Autumn Memories

The crickets are singing as I sit at the computer and compose my thoughts. In China or Japan the cricket is considered good luck. For whatever reason they think that, I have no idea. Nonetheless, I find their company rather soothing. A cricket's chirping brings back memories of other years and experiences that are now a part of who I've become.

My mother-in-law was driven to distraction by a cricket serenading her from the basement. She would instantly leap to her feet to go on a search and destroy mission. However, the cricket would usually elude her and continue to lead her forward, farther and farther from the original sound - rather like a minute pied piper. Perhaps that's why the Asian people consider the cricket to be good luck - they can evade destruction by going silent, only to erupt again into blazing song when the hunter has passed them by.

Bernie and I arrived back home last night after returning to Iowa to celebrate my Dad's 81st birthday. The fact that he is still with us means that he is rather like the cricket. He, too, has eluded the hunter for many years and he continues to sing. He was singing this weekend.

When I was a child, he and I would sit in the living room, late at night, and sing to the songs on "Hit Parade" or we would follow the "bouncing ball" and sing along with Mitch. We would sing in the car on our travels. We encouraged the harvest moon to shine on. We pretended we were cajuns and sang about jambalaya and crawfish pie. He would croon to me that I was his sunshine. For many years he did not sing and I missed it.

The Bible makes great importance about music. David sang songs to the Lord when he was in the fields learning about God and about shepherding. Paul and Silas sang praises to the Lord while they were imprisoned and the walls of their imprisonment collapsed. They and everyone in prison with them were released when they sang.

My Dad, the cricket, is learning to sing again so that he is not bound by the walls around him. The ways of God are antithetical to the natural ways which we think. Dad has struggled with depression in his life, but as long as he sings, the walls of his now shrinking world will continue to expand. His life is a miracle. He shares a birthday with a sister who died while she was in her childhood. He had his first heart attack when he was 45 and yet he has outlived his first beloved wife by 20 years. It has not been easy, but then, miracles are never easy. We just think they are easy because we rejoice in the end results. However, miracles come about through great cost. My Dad always told me, "Vicky, there are no free lunches." And he is right.

My quest continues to be: finding joy in the small things of life. It is in that quest that true happiness lies. And that, to me, is the mark of a successful life.

Vintage

I walk talking to a friend several days ago while we hiked through Starved Rock State Park. Donna is involved in teaching young people drama and inspiring in them the gift of gazing at things through the lens of imagination. As we ambled along in that green lushness, sweating and fatigued, enjoying every moment but also aware that our hips hurt us, she began to tell me about a workshop she had done recently. The students decided that they needed information from "way back" and elected her as their encyclopedia!

She said something to the effect that it was rather discombobulating to be known as the vintage source of information. I agreed. I suppose it doesn't do one whit of good to dwell on the fact that I'm getting older but I just can't seem to avoid it. In one of those wildly inane Perry Mason T.V. adventures, he made one comment that stuck with me through the years. One of the characters was talking to him and said, "I'm not as young as I used to be." Perry Mason wisely and mildly responded, "None of us are."

For some reason Perry's 4 little words really set me free. You see, I've been in angst for some time about the fact that my chin has reproduced itself without my permission and my trim figure is a pleasant but very distant memory. I want to appear in each year of life just like I did at 18! I'm looking for a place to join up with Ponce de Leon's team as they look for the Fountain of Youth. RATS! He's dead! So that won't work.

I did find a Photoshop tutorial with some great directions on giving a photograph a facelift. Now, that would be a lot easier than working out in the gym 3 times a week. In fact, it is now a family joke, but for our Christmas letter one year I wanted to include a photo of our beautiful children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, I was also in the picture. I couldn't remove myself without it being obvious, so I decided to shave off an unknown quantity of pixels from each side of myself.

When a seamstress is making or altering a pair of pants, it is imperative to make them smaller by removing amounts from both sides of each leg or else it will throw off the grainline. Therefore, when I was using my eraser tool, I was quite conscious of working on both sides. I didn't want to throw off my grainline on top of everything else! It worked. I suddenly looked quite pleasant and agreeably svelte. My family and I all think it's a great joke that I can make myself look like something that I'm not and be quite shameless about it. It's all about art, right?

There are certain merits to growing older. I've gathered one or two ideas together here for you. It never hurts to run them through the mind every couple of days as a form of emotional antibiotic.

One of the delightful and unexpected pleasures is finding that in that vast reservoir of experiences, a certain level of perspective has floated to view like water lily flotsom. There is comfort in knowing that, merciful heavens, you didn't totally destroy your children! And, there were several times that you actually made right decisions! These can be such heady revelations and you may find the need to back over to a chair and sit down or you'll collapse from shock. Actually, I think that this revelation is one of the most fun parts of growing older. When you're young you are still wrestling with the giants. When you're older, you see that there were a number of times when you actually kicked them in the groin and they backed away.

I take great encouragement from the Bible's perspective on aging and wisdom. Unfortunately, not too many people want to hear the lurid details of my learning journey, but they don't always mind getting the fallout from the lessons I've learned. Especially if I can phrase those lessons in few words, without bossiness or judgment, and can be there to support them if things turn sour.

The bottom line: is it bad being considered vintage? I don't think it is if your spirit is still beautiful. That is the true Fountain of Youth.

(Graphic based on tutorial by Kimbearly Membership Group.)