Music

I did not grow up in a house where music was important, yet for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to play the piano. When I was seven I told my mother if she would buy me a piano, she wouldn’t have to buy me any birthday or Christmas gifts for seven more years.  It never happened.

At summer camp as a teenager, I used all my free time sitting at the piano.  I didn’t know how to read music, but I knew where middle C was and I knew the sheet music had the secret code of Every Good Boy Does Fine, so I could find EGBD and F on the lines and FACE between the lines.  Someone had taught me that when I was young and I never forgot it.  With that bit of information, I taught myself a few lines of one of my favorite hymns.  I didn’t know anything about reading notes or how long to hold the keys down, but I figured it out playing a familiar tune.

A bit of depression swept over me when I turned 30 and realized I still had never learned to play the piano, so I started taking lessons.  I was my piano teacher’s only adult student, but she was kind and very encouraging and I practiced for hours and hours each day.  I was amazed at how my brain could tell my left hand to do one thing while my right hand did another and my feet did something else.  I took lessons for three years, then got married to Kory and life got too busy to continue.

Naturally, when I had my own child, I wasn’t about to deny him the gift of music.  I played classical music in his room while he slept.  I bought him every kind of hand held musical instrument appropriate for his age as he grew, yet none of it ever seemed to light a fire in him.

I wanted to start Kaleb in piano lessons early, but was advised to wait a bit, so I did.  At ten, he began to plunk the keys and have music fill our home.  But instead of bringing joy and beauty, it only brought tears and sorrow.  Turns out, Kaleb hates playing the piano.  How can it be?  Who could hate music? Who wouldn’t want to decode all those notes and symbols on the printed page?  It made no sense, but I insisted he continue.

After a few years of learning the basics of music, but always fighting an uphill battle, I’ve finally given up. Many adult friend advised against it and said one of their biggest regrets is that their parents let them quit taking lessons, as they wished now they could play. 

So this year, I turned the tables a bit and told Kaleb he didn’t have to take lessons, but if he wanted to step aside from formal teaching and just learn how to play some of his favorite songs, I’d find him a teacher who would do that.  I promised I’d let him “own” the whole thing and there would be no pressure on my part to even practice.  His response? “Now that’s more like it.”  Time will tell, but at least the music hasn’t died in our home just yet.

Farm Fresh

Fresh corn on the cob is always a highlight of my summer.

In my college days, I lived in California and I’d ride my moped twice a week to the farmer’s market and buy fresh corn out of the back of the farmer’s pickup.  Two ears of corn was all I needed for dinner, night after night.  A little butter, a little hot sauce, and I was a happy camper. 

Today, I drive down the street to any number of local farmstands to pick up my little bit of heaven.  I feel so blessed to live in such an area.

A few years ago at the Festival of Family Farms, I learned from Farmer Schuh how to pick the perfect ear. If the end is pointed, he said, the cob isn’t done growing.  If it’s rounded, it’s total perfection.  No need to pull back the husks anymore for me.  I took his advice and it rocked my world. I just feel the tip of the corn between my fingers and that’s all that’s required to know I have myself a good one.

Then comes a summertime ritual - sitting on the porch, husking corn, pulling silk strings from the cob and getting it ready for the pot of hot water on the stove.  Five minutes is all that’s needed in that boiling bath until I get to chomp into my favorite bit of summertime sweetness.

My neighbor gets her water boiling on the stove first, then walks back to her garden and pulls it fresh off the stalk.  The taste difference is noticeable when the corn has had no time to mess with the starch content. 

These days I eat my corn covered in lime juice and bit of jerk spice, so my mouth explodes with flavor.  Sometimes I grill it over an open fire when I’m in the “blackened mood” and it’s a whole different flavor - but still so yummy.

Our latest dinner guests commented they’d never seen anyone enjoy their food more than I, based simply on the verbal feedback I was giving the universe with every bite.  I was apparently emitting a whole lot of “mmm’s” while eating.  I didn’t notice.  I was too busy enjoying my corn.

I’m not exclusive with my love for corn, however.  We have a golden plum tree that provides the best juice bombs a person could ask for.  Waking up in the morning this time of year, my feet find their way out to the corner of our property before I’ve even had a cup of coffee, because the first thing I crave is a bite into a one of those plums, hot off the tree.

Our sugar snap peas didn’t even make it into the house this year as they were eaten straight off the vine.  Pure heaven.  Same thing with the blueberries - nary a muffin or pancake will they enter, as my desire for freshness keeps them from any higher calling.

They say fresh produce is better for a person’s body because the enzymes get depleted over time.  Surely one of those enzymes must be pushing a person’s joy button.  I’m in heaven.

Facebook

I have a love/hate thing going on with Facebook.  I don’t think I’m alone.  I overheard some parents talking recently about what they perceived as one of the dangerous side effects of Facebook – the social media website that functions as a bulletin board for all the world to see.  The danger, it seems, is that “kids these days” all want to have a “Facebook life,” which was defined to me as something that looks nearly perfect.  People get together with friends, whether to eat dinner, go on a hike or just have a cup of coffee, and a photo of it shows up soon thereafter on Facebook.  It tends to make those who aren’t currently getting together with friends feel lonely and isolated - especially if the ones in the photo are people they know well and see often.  They may begin to wonder why they aren’t in that picture, too.

The idea that every social event or minuscule aspect of a person’s life needs to be captured and posted on Facebook, makes an authentic life seem rather ordinary and boring.  I catch myself wanting to brag a bit on Facebook, too, like the other night when my husband was under the sink fixing a leaking faucet.  I was tempted to take a photo of him and post it with some great comment about how lucky I am to be married to a man who can fix anything – but then I wondered – what’s the point?  To make myself look good that I married such a man or to make others feel bad they didn’t? 

