It’s the Little Things

I am normally the first of our family to waltz through the living room in the morning. I turn on the light as I walk down the hallway to the childrens’ rooms and turn on their lamps and rub their backs (their Daddy has a different method) and ask what they want for breakfast. On my way to the kitchen, the second light I turn on is here in the following photos. This same lamp is normally the last light out at night besides the lamp in my bedroom–unless Tony is gone and the kids and are here alone. Or we have company over. Then it stays on all night long in case someone needs to get up.

If you were to stand in my kitchen at the sink (where I spend a lot of time), and you looked over to the left-ish, this is what you would see.

The lamp was a gift from my mother a few Christmases back. It sat and waited patiently for a spot in our new house. . .and I put it here first thing, and here it has stayed. The chcken is SO COOL. It was a gift from my friend, Carolyn. It is measuring spoons that nest in this chicken holder masquerading as tail feathers. She let me pick the one I wanted–and it was a hard task, but here it sits–making me happy. The black void behind my little vignette is the living room at night–or, at least how it looks when you take a photo at night without a flash.

If you were to come into the kitchen through the living room from the hallway where the children’s bedrooms are located, this is what you would see.

Here is the kitchen–not plunged in darkness, because I had the light on. You are familiar with the lamp. The plaque that looks like an upside-down house is from my friend Sandy. I have told its story here. It has this prominent place to remind me of many, many things. . .family, friendship, God’s love in providing both–even in the most unlikely of places. The little Willow Tree figurines were a Mother’s Day gift a few years ago. I picked those out too–and I love them. They are my kids. The small, metal chair is just something I saw and immediately fell in love with. Victoria put her figurine in it a few weeks ago to take a photo of something, and I’ve left her there. I like her there–and I like that Victoria put her there–her own calling card on the collection. The votive holder was given to me by a student before I had Victoria. I can’t recall her name–I know she was blond. I very much like the holder though. It has been in several places.

This small collection of items makes me happy–light, beauty, love and remembrance of friends and family.

The Sunshine State Part 2

After arriving in Homestead, Florida, Momma got a job as a teacher while Daddy performed his duties as a “nozzle jockey” for the air force. He refueled planes, which basically meant riding up and down tarmacs on fuel tanks that amounted to humongous bombs on wheels–not the way one would prefer to spend their early 20′s. Since Daddy was a good shot, having grown up with guns, he was eventually given the opportunity to be certified to train men in small arms instruction. This meant going BACK to Lackland in San Antonio.

Mom, of course, went with him this time. She told me they rented a tiny efficiency apartment, and she set to work scrubbing and cleaning trying to make it like home. The floor seemed a very difficult task as the more she cleaned the dirtier it got. She eventually realized she was scrubbing the vinyl off the backing. Much like her life of petty crime, that sojourn in San Antonio began and ended her life of housework.

While they were gone there was a hurricane that hit the lower Florida coast. Momma said she was worried to death about. . .her coat. She had visions of their little trailer floating off into the Atlantic Ocean with her lovely black wool, fur-collared coat inside. Why in the world she thought she NEEDED her woolen coat while living along the southern tip of Florida is beyond me, but she HAD bought it with her very own money–her first pay check as a teacher. And it DOES get cold in Florida occasionally. That’s why they have smudge pots, you know. To save the oranges. OR Momma could have just draped her coat over a tree or two.

Either way, they made it back to Homestead eventually to their little trailer (Momma’s coat was safe and sound) and while Daddy busied himself with small arms instruction and Momma busied herself as a kindergarten teacher, together they busied themselves with making a big sister for me. Momma was due at the end of December, and they both wanted to get my sister here in time to count on 1964′s income tax statement. To this end, Daddy did several things. First of all, he kept Momma in banana splits from the Dairy Queen in Florida City. There WAS a Dairy Queen in Homestead, but their banana splits just didn’t taste the same. So to Florida City they would go. Not ONLY did they get plenty of banana splits, but they also got a free baby carrier. Evidently a couple had left a pink baby carrier in a booth, so one day the owners of the Dairy Queen gave it to Momma and Daddy. I spent some time in it myself. I don’t know if my brother, Hal, did or not as it was pink. Luckily all the photographs of him in ANY baby carrier are in black and white, so only Momma knows the truth.

