The Monica Chronicles – Page 13 – Out Into the World Again!

May 21, 2015

Learning New Tricks

These last few weeks in May public attention is focused upon graduations. Every weekend newscast, newspaper front pages and a good percentage of Facebook posts feature happy people of all ages dressed in caps and gowns. It’s impossible to see these images and not think back on my own personal milestones; my high school and college graduation ceremonies. Truthfully, I don’t remember much about either one of them, I remember sitting on risers for high school and in the hot sun on the lawn when I graduated from Rutgers.

Instead, I tend to remember the details of the after parties more. On the drive home from my high school party I drowsily called my date by the wrong first name (oops!). En route to our college graduation party, the driver of the car I was riding in momentarily lost control and we went into a spin. I remember how the huge aluminum panels of the semi truck we managed to miss flashed by my window. It felt like a brush with death. Anyway, all this graduation reminiscing has made me again begin to ponder the rightness of my current course in life.

Yesterday I attended a workshop on Social Media presented by the Virginia Small Business Development Center and hosted by our local Chamber of Commerce. The workshop was held at a satellite campus of the community college so in a way, I was back on campus again. During my registration, I spoke to a middle-aged woman who had a mylar balloon floating above her desk. I asked if it was her birthday. She said no, she had just graduated with the Associate’s Degree the previous weekend. I congratulated her and went on to get some coffee.

As I walked away, I considered the tremendous effort and sacrifice this woman had made to achieve this goal. Even though she worked on campus, certainly the time necessary to attend classes and study weighed heavily on her already full schedule of work and family life. More importantly, I wondered what would prompt me to make the same choice.

Part of me has always felt like a bit of a slacker because I’ve never pursued an advanced degree. Even with my Bachelor’s degree, I am now the most under educated person in my little family; Dave has two Masters, Maggie and an advanced certificate and Andy has his PhD. It’s not that I’m opposed to learning, I just never felt the fire to go back to school.

Then yesterday’s workshop happened. I attended on a whim. In my position at Habitat for Humanity here in Greene County, I attend the Chamber meetings. When the offer of this workshop in Social Media came up as a part of a Small Business Development Day, I thought, what the heck, why not? So I went.

I learned so much about ways I can improve Habitat’s visibility in the community. When I got home, I ran up to my office and with my newly attained knowledge, revamped our webpage a bit, made it mobile enabled and even created a QR code for our flyers and mailers! What a rush, as we used to say in college!

So, in the end I guess I unlocked the motivation to go back to school, not only to gain the knowledge, but to take it on and use it and share it. And for me, I guess I don’t need the extra certificates and paper with my name on it. Little hits of information work just as well.

May 19, 2015

Am I Blue?

For the past several weeks, Dave and I have been trying to choose a new color for the walls in our family room. From the first time I saw the pale blue walls, I knew the blue had to go. Although the color was part of a pallet chosen by the decorators at Lowe’s and marketed as such on a little card, pale blue didn’t seem an appropriate color for a family room.

And, even after we moved in and placed our furnishings, which all complemented the blue nicely, I was determined that at some point in the future, we’d have to choose a more neutral color, more fitting for the space.

After almost four years of my griping about the wall color, we went to Lowe’s and had a couple of samples mixed to test on our walls. Dave painted swatches of the two taupey-beiges in a couple of places to carefully consider different light plays in the room and we spent many days comparing the two to our room only to decide that neither were the “right” color. I went back to Lowe’s, picked up a couple more chips and we decided to try a pale grey.

One morning I bought my sample and tried it in another spot on the wall. After weeks of pondering, we were fairly certain the grey was what we wanted, although we’d have to change the picture over the fireplace to bring a little more color. Fairly certain of our decision, we determined to paint the room the next time we had a free weekend.

As always, our life is pretty full and our weekends especially seem to be loaded with stuff. For the past two weekends, we’ve had houseguests, which is the best kind of stuff to have. With the taupey-beige and grey test spots still on the blue walls, conversation with both sets of guests naturally turned to our wall color. First, it was my sister Barb who said she’d always liked the blue and didn’t understand why we’d want to change it. Then, last weekend, my friend Lori, who is an interior designer, after careful consideration rendered her opinion that indeed the blue worked in that room. The one thing I was right about was we needed more color over the fireplace.

Isn’t that just how it goes? All the while I knew there was something not quite right in that room but instead of looking at one minor correction, I was convinced that a drastic change had to be made. Truth be told, I actually like the blue. My motivation for changing the color was that it seemed inappropriate. What’s that all about? I didn’t worry about appropriateness when I painted the bathroom in our last house purple or our kitchen turquoise. Who was I trying to please?

Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to march to the beat of my own drum, so why would I even worry about what anyone else thinks about my choices in decor? Sometimes I think those of us who appear to march to our own beat are partially just plain unable to catch the beat of ground and march along so we make the best of our awkwardness. We can’t keep step so we create our own cadence. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, just a thing.

So, our next free weekend, I’ll be repainting the family room the same color it already is and searching for the perfect picture to put over the fireplace. Who knows, it may be something I already have. Wouldn’t that be a kick?

May 5, 2015

Vinefest

Version 2 This past Saturday Dave and I joined a group of our friends at the Montpelier Wine Festival on the grounds of James and Dolley Madison’s beloved home. Weather-wise, it was one of the warmest, most beautiful days we’ve enjoyed all spring. Combined with great friends, Virginia wine and snacks, it was the perfect recipe for some much-needed down time.

Much earlier that morning I’d gotten up at “0’dark thirty” to work at a charity ticket sale at a local department store to raise funds for our local Habitat for Humanity organization. I was there from 5:20 am until 10:00 am. By the time we arrived at the winefest at one o’clock, I’d already been up for nine hours. Luckily, I had just enough energy to enjoy the afternoon with our friends.

Sunday morning we were up early again for Mass at 8:30 and afterwards grabbed some breakfast with church friends before returning to the church to pack meals for Stop Hunger Now.

SHN packing 2015

This is the second year our parish has held the event. Throughout the year, we hold fund-raising events to cover the costs of the meals, culminating in the packing event where volunteers donned in hairnets, measure ingredients into bags, weigh the bags for consistency, seal the bags and pack them into boxes. Each time 1,000 meals are packed, a gong is struck to spur us on. Volunteers range in age from elementary age children to senior adults, all working as a team, each doing what they can. Together, we packed almost 14,000 meals in just under two hours.

I couldn’t help but see this event as a living example of Sunday’s Gospel (John 15:1-8), the story of the vine and the branches. We were all working as parts of the same vine, the older branches and the new shoots. As I thought more about it, I realized that my weekend, with its fullness of stuff echoed the same theme where my own branch was pruned a bit; my time was pruned but the result was new life in the seeing of the Gospel coming to life and in the lives of those I’ve helped, although I will probably never seen them.

It also didn’t escape me that my time at the winefest was also vine related. And, after realizing that, I discovered a title for today’s thought.

If you’d like more information on Stop Hunger Now and how you might like to be involved, here is their web address: http://www.stophungernow.org.

April 29, 2015

Your Tears Will Be Turned Into Dancing!

cursillo-chicken

Women often reflect the world around them in their countenance, posture and attitude. When we are tired, we drop our shoulders. When we are attempting to find balance in our lives, we can seem controlling. And when we are is despair, we can appear distant and cold. We build walls to protect us from harm and hand curtains to hide our hurt from others.

Just as we religiously apply our BB cream every morning to blend in the dark spots, we, like Eleanor Rigby, put on our face that we keep in a jar by the door and face the world. We are determined not to share our hurt, guilt, shame and disappointments, all at a very dear price; our own peace.

At this weekend’s Women’s Cursillo, I witnessed what happens when a group of women are gathered and freed from their daily responsibilities and given a place where they are not only allowed to be who they are but celebrated for being no more than who they are; daughters of God, warts, bumps, scars and all!

Women stood taller. Women smiled more freely and laughed heartily. Women sang in incredible harmonies and danced like their bodies had been aching to move for a long, long time. The transformation was a thing of awe.

Granted, this metanoia was fueled by a lack of sleep and overabundance of chocolate, but similar to the vision quests young native Americans would take, the great Spirit came down upon each one of us this weekend and refreshed and renewed our souls.

The Spirit did not make us holy, we already were in God’s eyes. Instead, our eyes were opened and we were able to see our holiness, some of us for the first time.

