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As I’ve grown older, I am very aware of my spiritual self.  It may be my grounding in Catholic school and parents whose lives were steeped in that faith, or maybe it’s due to age and experience giving me a view of things that repeatedly defy explanation.

Whatever.

I have always believed in a higher power and a new life after this one.  My faith is not in step with my parents or their generation, however, for decisions made by the Catholic Church have become more and more to difficult to accept.

***There is the continuing pedophile scandal that has been so grossly mishandled by educated men (even to this day here in Kansas City) that it sickens and enrages me.

***The obsession with women’s reproductive organs as if we are no more or less than a uterus.

***The political bent of this church with admonishments from the pulpit every election year to vote in the interest of the Catholic church.

***The ridiculous public lecture the church hierarchy gave to the nuns last year to stop focusing on the poor and to fall in line.

Sigh.

For a free will kind of girl seeking a deeper meaning to life, it’s all I can do sometimes to show up. 

******

On Saturday night Mark and the kids and I all went to Five Guys to grab something to eat.  While we were sitting at our table I noticed a man in traditional Muslim clothing going up to get his food.  Then I noticed the woman he was with.

She sat at a table twenty feet from us completely clothed in black, including her gloved hands.  Only her eyes and nose were visible.  When her partner brought their burgers to the table she took her gloves off and tried to eat.  Every bite and drink was consumed under her veil, slowly and carefully brought towards her covered  mouth while he chomped away unencumbered.

As I watched this I felt like crying for the indignity of this stranger trying to eat her dinner under a veiled mouth that was nothing more than a roadblock to satisfying her hunger………….or maybe I felt like crying for myself and many other women of faith who have long tried to dine at a spiritual table that seems to only be reserved for men.

When I was a little girl, my best friend’s family would take me on camping trips with them as company for Nancy. 

I didn’t love the camping experience, but I loved getting away from the crammed house I lived in with all those people.  For Nancy’s mom, it seemed to me to be a lose-lose situation with her having to pack half the house to go live in the woods for a week.   As a frequent guest, I was treated like family and required to participate in chores.  Early on I figured out that pumping your water, heating it, pouring it into a tub, scrubbing the dishes, rinsing them in another tub of water that you had to pump from the ground and then drying them seemed stupid when there was a perfectly good dishwasher at home.

I knew I wasn’t cut out for the camping life but I married somebody who was. 

When the kids were little The Big Daddy started to entertain the idea of getting a camper.  A Winnebago.  Are you kidding me?  Do you know how much those things cost?

“But it’s the perfect solution.  Everything you need is right there.  It’s not like your roughing it.”

I wasn’t on board.  Ever.  When he said the RV Show was in town and that we should go take a look……”you know to see what’s out there”……..I told him I wasn’t participating.

The years passed but his interest never waned until the summer we were driving through Idaho.  Going up a mountainous road we were waved over by another driver who was FA……FA…..FA…..FREAKING out.  It smelled like smoke and within a few minutes you could hear the wail of the fire department sirens.

The Recreational Vehicle doesn’t much like those steep climbs, and what seemed to have started with smoking brakes turned into A Smoking, Flaming Winnebago up yonder.  Everything in the traveling home burnt up real good with the stunned owners helpless on the side of the road.

We sat on the shoulder for nearly two hours surrounded by the most picturesque scenery you could imagine.  I read Tuesdays With Morrie and boo-hooed and blew my nose all the while we were stuck.  The Big Daddy said, “Pass the Kleenex,” and  wiped away a few tears of his own.

With the smell of pine all around us, I fell in love with the charming Morrie Schwartz while The Big Daddy was watching his ongoing plan to seduce me with the pleasures of a Winnebago go up in smoke.

                                           

Maggie and Nathan are in the process of buying their first house.  Maggie is beside herself with excitement while Nathan tempers that with worry about making this leap into home owning. 

We told them how we found and bought our first (and only) house which in every step was dumb luck.  We knew nothing about the neighborhood, the schools or the basement that has flooded more times than I could count.  We only knew that when we were in it we loved it and thought it was perfect for raising our family.

