View from the Prairie Box

Time to regroup on my DPP.

Time to shift focus into something that fits my actual free time/photography time during this beautiful season.

Absolutely bit off more than I could chew with this year’s DPP. Pretend with me that I’m totally cool with not meeting a goal. So cool. NBD. Here’s a close up of glitter to distract myself from all this non-goal-meeting. #dpp2021

Today I held a little cherub’s squishy cheeks in my hands while she whispered a secret to me in excitement. Secret Santa kind of secret. She had told me earlier in the day, so full of anticipation that she couldn’t keep the name to herself, but I had already forgotten the name. It floated somewhere in the hard cold winds at one of our three recesses, perhaps getting stuck with a giant piece of cardboard blown in from a neighboring pasture. In one ear, out the other.

The privilege I have in being a secret recipient, a speller of words, a justice of the peace, a reader of stories, a substitute nurse-mom is not lost on me. God whispered something to me, too, last summer, and within days he opened a door. He let me know it was time to work with children again, in some sort of fashion, and that work presented itself in a Facebook post, a phone call, and a Zoom interview–because this is 2021 after all.

God opened the space for me to belong. For years I’ve longed to work on a team and here I am, digging in harder and deeper in a way only God could ordain. The team is more impressive than I had imagined and I’m constantly learning and expanding and figuring out more and more about how humans work in this world. Adults humans and tiny humans, all wobbly and wiggly and awkward and graceful, all manners of wonderful and all sorts of depraved, all at once.

This life is complicated. Sometimes cherubs aren’t so cherubic. I understand this, too, for I am not always cherubic either.

Happy 44 to this face and this body. Happy 44 years to a woman who is insanely loved, not only by her Father God who built her and knows all of her days intimately, but also by an amazing man, a beautiful daughter, her brothers and parents and best friends. I’m grateful for each of my years. To God be the glory, this year and forever.

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Self-portrait snapped as part of the 2018 December Photo Project and re-posted today. I submitted it to an international diabetes organization’s photo call a few days ago so it’s fresh in my mind. This year a re-post will work just fine.

“Play is the work of the child.”

Maria Montessori, Fred Rogers, and Sigmund Freud have all been credited with saying that statement. I’m going to agree with those three and go a little further: play is the work of everyone.

We need to play. Children need to play most of all.

I have a kid who is playing with… give me a sec… paint… still need another deep breath… on our dining room table. Without a safety net. This kid is almost a full grown adult and as such she disagrees with her mother quite frequently. It’s all very developmentally appropriate and yet. And yet she is painting on the table without any table protection.

I don’t know when I turned into such a Type A person. No wait, I know. It’s when I became responsible for all of the messes!

“Play is the work of the child.”

“And the adult.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do something to distract the inevitable paint-filled mess that is my kitchen.

I am inspired by women around me.

I watch my friends–in every stage of life–and see them thriving in the various places God has allowed them to be in. From academia, to the workforce, to living rooms and beyond, I see them flourishing and bringing light to their corners of this world.

My 2021 is dedicated to them. May these women continue to shine brightly, to enrich, to plant and to toil, to redeem the spaces around them. I see you and I honor you this year!

In the very next breath I will admit that 2020 taught me how to rest in a new, deeper, life-giving way.

So while I tackle this year’s December Photo Project, I do it with my own limitations and needs in mind. I will be shooting every day and posting the images when I can. I am not holding myself to the strict standards I’ve enjoyed so greatly in the past because I choose not to this year. I choose rest at night when my brain has gone still and my eyelids are heavy and doing one more thing is no longer a good thing. I choose my family on weekends where we get rejuvenated by staying in our comfy clothes all day long, by staying close to home, by staying quieter and perhaps reading a book.

Photography is precious to me, so I will press on! But I press on with my own welfare in mind. Blessings to you all this Christmas season. May you find joy in your work and in your rest.

At the start of one of his songs Rich Mullins says, “I am barely ready for this.” I figure I’m in good company if I’m quoting Rich Mullins.

I am barely ready for this.

But let’s do it anyway. You can find instructions to signup here. DPP 2021!

My soapy hands dip into the giant sink, reaching for the bloated raspberries now gathered in the drain. Not my raspberries. They’re intermingling with rice and globs of who-knows-what in our school kitchen, remnants of someone’s lunch leftovers, perhaps accidentally dropped in this sink with no disposal. The movements are so familiar, this cleaning of a mess that I didn’t make but I’m responsible for. Some things require a grit and determination to not be ridiculous. Just grab it, chuck it, and keep wiping down surfaces.

I grew up on stories of my dad and his siblings cleaning Covenant College while being students. I always think of my Aunt Ruthie, 70’s skirt folded a little higher than it should be at a Christian college, mixing bleach with ammonia and having to jump out a window to escape the fumes. Don’t tell me if that story isn’t accurate—it’s my favorite and I like every detail of it. I was a second-generation Lawton cleaning at Covenant College. Part of my work-study responsibilities included cleaning the campus diner (The Blink), as well as the bathroom next to it. My parents raised us kids to do chores, so its not like I was unfamiliar with getting up close and personal to the nastiness of humanity, but this was my first real experience of cleaning up other people’s grossness and it’s where I learned that you just have to separate your mind from your body and get it done. Another trick is learning to breath through your mouth. I’m an exceptional mouth-breather when it comes to anything that might possibly stink. This includes—but is not limited to—cutting toenails, applying a bandaid, dealing with dirty hair, and picking up dog poop. Mouth-breathing, a genius move taught to me by my nurse parents. 

