Bees in My Bonnet

For Previous Post Click Here   Here's what I wrote last year:  I start to get up out of bed and grab a purple skirt, and throw a t-shirt on. A random thought hits me - 'glad I'll be home in a bit as I shouldn't really go out in public looking like a disheveled trash collector wearing whatever I gleaned from a dumpster dive' (no dig for dumpster divers here! They're probably my tribe!). Sam offers to go instead. I tell Sam he can go to bed since he's tired. Last minute before I leave I see Sam up - some random impulse compelled him to come with me. I let him drive. 'Just go to North Avenue. Then go north on Gary - that's what Timo said. He said we'd find him there a little way up.' And find him we did. First we saw some bright lights. We figured a cop car had likely stopped. But there were so many. We didn't count them all. The road was cordoned off. A cop was re-directing traffic - no cars could head north on this road. We pull up to the ...

 It was on this day one year ago that I ended up in the Urgent Care because of chest pain. They didn't find an immediate cause for chest pain, but did a routine covid screening test, and it came back positive. I had not had covid yet, and I was trusting it would be a mild case and geared up for the obligatory quarantine. I had been focused on my 2 oldest starting college, and all the logistics that involved - one going to Georgia, another nearby, and planning how one parent could be in one location, and I in the other. It was going to be a stretch to attend parent orientation, and try to take in all the upcoming changes. Our family was suddenly going to be shrinking. I didn't seem to have time to think about it or prepare for it. I didn't know how I'd feel settling Priscilla into a dorm room, watching her connect with friends and shift her focus from home to school and social events. I had already had a year without Caleb as he had been at a gap year program in Wisconsi...

  Here you are with me; in me. I sit with You, beside You, dine at Your table, Walk in Your garden. The day ends and You are still with me. Moonlight on my path, stillness in the crisp evening air - You speak in the quiet of silvery clouds and the whisper  Of rustling leaves as the world beds down for the night. Sometimes this is all I need, to know You are near. Because then I can grab hold of Your hand Like a desperate, dependent child And cry out, ‘Please! Bring me out of my distress!’ And of course You do. I feel the loving turn of Your face towards me. Your grace flows freely, and I, in my lonely affliction, Am Seen. My steps continue in the darkness, and I am not alone. You hold the loneliness with me. My troubled heart spills out to You. You welcome me again and again. And I welcome You: Here You are - with me. In me. Beside me. I dine at Your table; Walk in Your garden.

This is what I wrote just a week ago, on Dad's 77th birthday. Tuesday, 3rd January, 2017 Today Dad would've been 77 years old - and he would tell me that he had attained perfection eleven times over (7 being the number of perfection)!  The grief and missing him comes in waves - tears cannot be restrained and emerge when I'm alone, driving to pick up kids or wishing I could watch him blow out candles on the traditional Crutchfield birthday cake. Last year I decided to form my year around 3 words - to orient me, to clarify where I was at or what was/were going to be my theme(s).  I found myself with an uncanny (and unusual, for me) drive to clean - toothpick clean - and found cleaning to be both therapeutic and frustrating at the same time.  The word "CLEANING" emerged for me as a picture of much needed backlog of internal soul-work that had been left untouched. I had prayed for God to lead me to the three words I needed for the year.  And on the threshold of...

One of the many reasons I blog is because I am compelled to share my life with others.  I know it is impersonal - and that face-to-face relationships are best, but at times I have a need to simply write. Although I am trained to be extroverted I am naturally more inclined to being a social hermit - my companions would be authors, dead or alive (but mostly dead).  Though this is a romantic notion (having intimate relationships with dead writers - of course, only in my imagination - because it seems they know  me and I know  them), it isn't enough.  I so badly wish it were enough.  I want to remain reclusive - kept safe from relationships that could actually involve risk and pain.  Though this is my instinctive desire, I don't believe it is healthy.  By keeping relationships away, and only interactive via writing or by reading dead people's stuff, others are missing out on ME (and, Oh, What. A. Loss. ! - tongue firmly in cheek).  But more impo...

In the interest of full disclosure, let me tell you that what you are about to read isn't my normal attitude.  But it is, for real, one I had today.  It is all well and good to write when I have nice things to say.  When my words will challenge, convict and inspire.  The words I wrote in frustration today I will put below so you can enjoy my full-blown honesty.  This may give you a glimpse into my 'not-so-rosy' days.  It may discourage you.  I don't know.  Take it or leave it. So I had arranged all the kids to be doing something that might keep them occupied (and it didn't work).  I decided I needed to catch up some on my reading through the Bible AGENDA.  Yeah, I put 'agenda' in CAPS because that's all it seems to be - some lofty goal and virtuous aspiration.  Bible reading can't hurt, I muse.  So why not?  Maybe this could help my soul.  Maybe I will change.  Maybe I will become more...inspiring?  Graci...

During the whole time I was day-dreaming about Sam I was also taking classes to be certified in TESL via Cambridge University's program in Hong Kong's British Council. I was also teaching little kids - 3-6 year olds and high school kids conversational English. The little kids had worksheets to practice reading and writing. I was just sorting through a folder to give Timo one that wasn't falling apart and came across this one I had for the young children who could read. I had filled it in to show them how to write sentences with particular words. The first one is basic: bat, sat, hat, mat, fat, rat, that, cat, mat: There was a bat who sat On a hat on a mat, Then a fat rat sat on that mat - But the cat ate the rat That was sitting on that mat. Then, the next list of words was: sing, ring, thing, bring, sting, king Here's what I wrote: I want a ring, Then I'll sing. What a thing, to have a ring. Bring me a ring, but without a string. The ring wo...

Well, I've just decided to go to Hong Kong. I can't say exactly why I'm going - just to do this TESL course I suppose and because Mom and Dad seem to want me there. I'm not even exactly sure if this is what I ought to be doing for the next 4 months, but it's been decided. I'm only really concerned about how I'll manage financially. I don't know if I'll find any good English teaching jobs, on top of that, if I do, I wonder how I'd fare since I don't feel all that capable of English teaching! I'm a bit concerned about leaving the apartment without properly packing up. But I suppose it's just like me to up and leave on a whim. I'm also worried that when I get back I won't have any more piano students or that when I explain that I'm leaving (piano students that is) - they won't be too happy - since four months is a long break from piano lessons. I guess I'm just really trusting that this is what God wants me to...

Instead of continuing with the story, which I will do, I will include from time to time reflections and snippets from my journals written during these months, so you, dear reader, can better understand the workings of my heart. The details and highlights of the story are exciting enough and so I expect these sections may not be read as much, but for my own record I will put them here so the tale is told with complete openness and from the heart and perspective I had at the time that these events so dramatically changed my life. 23 September 1999 "Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson I am writing here in H.K. I need not relate the fact that the writing urge has been quite absent for some time. (Last entry: 17 May!) I know this is sad. Only in the past few weeks have I begun to 'wake up' in a sense. I wonder if God has allowed all the calamity of recent days (refe...