Over our 21 years in this house I have been frustrated, especially by the lack of money to do the things that would make it better, but I have never fallen out of love with it.

After we had made our offer and it had been accepted, we would drive by the house all the time.  Up and down the street we would see our soon-to-be neighbors and their kids everywhere.

It seemed like there was a Fisher-Price Cozy Coupe in every driveway.

There are a few of us long-timers that have stayed put while younger families come and go for the lure of bigger closets and tonier zip codes, but the pendulum is swinging back and our beloved street is filled with young families again.

Our kids had the good fortune of having many friends right outside the door, and their memories of those days make me happy for them and for the serendipity that led us to this street.

Two weeks ago, one of those friends died suddenly.  It was a shock to everyone and his parents and sister are heartbroken.  They are one of those long-timers.  The kind of neighbor that you can depend on to show up for the good and the crappy with a bottle of wine and a helping hand.  Always.

When Maggie was expressing frustration with the home-buying process, I told her that it takes faith to make a leap of faith.  Things have a way of working out like they should I said, but for some families nothing they could ever fathom lands on their front porch in the middle of the night and life changes in ways it never should..

If you happen to be the neighbor of that kind of family, you sit and cry.  Alone in your house, while walking the dog, at work when you tell your boss you need a few hours off, with their other friends and family at the services and most of all when you are with them………

………….for words of comfort fail to roll off the tongue and the work of faith takes enormous faith.

When I was a little girl, I would spend a good part of my summer day killing flies.  They liked the side of the house where the sun would beat down and I’d go out with the flyswatter and kill them.  48, 49, 50…………

I’d run in the house and give Mom the casualty count and she’d say, “Good for you.  Now get back out there and don’t stop until you’ve killed them all.”  Looking back, I think she might have been trying to get rid of me.

I’d run back outside and there would be more flies on the sunny side of the house and I’d swat and count for hours.  Apparently, I lacked friends.

Even as a kid I hated those things and since getting married The Big Daddy has given me a detailed scientific account of what flies do after they’ve sat on a poo-poo platter.  It’s disturbing.

That early experience of killing flies was a precursor to what our first home was like after we said, “I do.”  We lived in the basement apartment of a complex that catered to students.  You could say that it lacked charm but it was cheap and I got used to looking out the window and seeing dirt.

It wasn’t long into the honeymoon period that I found out we weren’t alone.  We had The Cucaraches and they were everywhere.  Like my fly-killing days, I’d go on the hunt for them with a can of Raid and spray them to kingdom come or with a swatter and beat them to a smeary mess.  Before long, I’d see another one and jump to action with my killing tools.

They never stopped coming in and Mark said he could smell the Raid in the parking lot when he got out of the car.

I would rather lay all night in bed awake than have to go into the bathroom and turn the light on and see those disgusting things scurrying everywhere.  We ended up having to put baggies over our toothbrushes because they’d sit on the top of the brush and eat the dried toothpaste.

I was teetering on a nervous breakdown.  Eyes darting looking for signs of movement, cans of Raid in every room, calls to the landlord constantly.  If this was the married life I wanted out.

The Big Daddy told me to calm my frantic ass down and put down the damn can of Raid.  Hell, he said, everything we eat around here is starting to taste like Raid.

Mom, who’d only heard of roaches but had never actually seen one, said he needed to get me out of there – that was no place to live.

We were only months into a year long lease when one night I was awakened by something.  I flung my arm over and that something landed in the chest hairs of The Big Daddy and he jumped out of bed, jumped up and down and started screaming.

“I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.  I CAN’T TAKE THESE SON-OF-A BITCHES ONE MORE DAY.  I.  CANNOT.  TAKE.  THIS!!!!!  THIS IS BULLSHIT! 

He stripped all the sheets and blankets off the bed and was beating them up and down on the floor over and over, and if there was still a roach amongst the percale it was going for a ride.

He went on like that for awhile before he calmed down and we put the sheets back on the bed.  All that screaming must have worn him out and he was soon sound asleep.  Those summer days of swatting flies had prepared me for that moment and I stared at the walls and counted the roaches…………..seven, eight, nine………….until the sun came up.

