The Old Man

I haven't written poetry much since we got married, hardly any since Marie, and none at all since Jed. Several times I was in one of those wish-I-was-inspired-because-I-feel-like-writing-poetry sort of moods. But I didn't work to get inspired long enough to actually write any.

Then my husband had this incredible nightmarish dream, of the sort that changes lives. Inspiration. I did not do it justice, by any means, especially conveying the terror, but I think it is a powerful poem still. At least it could be if I felt like editing it...

I know I didn't post last week, but I thought that since I posted three times the previous week and worked on two new posts, I'd let it go.

Here it is.

The Old Man

I drew the soft and midnight blue
up to my arms and cuddled down
beside my wife and chubby babe
the creaking bed the only sound.
I thought of child asleep in bed,
her tiny bum stuck in the air,
I had checked on her a bit before,
peeking in the bedroom atop the stair.
Laying the babe in his round blue bed
beneath the layers, five at least,
my darling turned with a quiet smile,
and we silently waited while the warmth increased.

She ran her fingers through my beard,
Curled and thick and brown,
"You're warm," she whispered. I didn't look,
but heard the smile in her sound.
The weekend had gone much too fast,
But I was too tired to say.
So I thought of wife and children and home
As I quietly drifted away.

The light flashed through the walls
Piercing my dreams,
And I woke in a cold, hard sweat.
But the room was dark
and the sheets were cold
in the empty space where my wife had been.
The sound of drums
shaking the house
merged with the hiccuping pound of my heart
And my quivering eyes
peered over the edge
and the state of abandoned baby quilts
suddenly emptied that heart.

The motion light in the neighbor's yard
beat like something possessed,
And through the crooked bedroom door,
I could see that light was matched by the rest.

Somewhere some music was pounding a beat
I never had heard before,
And something was out there,
and then my feet hit the icy floor.
My fingers wrapped around the hard white edge
and yanked vainly on the crooked door,
And tears rolled as I bit my lip,
But when I lifted my hand,
my cheeks were dry as before.

My steps on the fake wood floor
matched my still-beating heart,
back to the cavernous closet deep
where my guns stood like stalagmites
in black shadows
till my anger began to seep.

My fingers hit the slimy walls,
and my knees banged to the ground.
No rifle barrel
No bullet box
Only a scratching sound.

I grasped the iron leg of my bed
Felt for the solid cord,
But the black metal house of my pistol
never met where my fingers explored.

I jumped to my feet,
gritting my teeth,
fingernails digging my skin,
banged open the door,
ignoring the lights,
and the music that withered me in.

My hand seemed to flow
through the wooden post
as I bounded up the stair,
plunging into the deep dark,
killed when I found
what I knew would not be there.

My finger dug the pack'n'play walls
in my silent anguished scream,
and the gray carpet seemed to crawl
Slimy and black and green.

Her doll house lay
like a murder scene
I felt tiny fingers down my back.
I desperately looked for anything
I could use for my attack.

I thought of the post,
but when I got to the stairway,
it was gone
and all the while there beat on a tune
like a world-ending song.

My feet knew the way around the corner
up the single kitchen stair
but straight ahead the backroom loomed
with black hole darkness
and I knew that he was there.

The flowery curls of the calendar
mocked me on the bloody wall.
I blinked; it was no longer there.
It faded to a rack of blades
that returned my angry stare.
I grasped a machete, heavy, stout,
and stepped
ahead.
My t-shirt had gained another hole,
I hadn't noticed when.
The pulse came from that room,
and the smoke, it billowed out.
And now I must summon my voice
cowering inside
with a fear-inspiring shout.

"I'll kill you!" I cried
before the wall
of smoke and menacing sound.
And I saw the slithering shadow,
and thought of my darling,
and stood my ground.

That monster had stolen my children, my life,
behind that opening without a door,
And my face stood strong
though my insides shook till they were sore.

"Come out, you fiend!" I cried,
machete above my head,
and I pictured his limbs writhing about
until I crushed him dead.

He advanced through the fog
as I prepared to strike
any monster I could see,
till the darkness faded
and the pounding stopped,
and the monster,
it was me.

"I'll kill you!" I cried,
facing myself,
gritting terror and tears,
I looked in my eyes
and saw all I had done,
and advanced despite my fears.

A Cleaning Plan

A specification of one of my New Year's "resolutions" occurred to me as I was sweeping today. My goal this year is to keep the house clean. I have a vision of what this will be like, but I am wary of goals without plans. How am I going to keep up with it? Will the memory of how nice it was at New Year's Eve to see the clean gray floor and feel comfortable with anyone going in any room (except the office...) be enough? Seems unlikely.

But as I swept the carpet (urgently, before Marie scattered any more toys than she already had in the few minutes since she had come down after her nap), a plan seemed to come to mind.

