the woman who loved every kind of weather or, how to fix everything

last night i had dinner with an old woman who loves every kind of weather. hot and humid? loves it. freezing cold and snowing? loves. mild and rainy? loves. cool and sunny? loves. below zero? fine. in the teens? fine. 50s? fine. 90s? fine. over a hundred? fine. "have you ever met a weather you don't like," i asked. "no," she said.



lots of people, all of them seemingly on facebook, seem to know the secret to a good life - and most of them can sum it up in a catchy meme. it might be - often is - religious in nature, it might be - often is - sarcastic in nature, or it might be - always is - thought-provoking in nature. but no one has ever summed it up like the old woman who loves every kind of weather.

i have never met a person who even likes every kind of weather, much less loves it. i have met people who like every kind of season, but that's different. to embrace humidity right along with embracing scraping your windshield in january is not just unusual, it is unheard of. 

and that's why the world is a mess. because loving weather, no matter what kind it is, is unheard of.




i asked this lady if she is flexible about everything. she thought about it for a second, shrugged her shoulders and said, "sure. why not?" are you flexible about what you eat, i asked.

"sure. why not?"

the clothes you wear?

"sure."

where you live?

"yeah."

what you do in your free time?

"of course."

you flexible about politics?

"people are politics. so, yeah. gotta be flexible about people."

religion?

"you practice yours, i'll practice mine."

what about taxes?

"sure. tell me what to pay and i'll pay it."




is there anything you're not flexible about, i asked.

"one thing," she said.

what, i said.



"being flexible."





 

refrigerators are not always cold

my daughter long a-

go

gave me words for my

fridge.


the words are mag-

netic

and you scramble them a-

round to make

poems.


poems that don't rhyme but

neither does

a

heart.


poems that didn't get

writ-

ten

for 5

years.

they hung there,

empty on the

fridge,

without a happy poet to

compose.


the words thought about not moving to

georgia.

they thought about going to the

dumpster, along with

so many

other

bro-

ken

dreams.


but the words hopped in

my

car.

barrelled down the

high-

way. flew in

the

house. landed on

a

southern

fridge.


it's like they got

CPR or

somethin.

like i married a man who

may have been emerson in

a-

nother

life.


it's like the words wrote

them-

selves in his

heart,

onto

mine,


and the fridge is finally warm


a-

gain.

nice

1. they're nice here in georgia. at least this part of georgia.
2. the lady at the DMV (they call it the DDS here. wonder what they call dentists.....)........the lady at the DDS was nice as pie. nice as whatever your particular favorite kind of pie happens to be. that nice.
3. the man who worked at the first grocery store i went to down here was nice. he insisted on carrying my groceries to the car. insisted. i suppose that would get some feminists all up in arms but instead of getting mad (or even), i let him do it. and as we walked to my car, i learned that he was originally from ohio, too. he was born and raised in tiffin. i said to him, tiffin? that's where heidelberg college is, isn't it? and he said, "i don't think anyone since i have lived here has ever asked me that question. how nice. and yes, it's where heidelberg college is. except it's heidelberg university now. i kinda liked it better when it was heidelberg college." i told him that i graduated from wittenberg university which used to be wittenberg college before it was wittenberg university and that i kinda like wittenberg college better, too. he said, as he put my groceries in the trunk, "it's been so nice talkin' to a buckeye."
4. the woman who cut my hair today was nice. the minute i saw her, i liked her. and she told me as i was leaving that the minute she saw me, she liked me, too. and i could tell she wasn't lying.
5. the lady at the car wash was nice. she dried my car off, without me even asking. i know that she was no doubt hoping for a tip - and i gave her one - but i look at it like this: she dried my car off.
6. the 19-year old kid who was at the hair salon at the same time i was, getting his hair cut, said, "you're 60??????? you look 40!" true, people in ohio have said similar things to me before. but not with such a nice southern accent.
7. rudy's next door neighbors sat down with rudy and me and just started talking like we had known each other a long time. maybe not like we had known each other forever - but for a long time.
8. the guy at toast, a wine store here in town (great name for a wine store, by the way), upon showing him my ohio driver's license, said, "ohio? wow. that's a long way to come for wine," and i said, well, i sort of moved here, and he said, "when?" and i said, a coupla weeks ago, and he said, "welcome. i hope we georgians always treat you right."
9. two of rudy's friends have invited me to have lunch with them. and one of them offered to help me find a job. and they haven't even met me yet.
10. you just about can't get to any place down here without driving on washington road. which is nice. because george washington was nice. or, maybe he wasn't. but i like to think he was. so, for all intents and purposes, he was.
11. but the nicest thing of all about georgia is that rudy is nicer than all of these things put together.