My mother ALSO loved (and still does love) chocolate covered cherries. Someone told her that since she was pregnant, if she ate too many, she would get fat. Poor Momma–she didn’t need to worry about getting fat, but she dutifully ate only ONE chocolate covered cherry per day. She did, however, eat a fair amount of home-made floured French fries. And banana splits. So I doubt if two chocolate covered cherries would have hurt her much. Along with the chocolate covered cherries and bananas and icecream and French fries, Daddy also tried to bring about my sister’s arrival by taking my mother for frequent spins through the Florida Everglades in an air boat.

Something must have worked, because exactly two years and ten days after their wedding, my sister, Suzanne, was born. I have written about her birthday before–she was a New Year’s Eve baby. And had ANOTHER baby not been born shortly after her, she would have been THE New Year’s Baby–which meant lots of diapers and other prizes. Alas, she had to settle for being the daughter of Harold and Glenda Watts–and my big sister. But she DID and DOES get fireworks every year for her birthday.

She was born in the military hospital on the base. Momma was alone when Sissy came as Daddy had to work, and Granny and PawPaw had not made it there yet. Daddy didn’t get to see Sissy until the next day. Momma had already told him he’d better not show up unless he had a dozen red roses. She’s a smart gal, my Momma. That may have been the last dozen roses she got from Daddy as I don’t remember ever seeing any in our house while I was growing up. Where is one to find a dozen red roses in a tiny military town on New Year’s day? Well–Daddy managed to find a florist who was closed but in their shop preparing for a wedding. Bless her heart, the florist listened to his story, then fixed him up a bunch of roses so Momma would let him into the hospital room.

To be continued. . .

Me in a pink baby carrier. Pink sponge curlers in my sister's hair.

Here I am in the Florida City Dairy Queen baby carrier. This photo HAD to have been taken on a Saturday night AFTER my Sister’s bath, or on a Sunday morning before the curlers were extracted for church. If I sniffed hard enough, I might be able to smell the Dippity-do. You can also see her perfectly cut bangs. Momma managed this by putting a piece of Scotch tape across our bangs so that she could cut a straight line even if we moved. I TOLD you she was a smart woman!

The Sunshine State

My parents married at the end of December, 1962. They took off for a honeymoon in Colorado leaving my Granny in tears, because Momma had forgotten her winter coat, and Granny was just SURE she was going to freeze to death. It was a nice coat too–very expensive black wool with a fur collar bought from THE store in a nearby town. They made it to Colorado where Daddy hunted, they experienced their first ever white Christmas, and Momma (much to her own delight) threw caution to the wind and ordered a hamburger for Christmas dinner. It was what she wanted, and there was no one to tell her she couldn’t.

Within two weeks, Momma was back in Wilmot, Arkansas to finish her first year of teaching, and Daddy went into the Air Force. While Momma was teaching 5th grade and renting a room from a someone, Daddy was at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio later moving on to Amarillo. During the course of that (I’m sure long and frustrating) winter and spring, they managed to see each other twice. Daddy was able to fly into Shreveport one weekend. Granny accompanied Momma on the (then) three hour trip–more then likely to make sure she didn’t forget her coat this time–and stayed with her sister, Georgia Bea, while Momma and Daddy holed up in a hotel room. Later on Momma flew to Amarillo–the only time she’s flown in her life–where she also began and ended her life of petty crime by taking the fork from her airline meal. The lady next to her suggested it saying that if Momma put her napkin on her plate when they came to take it away, they’d never miss that fork. I guess they never did. . .but the fork still lived in our silverware drawer when I was kid.

Daddy came home about week before Momma’s school year was done hauling an 8′x40′ trailer with him. He had purchased it in Amarillo with insurance money he’d gotten from his registered quarter horse that had died. As soon as she packed her 5th-graders off for summer, they hooked the trailer up to Daddy’s truck and took off for Homestead, Florida with Daddy’s sister, my Aunt Sue, following behind them in their car. That’s a long trip with a 40′ travel trailer. When they were crossing the Old Mississippi River Bridge which was all of two lanes, they met a tractor trailer rig going the opposite direction. Daddy said the man STOPPED his rig in the middle of the bridge, then covered his face with both hands afraid to look. Evidently there was about a one or two inch clearance. Daddy had to tell Momma about it. She didn’t see that part. She was too busy hanging out the passenger window to make sure they weren’t scraping off the side of the bridge. She probably didn’t tell Granny about that until much, much later–if ever.

