I just finished a brisk twenty-minute walk. Yay! I mention this because I stopped walking when it got so hot last summer, promising myself to start back in the fall. But, everything happened but that.
You know how it goes: I’m too busy, too tired; too not into it. I’ll do it tomorrow. A thousand tomorrows later, my walking shoes sit and cry in the closet.
Thinking about getting fit and making excuses for why I can’t only cause a guilt complex. And already there’s no more room in my brain for that! So, I pledge, not to the New Year, but to myself to get out the door and walk.
If it’s not snowing. Or raining. Or too windy. Or someone mentions shopping!
A head lacking ideas is an artist’s worst nightmare. It’s like sand running through their veins. Like a near-death experience. Like creative juices stop flowing and their arms and legs fall off. Their brains fall out. And they die. Slowly and painfully, like a zombie.
It was a day like that, sitting at my art table, staring at the bone-dry paintbrush in my hand. Brandon, my then six-year-old grandson, was watching Beauty and the Beast for the umpteenth time, and studying the eye-catching images on Disney DVD covers.
Between Belle getting locked up by the Beast, and refusing his demanding dinner date, I got an idea! Suddenly, the juices started gushing, my heart arose from the dead, and my brains flew back into my skull! I’m alive!
Jumping down from the stool, I said, “Hey, Brandon! You wanna help me build a birdhouse?”
Like a puppy on steroids, he jumped to his feet and followed me out the door, across the backyard, and behind my husband’s workshop. That’s where the bricks were. Neatly stacked against the building, as if waiting for this very moment to become useful again.
Excitedly, I looked at Brandon, his beaming face now drenched with doubt. I guess I’ll just have to prove it to him, I thought to myself. I will create it, and then he will believe it. And that’s what I did. Now everyone believes it.
Final words: I created many of these brick birdhouses, churches, and schools, and gave them away. I sold a few from a local Christian bookstore, but they were too heavy and awkward to package, so I quit selling them. I kept the one in this post, mostly to see the look on people’s faces when I tell them it was once a dirty red brick.
God is mad at me God is punishing me God is disappointed in me God expects me to be perfect
I have to go to church to be a Christian I have to obey church rules I can’t dance, take a sip of wine, wear shorts I can’t question God
Real Christians sacrifice themselves to serve others Real Christians have faith to jump out of their wheelchairs Real Christians tithe, even if they can’t pay their mortgage Real Christians never say no
If your feelings are not Christ-like, hide them If you have a conflict with your neighbors, bake them a cake If you speak the truth that hurts, apologize If you don’t get along with everyone, something is wrong with you
A woman should never leave her abusive husband A woman should bow down to men A woman should be seen and not heard A woman doesn’t deserve respect
I believed all those things and more Because I was brainwashed Because my eyes were closed Because I believed it was the Gospel truth
But, I don’t anymore God opened my eyes to the Truth I no longer walk in darkness Because the Truth has set me free
1949. Landenberg, Pennsylvania. Most people never heard of it. But it’s a real place where cat-sized bullfrogs lived, and cows, chickens, roosters, lizards, trees, hills, valleys, brooks, streams, and spring water trickling from ancient rocks. It was a child’s paradise. Better than PlayStation. Even better than iPhones.
No one living there that I knew had running water, heat pumps, or inside toilets. In the old rickety outhouse, newspapers and pages from the Sears catalog served as toilet paper. In the summer, kids went barefoot because they didn’t have shoes to wear. In the winter, we all nearly froze to death.
We swam in the creek in front of the house, ventured through the woods, and straddled fallen trees and limbs pretending they were horses. In the winter we played in the snow, made silly snowmen, threw snowballs, and drank hot chocolate near a blazing fire in the rock fireplace. Living in those plush, rolling hills of Landenberg, Pennsylvania, our family was many things, but poor wasn’t one of them. We were the richest family on the planet.
It was going to be our forever home until sickness drove us out. Doctor’s orders. The house was too damp, he said. I guess he was right because, every winter, Daddy suffered bouts with malaria, complements of WWII, and Kenny and I had rheumatic fever.
It was night, and Mom was in the hospital when Daddy rented a truck, packed our few belongings, and drove us into the real world with all its bells and whistles; so-called luxuries that people couldn’t live without. Bigger houses, fancier clothes, and a schoolhouse with more than one room. It even had running water, toilets you could actually flush, and real toilet paper.
We moved to Cooches Bridge, a historic district located at Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware, not far from Landenberg. However, we didn’t move into a bigger, fancier house like those down the road. We moved into a tiny, upstairs cinder-block apartment with dozens of homing pigeons roosting and cooing below. I called it the pigeon coup. Daddy had his woodworking shop down there. He liked it. It had a flushing toilet.
Mom liked it there, too. She didn’t have to carry in firewood, wash clothes on the scrub board, and get up in the freezing cold each morning to start the fire in the wood stove and fireplaces.