the real secret to rudy

rudy made a book for me in honor of my 60th birthday last november. it's a book of 60 things he loves about me.

he brought me a goodie bag one time when he came to columbus for the weekend. in it was one of those remote cell phone charger things, my new blue cross insurance card (thanks to him and his employer), a leather-bound book of 52 scripture verses (one for each week of the year), some chocolates, and some things i can't - or at least, won't -  mention.  :)

he drove all day on thanksgiving day, from augusta to columbus - had a chicken patty for his thanksgiving "dinner" at some fast food place along the way - just to be with me.

he proposed to me on the big screen at the planetarium, with my name and his written among the stars in the sky, and on his knee.

he opens the door for me. insists on it. pulls out my chair. insists on that. (i often forget that he wants to do these things and i start to do them myself. i have never had a man do these things for me. our feminist culture has taught me that i shouldn't want a man to do these things for me. but, i do. turns out, being treated nicely isn't so oppressive after all.)

when we're walking on the sidewalk, he makes sure he's the one closer to the traffic. turns out, being treated with chivalry isn't so oppressive after all. unless you consider being alive when your husband could possibly be dead to be oppressive.

he bought me the coolest cosmetic bag i have ever had. surprised me. no occasion. cosmetic bag. cool. for you, nancy. here you go.

i don't even know of any other man who would even recognize a cosmetic bag if it hit him in the face.

the first time i flew to augusta, he was at the airport with flowers.

he sent flowers to mark our first week anniversary.

he did all the wedding planning. all of it.

on our first night as honeymooners at the biltmore inn, he had pre-arranged for us to have the best table in the dining room. and it was killer good.

he scattered pictures of my family throughout his (our) house so that i would see them first thing when i moved here this past sunday. and would feel more at home.

since september, he has bought me about 12 thoughtful, personal gifts, not including Christmas. i can't count them all. just because i can't count them all doesn't mean you need to stop buying them, rudy.  :)

he asked the saxophonist last night at the restaurant to serenade me at our table. and he didn't just ask him - he pre-arranged it. it was all set up ahead of time. the only thing rudy needed to do was to give the guy the signal that yes, now is the time - get over here and play, dude.




rudy compliments me in a thousand ways every day. he tells me things that women want to hear - at least the women i know want to hear - and he means it. he dances on air for me. and he says he can't help it - it just happens.



but it doesn't "just happen." none of this does. here's what "just happens": rudy loves Christ.

and he puts Him first. ahead of me. way ahead of me. way ahead of everything.



with two men like that,


how in the world can i lose?

how rudy jones and ashley parks saved my life

sometimes we expect kindness from

strangers more than

we expect it

from

friends.


sometimes friends

are too

busy.


sometimes friends see you

so much

they

assume you are

there.


strangers see the

tears

in your

eyes. they notice when

your hand is out

and you

are

begging.


but friends,

even though they're in

a

hurry,

know what you're crying

about. know what you're begging

for.


know what you need.


know what you need is

olivia's picture

on the

table.


know what you need is

come home early

from

work and take you

to

dinner.


know what you need is

do what you want

with the

house.

it's

yours.


know what you need is

letters

from

what used to be

home.


but thanks to

friends,



now this


is.

God's math

in my adult life (and i start counting with my first marriage) i have moved 15 times. the one on sunday will be my 16th.

in my childhood, i moved...........once.



i remember that childhood move. i remember the first night in the new house and how, with this super mean scowl on my face, i kicked the bathtub. hard. because i thought it was a stupid bathtub. and a stupid house.


in other words, i was scared.


i was scared that even though my friends were only a few blocks away, i would never see them again. i was scared because the stairs to the basement were open. and i thought i would fall through.

i was scared of breaking something in this stupid new house and getting into all kinds of trouble for it. who cared if i broke something in the old house - it was an old house! and we were leaving it!

i was scared that my parents would make me do a bunch of stupid chores in a big stupid house on a saturday morning when i would rather be sleeping. or writing in my diary about it.

but, none of those things happened (well, except for the stupid chores, dang it) and i grew up relatively unscathed by having moved to a stupid house just a few blocks away from my non-stupid house. 


