I have two pairs of stacked heel sensible–but cute!–shoes that need repair. This statement has been true for more than five years.

The fact that i even have both shoes of each pair in the back of my car, and a shoe repair shop within a mile of my home does not help.

I swear, if there was a shoe repair shop that let my MAIL these shoes them and get them back a month later i could have gotten my shoes back.

timing is everything. That repair store is not open when I am home. Or more importantly after Veronica goes to sleep.

synchronicity. it’s a luxury

It’s called crowd surfing. Usually at a concert, someone falls onto a crowd of people with their arms above their heads. Their hands and their arms all carry the one person, everyone helping, and he moves over the crowd.  He would be too heavy for any one of them, but everyone together can carry him easily.

I’ve never done it but it looks amazing. I don’t think I would have the courage and the trust to throw my body over a bunch of people. I would fall.

I couldn’t have that kind of faith.

Except in other ways I have that kind of faith all the time.  I trust my husband with my heart. I trust my job with my hopes and ambitions. My husband has a very precious trust, and I picked him carefully. I tested and tried his worthiness. To my chagrin, I often still try him to make sure I can trust him.

Like kicking a support on a bridge you are already crossing.

Then there are other times, when I let myself be vulnerable, that strangers or near strangers will come and pick up the burden.  I was terrified of some dental work I had to do last year, and a lot of people talked to me and helped with the fear. When I trusted people with my humiliating silly problem, I threw some faith into the wishing well, and they helped carry me. Like the people underneath a crowd surfer.

Beautiful.

When it’s good, it is beautiful. But trust can be broken, and the faith can be betrayed. It happens.

I would recover from falling at a concert. But the kind of trust I put in my husband, and my friends, it takes a long time to recover from a fall like that. And it can paralyze you.

Don’t do it! Don’t leap! The ouch is too big.

When it happens, yeah. It can be really big, that ouch.

But if it hasn’t happened, and you’re only afraid it might…well, you’re only afraid.

It is a risk. Those people below might not catch you.

And your lover might betray you.

When I abide, and try to keep my faith, I find that there are just enough people, just enough random acquaintances and strangers who show up.

Didn’t expect that guy to help me move. Never knew that one’s name, but she told me the perfect encouraging thing.

It keeps the balance tipped towards faith. If you can keep the faith.

Veronica, from her bed after being put down to sleep:

Don’t eat sand.

Me: Was someone eating sand at school?

Veronica: Me!

She’s telling on herself. I like that kind of confidence.

Veronica: Eat food.

Me: That’s right. Sand is not food.

———————-

Daddy and I have been working on punishment. There is the time out, but more importantly there is the threat of time out.  Or, as I usually call it, punishment.

Daddy has discovered he possesses a super power: DAD VOICE.

He doesn’t know his own strength. Sometimes, he will yell in Dad Voice when startled “VERONICA! PUT THAT DOWN!”

She will dissolve into tears and Mommy is needed to restore order and beauty to the universe after the fearful appearance of Dad Voice.

So. Now he’s cocky. When I would threaten with time-out punishment, he threatens to yell.

“Veronica, I need you to listen. Do you want me to yell at you?”

“No.”

“So you need to put that down and buckle your seat belt.”

She sometimes cooperates with this.

We’re enjoying a golden age of bedtime right now. She’s sleeping better, and putting herself to sleep better. There is still the cotillion of “I need water”, “leave the door open” and “Come hold my hand” but it is very truncated.

So. Daddy is checking on her. She is tucked, but in the darkness, there is a little rustly noise.

Veronica: “What is foot doing?”

Daddy: “Foot needs to be quiet and go to sleep.”

Veronica: “Oh no! Foot is getting away”

Daddy: “No No. Foot needs to listen. Do you think I need to yell at foot?”

Veronica: hee hee

Daddy: “GO TO SLEEP FOOT!”

Veronica: *destroyed with giggles*

He tells me this after the fact. It is cute. But he’s diluting the medicine.  Daddy Voice is not a toy.

With great power comes great responsibility.

It is cliche. but we are all cliche. It’s a new year and it spreads in front of us unfulfilled but so very possible. Possible for every dream to be fulfilled.

Had a conversation not too long ago. A friend was getting some surgery for a painful disease. Some preliminary work was done.  I checked in: “How do you feel?”

