The Good Life Archives - Kathryn Anne Casey

The heart of hospitality

Before walking out the backdoor I grabbed the pair of toddler size, navy and white spats. I circumvented the puppy, closed the gate, and escaped. All she asked was that I text when I was on my way.

She heard me open the gate at her house and make my way through their front yard gardens, one within another, something either from a leftover British sensibility of defined garden spaces or an in-town pet owner’s necessity.

Opening the door, my friend welcomed me, thus avoiding the spine-chilling parental response to a ringing doorbell in a house with a toddler or young children who set upon a houseguest like coyotes to a roaming flock of chickens. Setting the toddler shoes on top of the player piano adjacent to the entryway I observed the wooden figurine of a player piano and complimented the mini-me moment of design. After greeting the toddler, I hugged my friend.

She welcomed me into the house. On the kitchen peninsula there lay a tea set of “made in England” antique teacups, a teapot from her grandmother and a silver platter of cookies, the kinds one only sees at Christmas time: palmiers, miniature cakes, and chocolate dipped Belgium shortbread. The presence of cookies was coincidental to my visit but fortuitous.

My friend invited me to sit and choose a teacup and tea. I smiled, my insides skipping a little bit at the thoughtfulness and decadence of being treated to tea unexpectedly. We discussed flavors and I chose the Bengal blend. I lifted the tea pot. The water was piping hot.

She wanted me to text when I was on my way so the water could be hot and ready.

This is hospitality.

I made myself at home and recalled silently the way with another friend, who has since moved. There were always home-baked cookies, or at least dough in the ready, and a specialty milk. We did not fuss over the house, the children, but stayed in the moment of two friends together, one escaping briefly the responsibilities of home, the other escaping briefly the solitude of being the only adult in a house with children.

At an earlier date, this new friend and I discussed this idea of hospitality, a concept apart from entertaining. Entertaining seeks to impress, to dazzle, to serve an Instagram-worthy moment with a flourish. It serves the hostess more than the guests by showing her domestic prowess.

Hospitality on the other hand, in its humility, seeks to make space. To carve out a moment from the day, the house, the routine, to welcome the stranger and friend. It sets aside the cares that grow up around us and tells the other, “please, come inside.”

One week prior my aunt marveled at our home improvements, new puppy, growing children and, and after asking what I do for myself, made the oft-repeated comment, “not that you don’t have enough on your plate.”

Two days later I read a Facebook message from a local farmer offering us a bottle-fed baby lamb. We moved the old dog house into one of our barns, set up a heat lamp, and piled in some straw. My husband purchased a new bulb for the lamp, milk replacement formula for the babies and we joyfully accepted not one, but two baby lambs. It was our plan for over a year to move in this direction, we simply had not done it yet.

Hospitality sees these moments not just as one more thing to do, but the thing that matters right now. Making space, building a boundary around the moment, protecting it from the stress of the world and our lives.

We do not neglect the other very important things. The doctor appointments, the existing pets, the children who expect to eat after feeding their lambs, grading the math assignments all must still happen.

But rather than allowing all these things to the pile, one on top of another interiorly taking up space in our minds and hearts, we learn to mentally and emotionally step away, take a breath, and say,

“Hello! Come on in.”

Hope after the Storm

I made a to-do list for my husband only to discover he dealt with the flooding of an outbuilding all night. Part-way through the school day, the children shouted, “it’s raining again!” and I threw on my boots and jacket and moved sandbags with my husband. We avoided worse damage.

On one end I saw his exhaustion. At the other end, I heard my daughters’ delight that God granted their wish for rain with lots and lots of rain. I stood in the middle offering support and wonder at the magnitude of water falling from the sky.

No fences fell this time. The animals found shelter near the house. My garden was thoroughly watered allowing strewn seeds to send out their autumn shoots, promising early and bigger flowers in spring.

When it was done, the sky grew brighter and slowly blue emerged from that gray dome, the pure blue we see only after a rainfall.

The leaves refaced the surface of the porch and sidewalks. My children ran to me excitedly to announce they saw a tree fall in the neighbor’s orchard. We walked out when the rain subsided and the sun brightened the yard. My daughter counted five trees downed, roots and all.

Then we saw the sunset.

“It’s like heaven,” I said recalling a story St. Therese of Lisieux told of her visit to the sea with her sister in her autobiography, “The Story of a Soul.”

