i'm not fooling anyone

One of the best compliments I ever receive is when people tell me I remind them of my grandma Gaye. It is true that I inherited her height and her slender build, her deep love for family and her fondness for all things farm. But, perhaps, where I find her most in my life is in my cooking. Like my grandma, I am kind of a stickler about feeding my kids whole foods and seriously limiting the sugar. However, if I were really my grandma, I'd be grinding my own grain into flour and refusing to allow a stitch of sugar into my home. But let's be serious people, this is the 21st century in the suburbs.

My dad and his siblings love to joke about the cookies my grandma used to make. She would take a recipe and make it healthy, which meant replacing the white flour with whole wheat, the sugar with honey and the chocolate with raisins. Her children were not fans of her cookies. In fact, I believe they all felt a little deprived in the dessert department growing up.

But I understand my grandma. I've eaten her cookies. I didn't think they were so bad.

My son, in the short time he had with my grandma, adored the woman. He also politely ate her cookies, which is why I supposed he wouldn't mind when I finally broke down the other day and made some chocolate chip cookies with whole wheat flour and honey and packed them with zucchini.

I have to admit I didn't love these cookies at first, but I think they got better with age. Because when you don't keep a plethora of desserts in the house and rarely make sweet things, even a zucchini cookie is quite the treat.

Liam took his first bite and eyed me warily.

"Does this have honey in it?" he asked.

"Yep," I replied.

Another bite.

"Does it have zucchini in it?" he asked semi-shocked.

"Yes," I answered cautiously.

Another bite.

"Mom," he said with a surprised smile. "These are awesome!"

Not the response I was expecting. But what a coup. Even though I didn't grind the flour myself, I believe my grandma would be proud.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from a recipe by Camille Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

1 egg
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Combine egg, oil, honey, brown sugar and vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and add to batter. Stir in zucchini and chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

farmer jay, farmer jeff, farmer pete and farmer andrew

I love farmers. Especially those who choose the profession late in life, after sowing their oats in the city, working in an office cubicle and waiting tables at the local Chili's. Probably because they are throwing everything to the wind and picking up a pitchfork without a clue as how to use it, they are endearing and I have a soft spot for them.

For as long as I can remember I have envisioned myself as a farm wife, harvesting crops, baking pies, hanging clothes on the line, running out to chase the chickens that flew the coop. Before I met my husband I was on the way to becoming one. If not the wife, at least the farmer.

I had spent weeks at a time as both farm sitter and writer in residence at a farm in Wisconsin cared for by city transplants, Jay and Donna. I ate up the 30 acres, well-used/art-studio barn, CSA garden, dreamy old farmhouse and company of artistic intellectuals that didn't know much about farming, but did it all the same. They grew food for 40 families, raised lambs and chickens who enjoyed an idyllic life before becoming dinner, ran an artist-in-residence program, hosted a stream of guests every weekend of the summer, hacked at giant thistle, fixed fences, fed a wood-burning furnace, and pieced together an unusual assortment of part-time jobs to pay the mortgage. They decorated their house in farm auction kitsch, watched obscure independent films on an 1970s TV and dreamed up ways to inject a rural agrarian landscape with art and culture. I wanted to be just like them.

Two years in row I farm sat for Jay and Donna during the coldest week of the winter. Wind chills were 20 below and I spent thirty minutes twice a day hacking the ice in the sheep's water trough and the rest of the thirty minute intervals throwing logs on the fire. It was bliss.

One night during a winter farm sitting stint, a truck drove up the long drive and parked. I hesitantly opened the back door for a big man in a cowboy hat. (The two big farm dogs barking at the stranger gave me some comfort, but there wouldn't have been much I could do in the face of real danger since none of the outside doors in the farmhouse actually locked.)

"Well, you're not Donna," bellowed the big man.

"No, I'm staying here, taking care of the farm while they're on vacation," I admitted, thinking it might have been wiser to say that I was a trained assassin and my boyfriend with the gun was in the other room.

But the big man smiled a big smile and stuck out his hand, "I'm neighbor Jeff," he said. "Mind if I come in and sit a spell?" I swear he really said that. How can you not just love farmers?

So I said sure and he came in and sat on a stool and shot the breeze for an hour while I made a fancy farm dinner for myself in the old farmhouse kitchen on kitschy mismatched dishes. There was no point to the visit other than just being neighborly. There was no rush to the preparation other than just to make something nice to eat. It was simple and easy and I was ready to trade my life for ice chopping and fire feeding and shooting the breeze right then and there.

