Redemption

To redeem: to rescue, to save, to deliver.

More to come . . .

Bethel

"Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise."
-Sarah Adams, "Nearer My God to Thee"

More to come . . .

Secrets of Myself

"What do you do?" someone innocently asks at some social function, not knowing that such a simple quetion causes my shoulders to tense and my mind to whirl. The answer won't be what they are expecting and I don't want to be categorized before they have a chance to get to know me. So, as some sort of odd defensive maneouver I become perversely literal. "What do you do?" they ask. "Teach," I answer. I also grade, consult, attend meetings, write, research, edit, advise, and numerous other activities, but teaching is at the heart of what I do and it is a safe answer. "Oh, what do you teach?" That's easy, "history." This is also safe as it seems like a perfectly respectable answer and conforms to the assumption that they have made and that I have done nothing to dispel that I teach in the public school system. So far we are on safe ground. When I am particularly skilled I can now turn the conversation to ask about what they do and we can avoid any follow-up questions until after they get to know me a bit. This mental gymnastics is ridiculous, but I can't seem to stop. And it makes me wonder why.

Foundations

I can see him clearly in my mind's eye. He has just settled down in his bedroom, a basement room with singularly unattractive green carpet and the coolness of eastern shadows - a place that was supposed to be a refuge - a place supposedly safely ensconced in his parents' dream home. And instead he finds himself staring at the ominous cracks in the wall. Cracks that don't need any metaphorical weight beyond their physical presence. They snake gracefully and menacingly up the southern wall, twining around the electrical socket like vines rising up to strangle out low-growing flowers. They are signs that the dream house is settling and subsiding like the weak and traitorous mud beneath it - slipping and canting to the side - taking with it the house and the dreams and leaving nothing but cracks.

The cracks in the wall would be painful enough if they were not accompanied by far worse - by emotional and mental turmoil that sent cracks and fissures through his mind and warned him that the dream house was not the only dream about to slide irretrievably into the sodden earth below.

Like Lilacs in August

She arrived in my consciousness subtly – piece by piece, memory by memory, she slid into being as I grew to adulthood. Of course she always existed, but I discovered her piecemeal and found myself dizzily surprised every time I stumbled upon a new facet of her life, her dreams, her ambitions, her personality, her insecurities. When I was a child she was lilacs in spring: expected, predictable. When I was an adult she was lilacs in August – an impossibility made all the more miraculous by the recognition that she was somehow defying time and fate.

The Snowhorse

There is something unbidden and raw in the way that memory becomes the only remaining reality. And something darker and full of betrayal when you long for memory to be all that is left. It’s funny how the details stand in sharp relief – the blue veins – almost looking like bruising – on the hands as they age. The slightly cloudy look in the eyes. The slur and hesitation in the words. It as if I can no longer see the whole person – as if he has begun to unravel, to dissipate, to disintegrate and all that is left are those small details. Maybe noticing them as separate parts lessens the pain of recognizing that the whole no longer exists – that it has frayed and faded around the edges like the tattered ends of old jeans . . .

Denim overalls were his favorite gardening attire. They were sturdy and they had that nifty pocket in the front – the perfect storage place for pens, pencils, and 3”x5” cards – an assortment of possessions that we all assumed just came with the package that was dad – the man who recognized that writing had power to make things real.

In memory I can picture several photographs overlapping of him standing in the garden, blue denim overalls, pocket full of pens, pencils, and cards – left hand resting on the handle of a hoe or shovel, the mountains in the background with their half-gone snow. And I wait, longing for that moment when he’ll turn to look, at me, to ask for my help, to say something mundane, but clear and clever and smart – tuned in.

I've stood at the side of the highway, cars and trucks buzzing past, but it was the best place to watch the snow horse. It’s after Memorial Day – and he is just now shaking off his winter coat – indication it will be a good water year – the echo of my grandfather’s farmer knowledge ricocheting around my head. And I keep waiting for the Snowhorse to finish his gallop over the peaks.

In reality the Snowhorse is merely a pattern of snow melt and snowdrift that follows the same pattern every year. In reality the Snowhorse never gallops anywhere, he just melts away, slowly losing his shape and definition until he’s a bunch of separated patches of snow – worn out reminders of November and January almost forgotten by the time he makes his exit in May and June. But somehow it’s important for him to gallop away. It seems less brittle, if he gallops, less like losing and more like victory.