She wrote,

“That evening at the hour when the sun seems to sink into the vast ocean, leaving behind it a trail of glory, I sat with Pauline on a bare rock, and gazed for long on this golden furrow which she told me was an image of grace illumining the way of faithful souls here below.”

Whenever I saw such a path or such a sunset, I thought of this idea: it showing the way to heaven when grace lights up the way.

We are all in our own way attempting to find that way, the path that leads to peace, rest, fulfillment, where hearts are not broken, neighbors are trusted, bodies are whole, emergencies no longer derail plans, our bodies regain their elasticity. The place where grief is healed, homes are clean, foundations secure. Where fences do not fall over, leaves do not create slipping hazards and children complete their schoolwork in record time.

We are looking for something and see the promise of it in glimpses every day.

The clouds looked like mountains, my daughters said. The younger marveled at the color and the overall beauty of it.

As we walked away from the trees to an open field, we saw the sky turn from azure to ice blue nearer the horizon before it met purple clouds. Bubblegum pink lined the perimeter of those clouds with blush rays extending out and up.

The elder expressed, “It’s like the light is heaven and the rays are shining out from behind the mountain because nothing can contain the light of heaven.”

There is a secret here. We see that promise of what we hope for in the beautiful moments: the blue sky, the sunset, the feel of the warmth of the sun on a fall day on our skin, the crackling fire, the artwork that stops us in our tracks, or the sleeping toddler on the living room rug.

Yet, even in the storm, if we look, we will see it, too, peeking through, pushing through, in the enduring effort of a tired husband, in the foresight of a loving wife, in the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made by a child for her siblings because her parents asked her to.

Emily Dickenson wrote,

“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops – at all”.

During the storm, after the storm, if we are willing to be students of it we shall see that hope can be seen and felt even in the darkest of times.

Previously published in the weekly column, “Here’s to the Good Life!” in the Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch.

Break the Routine

The wind blows fiercely outside my window. I hear the shouts of children as they raise their voices above the gusts to communicate how each should play with their new puppy. Times are changing. There is hope in the air.

Impressed with their progress and hard work this semester, I elected to give my children a full week of Fall break, culminating in a cabin visit. For eight weeks, I have raved about the beauty of routine, how it helped us all to fall in line with what must be done and do it well.

“Routine is beauty,” the founder of a missionary organization, the National Evangelization Team, explained to a new crop of missionaries. He spoke about prayer, and I agreed wholeheartedly. Now in a way that is totally different I feel the impact of those words.

There were challenges to homeschooling last year. Personality clashes, frustrations, the sense that I, the educator, gave up my freedom to command, “keep working” every two minutes to a particularly stubborn student. A solid routine changed that.

Routine creates boundaries like fences around the blocks of time in our day. As human beings, we do not so much itemize information in our minds. Rather we chunk it together in bits that our short-term memory can deal with. I learned this in college, “seven items, plus-or-minus two,” is all our short-term memory can hold. Five to nine items, that’s all. If I look at my day, I can easily conceive of seven blocks of time, plus-or-minus two, and organize my day accordingly.

Then there are the studies that show children playing in a fenced playground will venture farther, closer to the edges of the playground, than those who played in an unfenced area. When we know our boundaries, we know how far we can go safely. Boundaries can actually make us feel freer.

And so in routine, I know what I need to do in this block of time. I do not need to worry about what happens outside this block of time. The present is what matters and I can relax knowing that all those other things on my mind, the six, plus-or-minus two, will be got to. I do not need to worry about them.

So it goes with my children. They know chores begin at 7 a.m. They know school begins at 8 a.m. The aforementioned stubborn student knows math will end after 45 minutes and whatever he does not do, he will do it when all other subjects have been completed. If he works rather than sits (daydreaming, drawing imaginary battle scenes) he will have time to play. If he does work, if he sits daydreaming and drawing those scenes, he knows the school day will go on indefinitely until he changes his mind. He has more freedom within the routine than he had outside of it. He is in control of his choices and that is what he needed to be successful.

It takes discipline to stick to a routine and the effort to get the other players on board can be stressful. This is why breaks become all the more important. Scheduled recess, an hour for lunch, and vacations from school when all the routine goes by the wayside, when breakfast is late, movies are watched and a sense of freedom and festivity reign. These times balance the work and discipline needed to keep a routine in place for a large group of people with a wide range of personalities and preferences. These breaks make the energy required to do all that possible.

