Janet Boswell reading "Her Grandmother's Hands"

Some of you asked me to post the Listen to Your Mother You Tube video when it was available. It was a fun day, but way out of my comfort zone...

For what it's worth

1+4+ a zillion moving boxes = Crazy Chaos

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has always seemed foreign to me. I think of myself as a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, catch-as-catch-can, willy-nilly, pell-mell type thus, the purchase of: 1) an old truck that lasted for 17 days 2) an old dog, I do so love Lucy, and 3) the owner an even older house. I’m sure the list of haphazard things I have done and most likely will do in the future will never find me in the OCD category.

In the last month, I have been greatly enlightened that I may well have mischaracterized myself. Allow me to start at the beginning. Living alone for 3 years, I never realized how set in my ways I have become. Okay, to be totally honest, maybe I did realize that I am now one of those people who has a place for everything and everything in its place.

My epiphany came about a month ago when the Meabons Four sort of moved in with me. Brooke and Jared began renovation on their home the day the contract to buy my existing home was signed. My household of 1 became a household of 5, not counting Lucy, my fish (Johnny Weissmuller) and their frenetic fish (Barbara Bush). This was the beginning of crazy chaos.

Back to the epiphany that I might be a tad OCD.  My morning routine would begin by walking into my kitchen and attempting to make one counter-clockwise sweep around the perimeter of my kitchen gathering all the items I needed to make my cup of lemon water. My goal, not to backtrack. I did this very consciously, it became sort of a game, a challenge to see how many footsteps it would take me to get a spoon from the drawer, then a cutting knife, grab the tea kettle, fill it with water (a small backtrack was necessary here), place the kettle on the stove and continue my rotation. I would grab a mug, a lemon from the refrigerator, vitamins from the pantry and be back to my starting position in as few footsteps as possible. A little OCD?  Absolutely, it simply never dawned on me that this might be peculiar behavior. 

I realized that I also have a similar getting dressed ritual, a 3:00-6:00 ritual and a bedtime ritual. Okay, I’m a lot OCD and I’m now claiming it with great aplomb.

Since May 30, my quiet little world has become pure bedlam. I can’t and don’t blame this totally on the Meabon Four, because added to this little equation are ever increasing mountains of moving boxes.

No longer can I reach for my reading glasses, knowing exactly which drawer I will find them. No longer can I open my refrigerator and find butter, a diet coke or an apple. No longer can I open my make-up drawer and know, with my eyes closed, where each item is placed. 

Nope, I now have readers strewn all over the house, on shelves, in closets, on the floor. I found a pair in Lucy’s dog bowl yesterday. I have no clue if a little Meabon did that, or in my boxing haste, I put them there. 

My refrigerator has not seen as much activity in its lifetime. Once upon a time, it was bare except for milk, cottage cheese, hummus, lemons and wine. Now, it is busting at the seams, stocked full of well, who would know because it’s so packed.  A pair of my readers might well be hiding in there.

My now messy make-up drawer, is strictly the result of a Meabon, a 5 year old little girl Meabon to be exact. Harper loves nothing more than plowing through all sorts of my facial products testing each to see how lovely she can become.

My 3:00-6:00 ritual, watching Ellen, Judge Judy and the Nightly News…gone, replaced by hide-and-go-seek-shoot, Harry’s favorite new game. Cowboy guns in hand, Harris counts (always skipping the number 13, no reason, he just does). I hide among stack of boxes, once discovered, the shooting begins until one of us dies, plopping over low lying boxes that have become rocky mountain cliffs. Not very PC at the moment, but hey, what 4 year old little boy doesn’t want to be a gun-slinging cowboy? 

I won’t even try to explain that my counter-clock wise morning routine is non-existent. Now, my mornings begin with little faces appearing at the side of my bed. Our day begins snuggled under the covers with a wild and adventurous “once upon a time, in a far away land” tales accompanied by lots of back rubs and giggling. Breakfasts consist of frog guts, snake juice and possum spit. The doldrums of continuous packing now goes hand and hand with imaginary adventures that makes our days pass all too quickly.

I've learned its best that along with my quirky OCD stuff, I’m more willy-nilly, pell-mell, loosey-goosey, because in all this crazy chaos, I am as happy as a pig in mud. I love nothing more than a bulging refrigerator, a precious boy climbing a mountain of boxes to pretend he is a knight in shining armor, or a sweet little girl dressed in her mommy’s old dance costumes sitting primly on piles of rolled up rugs because they are, after all, her majestic throne.