and i never thought any more about it.


until now.


you might think that moving (for the 16th time - 17th if you count the childhood move to the stupid house - and 25th if you count the moves during college and grad school) would be old hat for me by now. and, in some ways, i guess, it is. i know how to pack. i know how to organize a move. i still don't know how to carry heavy boxes. nor do i want to learn.  :)

but what never seems to become old hat - at least not for me - are the feelings associated with a move. they're not always scary, like that first one was, but there's always something emotional about them - because there's always something you're leaving behind.



this time, i am leaving behind more than i ever have before: i am leaving 5 grandchildren.



i have left my daughter and son-in-law before and i have left my parents before. i have left friends before. i have left jobs.

i have left houses that i loved (yes, even the stupid one which, by the end of the summer of that fateful move, i had grown to love).

i have left really cool kitchens.

i have left homes with exposed brick and giant arching windows that look out over the skyline of columbus.

i have left neighbors who waved hello to me on the first nice day of spring, in their shorts and flip-flops.

i have left the security that comes from having lived in one place long enough to have put down roots. yes, roots can be put down, even if you move 25 times.


and so, i have a history of having left. a lot. i think everyone does. but i am not sure that everyone has a history of gaining even more. or, at least, of realizing that they have.

i realize that i have.



i realize that in the aftermath of the worst thing that has ever happened to me, God waved His hand and fixed it.

He fixed it in a way that i never imagined He would do nor did i even want Him to do. i did not want God to ever ever ever in a million years let me fall in love again. please, God, if you love me even a little, don't do that.

but, ha, God and His sneaky little ways. you know?



and God's math, i realize, is much better than mine (although i know that's not saying a lot)........

and He says 16 has always been His favorite number.
 


but what He says mostly is,



you can stop counting now, nancy.

move. no, wait.

instant oatmeal,

surrounded by

boxes.


gave the tv stand

away so

the tv is on

a

chair. two chairs

to be

exact.


down to

one plate,

one bowl,

one mug,

two

wine

glasses.

because a girl

has

her

priorities.


i can hear

the

furnace.

it's warm,

but not

very good

company.


the radio plays

"cool

change" by the

little

river

band.

i think about

calling

the

station and saying,

"are you

playing that

for

me?"



but.

i

don't.



i think i hear

my

echo.

helloooooooooooo in

there,

is

any

body

hoooooooooooome?



meanwhile,

in

georgia,

some

body

answers yessssssssssss.

says,

"you will be, too.

real

soon."




hold

on.

snow angels

i know i am

leaving

the

snow.


i am leaving 50

fingers, 50

toes,

5

smiles.



i am leaving

what comes out of

small

mouths. 



the way their heads

turn

when i walk

in.


the way their eyes

are.

their hands,

their

hands.



the things i will suddenly

remember in the

night,

when i can't

sleep or the snow falls

up north,

alone, without me there

to

catch

it.




the kind of things i would

write to them 

in the

snow.



if i

could.

phases of "dancing queen" or, 12-steps to joy

phase 1, song by swedish band ABBA released: august 1976. LOVED it.

phase 2, met a swedish man: september 1996. DOUBLE LOVED it.

phase 3, swedish man bails: january 2010. CAN'T LISTEN to it to save my life.

phase 4, divorced from swedish man who bailed: january 2013. STILL CAN'T LISTEN to it, but can hum it.

phase 5, moved to a new home to get rid of ghost of swedish man who bailed: may 2013. SANG IT the whole way over to the new home. but it was in between tears.

phase 6, swedish man who bailed calls to tell me why he did it: may 2014. CAN'T SING it again. dang.

phase 7, re-met nice, sweet, smart rudy jones: august 2014. DIDN'T EVEN THINK about it. (thought motown instead.)

phase 8, shared (back and forth) motown songs with nice, sweet, smart rudy jones: september 2014. DIDN'T EVEN THINK about it.

phase 9, shared (back and forth) motown songs, rock and roll songs, country songs, r&b songs, jazz songs, top 40 songs, Christmas songs,  every kind of songs except no opera songs with nice, sweet, smart rudy jones: october 2014. DIDN'T EVEN think about it.(not even when i shared top 40 songs.)

phase 10, shared (back and forth) all of the above songs. repeated some. repeated many. shared every song ever written with nice, sweet, smart rudy jones: november 2014. ABBA WHO????

phase 11, married nice, sweet, smart rudy jones with whom i shared every song ever written: december 2014. NO, SERIOUSLY...ABBA WHO????

phase 12, heard it on the radio: today. february 18, 2015. SMILED. TURNED IT UP.
 