The breaks and holidays punctuate the routine of life. I am the type to be tempted to skip these breaks, power through and get the work done sooner. That method works fine temporarily, but burnout ensues and that mode of nonstop work becomes untenable. We burn out. We give up. The work we did begins to fall apart.

A routine, not just a schedule, but a sustainable, intentional plan that accounts for the needs of those involved, makes the difference. It might require some brainstorming, conversations, sitting and musing, imagining the different scenarios, but when it all comes together, breaks included, it is beautiful.

Previously published in the weekly column, “Here’s to the Good Life!” in the Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch.

Greatness

Dorothea Brooke of “Middlemarch”, written by George Elliot, longs to make a difference. Every part of her internal working is meant for bigger things. She is a more sophisticated version of “Scuffy the Tugboat,” a Golden Books story in which a little red toy tugboat is dissatisfied with his toyshop and bathtub existence.

“I was meant for greater things,”
he sulks.

One day he finds the opportunity to do what he feels meant to do. The accommodating man with the polka dot tie who runs the toyshop takes Scuffy and his son to the babbling brook. Scuffy moves quickly and finds himself on an adventure.

He is excited and proud, then frightened and lonely. In the end, he finds that maybe the biggest adventures were not what he was meant for, and he finds contentment back in the bathtub and domesticity.

What does it actually mean to be meant to do great things?

Are great things only the big visible things that go viral on social media, make it to the news and front pages, making good stuff for a memoir? Some of these great things change the world, change the course of history, change lives. But the world makes a poor witness and as soon as her attention is turned, the spotlight shifts and the next big story hits the front page.

Perhaps greatness is the simple act of giving a child a beautiful plumb-colored snapdragon from the garden they are not usually allowed to pick from because the flowers are bound to be sold in bouquets. The child carries the flower around until the buds fall off, he cries, and you give him another, brightening his world once more. The joy is deep but lasts only as long as that little bloom.

Is it a meal ready on the table for a hardworking husband? Is it the car unexpectedly filled up with gas-saving a trip later that day? Is it picking out a book for a friend, or sending an Instagram photo with a caption you know would make them laugh?

Dorothea married Mr. Casaubon, a character repeatedly described as “dried up” in comparison to her youthful vitality and beauty. She marries him in the hope and dream of being introduced to the world of great things, where she can do a great work, effect a great difference. She quickly finds herself disappointed and disillusioned, outside whatever mechanism drives and inspires him. In a modern world, she likely would leave him behind to look for her path to greatness.

Faithful, she remains, full of trust that her path will reveal itself in her given circumstances, circumstances she chose for herself. Elliot presents a particular problem for the woman in this period. Dorothea makes one decision, to marry the man, and she must wait patiently before anything can change. She is, for the most part, powerless in her circumstances. This is contrasted with another character, Dr. Lydgate, who, as a man, is in a position to make decisions professionally and personally and, even after a disappointing marriage, can choose what step he will take next.

What do they do with their opportunities?

What does Scuffy do? The key feature is that Dorothea keeps her vision. Her desire is not entirely set on one dream, as Lydgate’s was of professional greatness. Thus her desire can adapt. It is not the great thing itself, but to make a difference. To make a difference in the world can be as entirely intimate as offering a flower to a child, or as global as building a hospital.

The greatness comes from pouring oneself out, in offering what one has at his disposal for the good of another, of looking for opportunities to give, and then giving.

I tell my children that virtue is practiced in the small things so that when the big moments arise, we have trained ourselves to either do good or avoid evil. Greatness works similarly. So whether a housewife outside a rural town or a doctor in a big city, when we take our circumstances for what they, work with them in that sphere without resentment or distraction, keeping our eyes open and our will ready to serve, the great moments come. And I venture to say, they’ll be more than we realize and effect a greater difference in those around us than we ever could have imagined.

Previously published in the weekly column, “Here’s to the Good Life!” in the Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch.

When the Garden is Good

Gardening came with home-owning. Growing flowers came as therapy. A flower is a piece of art. A bouquet is a collection of art pieces, arranged to showcase the beauty of the feature star.

With our new home came new possibilities. It was difficult to keep the sprinklers running without their getting clogged. Perennial, drought-tolerant plants to fill large swathes of land, replaced wild geranium and nettle were called for. I planted lavender, Russian sage, salvia, chamomile, mint and dusty miller.