My name is Monica and I made my Cursillo at Camp Overlook in October, 2012 at the table of the Seekers of the Light Within. I was blessed with the opportunity to serve on this past weekend’s preparation team. I hope I’ve given you a teasing glimpse of what Cursillo is and how it can lift your soul. (I can’t tell you more or I’d have to kill you! lol)

If you’d like more information about Cursillo in Central Virginia, please contact Valley Cursillo at www.valleycursillo.com. If you live outside our area, check out www.cursillo.org. You’ll be glad you did!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRAUH8yBcQ

April 22, 2015

Pagan Babies Revisited

Pagan Baby Certificate

When I was a little girl the Sisters at Bishop Conroy Memorial School taught us about Catholic missionaries working in remote places of the world spreading God’s word to the pagans. (To us, a pagan was anyone who wasn’t Christian.) In our classroom we had a competition between the boys and girls to raise money to support the missions. Two jars sat on Sister’s desk, one for the boys and one for the girls. Every time we raised $5.00, we were issued a beautiful certificate of adoption by the Pontifical Association of the Hold Childhood as a “souvenir of the ransom and baptism of an adopted pagan baby” which also included the name we had chosen for our newly adopted child. By the end of the school year, certificates proudly circled the walls of our classroom.

Looking back it seems like a silly thing to do, but in those days we sincerely worried about the fate of the poor pagan babies living in darkness without Jesus in their lives. We were so sheltered in our world we were totally unaware that God was in their lives even if Jesus wasn’t. It never occurred to me that just maybe these “pagans” had their own faith in God and way to worship, or how the peoples in Africa felt when European missionaries arrived and set their worlds upside down….until now.

Last year our parish was assigned a new administrator. Our previous pastor had become ill and could no longer fill the needs of two rural parishes in Central Virginia with a mountain between them. Due to a shortage of priests in our diocese, the bishop looked to other countries where there is an excess of clergy to fill our empty rectories. Our new priest, Fr. Michael, came to us from Uganda.

Since his arrival, I have thought of the pagan babies many times. Not because I think he was a pagan baby, but because in many ways, he appears to be like a missionary to us.

Naturally there are some cultural differences. Fr. Michael is much more conservative/traditional than most American priests I’ve known in my lifetime. He wears a cassock when he is in his official capacity as priest and embraces many of the old “smells and bells” of the pre-Vatican church. Although these things are familiar to me because of my age, I find myself very uncomfortable with the return of the old ways. In some ways I feel like I am the “pagan baby”. Our ways are not his ways and the impression is that our ways are incorrect and must be changed.

He is a good and kind man, but I’m not so sure he has spent much of his clerical life working with the laity. Because our parish has always had a non-resident pastor, the lay folk have pitched in and have done almost everything, with little direction. Leadership in a group like this is not easy.

Somehow we will have to find middle-ground for our parish to thrive. Our congregation is graying and there are fewer young folks joining to take on the added burdens being set aside by those ready for rest. It is a sad thing when the “young folk” are in their fifties and nearing sixties.

I don’t know what the answer is. The good news is that I’ve realized I don’t have to find the solution; which has been a weight lifted from my shoulders. I’m praying that the answer will eventually be revealed.

April 21, 2015

One (wo)Man’s Trash

They say that one man’s trash is another’s treasure. I got a first hand glimpse of that yesterday.

For the past year or so, our parish Hospitality Committee has been planning a kitchen remodel project in our parish hall. A major part of this project is to update the appliances to make our kitchen more energy efficient and user-friendly.

As our first step, we chose to sell the old commercial range, a huge beast of stainless steel that has caused many to lose their eyebrows when attempting to light the pilot. In the past, it was used a great deal for large parish dinners and breakfasts but times have changed and so have the dynamics of our parish. The old range needed to go to make room for smaller ranges with electronic ignitions.

I was surprised how quickly we received responses to our Craig’sList ad. Within twenty-four hours we had three interested buyers. It was then that the fear set in, how were we ever going to get the old range out of the kitchen?

When it first arrived and the parishioners realized the range was too large to fit through the narrow doorway to the kitchen, they gathered a group of strong men and lifted the beast over the kitchen counter. We didn’t have a group of strong men to help us and I wasn’t sure how we would move it out of there.

We considered pulling down the door jam to give us more room through the door seemed to be our only exit strategy. But I didn’t think much about it until I pulled into the parking lot and I saw the truck and trailer. What were we going to do?

Frankly I thought this first couple would take one look at our beast and leave as soon as they learned they’d have to either keep the pilots lit or light them each time they used the stove.

But, the moment my buyers saw the old stove, they fell in lovek with it. After pulling it away from the wall and lighting the burners, the husband went to his truck and returned with a fist full of bills in one hand and his tool bag in the other saying, “I’ll take it.”

He measured the doorway and the range and then spent the next two hours quietly and patiently disassembling and removing parts until the range finally rolled freely though the door. What impressed me the most about him was the way the kept his cool through the entire process, not once uttering a word of frustration or giving his wife a dark look.