FREAKING LAUGHED.

OUT.

LOUD.




:)

ashes, ashes, we all fall up

today is ash wednesday and so, when you see someone with a black smudge on his head, roughly in the shape of a cross which really won't look much like a cross at all because the priest was either in a hurry and/or the guy forgot it was on his forehead and accidentally rubbed it half-off in angst over being stuck in traffic, don't act all ignorant and say something stupid like, "you got somethin' on your forehead." because for one thing, "you got" is bad english and for another, it's freaking ash. wednesday, people. 



ash wednesday is probably the number one thing, as a kid, that made me want to be a catholic. i remember my st. teresa friends coming home from school with black crosses (more or less) on their foreheads and when i saw them coming, it was like, here comes Jesus.


it was that important of a symbol.

and i wanted to be a part of it.


those black smudges fascinated a presbyterian girl like me whose church and its practices were stripped almost entirely of anything symbolic. of anything that might remind me of what faith means. i never looked at those ash wednesday foreheads as something strange or worse, unnecessary. i looked at them as what they were: BILLBOARDS for the rest of us to wake up.

to fall up.

to fall up in loving Christ. to grasp it. to get it. and then,

to spread it. to spread the good news of the gospel, starting with one easy, startling post-it note for the world to see: ashes. on your forehead.



i also always loved the rosary beads. not so much because they were pretty (not all of them were) but because you could see them. touch them. i remember the first time i  held a strand of rosary beads in my hands. i was 5 and they belonged to my best friend, marilyn. when she handed them to me, because she knew i was curious, i remember seeing my hands shake. i don't know what i was afraid of - that i would drop them, i suppose. and that the tiny cross with the little Jesus on it might break.

i didn't want the beads to fall down. 


i wanted them to lift me up.


and they did.



but of all the things that catholics do - and i loved them all - wanted them all - the one that i loved the most was (is) the one that i saw them doing the most:

making the sign of the cross.



making the sign of the cross wasn't just something that happened on ash wednesday. it didn't just happen on easter or Christmas or when it was your turn up to bat. it happened all. the. time. it was thee most visible TV commercial of all: come to Christ. He has saved you.



one day in the middle of an especially hot (don't get me started) summer, marilyn decided enough was enough. if this little friend of hers (me) wants to be a catholic this bad and her presbyterian parents ain't budgin' (also bad english), then marilyn decided to take matters into her own hands. and she did. we did.

we rigged up an altar out of cardboard and a couple of boards we found in her garage which, sidebar here, marilyn's dad had an awesome garage. and he spent a lot of time in it. it was his man cave - only nobody knew what a man cave was back then. everything was perfectly in place - all his tools, all his car stuff, everything. he probably kept inventory for all i know. and i have no doubt that he noticed right away - as soon as he got home from work that evening - that those boards were missing.

if he ever said a word to marilyn about it, i don't know it. good old catholic cliff jacobs no doubt kept his mouth shut.

and smiled.


but i digress.


so, we got some cardboard and some regular boards and made an "altar," and marilyn put some kind of very ugly (sorry, mare) scarf around her head - to make herself look like a priest, i guess - but she looked more like a gypsy on halloween - and she got a glass from the kitchen cabinet, took it outside and filled it with water from the hose (which we probably sprayed all over each other because even though we were about to do something very serious, it was hotter than frick, folks), and she said some kind of (to me) magic words over the water, dipped her fingers in it, said some more "magic words," and declared me a catholic.


and then she told me to make the sign of the cross.


which i did.



upside down.





i like that story.



i like it because what i did upside down was actually what i did upside up.

just like those rosary beads.



just like those ashes.


just like ashes, ashes.


we all fall




up.

chapter books

nobody ever called them that but that's what they were - chapter books. books with chapters. they  meant you were growing up.

they meant the print wasn't gigantic anymore and the storylines were more complex. you didn't just have to sit there and watch tom run and then watch betty run (we didn't have dick and jane where i went to school - we were hip - we had tom and betty - courtesy of "ginn basic reader's "on cherry street" series). more hip, maybe, but just as boring......after reading first about tom running and then about betty running, we then had to read about tom and betty running.