This past Friday, ten years later, I met another farmer. This one raises cattle and sells his grass-fed beef through meet and greets at the homes of friends in suburbia. I instantly loved farmer Pete. I chatted with him about the challenge of farming 120 acres as one who came to farming late in life after leaving a law practice (no wonder I loved him!). I chatted with him about the rural landscape and how quickly cows birth their calves. I had forgotten how much I loved shooting the breeze with a farmer, how much I still longed for a farm life.

But my life took different turns and I'm in love with a British rocker and we live in about the most neighborly of neighborhoods one could imagine. I don't have a farm house or more than 1/4 acre, but we try to implement some of the finer points of farm life, like vegetable gardening, pie baking, thrift store shopping and clothes-line drying. No chickens yet, but some good friends have ventured there, with four hens in a coop in their backyard, and we are cheering them on. The chicken-raising suburban farm wife passes on her Mary Janes Farm magazines. Another friend goes to the flea market with me to support my love of kitsch and farmhouse linens. Another feeds my love of quilts and sewing and all things vintage. Another stops by with a bouquet of chamomile flowers from his yard that he thinks I might like to steep for tea and brings a couple pints of his latest home brew for farmer Andrew.

I still dream sometimes about living on a farm. But when I can get myself to sit a spell and take a look around, I realize that I have the life I've always wanted - the kids running in the yard, the laundry flapping in the breeze, the pie cooling on the counter, the neighbors coming over to shoot the breeze. The rolling hills, the grazing animals, the wildflower gardens out back...if I close my eyes, I can almost see them. And right now, that good enough for me.

grandma's chicken salad

In my mind, there are some recipes, although I don't know where they originated, that belong exclusively to my grandma Gaye. Just a bite of one of these dishes transports me and yet I never asked her for any of her recipes, even my favorites. I guess I figured they wouldn't be nearly as satisfying or happy-inducing if I made them myself. Today I no longer have the woman, but I do have access to the recipes. And so I'm making them. Her chicken salad was a crowd pleaser. We'd pile it on our plates at baby showers or family potlucks, right next to the homemade bread and fresh-pressed applesauce. Serious happy overload. Gaye must have enjoyed the salad, too, as the recipe appears in her box three times. I made it Saturday morning and have eaten it for nearly every meal since. It's delicious and good for you. For that reason alone, I don't think she'd mind me sharing it.

Grandma Gaye's Chicken Salad

3-4 cups cooked chicken (she roasted her own bird, I cheated and bought a pre-cooked rotisserie version)
2-3 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 cup chopped celery
4-5 chopped green onions
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 T fresh lemon juice
1 t. honey
1 t. salt

Mix last five ingredients (the dressing) and combine in a big bowl with the first four. Serve room temperature or refrigerate and serve cold. Really good either way.

Note: I imagine that this recipe would also be good spiced up with a little curry or dill. However, my kids will eat it just the way it is, which feels like a major feat. I don't plan on ever altering it, but please let me know how it turns out if you do.

my tribute

This past Friday I had the honor of giving a tribute at my grandma's funeral. Summing up her life, influence, character and gift to her family and a very large world of friends is a nearly impossible task, especially when you are allocated three minutes. But my tribute in concert with the other 11 family tributes offered on Friday morning created a beautiful mosaic of this one very precious woman. I am posting mine here in case anyone wants to read it and so that I will always have and remember it.

::

Some of my earliest memories of my grandma Gaye took place at her and my papa’s townhouse in Emerald Green. I remember everything about that home – the floorplan, the furniture, the bumper pool table, the bread dough rising on the counter, the flower-strewn patio overlooking the river. That home was one of my favorite places on earth. On one visit in particular, I remember a duckling. In my child’s eye, the story went like this:

It was early spring. My grandma relished spring. An absolutely avid nature lover, my grandma, this particular spring, was keeping close tabs on a duck who had chosen to make a nest in a bush outside her door. Soon the ducklings hatched and a few days later the mama duck led her brood in a little parade to the river. All but one. For hours my grandma fretted and fussed over this duckling that had been left behind. Night was falling. The temperature was dropping. So Gaye did what only my incredibly loving and compassionate grandma would do. She slipped outside, gathered the duckling into her nightgown and took it into bed with her. (Now, I am sure many of you are wondering where my papa is in this story, as it would be hard to imagine him agreeing to a duck in his bed. But this is my memory.)

I tell you this story because for me it creates a tiny picture of what my grandma’s love was like. She didn’t think twice about showering it. She didn’t worry that she would love one too much and another not enough. She didn’t care what the neighbors thought – because she loved them, too. She never grew tired and weary. She just loved. Big love.

Her husband knew it. Her siblings knew it. Her children knew it. Her YFC family knew it. Her church family knew it. Her friends knew it. Her neighbors knew it. Many times, even strangers – and ducklings – knew it. But, best of all, for me, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren knew the fullness of her love.