The problem is, I would never post a photo of him doing anything that irritates the heck out of me, so the image I’m portraying is very lopsided – and there’s the rub.  The “kids these days” - many don’t want to have much to do with the unpleasant or normal side of life – they just want to emphasize the good stuff and pretend the bad stuff isn’t there.  They want everyone to think their life is perfect, and that’s what makes some parents nervous.

It reminds me of the Better Homes and Gardens type magazines from the 1950s and 60s where a person might feel perfectly comfortable with the home they have, until they open the pages of a magazine that showcases a home worthy of drool.  What’s the point?  To make us want more? To be discontented with what we have? 

So many older women I know feel they spent more time than they should have keeping their houses clean back then, all the while robbing themselves of deeper relationships with their kids because they were too busy cleaning.  All because of the images portrayed in magazines and the idea they must “keep up with the Joneses.”

What goes around comes around.  The tables have turned, and now it’s reached into the younger generation via electronic media. It makes me wonder, as so many kids are trying to sculpt their lives around something worthy of a Facebook post, what they will look back on and realize they missed.  Reality, perhaps?  

Burn Out

I had a dream last week, shortly after the 15 visiting Norwegians departed, that I got in the car to go somewhere, put the key in the ignition and turned it, but the key broke in half, leaving half of it stuck in the ignition switch and the other half in my hand.  I wasn’t able to go anywhere and had no way to get the broken half out. 

It’s interesting how my subconscious manifested my conscious life in such a way, as I’ve been suffering total burn-out since our guests left last week.  I haven’t been able to do a thing, except call the septic guy to come pump our tank, since more than a Costco size bundle of toilet paper ended up down there.

Even the thought of opening the refrigerator was more than I could bear.  Having to figure out what to do with all the leftovers, the pieces of meat no one in this house will eat, the veggies that never made it into a salad – it’s all just been too overwhelming.  My husband and son were gone last week to Scout camp, so once the Norskies left, I ate cereal and milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I was so tired of cooking.

I’m not as exhausted physically, as I am mentally.  Perhaps it was having to speak Norwegian so much, or anticipate the needs of all those people, or coming up with Plan B, when the initial plans didn’t pan out.  Maybe it was the weeks of cleaning I did before they came or the sleeping on an air mattress that goes flat instead of my own bed while they were here.  I’m not sure what took the greatest toll, but some energy plug got pulled and I’ve yet to figure out how to recharge my batteries.  I guess that’s why, in my dream, the key was stuck in the ignition.

My husband tends to think I have endless amounts of energy and nothing slows me down.  Oh, if only he were around last week.  He only thinks I can’t relax.  The couch has been my friend.

A friend gave me the nickname “The Queen of Everything,” and when I was working for the phone company, my employees called me TWWGTD – which stood for “The Woman Who Gets Things Done.”  I think those days are gone.  I get tired now just thinking about doing something, long before I actually do it.

Kory came home from Scout camp and listened to my endless moaning about not having the energy to even clean out the frig.  He immediately began on the task – freezing that which can be frozen, tossing out that which was past due.  It was his way of restarting my engine.  He then got out a wire brush, a scraper and the pressure washer and put me to work prepping the side of our house that so desperately needs repainting.   He started quoting some NPR report that said people who have a purpose in life live longer.  I guess he figured I was just going to curl up on that couch and die.

Accidents

“Accidents can be prevented,” is a line I’ve used dozens of times over the years, directed at my son as well as my husband.  It’s a mother’s biggest worry – that something would happen that could injure a child – especially when it’s something that could have been prevented.  And just like Job is quoted in the Bible, “That which I have feared has come upon me.”

I think it would have been easier if the injury had happened to my son, rather than by my son.  He was outside playing badminton on Saturday, when he and a friend stepped away from the net and began smacking the birdie directly at each other. The birdie impacted his friend’s eye at such a high rate of speed he didn’t even have time to blink.  I knew it was bad when a bunch of yellow goo gushed out of his eye socket and he couldn’t see a thing. The pain was intense.

After an all too long six-hour wait at the emergency room, he found out he thankfully didn’t have a detached retina.  That was the initial fear and possible outcome of such an injury, but many were praying, so I won’t dismiss that a miracle happening in there somewhere.  The next day, and another doctor appointment later, he found out his iris suffered a few tears, but no surgery would be required and it will heal on it’s own.  Hallelujah for that.  My heart still ached for all the pain and stress he went through, though.  He didn’t once get upset and just joked that he was always worried he’d be the one inflicting pain on my son, as they horse around a lot, and he’s an incredibly buff dude.

It made me realize how someone’s life could change so dramatically in literally, just the blink of an eye.  The possibility existed that he could have been permanently blind on that side – over a simple game of badminton – on an otherwise uneventful summer day in the life of a teenager. Oh, how thankful I am it didn’t go that route. 

While my son wanted to dismiss the entire event as “just an accident” I made him back up to the point where he realized something could have been done differently that would not have ended with the same results.  Taking responsibility for our actions seem to be harder and harder in this country, as we all want someone else to be at fault. 

I used to work with the data from the “unusual occurrence reports” of a major hospital in Seattle.  Each and every little incident had to be reported to the legal department, in case it resulted in a lawsuit.  I saw lawsuits stem from crazy things like someone visiting a patient, stood up on a rolling chair in the room to tie up balloons, and fell off.  They sued the hospital for their injuries.

I’m hoping this badminton incident, and the idea that accidents can be prevented, is not soon forgotten, as both boys will be learning to drive in the near future, which opens up a whole new arena of worry for a mother’s heart, but as I’ve learned from experience, prayer is the best weapon I have.