘When’, she said, not ‘if’.

We walk away carrying the bag with free lunch in one hand and donation money in the other. Unnerved because it is more blessed to give than to receive. Undone by the grace and dignity witnessed by no one but us and God. 

I know that we won’t be back tomorrow, but we will be back when it reopens, whenever that may be.

The Worst and the Best of Lent

I realize now that, when I said ‘the year of not offering unsolicited advice was the worst’- the ‘worst’ is a rather relative term.

With COVID-19 pandemic, some people may label the Lent 2020 as such.

Some people, however, may see it as the best thing that ever happened to us.

We are still too much in the thick of it to determine whether it’s truly the best or the worst.

But, it makes me think that this crisis, just like everything else in life, is what we - you and I - make of it.

For, it’s in your God-given power and mine, to make it better or to make it worse.

I had this hunch for a long time, substantiated by my experience, that some days the absolutely best choice I can make for myself and everyone around me, including the world at large, is to stay in bed and do nothing.

Some days, it's just better to determine not to accomplish a single thing from my mile-long to-do list. 

Well, now I have not only government mandate but also scientific validation for that hunch.

With the era of self-distancing, isolation and quarantine upon us, the proliferation of absolutely hilarious coronavirus memes has kept us all laughing even in the middle of all the insanity. How can we laugh when such calamity is upon us??!!

As one of the memes says, it's a defense mechanism. 

But, while the scientist are working on the vaccine, perhaps this robust sense of humor, this ability to laugh together might be one of the best medicines if not cures for COVID-19 we right now have on our (thoroughly washed and sanitized) hands. 

The Illegitimate Children of Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the official beginning of Lent. 

It’s become a bit of a happy tradition in my life to look forward to this season. It started kind of frivolously, by my giving up Facebook one year. Well, better description would be ‘tried to’ because the experiment was such a failure that by the end of the trial period I couldn’t even pretend I was ‘fasting’. Still, I learned a lot about myself, and what a weak-willed human I am, so I decided I not only needed, but wanted to do this again the following year.  

That year, being the glutton for punishment, I was even more ambitious and decided to give up complaining for full forty days. O course, now I realize that at the time I was  unwilling to admit to myself or anyone else, that the REAL reason why I was GIVING UP COMPLAINING FOR LENT (and so should YOU!) was because I was getting really annoyed by my kids constant complaining. I thought they would get a hint (they didn’t), so once again, my Lent was a fiasco.

But, for some reason I was hooked.  Not enough though to plan ahead for the year after that.  Lent sneaked up on me one day, when I woke up and realized, It’s Ash Wednesday!, and I had NO IDEA what I wanted to give up on Lent. The dilemma was solved expediently the very same morning when on the way to dropping off my son to school I lost my favorite iPod earbuds. They were lima-green and fitted perfectly and I loved them so much, almost as much as my favorite playlist…

I was so mad at God for taking my favorite lima-green earbuds – on Ash Wednesday, of all days! - it took me at least three weeks to get out of my funk and get on speaking terms with the Almighty.  Which was pretty good, because I really needed my ears unplugged and start actually LISTENING.

That was a costly lesson though.

The worst, however, was the year when somehow I thought it would be a good idea to give up offering unsolicited advice for Lent.  If you’ve never tried this, I would highly recommend you don’t start now.

Love Like Valentine

This post was originally published on Valentine's Day in 2014

I learned the following about the origin of Valentine’s Day from This Day in History:

Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families.

To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.
 
When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270. 

...

I find it a bit incredulous that what vicious emperor tried to eradicate, what one man was willing to die for, we surrender and abdicate of our own free will every day.  All around the world, husbands and wives alike get sacrificed along with their children on altars of endless work, mindless entertainment and even  noble-sounding Christian service.


The cruel ruler understood what we so easily overlook – that a man with deep affection and ties to his one wife, to his baby girl and a teenage boy will think twice before he gambles it all away in a senseless war.

Apparently young men of Rome grasped and even fought for something some of us might need to learn or relearn, not just on Valentine’s but also every other ordinary day of the year.

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives. Ephesians 5:25

…Encourage them to love their husbands, to love their children. Titus 2:4

He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Malachi 4:6

The Cake that Crumbled the Berlin Wall

Some events have deep and lasting impact on our memory. The day might have started as just an ordinary, humdrum kind of day, no inkling of what is to come, no premonition. But then something happens, and it is forever seared in the storage rooms of our mind - where you were, what run-of-the-mill thing you were doing that day, that hour when everything changed. 