In all my life, I will never forget listening in week after week while Gaye taught my son Liam (number 18 of 27 great-grandchildren) his ABC Bible verses. Often with tears in my eyes, I would sit in the other room and listen to her tell my son, in the most tender voice imaginable, “I’m so proud of you.” “It’s great.” “What a good job you’re doing.” And, as though it burst right from her heart, “I love you, honey.”

The day she passed away, I walked Liam to Kindergarten and asked him if he understood what it meant that Gaye had died. Quite matter-of-factly he told me that Gaye was very old and her body was very tired and she had gone to heaven. “Don’t worry, mom,” this five year old said. “She is so happy to see Jesus, and Jesus is so happy to see her.”

This statement from my son has made me wonder how often Jesus welcomes someone home who loves like our Gaye did. We are sad, so sad, to lose the woman who loved us each so tenderly, so individually and so completely. But like Liam said, we can be sure that she is so happy to see Jesus, and Jesus is so happy to see her.

spring

I have to write a poem on Spring,
Of trees that bloom and birds that sing.
I like the birds the trees and Spring,
But hate the poem I have to bring.
I like to hear the birds sweet song,
But hate to study all day long.
I love to roam among the trees
And study Botany as I please.
If I could do just as I wish,
If I could hike and hunt and fish,
The Spring would then most truly be
The season best designed for me.
The School would be my last retreat;
You'd never see me in my seat.
I'd have the time of my young life
With bat and ball and gun and knife.
I'd never try to write on Spring
Or trees or flowers or anything;
I'd just have fun the whole day long
And feel within my heart the song.

This poem was written for a school assignment 90 years ago by my grandpa George Olson who would be 101 tomorrow. How much he would have loved his great grandson who just happened to title his kindergarten chalk art assignment "Spring." Considering that tomorrow will also be the celebration of my grandma Gaye's 93 amazing years, Spring will forever be our season for remembering the poetry of two beautiful lives.

what i am thinking of

I am thinking of my grandma. It is still so strange to imagine that she is gone from this earth. After 42 years of her very significant and loving presence in my life, her total absence if nearly impossible to comprehend. And so, I am thinking of her. Specifically . . .

:: I am thinking of her long, elegant fingers cutting fabric on a big board laid over the bumper pool table in her basement. And those fingers kneading bread dough on her floured countertop, and expertly french braiding my hair into a crown around my head.

:: I am thinking of the great spread of food she would lay out on the table for any meal - whether it was just lunch for her and my papa and me or dinner for 25 family members. Always healthy and homemade and special.

:: I am thinking of her shredded wheat bars, bread and applesauce, brunswick stew, spinach souffle, and corn soup.

:: I am thinking about the way she belly laughed when we read the letters my papa's insanely conservative mother sent him at college, warning of the evils of candy and jazz music. Although she had every reason to, she never spoke ill of or sarcastically about this woman who often made her life very difficult.

:: I am thinking that she never spoke ill of or sarcastically about anything.

:: I am thinking of the birthday calendar that hung on the back of her powder room door and how happy I always was to see my name penned on it. And how she always remembered my birthday.

:: I am thinking of all the times I slept over at her house and how she sang to me in the darkened bedroom and rubbed my back and her sheets smelled so fresh and in the morning she was always in the kitchen making breakfast when I woke up. And when she saw me she would throw her arms around me like she hadn't seen me for a year.

:: I am thinking about how she loved beautiful things like a tree peony, a golden finch and a pretty-smelling lotion. And how her life was never about accumulating pretty things but always about seeing God's handiwork in everything.

:: I am thinking of how lovingly she spoke to my children and the incredible way she would swoop them into her arms. Even in her last days here, she squeezed them.

:: I am thinking about how earnestly, specifically and regularly she prayed.

:: I am thinking of her radiant smile.

:: I am thinking about the way she bubbled with joy and awe at the sight of her 27th great grandchild, so new and tiny. How holy that little visit seemed and how lucky I felt to happen to be there. How she couldn't take her eyes off that baby.

:: I am thinking of the amazing greeting I received at the door of her and my papa's hotel room in Nairobi. Never a hug so big in all the world.

:: I am thinking that my grandma made an astounding choice to leave a plain mennonite life, sell her house and possessions and to go to Japan with her husband and four small children. She had no idea what was in store. She just knew that God was calling them there. Before comfort or security, she heeded God's call.

:: I am thinking she was as brave as she was beautiful.

:: I am thinking that staying tethered to God was her secret.

:: I am thinking that being known and loved by this extraordinary woman for the last 42 years is just about one of the best gifts I've had in this life.