Instead, they chatted about how many pancakes they could make for their sons or cookies they could bake in the double ovens. Their eyes were on their prize; our old clunker of a stove.

After removing the stove, he came back, capped off our gas line and shut the gas off to the hall as a safety precaution. It turns out he works for one of our local gas companies.

As they drove away with our old beast securely strapped to their trailer, I felt happy for the old girl. She’d done her job well for us, but never really received the love and care she deserved. Now she has gone to a good home where she will be loved and cherished. For this family, our old stove was a treasure.

April 2, 2015

Boy

Yesterday afternoon, after months of waiting and serious speculation, and a day sitting on the edge of my chair waiting to hear the results of Maggie’s ultra-sound,I received a one word text message from her which read, “Boy.”

I have to admit that for a few moments I was disappointed. It wasn’t that I have anything against little boys. My son Andy and grandsons, Seth and Caleb are a constant source of joy to me. I just really was hoping for the opportunity to knit some frilly things for a change. And it wasn’t just me; Seth and Caleb were hoping for a sister, Andy wanted his own niece to play with, having spent hours playing with his friends’ Justin and Carrie’s twin girls and I’m sure Maggie was hoping for a daughter so she could pass along family tradition as I did with her.

Scan - Version 2

I suppose selfishly I hoped to see a baby girl to recapture those first few moments with my first-born as a young mother. Although you couldn’t have convinced me when I was up to my elbows in dirty diapers and spit-up, those special intimate years with our children are few and fleeting. There are times even now I miss those moments so intensely.

Watching my daughter as she journeys through this pregnancy awakens my desire to create. I thought I’d be working in pink but so it goes. Blue has always been my favorite color anyway.

March 31, 2015

Tooth Truth

Did you ever consider that some of the everyday errands you run could be envied by somebody else?

compromising tooth

Last week I while I sat waiting for my name to be called at the dentist’s office for a routine cleaning and exam, I witnessed a scene that I haven’t been able to shake from my mind.

A woman came in and quietly asked the receptionist if they were accepting new patients. Yes, they were. Her next question concerned the type of dental insurance the office accepted. No, they didn’t accept her insurance.

“How much does it cost to get an exam and cleaning? ” the woman asked. The receptionist answered that the charges for the initial visit were almost $400.

Visibly disappointed, the woman said she would need to check to see who carried her insurance because she really needed to see a dentist, she’d lost a tooth the previous week and others were loose. Although the receptionist was kind and compassionate to the woman, she didn’t have a solution to the woman’s problem. With her head low, she left.

I have been blessed with regular dental care my entire life, even in the years when there was no such thing as dental insurance. It was a sacrifice for my parents to provide me with the care I needed, but it was a priority for them and they found the resources to make it happen. As a result, except for #31, I still have all my own teeth. And, while I realized long ago that others have not been so fortunate, I’ve rarely witnessed the yearning for healthy teeth first hand.

Here in rural Virginia, it is not uncommon to run into folks with teeth missing, not in the back, like my #31, but right up front for all the world to see, or to see middle-aged adults with no teeth at all.

As a child, I lived for more than three years with a gap where my right front incisor should have been. Family photos reflect years of me smiling with my lips tight. Because of this I’m very sensitive to the feelings of people with missing teeth. I felt like the ugly duckling and it affected my self-esteem for a long time.

This is the first image I got when I Googled, "Hillbilly clipart". — This is the first image I got when I Googled, “Hillbilly clipart”.

Let’s face it, our culture takes great liberty at the expense of people with missing and crooked teeth, equating them with ignorance, lack of good hygiene and labeling them as lower class. It’s part of the cultural lexicon, the hillbilly with the random teeth, or the mentally challenged with the crooked or buck teeth. I’m no expert, but I would be willing to bet that most folks, given the financial opportunity, would choose to have a full set of straight pearly whites.

In a perfect world, everyone would have access. But, the world is far from perfect and I’m not advocating that we should institute universal dental coverage. What I am suggesting is that when you see someone with a tooth or two missing, don’t be so quick to judge them and if you are able to pay for regular dental care, don’t take it for granted.

If you have dental insurance or can afford the cost out-of-pocket, you are one of the lucky ones. For what ever reason, God has chosen you to be one of the ones who are gifted with this. The fact that someone else has not, is not a punishment, it simply is.