I loathed living there. Compared to our magnificently, rundown, creaky, little three-story farmhouse in paradise, this was like a grassless, treeless, waterless, critterless, rockless prison! I was too ashamed to tell anyone I lived there. Every afternoon getting off the school bus, I’d creep like a sloth toward the long, dirt driveway leading to the cinder-block pigeon coup. Of course, everyone knew. I just pretended that they didn’t.
Reality soon became a nightmare of trying to belong in a place I didn’t even want to be. Like a fox without a den, I was lost, frightened, and alone. I never knew I was so utterly shy, timid, and poor.
In the heart and mind of that carefree, little girl, swinging on the swing, the wind toying with her golden-red hair, nothing was missing from her life. She had it all. There was nothing more she needed.
Now, sliding quietly behind her wooden school desk, feeling naked, and exposed, she crawled inside herself, closed and locked the door. No one could know her fear. No one must see her tears. No one can ever know how much it hurts.
Yes, she was introduced to a new world with all its modern-day baubles and trinkets. And though this new world tried convincing her she needed more, she’d race back to that place few people ever heard of, where her life began and flourished like a beautiful blossom, where dreams came true, Santa Claus was real, and no one was poor. No one died of starvation. No one went naked. Landenberg, Pennsylvania. Always in my heart, forever on my mind.
That moment stands out in my mind like the Empire State Building. That moment when my third-grade teacher threw up her hands and walked away from my desk. That torturous moment when my face burned with embarrassment and frustration as the tears splashed on my desk like pouring rain. As hard as I tried, my brain just could not grasp it!
Math has always been my worst enemy. Worse than a snarling, junkyard dog. Even worse than that tall, skinny school bus bully. And somehow, between my frustrating disabilities and feeling like a complete failure, I got this crazy notion that if I messed up, the world would stop spinning.
Childhood trauma. We all have our painful stories to tell. Some even bear traces of humor, like the time my mother dragged me kicking and screaming to our next-door neighbors and made me apologize for being sassy. I needed a straitjacket that day!
Some memories fade over time, while others stick in our hearts and minds like superglue. And, the humiliation of being singled out that day as the sole classroom dummy left a deeper scar on my heart than the tattoo on my leg.
But what we do with those scars of yesterday is what makes us who we are today. Do we stay crippled for the rest of our lives? Do we blame others for our misfortune? Do we blame ourselves?
I love watching the documentaries I Survived. It’s amazing how people suffered unthinkable acts of torture, were left for dead, and came out alive. Later, many of those victims chose to become law enforcement officers and advocates for other victims. Some found love again after their faces had been butchered and scarred beyond recognition. But all of them bravely pushed through it with a better understanding of who they are.
Our lives, one way or another, have all been changed. None of us leaves this world with the same, baby-smooth skin in which we were born. Whoever we are, whatever we do, rich or poor, we all bear the scars of life, but only the brave survive.
Flowers, riches, and fancy words don’t set my heart on fire. Vacation cruises and a trip around the moon are a waste of time and hard-earned money. And the saying that diamonds are a girl’s best friend doesn’t apply to me. Long walks through the woods, sitting by a campfire, and holding hands while crossing the parking lot are the things that make my heart soar.
Sometimes my husband forgets that about me. But, after 53 years of marriage, my heart still does a jig when he gets up before I do, feeds the dogs, lets them out, and makes coffee.
Listen up, brain! I’m in control now Stop playing those dusty, ragged old tapes Over and over and over You know the ones With the murderous voices That paralyzes and cripples the soul Those thunderous, earth-shaking voices that never shut up I’m sick of it! Look what you’re doing to the heart She cries for days She mopes around the house Too depressed to even pick up the broom She loses interest in everything she loves She stops singing and creating She can’t even put two words together She just sits and stares at a blank screen Day after frustrating day She hates what she sees in the mirror Is it herself she sees? Or is it that tyrant who broke her soul? She can’t tell anymore They both look the same Well, I’m telling you right now It’s going to STOP! She’s a good heart Despite the scars and serrated edges Even when she’s bleeding She still knows how to laugh She still knows how to love She’s broken, but she’s not destroyed You tried to make me hate her And sometimes I do When she rages like a demented monster When she explodes all over the place Making a big, fat mess of everything But I’m on to you, brain I know where you’re coming from I know who orchestrates your ungodly lies And makes the heart believe them It’s over brain! No more! As much as you believe the demented lies The heart believes them less So this is how it’s going to be We’re going to work together as a team No more mud-slinging No more filthy lies No more pulling against one another We work together or we die together Which will it be? Speak up, brain! I can’t hear you! Okay then, smart choice We’ll work together And since we can’t jump out of the skin we’re in We just darn well make the best of it!
Straight From the Heart 