Within the month we’d sublet the apartment to two unsuspecting students, left all the cans of Raid under the sink and lived happily ever after.

                                                               

I went to the post office Friday which has to be my least favorite thing to do, but remarkably the line wasn’t out the door.  There was only one couple at the counter. a Muslim couple, and they were having a communication failure with the postal clerk.  She couldn’t understand where they wanted to send their package and their English wasn’t the best, so she started yelling louder as if they were deaf instead of confused.  I thought I heard them say Saudi Arabia, but she didn’t acknowledge any such thing because listening wasn’t her strong suit.  She gave them a piece of paper to write down the information and when it was indeed Saudi Arabia, she told them to step out of line to fill the necessary forms out.  A glimpse of her nice side finally started emerging which seemed to take much longer than necessary.

While I watched all of this unfold in front of me, I wondered if the shoe were on the other foot how in the hell I would mail a package from Saudi Arabia to Kansas.

That night I was watching the local news and there was a story of a 24 year old medical student who went out for a jog and hadn’t come back.  He was not carrying his cell phone or wallet and due to his age he wasn’t likely kidnapped, but he’d been missing for a whole day and his parents were distraught with worry.  He lived at home in an upscale neighborhood with no obvious problems.  The family was of middle-eastern descent and his mother sobbed when she talked of him.  I couldn’t imagine where her mind was going in this confusion of a missing son.

Buried in today’s paper was a very short story of this missing jogger found dead.  Off the trail, no obvious signs of trauma but an autopsy is pending.  Page six?   Two nights earlier his family sat on the couch in front of a news camera and begged for help to find him.  The outcome of the biggest crisis in their life ends on page six? 

Would the story of this kid be more breaking, more urgent, more front page if he were white?  I’d like to think not, but we daily separate who is worthy and who is not, who deserves courtesy or immediate help and who gets yelled at or dismissed for not understanding…………as if God has personally assigned Americans his chosen people and therefore immune from doing unto others.

Be it mailing a package or going for a run, it must require nerves of steel and a daily dose of bravery when you decide to make a life in the land of the free.
                                                           

When my kids were young, I didn’t buy into the let’s-keep-the-kids-real-busy camp.  We tried soccer with Maggie and she was so painfully shy when she was young that she cried and cried at the thought of getting out on a field in front of all those people.  Will didn’t fare much better.  We didn’t even attempt it with Mallory until she was in 4th grade and she loved it.

At some point, Maggie started dancing and then played basketball.  In high school she was in track.  Will was in Scouts and cross country.  Mal did dance.  On Mondays, they all went to religion class and in the summer they took swimming lessons.

Besides the expense of extracurricular activities, I hated the driving.  Dropping off for an hour practice and coming back and waiting for them while hoping my dinner wasn’t burning at home made me pissy.  We were fortunate to live on a street that had more than thirty kids, and so they preferred to run the hood with their friends after school playing kick the can, ghost, hide-and-seek or tag.

This felt like my childhood and that’s what I wanted for them.  Outside making things up.  Laying in the grass looking at the clouds.  Running like gazelles when they heard the ice cream truck coming.

I often felt like an outsider in these thoughts, but over-scheduling my kids over-scheduled me and that didn’t work.  I might have mentioned a time or fifty to Mark that how-busy-your-kids-are must be the new status symbol.

He gets it.  The house could fall down around him and he can sit forever on the back porch with a glass of wine looking at the birds.  He knows them all by name, makes sure their feeders are always full and they sing to him their gratitude.

That makes me crazy – for as much as I never wanted my kids to be busy, when it comes to this house I can think of a hundred things that should be done on the weekend before you sit down with a glass of wine and do nothing.

I’m working on that especially hard this year.  Maybe if I ignore the peeling paint, grab a book and a glass of wine the birds will sing to me.

                                      

Last week’s snowfall of 12″ just wasn’t enough and so round two came through overnight.  Work was cancelled for both of us, schools were closed and everybody stayed home which would have been all cozy and lovely had the power not gone out at four a.m.  By nightfall, KCPL (those beautiful lineman literally trudging in snow up to their butts) brought the lights and heat back.

It was a winter wonderland right outside the door……………..