The ranunculus were on sale at Costco. They went in, along with irises that have gone with me from home to home, a sign (to me) of hope in bad times and generational love.

The roses bloomed. Years-old roses I had not worked for. In spring they came as a magnificent gift, creating a three-foot tall arrangement in my footed orange-art-glass vase.

Then I met Floret Flower Farm through Erin Benzakein’s first book “Cut Flower Garden.” Gardening became accessible. From therapy to hobby and even familial bonding as my husband grew the vegetables and I grew the flowers. Now my daughters are helping me harvest the greenery.

I arranged flowers for my home and posted photos on Instagram. Last summer, a woman from our parish reached out to me to order flowers. Orders trickled in. I sold potted paperwhite bulbs and sweet pea seeds at The Loreto Market in December.

Spring came again. Now there are more plants alongside the lavender and salvia than I can name. Another flower bed of dahlias, zinnias, snapdragons and strawflowers sprung up where once there was dust and weeds.

More orders. Bonus bouquets. And then, a flower stand.

Each day, I arrange a handful of pint-size jars of flowers, careful to select for color, shape and complementing features and set it out. I photograph, post, and hope people will come by for $10 jars bouquets. I hope they will ask questions. I hope they will place a special order.

“The money goes to pay for the hobby,” I tell my friends. But truly, there is something deeper at work when I handle, contemplate and arrange the flowers. I have written over the years about how gardening is a microcosm full of life lessons. I feel that even more now.

Because now, we have bugs and powdery mildew; and I lunged with a garden tool at a gopher who had just eaten the rhizome off of one of my new irises.

And my daughter received her First Holy Communion, a big deal in the life of a young Catholic girl as she goes to the Church dressed like a bride That day my younger son was hurting.

“Does it feel like a step back since he was doing so well?” a friend asks, with compassion in her eyes, in response to my tears.

“No,” I said.

Because somehow I could feel in my heart that gophers exist alongside the flower stand. The roses look mighty pretty, even as the gardener clips off damaged leaves and hopes the next flush of buds will be protected.

The weeding still has to be done.

It is hard to remember this when the going is good and I have just set out seven little floral arrangements on a Monday morning. Yet, when faced with it, if we can accept the bad along with the good, the rocks along the otherwise smooth path, the weeds along with the vegetables, without thinking that the garden is doomed, that this year is a failure, that success will crumble, then we have got something to hold on to.

Then we have got a garden.

Then we have got a family.

And those are the times, more than any other, that we can feel how good it is.

Previously published in the weekly column, “Here’s to the Good Life!” in the Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch.

Feel like your failing? There’s a point to that asking if you are.

One mother meltdown to start off our Monday.

Three assessments today. They scored “Advanced.” They smile with pleasure to hear their score. They have heard from their parents they are smart, but somehow they believe it more when they are assessed by an outside source.

I look out with delight at two fresh blooms in the garden. At lunch, my fingers reach continually to fuss with an arrangement of flowers celebrating those blooms.

As I organize my baskets, empty frames and decorative holders for my business my eyes spy ivory crochet squares through the lid of the yarn box as I stash away. I did not know my daughter could crochet these squares. It looks beautiful.

I think of the flower arrangement she cut for me on Mother’s Day with lavender, purple sweet peas and, for greenery, wandering jew. She chose a cut crystal bud vase and snipped to particular heights. It is enchanting.

Next to it on the table stands a Lego creation by son. He followed his father’s suggestion to build my garden but did it in such a way that includes the white bench, the tree, my husband fixing a broken sprinkler and, along with me watering the flowers, water flowing out the other side of the plant, unbeknownst to Lego me.

I asked my clever daughter why she switched beds with her brother to use the tallest bunk. “Because then Peter doesn’t bother me at night.”

I asked Peter the reason he does not do a particular thing the other kids do. “Because I’m scared to,” he answers with honesty and insight.

The day began with me staring at my limitations.

As the hours passed the opportunities to see their gifts grew.

I hope that I can communicate to them about their gifts. I hope I can recognize and make them feel that their gifts are seen and appreciated. I hope my mother-meltdowns are not the sum of our lives together.

In the Catholic Church May is a month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mother’s Day just passed. Our time of crisis ended a while ago. What happens now? Do I measure up now that things are calm and my excuses are gone?

I see my weaknesses and wonder.

My friend tells me the fact that I ask these questions is probably a protective factor against the outcome I fear.