So that was my epiphany in the waiting room at the dentist’s. I could have spent the time mindlessly playing a word game on my phone, but instead spent some time with Spirit. After she left, I said a prayer for the woman that she gets what she needs because I certainly received a reality check I needed.

March 23, 2015

March Madness? I Think Not!

I wouldn’t want to say it too loudly, but it certainly looks like spring has finally arrived. The snow is gone. The daffodils and croci are blooming and I even saw my first robin today.

After such a long, cold winter, you’d think that we’d have nothing to chat about but how sweet the air is and how good the sun feels on our faces. Nope.In our family, these last few weeks of March are focused on one thing – the NCAA Men’s Basketball play-offs.

Last Tuesday, when I returned from a week’s visit with my parents and a quick peck on Dave’s cheek, I needed to know how the brackets were looking. Dave had his tear-out chart from the newspaper laid out on the coffee table in the family room with his choices neatly printed in pencil on each line. He updates the information as the days progress and every morning as he eats his cereal he checks the latest scores on his iPad and makes corrections where necessary for the games that ended after we went to bed.

Communications with our children are focuses on our teams and how they are doing. Jan and Maggie’s team, the VCU Rams were eliminated in the first round by Ohio State. It was a close game but Shaka Smart and his guys have headed home. Our home team, the UVA Cavaliers or “Wahoos” as they are known, lost yesterday to Michigan State. It was sad to see them lose as well. Tony Bennett is a great coach and his team has done very well this year but the victory went to Tom Izzo and the Trojans will move ahead. I like Tom Izzo, so I wasn’t crushed. So, to date, Andy’s team, the Duke Blue Devils are the only ones left in the dance. I know there are lots of Duke haters out there, but we just “just shake it off”. Considering there are only eleven members on the team this year, eight of them scholarship players, they are amazing.

And so it will go for the next two weeks, unless of course we end up with a final four teams that none of us are remotely interested in. When it ends, we will pack away our swag for the next seven months until it all begins again.

March 4, 2015

Becoming Mothers

My Grandma Gray as a new mother with my mom, Peggy, on her lap.

After months of holding a special secret close to my heart, I am now able to shout to the world the marvelous news that Dave and I will be welcoming a new grandchild into our family later this summer! Maggie gave us her news before Christmas but asked that we keep it on the q.t. until after her first trimester had passed. Keeping such wonderful news under wraps is not an easy thing to do. I’d like to say I was able to honor her request to the letter but found myself letting the news slip from time to time, unable to contain my joy.

Babies change everything. This baby, like all babies before her (wishful thinking on my part) will transform the lives of her mother and father, Maggie and Jan as they enter into a new dimension of their relationship together as parents. She will transform Teresa into a grandmother and Isolde into an aunt. For Dave, Any and me, we will be transformed into the grandparents and uncle of this incredible new little person. For Seth and Caleb, this new child of God will be a sister (or brother) in this amazing, patch-worked, incredibly functional family that is us.

Change is not always easy and neither is pregnancy. While some women seem to skid through the nine months without even a hiccough, Maggie is plagued by nausea and migraines making some days very difficult to bear. Combining this constant feeling of physical un-wellness with a long dreary winter can result in not a fairy tale ending but an overwhelming feeling of being in a long dark tunnel with the heavy burdens of parenthood at the end. And so, as in all things, there are good days and bad.

We had a long phone chat a couple days ago and she shared some of her fears and doubts about parenthood. As I fumbled for words to reassure her that all would be well (because it will be) I remembered my first few hours totally alone with infant Maggie. Dave was deployed and a neighbor had brought us home from the hospital and dropped us off at the house. For that first night, it was just her and me.

I remember looking at her little body, swaddled in a flannel blanket, sleeping in a converted dog bed and thinking, “I am someone’s mother!” I guess it was in that very moment that I took ownership of my new role. That first night alone with her were so intimate. Her body still fed off of mine and there was no one else to hear her squeak in that special way infants do. I slept on the couch with her dog bed on the table beside me, recording in a little notebook each time she ate and pooped, as if a chronicle had to be kept of her every moment of life. Fortunately my mother arrived the next day to spend a few weeks with me and my record keeping on paper was suspended. In its place I have a heart full of memories, each recording our mother/daughter history from those first few moments.

For me, motherhood, although not always easy or even pleasant, has always been such a gift. God gifted me with such an incredible daughter and son who have completed me in ways I could never have imagined. I know it will be same for Maggie and Jan. They too will have their challenges and obstacles, but outmeasuring those will be moments of sublime joy and satisfaction in their children.