For this month, January, I will keep the living room clean. 

Every day, I will pick everything up. Even toys that will be soon scattered again will be corralled, and Bible studies that will again be scattered on the couch will be properly shelved. That's actually harder than the toys...I may need to work on finding proper, regular places for things.

I will also sweep regularly. This I have found to be particularly helpful in getting rooms clean. Also, it's amazing how much cleaner they feel even if you didn't notice them being dirty before the sweeping. The feeling is very conducive to keeping up the habit.

I think I will add to this making sure the dishes are done, completely, every day. This is becoming easier to do as Jed isn't as demanding at night. The first two months it was difficult to get much accomplished during the evenings, and if I got behind it took two cleaning sessions to get the dishes done, so it was hard to catch up.

Hopefully after a month of focusing on this, living room and dish upkeep will be a habit. Then next month, I will add keeping the kitchen cleaned (aided by my already established habit of doing the dishes) and swept daily.

So, each month, I will add a cleaning habit. Perhaps if I am struggling to upkeep all of them, I'll have a catch-up month where I won't add any.

I'm excited, aren't you?

And this is why I don't share my blog...

Jedidiah Mark

Dear Jedidiah Mark,

When I think about your name I get a little scared sometimes.  

I don't mean Jedidiah; that means beloved of the Lord, and I take comfort in knowing that is what you are. But then there's Mark. Mark, after your grandfather...which is also not why I am afraid, in case you were wondering... and John Mark. John Mark, who caused division between Paul and Barnabas, two of my favorite men in Scripture. 

Here is Barnabas, the great encourager, and the great Apostle Paul, one of the most prolific writers of Scripture. And then there's John Mark, the young man who turned back. I never liked this story. It made me feel awkward, and it's sad that they divided. Although God used it to reach more people, I never like when people I respect have flaws. But that happens, Jed, and you have to be prepared for it. All men are sinners.

So here is John Mark, causing division and abandoning the work. Barnabas the encourager wants to give him another chance, but Paul is not about to take the one who turned back. So they go, each their own way. You wonder what John Mark is thinking as he follows Barnabas out, if he hangs his head or even tells Barnabas to leave him and stay with Paul. And that is the end of the combined ministry of Paul and Barnabas.

But then hidden in one of Paul's letters is a tiny little verse, almost like an offhand comment, as if he didn't want to make too big of a deal about it or it was obvious. My favorite little verse: bring John Mark with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.

It almost always makes me feel a little bit like I could cry. We didn't have to be told that he was useful. He wouldn't have asked Timothy to bring him if he wasn't. He didn't need to add that, but he did. The John Mark that had betrayed him in ministry, that he had so opposed coming back before, he now found useful for ministry. 

Like my pastor Bayly's brother Tim once said in a message at Friday Night, "useful, be useful," and there is nothing more that a Christian can ask than God finds them to be useful in ministry. 

Perhaps Paul was getting letters and reports of Barnabas and John Mark's work and was impressed by the young man and his diligence after failure. For some reason he trusts him now, and what a blessed thing that is!

And that is why I fear for you, my son. I fear that like your father did you will learn obedience and usefulness through failure. It's silly, since of course we all do, if we learn at all. But I do not want to hear how you turned back from the work and how the Pauls of today reject you as their helper. 

But if you have failed and a Barnabas comes alongside you, and you return to the work and prove useful to the apostle Pauls in your life that I pray that you will have, then I can ask no more for you. The great men are not the ones who did not sin; they are the ones who after failure continue to serve all the more. I pray that you early learn the sinfulness of men - particularly yourself - and are not shaken by it as many are, but rather are moved by the love and forgiveness of God to serve.

With my mother's heart, I shrink from the thought; and yet, I hope for failure for you, Jedidiah, that humbles you and gives you wisdom. Don't be above failure, my son. Be quick to admit it and to turn back wholeheartedly to the work.

I love you.

Love,

Mom

Purposeful New Year

Every year I marvel at the changes since last. I am always interested and amazed at how different and the unexpected changes.

A year ago, after coming back from my family's New Year's Eve party in the wee hours we sat in our white apartment with our friend who last-minute spent the night with us, telling us about how she tried not to like this guy so-unlike her imagined man but couldn't help it, while I was either wondering if I was pregnant or a bit sad that the (one of way too many according to my husband) pregnancy test I took said I wasn't.

This New Year's Eve, we sat in our white living room (we were surprised how much painting it white made it feel like home) with our family and our soon-to-be-three-month-old baby in a quiet party (the next pregnancy test said that this time my wonderings were right), while I missed our friend but happily thought about her spending New Year's Eve with her fiance's family.

Some things, like my love for long sentences and Marie staying up later than about any other baby I know, never change.

