Lines

"Mom, I like doing grown-up things," Jane says, dinner splayed around the table. She tilts a white soup bowl, shifts the dregs of rice and chicken, celery and rosemary, into a brothy pool. She rounds out her spoon, slurps it off.

"Yeah?" I spin a black lid off the Bavarian seasoning, shake a dusting over my bowl. I wrestle crackers from a cellophane bag and mound soupy rice onto them. The sea salt crunches between my teeth.

"Even if it's something I don't like doing," she says, "I like it because it means I get to have more privileges."

I lean to see her face around a fucia daliah stemmed in an old milk bottle. "You're starting to think like a grown-up," I say.

"I'd do almost anything to think like a grown-up," she says. I smile, the old halogen lamp casting a yellow glow around the black table.

"You're growing up fast." I murmur. "It's so true. It's just like everyone says."

Someone clatters in looking for jammies, another calls for toothpaste. There at eye level with cracker crumbs and puddles of broth, I pause the scatter, mentally trace this horizon line, this gossamer thread that separates girl and woman.

A silent moment, an imperceptible nod, and we both know it's there: the line.

Then it's Thursday. I bustle past my bedroom, securing the last details of the evening, Jane moored there on my bed reading until she's tired.

"G'd night, Jane," I say.

"Night, Momma."

I slip on an old pair of Craig's socks, grab my knitting.

"I just love this part," she peeks around the corner of Prince Caspian. "It's food to my spirit."  I turn to face her, slow the moment. "Let me put it this way," she says, "You can tell it was written by a Christian, and it's really getting to the good part." She nods, grins, sloughs a shoulder up by her ear. "Every part is a good part," she says.

I smile into her azure eyes, the story piquant and permeating the room.

"Yup. Love you."

"Love you too."

With that, she's charioting the story again, memorizing the moves of courage and honor, failure, redemption. Threads of gold, gossamer, filmy, and fine, sheer threads -- I feel them here, again.

It's food for my spirit, she says -- gentle dividing lines, nuances of thought, diaphanous, perfect lines.

My move. I step into the hall, slip past the golden mean, something precise and iridescent behind me.

Gratitude:

4882. I catch up on accounting phone calls.

4883. We get at least one day of sign language this week.

4884. We eat tri-tip stew with prime rib broth, the sisters-in-law and I feel like queens on Tuesday at Mom's.

4885. Do Hard Things, we listen to another section: the importance of doing small hard things. I watch Jane soak it in.

4886. Jane bakes apple crisp for Craig and me.

4887. Myra gives me a back rub. "Want to snuggle with one of my babies while I do this?" she asks grin split across her face.

4888. "Wow," Jane comments when Joey takes off wearing only a diaper. "Joey's growing outward," she says.

4889. "My baby's havin' a piggy-back," Myra says, and tosses Olive Sunny up on Lucy's back as we cavort inside after waving at Craig.

4890. Myra hugs me and hiccups in my ear.

4891. Fabric. Polkadots of all kinds. Mom and I go material shopping.

4892. My nephews come over twice in one week. The children run wild with bliss, all nine of them, until their cheeks are peached with fall air and bellies growling for food. We circle up and thank the Lord for all the good in this day. And then we get the good news, their baby sister has been born. Hooray, another life! Glory to God. Congratulations Dan and Cerissa.

4893. Craig and I cuddle up for a date night, knitting, bunchy socks, and apple crisp included.

4894. Joey makes hay with the 25 lb. bag of flour while the cousins are here. Everyone agrees: It's spectacular.

4895. I make matching skirts for Jane and me. Black, white polkadots, the grown-up kind.

4896. Jack wraps his hands around my neck. "Want me to go get the heater from downstairs," he says, "and point it at you so you don't get cold?" He grins into my eyes, his smile a deep dimple on each end.

4897. Craig pulls the evening into a square knot and sets Jane and me free to go visit baby Lydia and Cerissa. I relish all the firsts filling the precious evening. Freshly newborn, what a miracle to witness, suddenly the whole world is a miracle.

