Today I’m guest posting over at Elizabeth Howard’s Letters from a Small State. And I do want you to go there!
Enjoy. (And don’t get hit by the death ray.)
Don’t go there
We saved for a long time
It was going to be our great extravagant dinner to end all dinners. The atmosphere was nice. Very French cafe. Very authentic.
We had saved all year long, putting the money toward one great event. (Yes, even the kids made sacrifices.) We decided to have an elegant French dinner. Heather had been inspired by a book written by Julia Child, describing her years in Paris.
Huge disappointment. No baguette and butter as a warm-up. Ben’s entrée was the most expensive – and the worst. (I won’t even describe it.) The dessert was far less tasty than what we had at the pâtisserie just down the street from where we stayed.
Alas.
Moral of the story? Don’t put all your hopes in one basket. You may be disappointed. And, be sure to read those guide books before you make a commitment.
Don’t worry, I gave them a really bad writeup on Google Places.
The Giving Tree, Redux
This is a guest post by Elizabeth Howard. Read more about her at the end.
Remember that book – The Giving Tree – we all read it, or listened to it when we were kids? About the boy who kept taking and taking from the beautiful, old tree until all that was left was a stump?
Why are we supposed to love this book? Other than it teaches us to FEEL sad, which I suppose isn’t such an awful life lesson to learn.
A Giving Lesson
Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal more about giving, and what it takes to carve out (pardon the pun) time in each day to do something thoughtful for someone else.
I’ve been thinking about this because in the last two years, I’ve been a living, breathing sponge.
We took in four kids at our house and we needed a LOT of help. We asked and asked for it (that’s what you are supposed to do, right?) and people helped. Of course.
This is not to say I haven’t been putting out. I am a mother after all. I put out all day long, all the time, for the beautiful little needy ones that I am obliged to make full, make happy, make cookies. And most days I do end the day feeling like that generally-happy, but used-up stump.
But I think I am exhausted because I haven’t been giving ENOUGH back. I haven’t spent ENOUGH time doing those little things that take weight off the shoulders of friends, and stangers.
The not doing is what is making me tired.
So I think that Shel Silverstein didn’t quite get The Giving Tree right. It wasn’t the giving up and giving away that made the tree old, used up, and made us readers bummed.
It was knowing what the boy missed out on: not planting another tree for company, not sprinkling his friend with water, or planting the earth around her with bulbs to make her beautiful in the spring.
It’s the giving back that’s missing.
At Letters from a Small State, writer Elizabeth Howard examines how we survive and occasionally thrive in America, through the lens of our smallest details. A writer and poet living in Connecticut with her new family, she works daily in her own slivers of creative space and time. She also took the photograph.
Once Custom
My friend Johanna reminded me that things tarnish with time. Even beautiful Cadillacs.
So as I rode my bicycle past this 40 year old pickup, I remembered that the original owner loved it the day he drove it off the Chevrolet dealer’s parking lot. He had a great time taking his wife or best friend for a ride. He waxed the red paint with great care a few months later. He spent more at the car wash each month than his friends spent on their kids’ birthdays.
And now it’s sitting in a parking lot, having not been driven for at least 15 years. Sad.
Proud of America
Hiba Ibrahim spoke at at Ben’s graduation ceremony (or continuation ceremony). Her family immigrated from Sudan to Littleton, Colorado, about five or so years ago. Her speech reflected complete adjustment to life here. Her delivery showed confidence and poise. She had a totally American accent.
I was so proud of our country for accepting Hiba and her family! She has many more opportunities to excel and grow as a person and contribute to society here than she would have had in her warn-torn village in southern Sudan. Reflecting on this brought tears to my eyes.
p.s. Horrible photo? Again, I was a long distance from the stage.
Proud of Ben
Ben graduated from Euclid Middle School last week. I was and am really proud. Jay preceded him by two years, but it was no less special. It’s is a stepping stone to high school, then college, and then that first job. And each achievement is not just a given. It’s something to be recognized and be grateful for.
Gary Hein is Ben’s principal – shown shaking Ben’s hand. (The shaky hand holding the camera was mine.) He has provided excellent leadership for the entire staff and student body.
One thing I learned is that when you finish middle school, you don’t graduate. You “continue”. (It was a “continuation ceremony”.)
p.s. Horrible photo? I was a long distance from the stage.
Advice that should be given
One of the most memorable moments of design school was when the lead professor (Frank Cheatham) said, “If you are here to learn to draw better horses, then you are in the wrong place.”
That always stuck with me. When we enter a learning experience with too strong an idea of what we want to get out of it, we will probably not learn very much.
Somehow I wanted to work that thought around to my next idea, but I couldn’t figure out how. Maybe it’s that the above advice should have been given a long time ago to a young person I know. They are in a program that is just not suited to them. They are so far down the road that it’s too late to do something else. They seem to be happy enough (though the course of study is quite a challenge), but no one has ever given that advice.
They are (proverbially) drawing a lot of horses. Hours and hours, days and days, spent drawing more horses.
I’m a bit ashamed that I did not have the courage to say something.
Would you have said something?
The horse painting – it’s copyright-free from Dover Publications. And the artist must have enjoyed creating it.
A tale of grace
My friend Dave is shown with his last-born son Liam. What a blessing he has been to their family. And this picture shows how a newborn baby can be truly cute!
I would go into more details on why Liam is a tale of grace, but I respect others’ privacy. (I am baiting Dave by asking him to blog again… ever so discretely.)
I will never understand
…Why people throw things out the window of their car. That is a mentality I just cannot get a grasp of.
I remember a friend in Texas who grew up in New York state. He married a woman from “the Valley” of Texas – way south. Whenever he visited her family, he was amazed at how many people there threw their trash out the windows of their moving cars (or trucks, as the case might have been).
Their marriage did not last. I don’t think their differences in trash placement was the reason.
Anyhow, I am the opposite of a trash-thrower. I actually pick it up. If it’s recyclable, I’ll do that. (My immediate family usually nods and smiles. And I try to not pick up any if we are in the company of others we know.)
Finally, my little tale of redeeming some of the bad effects of trash… when I was in Kenya, I created photographic art out of the rubbish I found on beaches & along the sides of the road. Here are a few examples.
What’s important
So my kids have this thing about leaving the lid off the toothpaste. Whenever I go in the bathroom we share, I see the lid missing. I get mad. I raise my voice.
Heather, being the balancing agent she is in my life, reminded me that I was making a big deal out of something small. I agreed.
How important is it if the toothpaste dries out? Not very. Is it worth paying three times more for toothpaste that has a magic lidless dispenser? No. Should I fight my kids over something so small? No.
Takeaway: Focus on what’s important today. (Reminder to self.)
