god's thumbnail

tonight the moon was what my grandmother used to call "god's thumbnail"...i believe astronomists call it a crescent. but it just seemed exactly like god's thumbnail once my grandmother pointed it out, and it's been that ever since.

i like to look at the sky at night. i'm looking for operating instructions, to be honest. sometimes it's very bright...sometimes it's very clear. i can almost always see orion in the late fall and winter, it seems. although i will admit i am so spatially challenged that as we rotate at night, i have a hard time finding him and it makes me shake my head and roll my eyes and laugh because it seems like as he moves in the same direction each night, it shouldn't be so hard to find him...but i admit i often walk inside, shaking my head and laughing and having no idea where the hell he went.

there's a sky i see sometimes...it's dark blue...midnight blue i guess (haha, snort)...but there's enough moon that when the clouds make this cool pattern, it looks like a dark blue tie dye pattern. and it reminds me of my friend jeanni. i think she has a shirt like this, but maybe i just made that up. so either way, it is what i have termed in my mind a "jeanni sky." and three nights ago (hell, i think it was three...it's been a busy week), there was a jeanni sky. and it didn't surprise me. jeanni's had some stuff going on, and i've been thinking about her lots. and i hadn't heard from her that night, so i'd been thinking about her especially because it felt kind of foreboding that i hadn't heard from her..."no news is good news" be damned.

i have since heard from her and it wasn't good news. it wasn't necessarily bad news, although jeanni could probably argue that with me if she had a mind to. and she might have a mind to. but she might also not freaking feel like it. the news was that life will change...and it always does...damn it. but why is it that when life deals you those lessons about change, it's always more than you ever wanted? and it is never the way you would've chosen.

marriage comes to mind at this point. we obviously choose to get married. but even then, it rarely goes the way you would've chosen and it's often more than you ever wanted.

but there's been a lot of change in this new year.

my friend julie is here with her new daughter...she's a week old...in her life as julie's daughter. well, a week and a day. julie's daughter is actually four years old. and she's from india. and she is the most amazing thing to hit my house since my daughter. this little one, who i've been calling ruby-roo, is beautiful and mesmerizing and just a damned good sport all around. no, she doesn't speak english. and no, we don't know her language. but we teach her a few words and she teaches us a few words and we all smile a lot because we are just so darned happy to hang out together. i am very honored that julie brought her here to share with all of us and hope it's been worth her while. (what the hell does worth her while mean? i mean, i know what the phrase means, but is that really how it's written out?...) but i'm not going to share with julie my feelings right now about change being more than we ever wanted or rarely going the way we would've chosen. we'll let her get a little further down the way and see if she notices this on her own...

but for me, right now, as i sit in the middle of these changes this year has brought, to those i love (and god, do i love them), as well as the change it's brought to my own life, i can't help but reflect on the things that stay the same (you totally saw that coming, right?).

love. love stays the same. it changes in our relationships, strengthens, weakens, waxes and wanes...like the moon...but it's always there. sometimes in different people, in different relationships, in ourselves and out. but it's there. we may ache for it in the same relationships, ache for it in ourselves, ache for it in the same ways it used to be there. and the ways will change. but the love will always be there. will always find us.

the older i get (and while i realize i may not be THAT old, i don't think anyone would argue that i'm not THAT young anymore either), the more surprised i am by the places i find love that i never would've thought i'd find it. and i'm even more surprised by how much love i find in me. now maybe that's because i've given up the belief that i am the generator of my life and i've opened myself up to the Love that is the true generator of us all. but even that surprises me. it's an act of faith. and while i've always had an easier time believing in good things (i mean really, santa and the easter bunny have never been a huge stretch for me and i never saw the big deal in my parents being the ones to really do it all...it all still happened and was good in the end...), i've always also believed that if i was good enough, did the right thing, earned it somehow, love would come. but now i know love is always there. always has been. always will be.

it may be a perspective thing. one person's trash is another's treasure type of deal. and i have learned not to push my trash on someone who doesn't want it...and the same goes for my treasure. people like to make these evaluations for themselves. we have to. that's part of the whole deal. but i know that love will always, in the end, find us. just like god's thumbnail found me tonight.