4898. And so we finger the edges of a new day, a newborn, a miracle.

Work

"Mom, thunderstorms remind me of the glory of God." Lucy says, the crashing thunder that woke us just shy of 5am fresh in her mind. She capers down the one-step divider that leads to the sunroom, bare feet leathery and thick with summer play.

We tritt-trot out the back, the lawn abundant and moist between our toes. We beeline for the long rectangular garden lush with tomatoes and coleus, cucumbers, marigolds, green beans, geraniums. We drop to our knees and cultivate. We sweat under noonday sun, buckets of sweat. It drips out the creases of our elbows and knees as we weed the furrows of soil.

We weed and weed and drink in that good feeling at the end of our work. Accomplishment. Hard work. It tastes like a fresh peeled orange and handful of crisp grapes. It flexes like a sinewy muscle, a bond of belonging. Work. We work together.

And then we swim.

"I'm afraid this one's a little too short," I frown. I shake the black swim skirt, give it a good tussle, hold it up to my waist, frown again. "It's okay for by the pool, but then walking home..." Jane and I both stare at it.

"Are you afraid people will think you have disrespect for your body?" she asks.

Disrespect. An almost invisible film overlays the skirt.

"Yeah, actually I am." I toss the skirt on the dryer to deal with later, and we cavort off to the pool, our shoulders light as if we could possibly take flight along the way.

Gratitude:

4611. Garlic scapes. A friend brings me garlic scapes.

4612. I tell the kids the story of John Newton. Amazing Grace.

4613. "Since Joe's so sweet, I sometimes pretend he's my baby," Lucy says. "Except I actually can't nurse him. That's the only thing."

4614. Myra scrapes the roof of her mouth. "Mom, can I have a band-aid in my mouth?" she asks. "I WILL open my mouth."

4615. Craig draws up plans for the chicken coop addition and executes. Architecture, engineering, and general contracting, simple math to his reasoning mind.

4616. Craig's brother and sister-in-law host the annual Fourth of July block party. It's a regular old-fashioned picnic, field games and all.

4617. We gather for small town fireworks with the families in our small group. Rachelle makes festive goodies in all manner of red, white, and blue, and the kids keep saying, "Happy Birthday, USA!" It's the first of a new annual tradition.

4618. I knit the first half of Lucy's new sweater.

4619. Family gathers down on the farm. We make a day around barbecued sausages and blackberry pie. We linger in the hot afternoon sun while Joey naps and various groups target practice, climb the cherry trees, or dillydally through the gardens.

4620. The cousins invite us to roast marshmallows and make s'mores. Sugar bliss, we trot home well into the night full and happy.

4621. A chalkboard, an old-fashioned green one. Craig procures a second-hand chalkboard for our school room. He hangs it next to the old farm table. The children scribble it full.

4622. I face the next season ahead, scorching hot summer, full of hope.

Swimsuit

"Momma, can we just SPEAK up like that," Jane says, "and say we're NOT buying anymore swimsuits until they make some that are modest? And it's a real shame when we see people that aren't?"

I pause, note her direct route from news article to decisive action.

Eyes earnest blue, she idles at my shoulder then flits to the toaster. She shucks the toast down, then butters warm brown bread. "You want some?"

"No, I actually really want salad. I just haven't gotten around to making it."

She sidles by, toast in hand, trit-trots out the back.

I smooth her swimsuit words through my mind, turn them over like a coin in hand. "Hey, hey come back," I call.

The open window above the sink carries my voice to her. A shuffle and she slugs the door open again.

"Yeah?" she says.

"Hey come here, I want to tell you something."

"Ok." She skips up the one step difference between sunroom and office den.

"Yes," I start, "actually in this country we can say stuff like that."

"Well, why don't you do that?" Immediately tracking, her face pleasant, eyebrows effortless, sensible, she grins. Eye to eye, I smile, the blue iris of her eyes fractured with tiny aqua veins.