Oh. . .and when they GOT to Florida? Trailers JUST LIKE the one Daddy hauled from Amarillo to northeastern Louisiana, then down to the southern tip of Florida–very NEARLY the entire breadth of the country? They had ‘em there for, as Momma says, a dime a dozen.

To be continued. . .

Aren’t they cute? I love this picture. . .which is a photocopy, so Momma, I need a better copy.

More about the written word

Today Stephanie posted a little something about this awesome thing that she found. It is there to motivate people to write letters, and I said, “Sign me up.” I am already a letter writer–or a card writer if I’m short on time. When I was in high school, I found this essay by Garrison Keillor in a magazine. Reader’s Digest I think as I recall cutting and pasting it (with scissors and tape) to put it on one letter sized page.? Either way, I immediately claimed it as my own muse and made copies of it to share with people and waved it far and wide. I still love it. It is wonderful. Enjoy.

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How to write a letter

by Garrison Keillor (written for Corrine Guntzel)

We shy persons need to write a letter now and then, or else we’ll dry up and blow away. It’s true. And I speak as one who loves to reach for the phone, dial the number, and talk. I say, “Big Bopper here – what’s shakin’, babes?” The telephone is to shyness what Hawaii is to February, it’s a way out of the woods, and yet: a letter is better.

Such a sweet gift – a piece of handmade writing, in an envelope that is not a bill, sitting in our friend’s path when she trudges home from a long day spent among wahoos and savages, a day our words will help repair. They don’t need to be immortal, just sincere. She can read them twice and again tomorrow: You’re someone I care about, Corrine, and think of often and every time I do you make me smile.

We need to write, otherwise nobody will know who we are. They will have only a vague impression of us as A Nice Person, because, frankly, we don’t shine at conversation, we lack the confidence to thrust our faces forward and say, “Hi! I’m Heather Hooten; let me tell you about my week.” Mostly we say “Uh-huh” and “Oh, really.” People smile and look over our shoulder, looking for someone else to meet.

So a shy person sits down and writes a letter. To be known by another person – to meet and talk freely on the page – to be close despite distance. To escape from anonymity and be our own sweet selves and express the music of our souls.

Same thing that moves a giant rock star to sing his heart out in front of 123,000 people moves us to take a ballpoint in hand and write a few lines to our dear Aunt Eleanor. We want to be known. We want her to know that we have fallen in love, that we quit our job, that we’re moving to New York, and we want to say a few things that might not get said in casual conversation: Thank you for what you’ve meant to me, I’m very happy right now.

The first step in writing letters is to get over the guilt of not writing. You don’t “owe” anybody a letter. Letters are a gift. The burning shame you feel when you see unanswered mail makes it harder to pick up a pen and makes for a cheerless letter when you finally do. I feel bad about not writing, but I’ve been so busy, etc. Skip this. Few letters are obligatory, and they are Thanks for the wonderful gift and I am terribly sorry to hear about George’s death and Yes, you’re welcome to stay with us next month, and not many more than that. Write those promptly if you want to keep your friends. Don’t worry about the others, except love letters, of course. When your true love writes, Dear Light of My Life, Joy of My Heart, O Lovely Pulsating Core of My Sensate Life, some response is called for.

Some of the best letters are tossed off in a burst of inspiration, so keep your writing stuff in one place where you can sit down for a few minutes and (Dear Roy, I am in the middle of a book entitled We Are Still Married but thought I’d drop you a line. Hi to your sweetie, too) dash off a note to a pal. Envelopes, stamps, address book, everything in a drawer so you can write fast when the pen is hot.

A blank white eight-by-eleven sheet can look as big as Montana if the pen’s not so hot – try a smaller page and write boldly. Or use a note card with a piece of fine art on the front; if your letter ain’t good, at least they get the Matisse. Get a pen that makes a sensuous line, get a comfortable typewriter, a friendly word processor – whichever feels easy to the hand.

Sit for a few minutes with the blank sheet in front of you, and meditate on the person you will write to, let your friend come to mind until you can almost see her or him in the room with you. Remember the last time you saw each other and how your friend looked and what you said and what perhaps was unsaid between you, and when your friend becomes real to you, start to write.