:: I am thinking that losing someone who loved you this much is something you never really get over.

favorite things :: the marble run

Whenever we go to visit my grandma Gaye, my boys make a beeline for the marble run. Who can blame them? The marbles are smooth and beautiful, the track an absolute feat of engineering genius (on the simplest scale), and the sound of marbles falling into a tin box...the joy cannot be explained.

Some of my best childhood memories include this exact marble run as well as these marbles and the tin box they're stored in. There's no electricity, no batteries and no plastic. Just pure fun. We ran marbles for one hour nonstop today. Elliott cried when we finally put the marbles away.

Cousins and siblings, listen to this video and remember those magical days where all it took was a wooden track, a handful of marbles and a dented tin box to make us happy.

a few of the things we learned in 2009

:: to climb alone


:: to bike alone


:: to drum


:: to read


:: to sew


:: to build


:: to build some more


:: to have some serious fun


:: to have some not-so-serious fun


:: to find fun in everything


:: to love exactly where we are and what we have

It was a year of firsts - first steps, first school year, first lost teeth. It was a year of endings - closing a business, leaving a band. It was also a year that we had our hearts stretched - the sadness of losing a dear cousin to cancer, the joy of adding a new brother-in-law to our family, the beauty of welcoming a Lithuania orphanage to our prayers and our fundraising efforts, the challenge of figuring out what could be holding back the littlest boy we love so much. But mostly it was a year of ordinary days held together by love. It doesn't get much better than that.

Happy new year!

starting september

The weather turns cool and I'm making applesauce. My neighbor has been gifting me all of her delicious, albeit wormy, apples and I have been churning out the sauce. Nothing like it. I swear it is best - the only applesauce my boys will eat.

Cutting out the wormy bits takes a while, as does mashing the cooked apples through the sieve. So, at night especially, I've been using the time to listen to podcasts of This American Life. One that has stuck with me all week is Break-Up. Act Two of this program replays an interview from 1987 with an eight-year-old girl who is trying to understand why her parents are getting divorced. She wrote a letter to then New York Mayor Ed Koch as well as to a children's author who wrote a book about divorce, but she doesn't get any answers that help. I was so touched by this piece. Her sadness, her confusion, her bluntness.

Maybe it's partly the inherent nostalgia of the season - buying school supplies, pulling out the sweaters and the blankets, making my grandma's applesauce - but there is something in that little girl's voice that yanked me back. Yet, rather than make me feel sad, the piece made me feel strangely grateful. See, at the end of the interview, NPR's Noah Adams rather awkwardly tells the girl that the good news is she'll be okay in the end. And, as dumb as it sounds to say to an eight year old, on a cool, beautiful, sunny first of September, making applesauce in my kitchen while my three guys play in the backyard, this 41 year old knows that he's right.

farm time

Although the weather says differently here in Chicago, we know spring has arrived when the lambs are born. I say this as if it were our own farm at which said lambs arrived. But, alas, my farm girl dream is played out at the park-district-owned 1800s replica hobby farm. Still, the animals are real. Not to be wrestled, fed or touched, but well cared for and naturally born and bred. That's something in suburbia.

Before my boys came along, I spent a couple weeks each winter farm sitting for friends who own a small farm and CSA in Wisconsin. The last year I did this, they squeaked in a vacation right before the start of lambing season. It was my job not only to feed and water the sheep in subzero temps but to be on the lookout for wayward lambs. I trudged out to the barn three times a day to check in on those sheep, both eager and afraid for what I might find in their crib.

The thing I remember most about those weeks at the farm was how slowly the clock moved. I lived in every minute. Everything I did commanded attention - slogging on my boots, crunching down the lane, breathing in and out. But time never dragged. Every sense was fully engaged and yet totally at rest. A beautiful dichotomy.

I was alone on the farm. That certainly made the weeks-long meditation easier. But what made it possible is that I allowed myself to be fully present in the moment, watching the fire, chopping an onion, dragging a bale of hay out of the barn (to the immense pleasure of a pushy herd of bleating sheep). I never thought about what I wasn't doing, what I wished I was doing, what I should be doing instead. I just saw what was in front of me to do and I did it. I wonder how my life would look different if I lived this way now.

For one thing, I know I would be better at remembering, at seeing and listening. I would be calmer, more patient. My house would be emptier. My mind would be freer.

On the flipside, life is a little more complex than two weeks on someone else's farm. But I'm glad to have the memories, triggered every spring by a visit to see the newest local lambs. It reminds me that it's good to slow down, to listen to my boots crunching, the birds singing, the sheep bleating, my son laughing, if only for a few precious moments.

sometimes you just can't help it

I have heard stories that my grandpa would forbid his children to cough. He was an incredible man in so many ways, but he had a hard time tolerating improper, unruly or, dare I say, pedestrian behavior. Have a bad cold? Control it, or at least be discrete about it.