"Because," I say, "I have a limited amount of time and energy, and I am devoting that to my children right now." The circles of our eyes matched face to face, I trace the guileless rim of that azure iris. Long limbs, beanpole, and whimsical, she vacillates ever so slightly right to left. "Maybe you will be the one to do that someday before you have kids," I say.

"I will." She nods as if speaking of the past. "I'd even do it right now if you let me." Hushed at the intwining of innocence and fervor, I watch. "When I say do it, I mean go to the place and just say it, right now, before I turn nine, before I start my tenth year."

The words unfold stair-step, the gentle gait of her bare feet invisible. Her cerulean eyes happy, resolved, she gambols out the back door.

I nod, boldness fresh in the air.





Gratitude:

4589. "Lucy's buttering 'em so YUMMY," Myra blisses, "and then she's letting them MELT." She leans eyelash to eyelash with the toast. "Cool. COOL. Cool," she chants, "One of 'em just melted. I saw this one MELT."

4590. "It smells like cucumbers," Myra comments on the ozone haze after the thunderstorm.

4591. The Tuesday Girls meet.

4592. Our small group makes candid conversation over pumpkin pie. The real sinew of friendship shows itself.

4593. "That's so awesome that you make bread," Craig compliments Jane. "Not very many adults make bread," he says. "Why?" she asks, "Because they make their kids do it?"

4594. "I seriously feel like I'm living with another woman here when you help like that," I tell her. "I so appreciate your help." She laughs. "Yeah. I try to make myself useful," she says.

4595. We ready the table for dinner guests, the food already done. Jack realizes we will eat as soon as the guests arrive. "You prepared most of it ahead of time, you good girl," he says.

4596. "Mom, it feels like I need to water my whistle," Jack comments before he slugs down a pint of water.

4597. "I think we should try to talk together everyday," Jane says, "not just when we have dates. And we should try to do it at times where we could do more and just see if we get carried away."

4598. We eat ham on fresh made bread, salad with cherries, Lays potato crisps, the perfect summer meal unfolds with family.

4599. A mother bird rejects her babies and keeps dropping them in the garden. "I just don't want to SEE it DIE," Jack sobs again and again as we try to put it back into the nest.

4600. "I disobeyed. I'm sorry," another child sobs and runs to me ripe with repentance.

4601. "Jane, you are just like your mother," Jack teases as she slogs the mayo container against the table to make it squirt better.

4602. Cerissa and the boys come over to play. We knit and embroider while the kids cavort around the backyard.

4603. We have an ASL class all on farmer's markets.

4604. Mom and I make a memory picking out earrings. And I get the first new earrings probably since having Jane.

4605. I complete the soft blue sweater I started for Jane with pearly white buttons and start one for Lucy. She pick a navy one.

4606. Craig starts the henhouse renovation and invents a sandwich all in one day. Ham, egg, sharp cheddar, roasted garlic and chili aioli, mmMMMmmM. We eat it two days in a row.

4607. "Mom, math is like food to my mind," Lucy says.

4608. "It doesn't' look like something you would eat except it actually does taste good," Lucy narrates as I chop a fennel bulb for salad.

4609. We tie up a few loose ends of obedience and the whole house seems to sigh with contentment.

4610. Obedience, the path to contentment.

Special

"There was someone at the pool," Lucy says, "who was wearing a swimsuit that wasn't very private." She sidles up under my elbow. I pull my eyes from the computer and see her nod in time with the words. She tilts her head.

There at my elbow, warm hands, she strokes my arm. "That's because no one taught them to be private," I say, "and cover up their special places." Her eyes round plums, she blinks at me, stares. She mimics the flat line of my eyebrows.

"Probably it won't be as special for when they get married," she concludes and watches the arc of my eyebrows to see if she's right. A small exchange, the landscape of the face communicating all.

"Yep." We blink our eyes in agreement. "That's true."

So simple.

We map the world according to what is special.

Gratitude:

3727. We endure the pukin' flu. Miraculously only three of seven get it.

3728. "My tummy actually hurts a little too," Lucy warns, "but not that much," she adds and pulls through strong and healthy.