Write the salutation – Dear You – and take a deep breath and plunge in. A simple declarative sentence will do, followed by another and another and another. Tell us what you’re doing and tell it like you were talking to us. Don’t think about grammar, don’t think about lit’ry style, don’t try to write dramatically, just give us your news. Where did you go, who did you see, what did they say, what do you think?

If you don’t know where to begin, start with the present moment: I’m sitting at the kitchen table on a rainy Saturday morning. Everyone is gone and the house is quiet. Let your simple description of the present moment lead to something else, let the letter drift gently along.

The toughest letter to crank out is one that is meant to impress, as we all know from writing job applications; if it’s hard work to slip off a letter to a friend, maybe you’re trying too hard to be terrific. A letter is only a report to someone who already likes you for reasons other than your brilliance. Take it easy.

Don’t worry about form. It’s not a term paper. When you come to the end of one episode, just start a new paragraph. You can go from a few lines about the sad state of pro football to your fond memories of Mexico to your cat’s urinary tract infection to a few thoughts on personal indebtedness and on to the kitchen sink and what’s in it. The more you write, the easier it gets, and when you have a True True Friend to write to, a compadre, a soul sibling, then it’s like driving a car down a country road, you just get behind the keyboard and press on the gas.

Don’t tear up the page and start over when you write a bad line – try to write your way out of it. Make mistakes and plunge on. Let the letter cook along and let yourself be bold. Outrage, confusion, love – whatever is in your mind, let it find a way on to the page. Writing is a means of discovery, always, and when you come to the end and write Yours ever or Hugs and kisses, you’ll know something you didn’t when you wrote Dear Pal.

Probably your friend will put your letter away, and it’ll be read again a few years from now – and it will improve with age. And forty years from now, your friend’s grandkids will dig it out of the attic and read it, a sweet and precious relic of the ancient eighties that gives them a sudden clear glimpse of you and her and the world we old-timers knew. You will then have created an object of art. Your simple lines about where you went, who you saw, what they said, will speak to those children and they will feel in their hearts the humanity of our times.

You can’t pick up a phone and call the future and tell them about our times. You have to pick up a piece of paper.

Watching a Movie with My Girl

Victoria has not felt well this week. It’s just a cold, but this morning, I took one look at her and knew she needed to stay home and rest. I sent lesson plans via e-mail and telephone, and then sent her back to bed and crawled back in myself having felt the same way she has for the same amount of time.

When I woke up again, I found her in front of the computer working on a yearbook spread with her algebra and English homework completed. Yes–she is THAT child. PLUS, she had already bemoaned the fact that she would miss school today. “I don’t WANT to miss school. We are Doing Things, and I will miss Them.” There were two reasons she relented. One: She felt crummy. Two: She has made it to the district science fair again this year and judging is tomorrow. She’d rather miss Things today than miss explaining her project tomorrow afternoon.

In an effort to keep her still–I proposed a movie–Sense and Sensibility. Now from the time she was a tiny thing, she has asked about a million and two questions during a movie–DRIVES HER DADDY NUTS!!! When we first showed her and Thad The Lord of the Rings trilogy–we set her up with a notebook and pen to write down questions. I promised her we would stop every so often so that I could answer them.

It was the same today–it’s a two hour movie (1995 version with Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, etc.), but it took us a little over three hours to watch it. Seriously. There was that much stopping and starting and rewinding and explaining and . . .you get the picture. ESPECIALLY since this is my analytical, pragmatic, logical 13 1/2 year old who finds the class system of 17th century England ridiculous. The notion of a woman not being able to make her own way in the world–having to marry for money and station, or keep an engagement of marriage that you gave or accepted rashly–having to hide one’s true feelings and speak in riddles, well, it was beyond her.

Maybe one day she will, instead, watch the film (or read the book) and recognize the forward thinking of one Jane Austen–how she shows that even in that time period SOME girls wished for more: an education, a job, a marriage filled with love rather than money or convenience alone. As the mother of a girl who tends to shake off the entrapments of a 2012 teenager, I think Victoria will some day find she has more in common with this genre than she thinks.

