Monday, November 14, 2005

Turn Turn Turn

Nature is balance. Everything has a season. Everything in it's time.

I am all about balance now.

I don't mean a balancing act – Lord knows I'm not very good at juggling it all, and the scars on my skull betray my lack of equilibrium.

What I mean is the balance of life – the beginnings and endings, the up and down, the hot and cold, darkness and light, joy and pain. You get the picture. I am all about balance.

I hate the "when God closes a door He opens a window" crap. That's crap. It's a lame attempt to make you feel better about the fact that God slammed the door in your face and the only thing you could think to do was crawl out the back window that is conveniently left open so that you won't have to have "the talk" with Him about how much He loves you, how He has plans for you…Why do people say that shit to you when you're feeling bad about something?

It's all crap. The fact that God won't let me walk through the door I've chosen and that He would rather that I crawl out a window and risk breaking my head doesn't make me feel any better.

I decided last week that it isn't doors and windows. It's a path – a long, winding path like a labyrinth or maze.

Sometimes the particular road you choose ends up a dead end – you don't end up where you wanted to be, but you learn something along the way and then you must go back to where you made the last choice. Or maybe it's that you learn something on the way back and that's why the maze analogy works. It's got to be something like that.

It's all forks and choices, rough path, smooth path, up hill, down hill, narrow path, wide path – you see? More balance.

I tend to get upset when things don't go according to my plan --- I guess we all do. (Let me believe we all do. I can be something of a control freak.) I'm not very good at believing that God has a plan for me that may not match my own plan or may not coincide with my timeline.

I'm not sure what is at the center of the labyrinth, the middle of the maze, but I am determined to stay on that path, to continue to make choices, and to lay my hands on the prize that is my goal.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

A Better Blogger Than I

So, I'm trying to get back on the wagon. I'm trying to post to this blog more often, I'm trying to get my manuscript going again. My dear husband is a better blogger than I -- it's not just what he writes, or how often he posts. Rather, it is his blogging ethic, his regularity that I envy. And what he writes about and how often he posts.

The point is this -- my Dearest One suggested that I just get back on (with a little boost, of course) and just write. In fact, I was telling him about one of his posts and he said, "You should blog that!"

So here goes --

David blogged recently about chain stores, typical mall stores, in airports. Our recent trip to Philly proved inspiration enough on the blogging front. The Gap at an airport...hmmmm. Clothing stores are one thing...

So I was telling him about a short wait I had at SFO while I was coming down with a cold. I wandered down the concourse until I came across one of those tiny magazine stands that also offers small snacks, bottled water, and breath mints. I was hoping to find some hard candy, some throat lozenges, anything to calm my throat. I found a small pack of kleenex, a couple of bad magazines I would never buy in the city I live in, and hard candy infused with vitamin C -- bonus!

And then I saw it. Beside the hard candy infused with vitamin C, the expensive mini-envelopes of pain killers, kleenex, hand lotion, and band aids was a home pregnancy test.

What the?

Who buys a home pregnancy test at the airport? Who decides while waiting at the airport that they should do a home pregnancy test? Do people realize that if you're waiting for the flight home after a wild and crazy weekend and you think, "oh, crap, I wonder if I'm pregnant" that the home pregnancy does you no good for two whole weeks after your fun?

Odd.

What company planning the 20 square feet of merchandise space decides, "We don't have enough room forTime and Readers' Digest, or more than two kinds of Tic Tacs, but, hey, what about some pregnancy tests?"