3729. "Ahhh, no," Myra trots into the kitchen, "Daddy don't want coffee. I'll have it though."

3730. "I have been wearing my jammies all day," Jack observes. "How'd it feel?" I ask. "WARM."

3731. "So what do you want to be when you grow up?" I smile to Myra. "Fine." she says.

3732. "Jude's FUNNY," she narrates about her cousin, "and KIND."

3733. "Do REAL monkeys open their own bananas?" Lucy wants to know.

3734. A seminar, a crusade, an old fashioned revival, my Mom returns safe and fresh from a tiny village in the countryside of Kenya.

3735. I marvel at the tsunami of encouragement and friendship I found missing while she was gone.

3736. Lucy speculates that if you do bad things and are really, REALLY sorry and you are a JEW, Jesus will let you into heaven. I tell her that's not true. "But if you are a Jew and you love Jesus, He will," she says. "Then you are messianic." Thanks Chuck Missler.

3737. My dad compliments my outfit so I wear it two days in a row.

3738. Friday night, I dislodge my temporary crown, our dentist out of town. Over the phone, he tells me how to cement it back.

3739. Sister-in-law invites the kids and me over for Sunday pizza while Craig works.

3740. I knit another 20 rounds on my hexagonal blanket.

3741. October Baby.

3742. Coffee ice cream in little glass bowls scooped full.

3743. Another week, five children, a wonderful husband, and a Savior to hold me.

Names

"Why do you think the people in line were calling each other names?" Jane queries, knitting sprawled on her lap in the backseat.

I shift the car to park. The night cold and moist, we hesitate for a moment. "I don't know. I didn't really notice," I say. "What were they calling each other?"

"Well," she see-saws, "things like fatty and, and -- um, like I-don't-like-you." She gropes for an approximation.

I glance at the house, porch light incandescent, the evening sky obsidian. "Some people think that's ok," I pause. The words lop out like a pile of logs. "I think it's disrespectful to God," I add, "'cause He made us."

"Oh." We let this set for examination. She knits to the end of the row. I make a note in my journal.

And then, as if on cue, she winds scarf and yarn down into a ball, spears it with the knitting needles. I tug a bag from the passenger seat, socks and leggings a lump at the bottom. We trundle into the oatmeal and cinnamon breath of home, a little more knowledge added to the collection.

Gratitude:

3709. "There's a little thing in Pastor Will's class that when you put money in, it makes it go up into Africa," Lucy tells me.

3710. "Everything in the Bible is REAL," she says.

3711. "It's hard to break colored pencils," she confesses later, "but I can break crayons."

3712. My mother sends updates from Kenya each day. I am humbled, down-on-my-knees awestruck by the power and love of Jesus to save. Thousands come to the Crusade. More than a thousand turn to Jesus.

3713. A sister-in-law joins me for laundry and coffee. We look over her beautiful photos and share art and life.

3714. A new friend comes for granola and tea. I am blessed by the sweetness of her love for the Bible, the reverence, the joy.

3715. My dad parses out what he's learning while Mom's away in Kenya and shares it with me.

3716. I worry all week over a doctor appointment that goes well.

3717. I dread visiting the dentist to have a crown re-done. Suddenly it's over, and I'm grateful for the good care.

3718. Jack scrambles to clear his breakfast dishes when I mention it need to be done.

3719. "Boogers, boogers," Myra croons at my elbow, "I like boogers."

3720. We attend a birthday party of where friends feel like family.

3721. Craig's mom drops by to say hi.

3722. My dad calls for tips on pie making.

3723. Jane and I take a date. I try to be more fun.

3724. We enjoy Sunday lunch with new friends.

3725. "So you think that this trouble would all go away if I just tried to be more fun?" I clatter down the stairs and poke my head around the corner. Craig nods. I grin. Ok.

3726. Another week skitters to motion, and I get to start by being more fun.

***We just received word that the youngest son of a dear friend in Kenya has died of Malaria. Please join us in prayer for them.