Meanwhile–I got to spend the afternoon with her, and talk about how things have changed and how things have not. . .I got to tell her (again) that even if she decides on the way down the aisle hanging on to her Daddy’s arm that she CANNOT marry the man waiting at the front for her–she can stop it all. AND I got to watch a GREAT movie.

Home

As I drive to work–or home from work, I have a great and grand opportunity to think–to observe. My drive takes me down some very pastoral roads, through woods and fields and farms.

A little over a week ago I saw a calf that was merely an hour or two old. It was standing for the first time. Momma cow stood back a little to give the baby some room AND some motivation–what need has a baby to stand up and walk if Momma is right there? I recognized this event as I was hurtling past–so I stopped and backed up and took a moment to watch. The baby got its wobbly hind legs organized, then proceeded to come up onto one front leg at a time–listing a little with the effort. It was a snow white calf–so white it was glowing–and white calves don’t stay that way for long. It sort of half walked, half stumbled over to its Momma–they touched noses–the baby leaned against her neck and shoulder. I relayed this word for word to my friend, Carolyn, (she sent me a blue tooth, so I had BOTH hands firmly on the wheel) as I had nearly scared her to death with my exclamation of joy over realizing that I was witnessing an event!

There are other times I am driving home after dark. I may have my windows down, or the car vents open to let it some cool, night air. The dew has fallen, and if it weren’t pitch black dark, I would see a mist hovering over the field. There is a scent of my childhood that comes into the windows. It is the smell of damp, dead grass mixed with green clover and cattle–manure, sweat, fur. It’s not necessarily something you’d bottle and sell, but it calls me home. Not to the home where I’m physically headed, but to the one where I started.

I was talking to an older gentleman at church one Sunday a while ago and told him we were “going home.” He said, “No. Your home is here with your husband and children.” It was an admonition of sorts–he said it remind me of where my heart should be. I get that. I’ve often said that home is where Tony is. I am, after all, the one who hied off to the big, ‘ole city of Houston to be with the man. But I didn’t need to be reminded. I also didn’t feel like explaining myself. I just smiled and nodded and moved on to my pew. And I thought about where home really is. Yes–home is where my husband is, it’s where we live and raise our children. But I’ve had MANY homes; some where I lived for years; some where I lived for a few months; some where I’ve owned or rented a dwelling; some where I have been a visitor but am treated like family; some where I have worked or gone to camp or school; some where I have felt a deep attachment after being there only once; and One Home that I’ve never seen with my eyes but know with my heart.

To Write

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. ~Norbet Platt

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. ~Isaac Asimov

Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn’t we? ~Terri Guillemets

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 19 August 1851

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. ~Francis Bacon
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I have not written in a long time. From December of 2008 to spring of 2010, I set upon a year+ of writing to my friend. It was a wonderful year of letters flying to and fro on real paper with real stamps. It was wonderful.

I used to write here too–and it was good for me to do it.

There are things that make me feel better. Reading, writing, long walks–and those, for some reason, are the things I don’t take the time to do. That should be remedied. . .and it can only be remedied by me. So. Here is my beginning. (And thank you Stephanie and Sandy for the inspiration to do so.)

Photos

Sunday morning sunshine

Composition

My house from the road

Twinkle

(You can click on these photos to see them super-sized. And I just got a sparkly, spinning gold star from WordPress for publishing my 800th post.)

Goin’ Goth

The things we do to engage our learners. Today my team dressed in Goth to teach Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” As one of my students put it, “That is a pretty gruesome story.” She is VERY correct. But they couldn’t argue that it was boring or stupid.

Reactions varied to my “new” appearance. My own children hated it. I tried out the darker lipstick and black eyeliner Sunday night after church. Victoria told me I looked stupid (and she REALLY meant it to say that), while Thad turned his back and refused to give me a second glance after the first glimpse of me. It was as though he would turn into the proverbial pillar of salt if he had to lay eyes on me once more in THAT get-up.

This morning my Sonic gal greeted me with my large diet coke and a, “Well, don’t YOU look pretty today.” Hmmm. . .what do I NORMALLY look like? Of course, she does usually see me before I have on ANY make-up, but STILL. My students ranged from, “Miss, you look pretty/Mrs. Langley, I like your makeup/You look nice today” to shrieking/physically jumping BACK from me/telling me how freaky/scary/wicked/evil I looked.