The risk takes place if we never ask or if we stop asking and begin to answer. We answer with the negative. Instead of asking, do I measure up? We begin to tell ourselves, I do not measure up. I am not enough. This is not good enough. This never will be enough.

Or in the opposite direction, wherein we no longer notice our weaknesses. “It’s fine.” “At least I’m not like so-and-so.” “I’ve got this down” with the sort of satisfaction that tells us we can give up and stop trying to grow.

We cannot standstill.

The urge to ask the question of how we are doing and if it is enough is an invitation. Maybe it is an invitation to reassurance, to take stock of the value, to see the good before us and graciously allow that we had something to do with that. Or it is an invitation to honestly assess where we have failed and how we need to approach the path towards improvement, however painful that may be. Sometimes we need to be reminded we are human. Sometimes we need to be reassured that human though we may be, transcendence is possible.

It all begins with the question, not the assumption.

The assumption lowers us, locks us in, and stagnates us. The question, though painful at times, opens us up.

Had I not been questioning myself this month, would I have noticed how surrounded by gifts I am? Would I have seen the creativity, willpower, problem-solving, artfulness in those around me?

I may never feel secure in my ability to be a mother, but I can see the fruit of the effort, and that is worth a great deal indeed.

Draw Back to the Garden

Motherhood is work.
And work is play
Until the demands of my duty
Fill the hours of the day

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Melville’s sea and my garden

My first flower order of the year came at the fresh and breezy beginning of May, after the first rush of rose blooms, before the dahlias, pincushions and zinnias start their takeover of my morning hours. The calendula is beginning to speak up. The snapdragons are showing promise. Here and there new flowers are whispering that they are ready for their first bloom. Some garden beds are a disappointment. Some feel more like an investment in the future.

“It will look amazing next spring!” I say, pointing to a bunch of transplant-shocked plants. I know I should transplant in the fall. I know it. But when the plants are healthy is just when I can see they are crowding each other and where its creeping roots might be severed to fill in the gaps of another bed.

With the first flower order complete, and with ten more bouquets besides to sell bound or The Loreto Market, an outdoor market we hosted outside our home. As the market progressed, my stand emptied out until the last bouquet sold.

After hours of clipping, cleaning, and arranging I thought how welcome a break would be. Let the bees have the blooms for a few days. Before two days passed, I was back in the garden, gushing over my third peony plant in bloom. Its scent wafted up my nostrils as I tied the arching stems to a stake.

“Motherhood is work,” a priest reminded me.

The simple words spoke volumes to my soul. Motherhood is work, and I do not need to make the other projects into work right now. I’m tempted to ambition, to dive deep into the next project, to go and go and go until I reach the boundary of what I can do, simply because I have the energy to do so. I have the energy, but no longer have the time.

The thing that was a fun hobby then becomes a strain. Other duties call my name: a five-year-old, a toddler, an emerging 6th grader, field and flower.

After balancing life and projects last week, I thought with satisfaction of letting the weeds go and leaving the blooms to the pollinators. But then a mystery flower was covered in frilly orange faces, the yarrow burst with sunshine, the bunny tails wiggled in the wind. I must collect them. They all move so beautifully together.

This hobby takes effort, but the effort is sweet. Its work balances my duties within the home. It draws me outside, into the wind, the sun and the dirt. I pause and contemplate. My senses spring to respond to the stimuli nearby. Pathways in my brain flicker with excitement as I draw relationships from color theory.

I cut, I clean, I arrange.

And my home is filled with flowers.

The woman who placed the special order listened to my gardening story, that story that begins in sadness and grief, but grew a garden. “You’ll always have this as the gift she left you, your love of gardening,” she said.

Many days of motherhood are filled with laughter and tears. To find the fruit of both, I go out to the garden.

Would that we all could find the hobby that energizes us, that balances us, that helps us find a central space around which we can pivot, flexing our muscles and growing in virtue is ways that pour over into all aspects of our life. This gift is not something only I can receive because of some privilege. It is available to everyone. And its path takes us through, not just the garden, but the good life.

When the world feels dark

The world is a dark place

but as I was reminded today in a Facebook meme, “look to the east.” The sun rises in the east. A new day begins are dawn. When our nights are filled with weeping, upon waking, hope often finds itself restored. The morning looks not so dark.

Life is hard.