  

I’m sure these weeks of togetherness will all be over in the blink of an eye. Too soon, I will be in my new little house and the Meabons will be back in their newly renovated home. My strange OCD routines will more than likely grow and I will long for the crazy pandemonium of the Summer of 2016, but until then, I’m wallowing in this sweet chaos and thankful for every second.

For what it’s worth, 

Janet

Proverbs 17:6 “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the pride of children is their parents.”

Early morning visitors...

Pre-dawn hours when sleep is still hovering, I find myself stirred awake by early morning visitors.

Often times, in the wee small hours of the morning I feel the gentle tug of my covers and the ever so slight pressure of weight on my mattress. I turn, open my sleep laden eyes, and find a sleepy four or five year old grandchild doing their best to hoist themselves into my slightly too tall bed to cuddle until fully awake.

I adore these early morning visits. I cherish these precious years, that I know will all too soon slip away. There is nothing more priceless than this time, drifting back to sleep and snuggling with my grandchildren. I realize these days are numbered. These days when Harper and Harris clamor into my bed, weave their gangly little legs through mine, wrap my arms around their own bodies and gradually slip back to sleep if only for a few stolen minutes more before the exuberance for the day sets in. 

I welcome and savor every second of the companionship these sweet early morning visitors bring me.

My memory holds dear the early morning hours of my last few years with Steve. I would wake earlier than him, feeling the day’s long to-do list calling me from a peaceful night’s sleep. I would awaken abruptly, feeling the need to begin scratching items off my constant and ever growing list of daily responsibilities. Attempting to gently slip out of bed, it never failed that Steve would rouse from sleep, reach out for my hand, ask me, or maybe, to be perfectly honest, plead with me to stay in bed for just a little longer. Wanting to please Steve, I would crawl back under the covers, place my head on his chest and wrap my arm across his warm firm torso. I am still able to recall the sound of his strong, steady heart beating against my ear. I can close my eyes, even now, and feel the rise and fall of his chest, as he would fall back to sleep. I can still feel his cool hand, as I would gently weave his fingers into mine. I  remember thinking…this time is rare, special, and all too soon the intimacy of these early morning visits will be a memory.

I, no we, both knew that the last four plus years of Steve’s life were a gift and we did our best to cherish these sweetest of moments. I wish I could tell you now that I have no regrets about lingering in bed with Steve in those early morning hours, but the truth be told, Steve sensed my anxiousness to get my day started. Unable to fall back asleep while wrapped in Steve’s arms, he could detect my restlessness. My list was calling me and my squirming to get the day underway could be felt beneath his desire to simply be together, quiet and still. He would finally relent, tell me to go, to start my day. I would slip from his tender grasp and anxiously set out to begin scratching things off my to-do list.

Why, oh why did I not relish the magnitude of those sweetest of moments with my precious husband? What was so pressing on that list of things I had to accomplish that I couldn’t have set them aside for a few early morning hours of this short time I had left with Steve?

I regret jumping from bed, feeling the need to grasp the handles that would enable me to circumnavigate through the demands of life once Steve was gone. Why did I not stop to pay homage to these irreplaceable days together? Why did I not understand that life’s details would wait because these early morning times could never be revisited? If only I could have a do-over, then surely I would make the most of our early morning visits.

I’m hesitant to share my next experiences with you lest you think I’m kooky, but, oh well, here goes.

A handful of times since Steve’s death, I have experienced the strangest sensation. It is in the early morning hours, those hours when sleep is still hanging heavy, with eyes closed, I feel a sag, a weight on the edge of my mattress. It is a feeling I remember as a small child when my mother would gently wake me for school in the mornings. She would quietly sit on the side of my bed and rub my back, telling me it was time to get up for school. I knew, without opening my eyes, that her presence was in my room. I sensed that she was sitting beside me on my bed. Since Steve’s death, there have been days I have felt this same weight, this slight dip of my mattress. 

It is on those rare mornings, I have sensed, through a veil of half sleep, half consciousness, the sensation of someone sitting on my bed. I feel that sinking of my mattress and I am always too quick to open my eyes, for the moment I do, I realize I’m alone. I sit up to look around my bed, thinking maybe it’s my dog, Lucy, but there is never a soul in sight. Perhaps, if I had kept my eyes closed just a bit longer, I could have my answer to this mysterious sinking feeling.

I can’t tell you who this early visitor might be, but I would like to imagine it is Steve coming to pay a brief early morning visit, to simply sit by my side so that I might linger with him a little while longer.

The verse of an old song keeps running through my mind as I write these words.

“Come and sit by my side if you love me,

  do not hasten to bid me adieu,

  but remember the Red River Valley,

  and the one that has loved you so true.”

For what it’s worth,

Janet

 Hebrews 13 :2  “Do not forget to show hospitality;  for thereby some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Plate Spinning...