My sister Liz will tell you that I have that man's blood running through my veins. Years ago the two of us backpacked through Italy and Liz contracted a nasty cold. The poor thing did her best to participate as fully as possible during the day, which probably is what intensified her coughing at night. I tried to be sympathetic, but packed in our economy rooms, beds inches apart most nights, I didn't do a good job of it. I didn't understand why she couldn't control the coughing. It sounded excessive and so incredibly loud. We were losing sleep and our neighbors were surely cursing us. More than once I remember telling Liz in the middle of the night that she should go in the bathroom and steam her head, not because I was looking out for her but because I might be able to finally fall asleep.

About the same time Liz got well, which coincided nicely with our departure, I caught the cold. I remember so well the little room in Milan our last night in Italy where I sat coughing my head off. No matter how I tried, I just could not stop. That night, Liz had every right to say, "I told you so," but she didn't. Instead, she went out and found me chamomile tea with honey and sat and rubbed my back. She never once gave an exasperated sigh or told me to go steam my head. She had been there. She knew.

This week that same cough came back. And all week I have been thinking about my little sister and how generous and kind she was to me in Italy. It is a good reminder of how struggling through something yourself is one of the only ways to have real compassion for someone experiencing that same pain. I think that is part of the bright side. Thank you, Liz, for showing it to me. Now, excuse me while I go and steam my head.

what made him special

With some people, death brings out the best in them, as friends and family can finally put all the bad behind and do their best to focus on redeeming qualities. This is not so with Ray. This guy was an exemplary friend, brother, son, husband, father and relative. There is nothing to exaggerate. He really was all this:

:: He was a t-shirt-and-baseball-cap-wearing guy who really knew how to dance. When Ray and Kristin were dating, I would go to DC to visit. My favorite memory is going to a Christmas party with all the Hill staffers and watching Ray and Kristin float together on the floor. They had an electricity and rhythm that gave the impression they had been dancing that way forever. I was so thrilled that night, absolutely certain that my sweet cousin had found her match.

:: He totally got Kristin and thought she was beautiful from day one. She was his "it" girl. And, being a romantic, I just loved that. They didn't have a long and arduous courtship. They didn't break up and get back together. They weren't just friends. They immediately sparked - and sparkled - intellectually, romantically, and in every other good way. There's not much better than seeing a female you love really being cherished by the guy of her dreams.

:: After marrying Kristin he had, count 'em, eight sisters. No brothers. Then he had three girls of his own. The only man in every house, he was all guy but so tenderhearted and loving. When I visited the hospital after Kristin and Ray's third daughter was born, I expected maybe he'd seem just a little disappointed. Not Ray. He was as proud and pleased as any dad could be.

:: He never complained or felt sorry for himself through his whole cancer ordeal. Not once (that I ever heard of or observed). In fact, he was always full of gratitude and appreciation for everything anyone did for him and his family. Once when I spent the day with them in intensive care and he was so, so sick, he was concerned that my sister's boyfriend had lost his job. Always thinking of others first. How many people do you know who are genuinely like that?

:: Looking back over the relatively short time I knew Ray personally, I cannot remember him ever speaking ill of another person or putting someone down to make himself look good. I do not remember ever hearing him utter a cynical or sarcastic word. This may explain why his many, many, many friends have loved him so long and so loyally.

:: He had a solid faith, strong values and an unwavering commitment to things that were moral and right. But he didn't parade around trying to prove himself. You didn't find Ray engaging in deep discussions of theology and apologetics. You didn't find him praying loud, long public prayers. You just found him living out what he believed.

:: No one, and I mean no one, doesn't love Ray. Really, this guy has friends. The list spans back to grade school. And those guys remained some of his closest friends all throughout his life. The hole that will be left by his absence is huge.

I cannot attempt to understand, Why Ray? All I know is that we are all better for knowing him. And if my boys grow up to emulate some of these godly character traits of Ray Fitzgerald, this mama will be very, very blessed.

Thank you, Ray, for showing us all a better way to live. You will be deeply, deeply missed.

epiphany

My cousin got married on Epiphany eight years ago. As one of the honored bridesmaids, high on the promise of new love myself, I remember the magical day in detail.

Catching snippets of the wedding video this morning as I fed her girls breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen (they apparently had been watching the DVD off and on for the last 24 hours), the palpable joy and excitement of that celebration came barreling back. I had trouble controlling the tears, though, because the contrast seemed too huge to comprehend. On the day after their eighth wedding anniversary, this soul-mated couple that all the elated, sweaty dancers paused on camera to congratulate, were headed to a medical clinic for yet another drug to attempt to hold my cousin's husband's ravaging cancer at bay.