Even with things “opening up” and returning to whatever normal is, life will still be hard, only now more people realize it. No legislation, no tax break, no job growth will change this fact. Even if herd immunity is achieved, even if unemployment levels return to pre-pandemic levels, even if the time machine in my neighbor’s garage manages to return us all to a different, better, purer age, life will still be hard.

Only now more people know it.

That sounds bleak.

What do we do with this information?

We can self-medicate, isolate, escape into virtual reality until it passes. But it won’t pass. It will wax and wane, but the world we live in will still exist even after a night of heavy drinking.

We can volunteer, advocate, and work to change the brokenness of the world. While we have a significant impact on our community and the individuals we encounter, the world will still be a complicated, messy place. It cannot be controlled. The seeds of weeds will still scatter, some intentionally, some unintentionally, but we will never have to stop weeding unless we burn it all down.

There are those who want to burn it all down. But then, nothing will be left. No humans to tend the earth, no climate to make life worth living for the humans. It is an ecosystem and one thing depends on another.

What do we do?

We find a new way, a new path, something different than suffering and not suffering, but learning to find meaning in suffering and live even amid the pain. That is a life worth living. It does not have to be perfect or physically complete. It may not even be financially stable. But it can still be good.

Would you believe an operatic telling of Aesop’s Fables inspired these thoughts?

Opera Modesto presented “The Race” on April 9 as part of its Festival @ Home.

It will be available from Opera Modesto until May 9. I wrote about it as news, but now I want to write about the spirit of it.

It is joyful.

It is light.

It is playful.

It is beautiful, both in its naturalistic settings and the unique ability of humans to sing.

The singing is impressive.

The performers are representative of the diversity of the real world, in age and color, harmonizing together.

It has a vision beyond the brokenness and pain of 2020 and the tensions of the present moment.

Because Aesop’s Fables come from an age when we were better equipped to take the world as it is. And because the world was recognized as a sometimes dark place, with wolves in sheep’s clothing or consequences to laziness (those grapes did look good) it was actually possible to learn lessons that could make life better despite hardship, pain, or injustice.

The narrative turns a little darker as the Wolf played by Roy Mendiola peers over at the seemingly helpless lamb played by Lance Mendiola. Photo by David Schroeder.

We could learn:

I have control over my actions.

I can make a decision.

I can work or not work.

I can complain or not complain.

I can boast, becoming consumed by overconfidence in my perspective, no longer allowing for even reasonableness to intrude on my thoughts (should you really take that many naps during a race?), or humbly recognize my skills for what they are. They may be very good indeed, but it is still possible to lose. Not everything is within my control. But some important things are.

One more moral of the story. Overconfidence can spoil a good sport, we learn this and more from the Hare, played by Katie Overton. Photo by David Schroeder.

I believe we need to teach these lessons to our children, and revisit them ourselves. A lot of things come easier in this day and age than they did in the past, and that is a good thing. But it does mean we have to work a little harder to be reminded that we need to learn these lessons.

“The Race” is a great movie.

It really is what we need in this world. I heartily recommend it as one more antidote against both the doldrums and storms of this age.

Previously published in the weekly column, “Here’s to the Good Life!” in the Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch.

What to Do with the in-between season

As I write this, it is the first day of Spring.

From the white board in front of our makeshift homeschool classroom, I can erase the word “Winter” from the combination “Winter/Spring”. We live in a form of winter/spring for a handful of months in the Central Valley. The weather warms, but might still freeze. The temperatures reach up near 70, inching bit by bit, because a cold spell and a day of rain makes us all remark how like winter it is in March.

Other states sit covered in snow, waiting for the flowers to poke through the icy layers, signaling the end of a long winter will not be too far off.

Californians start their seedlings, but plant them also, seeing the first fruits in their open fields. Farmers carry in boxes of citrus, as sweet as candy, while we smell the sweetly scented air filled with almond blossoms and pollen.

Landscape with cut flower garden and seedlings

It is winter/spring here in California when the mud puddles merge together with puddles from misdirected sprinklers, their timers signaled too soon in preparation for dryer spells. Children shed their winter clothes for lighter garments, only to shiver once the sun goes down because the mornings are below 50, the coldest temperature we generally see.

It is winter/spring as our loved ones receive the vaccine alongside the safety, hope and peace it brings to know they can gather again with loved ones will still following CDC guidance; as some of our youth return to schools and sports and order special masks and bell covers to play their preferred instrument with the victorious spirit of a high schooler who has faced something no generation before ever faced.