peace

question authority

i have a tshirt that says that..."question authority". my spouse doesn't really like it. or at least all he's said about it is to express some concern that a parent in our house wears a shirt in front of the kids that says that. i don't know why he's bothered by it. they questioned me long before i bought the tshirt, but anyway... (maybe he sees himself as the authority in our house and doesn't want me to encourage them questioning him? i dunno...)

anyway...today i got stopped by a police officer. i didn't get a ticket, but i did get a lecture. he was driving down a rather busy street in our town that i was approaching on a side street. and yes, i was approaching pretty quickly...a screaming baby in her car seat and being five minutes late to a guitar lesson can make your foot a little heavier. plus, it's a crappy side street, full of pot holes, and i can miss every single pot hole going exactly forty-five miles an hour...plus miss any cars that happen to be on that street, which is very few since it IS such a crappy street (that i must admit, i do not know the speed limit of). anyway...i stopped at the stop sign, noticed the crappy look the officer gave me, then pulled out behind him, where there were no other cars. i noticed him stopping in his lane (the right one) when i passed him (in the left). when he got behind me, i pretty much knew he was going to pull me over. at the light, i started wondering how i would see his lights since he was on a motorcycle and i didn't see where his lights would light up. but as soon as the light turned green, it didn't take long for the universe to answer that question for me. (rolling my eyes WAY BACK in my head...) so i pulled over, with him behind me...did i mention the fifteen year old was right next to me in the passenger seat? the officer came up and asked me for my license and registration, all official-like. so i got it out and gave it to him (OF COURSE wondering whether or not my license was current...and i knew it was, but cops just make me feel guilty even when i'm not). he told me that i shouldn't drive so fast down that street, asked me why i would endanger my passengers by doing so (which just ruffled my mama feathers, i mean seriously, what does he know about what i do to keep my passengers out of danger?). he then explained that i stopped passed the stop sign and how that is called "failure to stop" (which i felt was BULLSHIT but kept my mouth shut...the street's busy...people drive fast down that stretch and you have to pull out enough to see if they're coming but not too far where you might get hit...) and then proceeded to explain how i turned right into the left lane and how that is called a "wide right turn" which i guess, since he pointed it out, should be avoided? but i honestly don't remember that in driver's ed, which i admit was awhile back, but since there was NO ONE ELSE ON THE ROAD i just don't see why it was relevant. so then he let me go.

now, i was pretty ticked at this guy. i mean seriously, aren't there CRIMINALS or something he could spend his time pursuing? i was going fast, sure. but he doesn't know how fast...he was driving (on a MOTORCYCLE if we want to consider danger), not clocking my speed. and those other things he took the time to mention...seriously? i mean, seriously? maybe it ticked me off because he sounded like my husband listing shit that doesn't matter but proving that he, too, can come up with a list. maybe it was just that i KNEW he was not going to give me a ticket because really, there was nothing he could ticket. maybe it was just his manner during the whole thing. i was also ticked because my fifteen year old was watching the whole thing and i just knew i wouldn't be able to handle it, afterward, with the grace i wanted to be able to handle it with. i mean, my baby was crying the whole time the guy was lecturing me. and he made us late to boot.

sigh. i will talk to my teen tomorrow. i will explain that i will slow down on that stretch of crappy road. i will explain that while i drive that road multiple times a week (sometimes multiple times a day), that the officer was right in telling me to slow down (but i admit i will also probably tell him the rest of the stuff was fluff). i will also mention to my teen that perhaps if he'd get ready when i tell him to, we won't run five minutes late. but then i guess it's better he tell his guitar teacher we ran late because he wouldn't get his crap together rather than because his mom got pulled over.

and life goes on...
peace

so like it's already march?

how did february fly by so quickly? oh yeah, i was busy as hell...

and i'm still busy as hell. i did manage a vacation with my family to visit some friends...and that was really nice. lots of snow. life just feels cleaner when everything's white...well, for someone who lives where it rarely snows it does. and i've had to hit the ground running now that i'm home. so. much. to. do.

but i wanted to check in and remind myself that i have a blog. (although i need to admit that these days i still get in the car and count my children just to be sure i haven't forgotten anyone, so remembering i have a blog is kind of low on the priorities...but it's still good to visit...wish someone would come post some cool stuff here...)

peace