I was relieved when Nora decided she wanted to show Liam High School Musical 2 Karaoke and turned the video off. The widening gap between the then and the now had become a gulf almost too big to cross.

Yet, as I drove home tonight, weeping as I waited for freight train to pass, my son totally lacquered from being chased around by three little girls all day, I recalled a scene from the movie Shadowlands. At the end of the film, C.S. Lewis, played by Anthony Hopkins, is up in the attic with the young son of his new wife who has just died of cancer. They are sobbing. And the boy, in the most gut-wrenching chocks and sobs, says to Lewis, "Why does it hurt so much?" And Lewis says so poignantly, "The pain now is part of the happiness then." I, of course, bawled my eyes out, as I am doing now. Because truth hurts.

The truth is, there is no gulf or gap between the then and the now. The pain and the happiness are inseparable. There is not one without the other. When we choose to live and love fully, vulnerably, outside convention or appearance or approval, we open ourselves up to the deepest pain imaginable. Are we crazy? Why ever do we do it?

In that Epiphany wedding video, I saw my answer. We are made for it. We are made to love and be loved. We are made to rejoice. Just as we are made to suffer. And, as much as any of us may try, this side of the veil, we are not made to understand.

On the first Epiphany over 2000 years ago, the wise men (probably astrologers) did the strangest thing. They followed a star, based on a prophesy, and risked life and limb to do it. Historians speculate it took two treacherous years of desert travel to find the King of the Jews, and they weren't even Jewish. They brought gold and frankincense and myrrh, to a baby. And it wasn't for curiosity sake that they made that long trip. They came to worship. They rejoiced. What could they have possibly understood about that journey? They were just doing what they were made to do. They were loving and being loved. Faced with pain and delay, ostracism and danger, doubt and unanswered questions, they followed that star straight to the source.

Then, now, not yet. Pain, happiness. Come what may, it's this Love that keeps us going.

Morning addendum: I have been thinking how incredible that Jesus' most significant visitors were not the religious Jewish leaders down the street. They were the outsiders, some of the least likely on the continent. They traveled from so, so far, with the most astounding faith. They must have looked like idiots. Leaving everything, risking death by defying the most powerful guy in their kingdom, ignoring what their logical brains must have told them. They already had everything. They were rich and smart and respected, and yet they chose a path that would involve suffering because it would lead to love. It was these guys in the story. These guys who found Jesus. This year I understand why.

favorite things :: homemade applesauce and worms

For as long as I can remember, my grandma Gaye has made the world's best applesauce. For many years during apple season, she and my grandpa would churn apples by the bushel, packing their freezer and many of their kids' freezers with gallons of homemade applesauce. Even today when I pop in to see my grandma, she is ready to greet us with a dish of freshly made sauce.

I am proud to say that for the past decade, when apple season rolls around, I happily churn out sauce of my own. (Usually by the half peck, not the bushel!)

I use my grandma's not-so-secret recipe - just plain old apples: core, skin and all. I have never seen a recipe like this in any cookbook or magazine. Most saucing recipes require coring and peeling. But I swear this is what leaves other sauces lacking - in taste and nutrition. My grandma's process takes a bit of elbow grease (as my many cousins who have processed bushels with her will attest) but it is totally worth the effort. Here's what you do:

1. Wash and half about 8-10 apples. Cortland are my favorite. Jonathan are also good. Any apple that cooks up soft will work but you want one with good flavor.

2. Cut out top and bottom part of the stem of each half and put the apples in a big pot. Cover with about 1/4 inch of water (enough to just cover the bottom of the pan), put on the lid and simmer over medium-low heat on the stovetop.

3. After about half hour or less, the apples will be mushy. Turn off the heat. According to my grandma, the nutrients escape in the steam, so don't lift the lid of the pot until it's cooled (if you can help it). The scent is SO incredible, it's hard to resist.

4. When cool, scoop about 1/3 of the apples into a sieve (like the one shown below, which you can usually find at a local hardware store) and mash/churn/press the apples through the sieve with the wooden stick thing (also shown below). Use a rubber spatula to scoop the skins and seeds out of the sieve and process the rest of the apples (using everything that's in the pan).

Although so little of the apple is wasted in the end, it is still kind of hard to toss the mash of skin and seeds. It's so deliciously fragrant and when you've effectively sauced the rest of the apples so well, well, you hate to see anything go.

This week, for the first time, our apple skins and seeds were eaten! Not by us but by our worms. Thanks to my friend Megan, we have started worm composting in the basement. Every week we feed our worms our fruit and vegetable scraps and in a couple months they will reward us with "black gold" - the most nutrient-rich soil possible. Liam loves to feed the worms and even I find it pretty incredible to see how they plow through our garbage so quickly, leaving all the dark, fertile castings behind. I imagine they must have thought they had died and gone to heaven when we buried that sweet apple mash for them last night.