Most of us have stories of 9/11, that answer, What did you do when the Twin Towers fell? It’s our way of processing and integrating our small, seemingly insignificant personal histories as they intersect with the larger narrative of times and places.

I go back to November of 1989, in the similar way. Back then, while the whole world was transfixed watching the beginning of the fall of Berlin Wall, I was, anticlimactically, spending an extended Thanksgiving holiday break in Tuscaloosa, Alabama enjoying gracious hospitality of my typically Southern hosts.

What has stuck with me through the passage of time from that day was a thought,

In thirty years, when my children ask me, ‘Mom, where were you when the Berlin wall fell?’, I will have to respond, with tinge of despair, ‘In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, watching the whole darn thing on an old analog TV with the rest.’

Some may say that my special superpower is always being at the right time but at the 'wrong' place. The crumbling of the world as I’d always known it that November is not my only example.  
Of course, with 30 year perspective on the tearing down of the Iron Curtain and life in general, it’s rather obvious that the historic event and its subsequent domino effect has solved some problems and created others.

But, my puny existence is too small to speak into such lofty matters.

Instead...

Competing with Horses

If you can't carry the weight of emptiness, 

how are you going to carry the weight of fullness?

If you are not able to descend into failure,

how are you going to be able to ascend into success?

If you cave in under the pressure of loneliness,

how are you going to hold up under the pressures of publicity.

I found these words as I flipped through my old journals this morning.  I hesitate to write them here, as they seem to be too profound to come out of my pen. I realize though, that there is wisdom in us beyond our comprehension at the time it was given. But only the long and arduous climb up to the pinnacles and down into despairs of life itself can chisel those words into the depth of our reality. 

We so easily forget that words, through their deceptive and frivolous use have lost their original power and are not reality anymore. But every once in a while something fresh comes our way, something piercingly true and it is because of this that I write them here, as a reminder to myself, most of all.  And who knows, perhaps someone else may find the humbling blessing and sobering encouragement they carry.


If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, Then how can you compete with horses? If you fall down in a land of peace, How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5

Perfect Storm

Being the hurricane survivor veterans of 15 years and counting, we thought we had it figured out.  From Charlie, Jeanne, Frances, Irma, Michael – each uninvited guest coming our way taught us something new. Over time, we’ve developed a routine that encompasses a variety of preparations we tweak each hurricane season as fresh, tested-in-real-life data becomes available to us under the category of ‘Experience’.

One big item we learned early on became house cleaning. I know it sounds counter intuitive to bother with cleaning the house before the hurricane, but short of a complete disaster and losing your house or at least a roof, this strange ritual of housecleaning makes a huge difference in the days preceding and days that follow the storm.  Sometimes we lose power, and sometimes even water supplies can be limited, so having empty laundry basket keeps us from experiencing a different kind of emergency, like no clean underwear. After being surprised by Charlie, our first real hurricane, this became a must for our family, right along removing or securing projectiles around our house.

This year, with monster hurricane Dorian’s path threatening central Florida, we raised our housecleaning to an unprecedented level by cleaning out our garage.  It seemed crazy keeping all our worthless junk safe under the roof while leaving our only vehicle outside exposed to the mercy (or mercilessness) of Cat 5. 

With the car in, we could sigh a big sigh of relief. We did everything we could, the rest is in God’s hands. There was a huge sense of satisfaction knowing,

We were PREPARED! We are READY! We GOT THIS!

I even remembered how with the disruption of the routine, and easy access to the stockpiles of convenient (read ‘junk’) food,  the biggest hurricane battle tends to be the one with the bulge. 

“Not this time!”  I was determined and stock piled on peaches, pears, apples and bananas, carrots, celery and home-made hummus.

Then, we waited. And waited. And watched and waited. And started nibbling on our healthy foods while binge-watching weather channel.  The storm was intensifying, getting more threatening, bigger and bigger, and slower and SLOWER, until it stalled over the poor Bahamas battering it heartlessly with Cat 5 squalls.

It was supposed to arrive on Sunday here, and it’s Tuesday and it STILL isn’t here.

We actually polished off our healthy hurricane stash while the hurricane was still hundreds of miles away!! Yesterday we made a quick Walmart run to restock but while we were getting peaches, grapes and milk, I noticed that their Bakery Department must have over-baked and had all these amazing goods on clearance – pumpkin and apple pies, apple fritters, plain donuts and Persian cinnamon rolls... for pennies!!! Who can resist that???

As they say, "The road to hell is paved by good intentions"...

We came home loaded, promising ourselves self-control, then making powerful excuses justified by ‘all the stress that hurricane caused us’… and ‘we were doing so well until…”

And the storm is still over three hundred miles away…