“It seems to be working. It’s giving me hope, which is even more important.”

So much that one sentence is carrying. I didn’t know it was that bad. Or maybe despair is more painful than pain.

Into every life a little pain must fall. We are designed to work under those conditions. And it is fine, because we all hope for something better.

Something to hope for. Growth and change and hope.

Growth and change will be happening with or without the hope. But the hope is what makes it good.

What makes  a new day so promising? the hope for all the good it will bring.

Yes, I think lack of hope is more painful than presence of pain. We are meant to have hope, we are meant to create hope out of the stuff of our lives. We take in what’s happening, chew it all up and digest it in our minds and it flows through us in the form of hope.

We hope for all the good things it’s possible to hope for. If the things we hope for arrived, we are still going to hope for the next thing.

Maybe it’s an America thing. We don’t congratulate one another on the past. We could be greeted by the various store clerks “Congratulations on the good shopping you just accomplished!”

That’s not what happens. We get wishes, hopes:

Have a nice day!

Thank you! I hope you have a nice day too.

Eyes up, on the horizon. Past the horizon. I have high hopes.
There remains these three: Faith, Hope and Love

Don’t forget to hope.

Chris was so good at Christmas this year. I got kinda lazy because he was doing it all.
I bought some things for him, but not much. I wrapped them. they looked very meager.
I put them under the tree and said to him, “I wish I could give you dozens of perfect presents, but I only have four imperfect presents for you.”
He was understanding, but i know he still feels like won the christmas effort prize. I suppose I shall grant him gloating rights.

Shes getting more and more interactive, and i am not as able to take photographs of her.

This christmas is full of cute kiddisms…i haven’teven written down the old ones

Will I always remember that pizza to her is pizzum? That she likes to call us sweetie and honey and dear when she is requesting things of us?

will I always remember these little things? I may be forgetting them already.

blogs and technology have made me nearly obsessive about capturing and keeping these moments. But I dont’ want to miss the moments by tryingto observe them. It changes things to constantly have a camera thrust in

Couple months ago I was stuck. i was stuck in a sad rut, thinking about and thinking again about stuff that hurt to think about.

I decided that whatever it took i was going to stop thinking about it. I worked hard to think about something ELSE. I even took a recording device and recorded myself talking about a project I was working on, which DIDn”T hurt. I recorded myself, listened to the recording, and then said more things about that thing that didn’t hurt.

After a long time, I was able to stop picking the scab. Because I just decided to stop.

So, I am thikning about how I might apply this to other things. What if I just stopped doing something i don’t like and substituted with something I like better?

what if I could learn to write instead of read? What if instead of running away to escape into a book, I could escape into WRITING  a book.

I don’t think it works that way. But I didnt think that fighting my depression worked that way either.

I would be better off if I wrote more and read less.

Christmas is coming! The goose is getting fat and so are we as we gather round the Christmas tree.

I am blessed to have you all as my readers. I am blessed in so many ways. I know you are too.

And there are so few days and there is all the stress of what must be done. I have presents to buy and expectations to fulfill. It is easy to feel obligated and guilty. I have been so blessed, and I am probably not living up to my blessings.

Also, many people do not have the blessings I have. I ponder that and it can feel pretty bad. What do I do with this undeserved blessing? I have no right to expect the good things in my life. I mean, I think in particular of the blessing of my extraordinarily wonderful child. Some people have lost their child. There but for the grace of God go I.

I could be fearful, and guilty. I find myself feeling that way a lot.

But that’s no way to live. To know I am blessed should make me happy. I should rejoice, and give good love to those around me. If I feel fearful and guilty  about my blessings, when I encounter other people who don’t have my particular blessing and are in fact suffering, I am more likely to scuffle away as if their tragedy were contagious.

But if I can be happy, and trust in my present blessing I could be generous to those less fortunate. And isn’t that how I want to live? Isn’t that the world I want to live in?

After beginning with fear and guilt over my blessings, I realize I can just be happy.  And at peace.

That’s what I’ve been thinking this week. I wanted to share.

I join the angels chorus:

Glory to God in highest and on earth peace and goodwill towards men

Peace be with you and all my goodwill

Merry Christmas!