Once we plant an apple tree in our backyard, our cycle of life will be complete. On my dream farm, I definitely will do this. In the meantime, I just thank God I was blessed enough to learn from a farmgirl. Thanks, Gaye.

the lure of the boob tube

Soon after my little sister was born (happy birthday, Liz!), I remember my stepmom adamantly asserting that she was not going to allow Liz to have Barbies. I felt a little hurt by the remark. Afterall, I had loved Barbies and didn't think they had adversely affected me. But mostly I thought, good luck with that. Keeping girls from Barbies (or whatever they have evolved into today) is like keeping kids from the screen. A nice aspiration but, if you've got a TV in your home, a nearly impossible reality.

However, not by plan or decree, Elliott has not seen a program or video in his first 17 months. In fact, these photos, taken a couple days ago, document the very first time Elliott sat still and truly watched TV. His brother obviously has a little more experience.

I mourned just a little to see the second one succumb to the lure of the boob tube. But I'm sure a little of that mind-numbing screen time won't ruin them. Afterall, their aunt Liz turned out to be an amazing woman and, yes, she owned her fair share of Barbies.

think I'll go to africa

When I was growing up, this was the common refrain from my stepmom (or some version of it) to let us kids (especially my youngest brother and sister) know that she had reached her limit. Nearly everyday, it seemed, she was going to Africa. Well, tomorrow Gigi is finally going to be true to her word and - brave woman - will be accompanying my dad to Africa for three weeks! They will visit numerous countries for meetings, ministry and a bit of sightseeing.

Last night when I put Liam to bed I added Papa and Gigi's Africa trip to our prayers. Liam interrupted to ask, "Africa? But where will Papa and Gigi sleep?"

"In a bed I suppose."

"Like a grass mat?" Liam wondered.

"Um, no, like a bed."

"But, where?" he asked again.

"Well," I pondered, "Maybe a hotel some nights; maybe someone's house; and maybe even a tent."

"What?" he laughed. "They can't sleep in a tent. They're too big!"

He was clearly imagining a version of the small pup tent he has set up in his room.

"There are some really big tents. Some of them even have beds in them," I said

Liam laughed and popped up on one elbow to get a good look at me. Then he shook his head and flopped back on his pillow.

"Mom," he said, "You are joking me. That is the craziest thing I ever heard. There are no tent beds in Africa."

I just received Papa and Gigi's itinerary. Tent beds? No. Adventure? Yes. I think Gigi is still a little dumbstruck that she is actually going to Africa after all the years of saying it. So, be careful what you threaten. It's a long way to the moon.

vive la france

Our high school neighbor/occasional babysitter is going to France for a year on a student exchange program. I see her enthusiasm and excitement and envy that free-floating, seize-the-day joie de vivre. My memories of living in France while in college are so vivid, I am sure that if I could transport to any street in Paris, I would know exactly where I was. I spent five to six hours a day walking, aimlessly, purposely, for every reason, for no reason. I breathed that city. I became part of Paris like I've never been part of anything before or since. I lived with such an intensity, I was sure people I passed in the street could see me glowing. Actually, I'm sure no one in Paris noticed me at all. This is France I'm talking about afterall. But I was happy. Even in my homesickness (which struck during subtitled American films when the credits rolled on the New York City skyline or weekly ten-minute calls home), I was still intensely happy. It's not that I'm not happy now (although I'm sure Andrew would say that I seem serious and irritated more than happy and glowing). Life is just different -- full of responsibilities and ever-changing priorities, unfinished projects and unattainable plans, things to clean up and things to put away. I used to think I would feel like I felt when I was in France if I were French. If I lived in Paris, I would sip un cafe en plein air for hours people watching; I would eat baguette stuffed with Belgian chocolate everyday for lunch and never tire of it; I would catch my breath each and every time I stepped out of the Metro in the Latin Quarter and caught sight of Notre Dame. But I'm sure the French would finally begin to get on my nerves and my feet would start to ache. Still, I'm grateful for the memories. They remind me that once upon a time there was a girl who smiled at everyone and everything for absolutely no reason at all, even though not a single one ever smiled back. Vive la France.