You’ve seen them, I know you have, variety television shows where the guy comes on stage with ten poles and one by one places a plate on top of each and the spinning begins. Soon, one plate begins to wobble, you think it will surely topple off the stick. The performer swoops in giving the plate a deft twirl and sends it back in gyroscopic motion. This wizard of mastery somehow keeps all ten plates spinning until the audience explodes with applause.

Welcome to my Plate Spinning Show. Hold your applause, please. Allow me to present my first spinning plate; the purchase of a cute little 1938 bungalow style cottage just a block away from Brooke and Jared. No, this was not my intention to live just 9 doors down from my children, but, after seeing the house, we all agreed it was a perfect fit for all of us.

Offer accepted, I present to you my second rotating plate, putting my existing home on the market. Frantically, I clean out closets and shelves. How had they so quickly filled during the three short years I’ve lived in this house? In the blink of an eye, my house is on the market. A week later, it is under contract.

Multiple plates begin spinning. I perfect my juggling act. I realize I am putting the Reverse Matryoshka Principle (RMP) in place. I have serious work to do. 

Matryoshka Principle? You know this term, even if you don’t think you do. Named after the Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls; one little wooden doll nestles into a larger doll and so on and so forth until you wind up with a family of stair step dolls that can all be housed in one large doll. 

My RMP starts out with one large home. I’ve spoken of it often, the home Steve and I built that held not only precious memories, but a myriad of stuff. When I say stuff, I mean stuff. Not only did this wonderful home hold rooms full of furniture, but it also held closets full of our children’s things. When you add up the “things” that four children possess but have not taken, you wind up with not only overstocked closets, but an entire floor of a walk-in attic exploding with extra treasures, unused furniture and absolute junk that simply couldn’t be thrown away. 

My #1 RMP downsize left me feeling I had handed off most of the children’s treasured possessions: a box full of Lynn’s favorite camp rocks, David’s Star Wars collection, Brent’s baseball cards and Brooke’s antique hat collection, yearbooks, dolls, camp memorabilia. 

My largest Matryoshka house was soon to be replaced by one almost half its size. How on earth I would fit all of my things into this new home? The fact was, I couldn’t, so the kids took not only their designated stuff, but also carted off left over furniture, lamps, art, kitchen items and garage equipment. All of this enabled me to have room in my middle sized Matryoshka home.

It was when I began to rattle around in this now, too-large-for-one-person-home, the RMP began again, and I’m once again cleaning out, throwing away, purging and simplifying. My Plate Spinning Show is reaching a crescendo, plates are whirling. 

This new tiny home is half the size of my current home, I love it. It will in no way hold most of what I’m currently boxing, but until I’m in and busting at the seams, my stuff is going with me, at which time I will do my final purge. 

Did I mention that the wizard of mastery spun ten plates at once? Yep, so to prove my juggling skills, more plates need be put into motion. The plate of having additional work done on the tiny home has started its spin. Then there’s the spinning plate of the Meabon family moving in with me for an undetermined time while they remodel their home. This is my favorite spinning plate, and one that I must run back to frequently to keep it from toppling off its stick.

My last plate to spin finds me on a plane headed home. I have just spent this past week attending a writing seminar at Princeton Theological Seminary. How cool is that.

It was quite serendipitous that I had lunch early in the year with a group childhood friends. One of them was Jane Pettit who, among other things, writes a beautiful blog, https://isplainasjane.com (don’t miss the chance to read her pieces, they are insightful and inspiring). Jane invited me to join her on this Princeton writing escapade and plans were quickly made. 

Little did I know in February, that by June, I would have bought one house, selling another, and have plates spinning wildly while running back and forth like a chicken with my head cut off trying to keep them all in motion. I thought of backing out of our Princeton adventure more than once, but I felt a real nudge to attend and it proved to exceed my expectations.

I struggle with what, if anything, I should do with my writing. This craft is new to me and one where I feel very ill-equipped. I pray often asking God what it is He wants me to write. I feel strongly that this gift of writing is just that, a gift, and I I’m trying to be a good steward. I was in hopes that this seminar would give me tools, a map, a route to show me what my next steps should be in going forward with my writing. 

Time will tell as I begin to assimilate all that I learned during my time at Princeton. If nothing else, it has enabled me to renew a lovely friendship with a precious friend that I will have for the rest of my life. Thank you Jane for our great adventure and may we hear God’s voice as He creates new paths for us to follow.

So thank you ladies and gentlemen for taking a moment to attend my Plate Spinning Show. You can find me spinning my plates throughout the next few months. No applause  necessary.

For what it’s worth,

Janet

Mark 4:24  And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.”