It is winter/spring as liturgically-focused Christian religions move through the Lenten season, with just a shot time remaining before Easter, the highest of holy days, the more triumphant, grandest, important celebration to the heart of Christian belief. To enter the church that Sunday, the church they could not enter one liturgical year ago, when doors were closed and services live-streamed and Easter egg hunts canceled.

It is winter/spring as we gather with others in small numbers or shop for plastic eggs at Target while still wearing masks, keeping our distance and trying not to make physical contact with someone we do not know, when once a handshake might have been the best approach.

It is winter/spring as my daughter bends the top line of the growth chart, yet never sleeps. As my son outgrows another size of clothes, but has surgery next month. As my oldest learns Latin but will go into 6^th grade, signaling to me the beginning of the end of her children and her emergence in a new phase of life, one I have never experienced before as a mother.

The weeds grow with the new flowers. The dahlias emerge even where the cats scratched. The rain waters the fields even as it inspires the weeds to give it one last go before the vegetable garden is planted.

Detail of cut flower garden with white garden bench

All of our lives we live in this winter/spring, with the bare ground filled to the brim with seeds and life waiting for just the right amount of daylight, warmth and water to break forth. In this season all the potential is there. We have only to wait a little longer, tend the ground a little more gently, and continue to feed the heart and soul of the project with the very best we have, the practice of virtues, including kindness, understanding and justice determined by reason and not emotion.

Understand and embrace the duality in which we must live, the tension to which we must adjust. Even as today is the first day of spring, a chill is in the air. Nothing ever fully ends or disappears, and the beauty that lies in wait for us lies within this tension.

Discover it. Embrace it. See what is has for you today.

Choose Festivity

The Covid-shutdown shuffled around our income. In the transition, we find my husband now working most holiday mornings. It was not a change I would have lobbied for.

You see, I am an extrovert, and as an extrovert, I crave conversation, discussion, a rational witness to the work I am undergoing, a companion on the journey. When I am excited, I am elated. Along with being an extrovert, I have a choleric temperament, meaning, in familiar words, I am dramatic. When disappointment comes, I am crestfallen.

We have our traditions for Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. Shoot, even Saturdays in winter now have traditions attached to them. Each tradition accentuates the rhythm in the lives of my children, giving them something to look forward to and a memory to hold onto.

“Remember how daddy always built a fire on cold Saturday mornings?”

“Remember how we always watched Miracle on 34th Street on Thanksgiving?”

I want to make sure they have plenty of “remember when’s.”

Things are fun. They are festive.

What happens to the extrovert whose festival day now includes a morning of normalcy, not festivity, when the husband is at work and the wife is home with the children who have not yet learned to gratify the needs of the extrovert, being themselves so demanding?

Choose festivity.

A spirit of festivity is a choice.

It does not require perfection.

It does not require a crowd.

The festival exists whether or not we participate in it. Why not choose to participate?

We can choose to allow each day to be just one more day, another day of diapers, dishwashing, laundry folding, earning the bread, taking out the garbage. Or we can access an internal locus of control, believing in our efficacy in a situation, and choose to make this day something special, something that aligns with what it actually is.

So stop working, start celebrating.

Even if my husband is gone for a few hours, bringing home the bacon, I need to stop cleaning and start being.

Rather than taking advantage of the extra time, as if the festival had not started yet, I need to access the traditions and do them in a new way, reapplying the trial and error that cemented them as our traditions and find a new and adjusted routine.

We should plan ahead to free up the busiest hands on that day. It is not festive if the mother is slugging away at the dishes while everyone else relaxes.

Limit television and screen time, stay off social media. In fact, eliminate any technology that is not communal – so if you like a Wii game – do it as a group with spectators (not everyone has to play but be present), if you watch TV, do it as a group, the exception the rule being the posting of a few Instagram pictures because those communal pajamas look sharp.

When the heads of the house choose to be festive, the rest will fall under the spell.

Our kids usually need a pep talk the day before to remind them not to lose it in the afternoon when their excitement has exhausted them. Knowing I will not be able to fully unleash the power of my extroversion until later in the morning, I probably need a pep talk too.

Take photos in the morning when the kids (and everyone) is more excited.

Clean the day before, or let it go entirely. Festivity is not about perfection.

Drinking might feel like keeping spirits bright, but if you get so sloppy that you can’t dance at the end of the night.

2020 is a drag.

Choose festivity.