So Say the French
I prefer kisses to handshakes.
I prefer to pretend I don’t understand.
I prefer those I know to those I don’t.
I prefer fresh to frozen.
I prefer wine to water.
I prefer no ice.
I prefer to ignore those who speak to me in English.
I prefer a cigarette for breakfast.
I prefer Camembert.
I prefer not to speak to Americans.
I prefer American music.
I prefer to wear an outfit everyday until it’s dirty.
I prefer to let my children pout.
I prefer serving café au lait to small dogs in fur coats to serving snobby tourists with money.
I prefer fewer choices.
I prefer to shout when I don’t agree.
I prefer public displays of affection.
I prefer not to smile.

incomprehensible

Tonight I walked outside and was nearly overwhelmed by the fragrance of lilac, rain and flowering crabapple. The sight of spring right at this moment, even in the dark, is indescribable. There are no words to adequately capture the beauty of the Dr. Seuss-like trees swaying and stooped with their dripping boughs or the velvety-petaled, eggplant-colored iris dancing in a patch outside my backdoor.

But just as the beauty of the world leaves me sighing and speechless, the sadness of the day does me in. Our precious neighbor Gabe, two years old on Sunday, died today. It is incomprehensible. There are no words to adequately capture the ache of knowing a treasure of a boy is gone from a family we love and care for. How can we possibly reconcile the pain and the beauty? The agony and the ecstacy? What is seemingly random and wrong and what is so surely ordered and right? How can both exist right here and now on this pinhead of time?

Some neighbors gathered tonight to comfort each other and share our sorrow. The thing that sticks in my mind is hearing from my friend Laurie who was with the family as they said goodbye to Gabe at the hospital today. She said that Gabe's dad was crying because he is worried about Gabe being alone. He kept saying, "But he doesn't know anyone in heaven."

Thinking about that just breaks my heart. He wasn't thinking about himself and how lost he'll be without his son but about his precious boy being lonely and afraid. I have worried about dying myself for just this reason - my kids would be left alone. It is a pain unimaginable. But as I was sitting with my friends tonight, I thought of an unlikely passage of scripture. Something that is read at nearly every wedding I've ever been to but made more sense tonight than ever before. It is at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, the great chapter on love, and goes, "Now we see but a poor reflection; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

Tonight Gabe is seeing the unimaginable, the incomprehensible beauty and joy that we only get to glimpse. Tonight he is feeling the total embrace of a loving God who knows him fully. He will never be alone again.

In this life, we muddle through. White knuckled, we cling to our glimpses and to each other. We hope. We pray. With lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes, we trudge on through the beauty and the pain, living in shadow until we, too, get to see face to face. And, on that day, Gabe will give us his huge, bright smile once again.

remembering george

Daffodil season always reminds me of my grandpa George. A big teddy bear of a guy who was a collegiate wrestling and football coach, my grandpa melted in the presence of natural beauty. He was an artist who had a gift for tending the earth. For years he and my grandma lived in Colorado, with the most spectacular strawberry patch, wildflower garden, art studio and aviary. My favorite memories of the weeks my brother and I spent in Colorado include eating handfuls of warm strawberries straight from the patch, collecting jasper from the creek beds, naming the birds, sipping brown cows on the porch and listening to the windchimes, reading books in the hammock, painting and carving in the studio, and daily visits to the local coffee shop (where gramps would urge us to eat donuts until our hearts' content). My grandpa's last spring was spent in a retirement community a mile from where we live. Although nothing like the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, our spring landscape, with its surprising shocks of daffodils, doesn't disappoint. To see these tender beauties after a long, hard winter of ice and slush and snow brought my grandpa the greatest joy.

Old Man Dreams on the Daffodil Tour
“I’d love a little house like that someday.
Maybe a nice used Ford,
or a Cadillac, if I could get a deal.”
I glance at his dream as we motor by.
Between the riverside cottages, yellow peeks from tender green
and young leaves unfold on slender stems.
He consumes this visual feast like a starving man
seated at a table for the first time in months.
“That would be nice,” I say.
“Yep,” he says rubbing his gnarled knuckles, “It’d be just right.”

In his one room apartment at the residential community
he keeps his door locked, shades drawn, TV blaring.
Every visit I knock and shout so he will hear me
and worry how we bother the neighbors.
His walker scrapes on the linoleum;
I silently beg him not to hurry.
The door swings wide.
Hulking and hunched, a suspect first glance turns to recognition,
then joy.
“Hey, honey,” he chuckles. “Come in. Can you stay long?”
It’s not what he planned, but he tries to live above it,
around it,
as if there’s another future,
with a house and a car,
as if he’s only visiting.
It’s ugly, this business of getting old.

But today it’s sunny. We’re driving,
in search of a glimpse of spring.
I see a bright spot.
“Look, Gramps,” I say, slowing the car and pointing
to a flood of yellow in a side yard.
“Woa,” he whistles and taps the window.
His eyes twinkle.
“Sweetie,” he says, “it doesn’t get much better than that.”