And The Big Daddy working the shovel with our neighbor like he was Michael Bloomberg..

And my snow garden…………

We warmed up for a few hours at Maggie and Nate’s and when we came home I finished reading this book by way of a battery-operated tea light. 

Snow days……….I’d love one more but all good things must end. 

When I go to work I often come in contact with waiters and waitresses that are also going to their jobs and park in the same employee lot as me as there are many restaurants that are our neighbors.

Often we don’t speak, but I try to wish them a good day.  Though we are in the same type of service industry, my hourly pay doesn’t depend on how many people walk in the door and what kind of mood they are in.  I have never waitressed, but based on my own experience with customer service I know their job is much harder than mine.

The other day I took a phone order from a woman who seemed to delight in being condescending to salespeople.

Ma’m, do you spell your first name E-V-E-L-Y-N?

No, Kathy, it’s E-V-E-L-Y-N.  Didn’t you hear me?

Evelyn, just bear with me a moment.  I have to get the sales tax off your order and the computer is running a little slow this morning.

Kathy, what did you do wrong now?  Oh and Kathy, when you fold that skirt make sure there’s no creases in it so that when I take it out of the box and put it on it’s perfect.

That is just a small portion of the penance I did.  It went on and on………always with the “Kathy”.  Constantly referring to someone by their first name doesn’t make you less of a bitch.  Evelyn. 

On Wednesday, at just past six and half a mile from where I work was a gas explosion right outside a popular restaurant in the Plaza area of Kansas City.

There have been many serious injuries and several people are still in the hospital.  Everybody made it out of there with the exception of one waitress.

Her body was found the next day and one of her coworkers said, “Everybody loves her.  Nobody can say anything bad about her.” 

She was described as politically active, funny, had a law degree and loved working in the restaurant.

One of the hundreds of service workers that travel to that area every single day and try to eek out a living……

I hope she never encountered an Evelyn on her shift. 

I hope somebody wished her well on what would be her last day on this earth.

We have sent out a Christmas letter for twenty years and for a girl who writes every day, this year was tough.  Every time I sat down to do it, I’d write five minutes of crap and then surf for crap on the time-sucking net.  I found out that the Kardashians photoshop their card, Michael Jordan got kicked off a golf course in Florida for wearing cargo shorts and the way to make your crinkly, aging neck seem more youthful is to wear a scarf.  Drrrrr……………… 

But I got it done in the nick of time………………a Festivus miracle.

When I was growing up, my siblings and I went to a Catholic elementary school.  With a public high school just blocks from our house we parted ways with a private school education after the 8th grade.  Some of my siblings have sent their kids to Catholic schools, and some of us have gone the public route.

Like my family, my neighborhood is a combination of both.  When we moved here I entertained the idea of sending my kids to the Catholic school, but this area of Kansas is known for its quality education and so we decided to send them to public schools.  We have never regretted the decision and I am sure my neighbors with kids in private schools would say the same.

Over more than twenty years of being in the school system, we have known many families that have experienced tragic losses.  My dear friend, Vicki, died of ovarian cancer with a 7th grader and kindergartner left behind.  Days later, another 7th grade girl lost her dad to a sudden heart attack.  I know two families who have dealt with the sudden shocking diagnosis of a brain tumor and several mothers who have breast cancer.  Last month, a senior at our high school died in an ATV accident two days after Thanksgiving while the fifty year old father of two other students collapsed and died on the following day.

In the midst of all of this is a school community that has been enormously supportive.  Meals, carpools, transportation to doctor appointments, house and yard cleaning.  If a family is in crisis, somebody takes charge and puts people to work.

It is what we do when we cannot fix the very big thing that has gone terribly wrong.

Former Governor Mike Huckabee and other conservative Christians were quick to point out hours after the devastating losses in Connecticut that this tragedy was because we have removed God from our public schools. 

Our community is a mixture of many faiths and our public schools are a reflection of that.  If those first graders, and the courageous staff that tried to protect them in the last moments they had on this earth, didn’t hear the voice of their higher power say…………..

Be not afraid 
I go before you always

…………..then I have wasted a lifetime of prayer.