This year, as always, I want to do many things. I decided to get a planner in hopes that keeping it will help me be organized. I am excited.

Focused.

Purposeful.

Don't those words just look right?  They look what they mean. I just wrote them to see what they looked like and how they struck me, but now I see that it says I am focused. I am purposeful. That may not be very true, but that is my goal for this year. Perhaps the biggest thing I learned last year was that I need to be purposeful. Being flexible is good, but I need to have a vision and work and make things happen, not just ride the waves.

Perhaps one of my goals will help with that: writing a blog again. Writing, at least a personal, blog sort of writing, always makes me think about what I'm doing and why. And evaluation is essential for being purposeful.

So, because I know that I need specific, measurable goals:

1. I will write at least one blog post per week. Posting on Monday.

Ha. I already know that isn't going to happen. But I am okay with that. Goals help me grow. They are not an end in themselves. Striving for every week and missing it half the time is still more than saying I'll do it once a month.

2. I will check my planner every day (except maybe Sundays) and do a major preview/fill-in each month.

This I do mean to maintain.

I have other goals, of course, and since I haven't made them specific enough yet, maybe I shall now.

3. Exercise...

Never mind. That will be made more specific later. I need my husband's drive for that one. Hmm...but maybe a contest...because last time if he didn't exercise I lost my motivation to. And he didn't think having ice cream as a reward every time I exercised was a good idea.

4. This is a fun goal: to do a mini session day for Cornwell Camera. I really want to do this. And now I'm thinking about doing a snow one. That might be the only way I can convince people to do a snow session, and taking pictures in the snow is really great.

5. Keep the house clean and organized.

I'm not sure how to make this specific. But these past few days, after making sure (almost) the whole house was clean and presentable, I (and Parker!) have been loving the feeling and look and peacefulness of having an orderly home. So I want to remember this feeling to give me motivation to keep up on things. 

And I think that is key. Once I get behind, I give up. So my goal is to maintain orderliness, and gradually add to it (the backroom, the office area, the garage, the closets...). So I perhaps need to add something I've realized (as Parker points it out). Small decisions. So put away my mug when I'm done. Wipe up Marie's tray after every meal. Put the clothes away right away. No laziness and putting things off. PROMPTNESS.

6. Never be late.

Woah. That would be impressive. I just added that on a whim after writing prompt in all caps. So...plan ahead, crunch time numbers, add more and more and more built-in flex time, lay out clothes the night before, make food early and let it cool off if necessary.

I'll let you know how that one goes.

7. Never say interesting.

Ouch. That may be the hardest one yet. Maybe even more than not being late and exercising and keeping the house.

Or, maybe not.

Anyway, I like to use interesting. People always think it's negative when I don't mean it to be. "Thanks for the shirt," I might say. "It's interesting." They hear, "Thanks for the shirt [sarcastic voice]. It is strange and I don't like it." But interesting merely means arousing curiosity or catching attention, and that can be a good thing. I like interesting things.

I will admit there are times when Parker will say, "What do you think of that song?" and I'll say, "It's interesting," and that will mean, I like thinking about it, but not enough to desire to hear it again.

But that isn't why I want to stop using interesting. The reason is this: it's lazy and, well, as illustrated above, it can mean just about anything and thus means nothing. A "non-word," as my father-in-law recently informed me.

If I don't tell Parker that the movie he wanted to watch was interesting, I have to think of a real description. And I might say that I didn't like it because it made me feel sad even though the story line about the dad betraying his daughter did interest me. And that might lead to an....in-depth...conversation (it's already so hard!) and we might end up understanding each other better. And that is a very good thing.

Perhaps very should go next.

That is an excellent thing. A profitable thing. A beneficial thing.

8. Make something from my new cookbook, Extending the Table,, at least once a week.

I think this will be a good way of expanding my cooking abilities and our interests in general, as it is a multicultural book; it also is generally cheap cooking, which is good. Perhaps there is a blog post about it in my future.

9. Teach Marie verses.

Marie will repeat almost anything you tell her, though it will sound exactly the same as something else you tell her to, and she knows m, o, and a. This year she will turn 2. So I want to starting teaching her verses. I need to look into what ones would be good for first verses to memorize.

10. Read books.

I have hardly read a book outside of Bible studies in a few years. I am not sure what a good goal is. Every choice to do something is a choice not to do other things, so I'm not sure how much this is a priority. One per month? I don't think I would come close to a higher goal. Perhaps that would be good. I will write the book that I want to read each month on that page in my planner.

I could keep going on forever. However, eventually I would come to 1259. Be disciplined in going to bed. Actually that would probably be more like 19. I was going to say thus ends the first day of 2018, but it's already the beginning of the second. I'm not sure if that is an auspicious start or not.