At Covenant College I remember being annoyed by my fellow students who couldn’t figure out how to clean up the Blink microwave after splashing food all over the inside. (A self-righteous indignation if ever there was one as I don’t remember ever cleaning out the microwave in my house growing up.) I was in charge of making sure other students did their own work-study hours, which perhaps set me up as a manager as a tender age. It was good training for what was to come next. I got married to my love and moved to Covenant Seminary, still working on campus, but also attending college down the street at MoBap. At seminary the real work began. I quickly stepped into my role as Guest Services Director and marveled at how red my pale face became and  how frizzy my brown hair grew as I joined my Japanese and Filipino seminary wife-students-friends in cleaning all the guest rooms on campus. We accomplished some hard work during our turnover hours, and cleaned up after many many guests. My least favorite cleaning jobs involved the Doctorate of Ministry students who came to campus for about a week at a time. The “Dmins” were just that in my opinion and I lumped them in as a bunch of men who were used to their wives cleaning up after them, not considering the guest services crew who had to do the final clean up. It was hard work, but it was a genuine testing ground for learning, being humbled, and figuring out service roles that were indeed absolutely essential to kingdom work. I also memorized the Christian talk radio schedule and found a lot of spiritual encouragement while washing loads of laundry and folding those vexing fitted sheets. 

I learned that when you’re in charge all messes are your messes.

I still think of my dad in this realm, especially after he finished his PhD work and willingly took at job at the brand new Chick-fil-A in town. Eventually he wore a name tag that said “Mayor” because the restaurant dining room became his pride and joy. He still speaks of his service there in glowing terms. The babies, the tired mamas, the little ones wetting their pants running from the play area to the restroom, the older gentleman, all the young homeschool kids he worked with, his boss… he cared about them all. He cared about their experiences, their joy, their lunches in this space.

That’s the example of work that I’ve followed, and it’s one I encourage others to follow. If THIS space is YOUR space then it’s your job to make it as great as possible. Is there a tissue on the floor? Pick it up and go wash your hands. Is the trashcan overflowing or does it need to go out because there’s food in it? Your job. Is the toilet or sink broken? Fix it or find someone who can. Pencils out of place? A chair still needs to be stacked? A picture frame on the wall is crooked? Set it straight.

Years and years of church work, including four years as a deaconess, has led me to this conclusion: take ownership of your space. And now I apply the same philosophy to my work as a teacher. There are bloated lunch raspberries in that deep sink, and it’s my job to fish them out. This is the work of adulthood. It’s an ongoing lesson in service and pride really, and I expect I’ll be learning those lessons up until the day I die.

I went digging in my phone’s photo albums for a picture of a tree changing colors. My shots from this morning didn’t turn out well as the sun is hiding behind a Nebraska-sized sheet of gloomy clouds. Quickly my thoughts veered from a very new, still nebulous consideration of Winter as Necessary Rest–a new thought because I am stubbornly settled in the Seasonal Affective Disorder camp—to what happened last year. The images on my phone flashed before me… Livia with reading glasses on. Liv studying in my office. Liv studying on the back deck. New Covid masks. Liv studying in the basement. Homemade meals from Livia. So on and so forth. 

So what happened last year?

Homeschool.

I TAUGHT MY HIGH SCHOOLER AT HOME.

That wasn’t in the game plan, folks. It wasn’t in the game plan due to our personal dynamics and our desire to preserve a loving mother-daughter relationship rather than attempt the teacher-student one. And yet! And yet we. freaking. did. it. We homeschooled for Livia’s entire sophomore year. Yeah yeah, we didn’t learn as much that fourth quarter as I wanted us too, and yet that was the reality of the 2020-2021 school year. WE HOMESCHOOLED.

What in the world?!

We are now back to our regularly scheduled programming, the kind where Livia is taught by other educators and I am delighted to find myself within a  classroom setting, teaching my own little pupils at Lincoln Homeschool Academy. The turf is now familiar and our year of homeschooling plus dealing with a worldwide pandemic has passed. Oh yes, we’re still in that pandemic, but the heightened fear I breathlessly held is no longer present. The political turmoil has returned to a murmur. We’ve gotten more comfortable—somehow—with a ridiculous death rate due to this virus. We mask much more easily, and I’ve learned to value grocery pickups, Covid swabs, and daily emails home from our public school with illness notices. 

Today Livia is home. I can hear her writing in the room next door to mine, my heart busting with mama pride to know that she is a writer much like myself. Sometimes the words just have to come out. My girl can’t smell today and she has a headache that a bunch of medicine didn’t touch. She’d rather stay home for the next 10 days than get the nose swab I’ve scheduled for her this afternoon. Ha, nice try, mija. I know other friends whose children are home with Covid, home with sniffles, and home with every symptom in between the two extremes. This is 2021. The virus continues, but now we fight with booster shots and masks and social distancing and frequent handwashing. And lots of missed school. The “and yet” here is that school continues. And yet, life continues. I’m impressed with my little homeschooling school and with our bigger public school system. Despite the radical changes and difficulties faced last year, so many educators and school nurses keep showing up, determined to teach in this crazy time. 

I taught my kid at home last year. 

Huh. 

I’m teaching new little ones at a different school this year. And Livia’s days in high school are dwindling rapidly. Soon she’ll move to a different life stage and we’ll look back at this time with what? Will it be grief for all the changes and losses? Will it be joy for that fast-and-slow year of togetherness at Prairie Box High? Will it be surprise that we weathered this better than expected? One day at a time. That’s it. Grace for one day at a time.

Update: She does not have Covid. Whew.