Here is Liz–a strawberry blond who was rockin’ the black wig and a crow. She is married to one of Houston’s Finest and has a little boy that loves Legos as much as mine does.

Jen–I LOVE the way this app transformed the poster behind her into somewhat of a crown. I think she looks lovely–the tilt of her face makes her look like she is being turned into a cameo. She has a baby boy–wonder what HE thought of Mama in her Goth makeup.

Carrie–the baby of the bunch. She was born my sophomore year in college. She is WAY cool and has the most gorgeous ash blond hair you have EVER seen.

The kids got home before I got my makeup off. Thad wouldn’t look at me. Victoria pretended I wasn’t wearing it. But I am HAPPY to report that my husband DID like it–and Victoria bequeathed a “That is SO COOL!!!!” upon this photo once it was transformed somewhat.

Now–I got them to listen to the story. . .if I can just get them to do the WORK that goes with it.

Serendipitous, Happenstantial Providence

Things I do not believe:

“There are no accidents.” Yes. There are. My Daddy losing his leg was an accident. He was where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, and someone who didn’t know he was there turned on a switch, and presto–accident.

“Everything happens for a reason.” No. They don’t. Sometimes things just happen. See above.

“It was God’s will.” Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. It is God’s will for babies to be born. It is not God’s will for babies to die. Actually, it is not God’s will for ANYONE to die. Thus the Garden of Eden (which people screwed up), and then sending Jesus so we NEVER have to die–not really. I do not believe it was God’s will for Daddy to lose his leg. But God let it happen. And Daddy continued to believe in God and serve as a wonderful (if imperfectly human) testament of how to deal with tragic accidents by leaning heavily on the grace of God.

Things I DO believe:

God uses accidents to bring about His purposes.

God uses things that happen to bring about His purposes.

God is with us in accidents and in things that happen for no particular reason other than the fact that we live in a fallen world where death and accidents and “things” happen.

God exerts and exercises His will through earthly happenstance every single day, and we can SEE Him doing that if we take a moment to open our eyes–if we “treasure” and “ponder things” in our hearts as did Mary, the mother of Jesus, so that in the fullness of time, we can look back and see the loveliness of God’s hand taking the ashes we are given by a fallen world, and turning them into beauty.

I say all of that to say, that forty-four years ago, a baby was born in Sweden. Her parents had an unlikely meeting. I think that she, like me, would say that the eventual ending of their marriage–though not surprising–was tragic. But that brought this Swedish lass to the United States–more specifically to the birthplace of her mother in Texas. There, in Texas, she met a boy. They really, really liked each other a lot and got married and had two wonderful sons who have yet to make their final, indelible mark on the world, but are working on it every day.

She followed this boy that she met to a small, Christian university in Arkansas. There was another girl there–one who had been born in a tiny, back-water town in Louisiana. And through some serendipitous happenstance (that both girls believe to this day was God exacting His will) they met.

You see how murky the waters can become.

falling in love and having a beautiful baby girl=good
divorce=bad
family splitting up across an ocean=bad
meeting your future husband=good
meeting a friend=good

But if you know that God sees through the murk, and you focus your eye on the light He shines through the dimness and uncertainties of life, then you see Him all over the place.

See the photo below? Click on it.

Chances of Stephanie meeting Roxanne=infinitesimally small (cuz, DUDE, that ocean is very, very large)

The Mighty Google=”We could not calculate directions between Lund Municipality, Sweden and Bastrop, LA.”

God=INCREDIBLY, GIGANTICALLY, MIND-BLOWINGLY HUGE and WAY SMARTER than Google.

Accident. . .happenstance. . .a mere “thing”. It matters not. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.“ So says James, the brother of Jesus, who should know and who was inspired to say so. Therefore, our meeting is classified under “God” as far as I am concerned.

Today is Stephanie Gabrielle’s birthday. But I (and the rest of the world too) am the one who got the gift of her presence.

Thank you, God, for my lovely, lovely friend. She is a blessing and a treasure, and you knew how much, how long, and in how many ways I would need her over the course of my adult life–from the very beginning to now and, hopefully, for much, much longer.

Happy birthday, my unlikely, God-given friend. The Atlantic Ocean turned out not to be so big after all. And I think you rock.