and to think they were trying to inspire 6-year olds to want to read.......

but once you got to second grade, they let you read chapter books. except they didn't call them that. they just called them "books." and they suddenly opened up a whole bigger world than watching tom run. run, tom, run.

i remember the library at my elementary school and how, starting in second grade, you got to go once a week. my library had a bunch of biographies about the people from colonial america, especially the ones who founded this country, and i read every single one of them. i can sit here now and remember the exact shade of blue that each of those books was bound in. i remember the square size of them - about 5" by 5" -  and especially how old they all smelled. like somebody's grandma's kitchen. the corners of the pages were worn or folded over, as every good book should be, and you could look in the front flap, find the library loan card, and see the names of every kid before you who had read that very same book. or at least checked it out. it was like a history lesson of its own, right there.

i was reading chapter books. and i didn't even know it.

when i got a little older, i read all kinds of books,including every single nancy drew book. i read most of them twice, several of them 3 times. "the secret of the old clock," which was the very first one in the series, was and still is my favorite. i remember that book like it was the cookbook i just used last night.

eventually i got to high school and that's when reading became a problem, not a joy. whereas i used to stay up way past my bedtime with a flashlight under the covers, suddenly, when i had to read a book......and i had to analyze it......discuss the characters, the setting, the theme.....and take one entire test on it, well......suddenly i loathed books.

and to think they were trying to inspire 16-year olds to want to read.

college just made it worse and graduate school about did me in. frankly, it's a testimony to my something-or-other that i even went to graduate school. considering how much i hated books by that time.

and then, finally......real life started to happen. and books, no longer a requirement, became fun again. i read everything i could get my hands on - in between diapers and parent-teacher conferences and high school musicals and graduations, that is. which probably means i read about 5 books. but it felt like everything i could get my hands on.



my taste in books as an adult has changed over the years. i guess everything has changed over the years. but not my love of chapter books. and not my love of chapters.


a new one has my name written all over it. the characters are a boy and a girl and the setting is georgia. the theme is love and the girl needs to get there quick.



run, nancy.

run.

what happens when valentines grow up

when you were little there were

lots

of them,

crammed into pink

boxes. you always wondered if

you'd get

enough.


you wondered if the boy with the

funny hair or the girl

with the

bad teeth

would get

any. so you made sure

they did.


you worried which ones

to buy,

how many,

did you count right?


should you get funny

or cute or

the comic book

ones? what do boys

want? why is it so hard

to

know?


you find a special

heart. all big and red

and

pink

and

white

and

BIG.


you say, someday,

maybe,

i will get one

like

this. someone will see it

and me

and fall in

REAL LOVE.




and then,

suddenly,

someday




comes.

God turned off the heat in my office

God turned off the heat

in my off-

ice.



He went like flip flip flip

with the switch.

off/on/off/on/off/on.

(i didn't get

on.)



i thought it was

random.



i thought i got what i deserved,

seeing as how i'm forever talkin' bout

lovin' the

cold.



i thought maaaaaaaaaay-be

it was the stars.

all lined up against me. 1-2-3-4-5.



i thought maybe it was pay back

for something i don't remember 

doing.

(but no doubt did.)



i dragged out the quadratic equation

to try to figure out,

why me?
 


i diagrammed sentences.

woulda consulted a guru.

(if i believed in

gurus).



shivered my day through.



came close to (i admit it)

cursing.



remembered  God isn't

random.



remembered He does all things

for my (your)

good.



remembered georgia is

hot. (in more ways than

one. ha

ha.)



remembered He makes crooked places


straight.



makes rugged places,


plain.



and though the Bible doesn't specifically

say so,



He uses unexpected waves of His hand to make 

the girl who always loved snow

into the



woman who will always love

rudy.





whatever the freaking temperature


is.









  

the lump in my throat

i have been borderline crying

all month.

so far, this is what i have done:

(and pretty much in this order):



i have gotten married.

i have resigned my current job

and have started looking

for another.

i have arranged to get rid of my stuff.

i have begun to tell people good-bye.

i have noticed the

snow.

i have noticed the cold and the ice and the

snow.



i have walked through my home, trailing my

fingers

along the

walls.



i have attended a "black"

church.



i have woken up with a stranger in my

throat.



i have said to anyone who will listen,

look.

none of these changes

changes my mind. none of these emotions

trumps 

love.



because saying good-bye to a good life matters,

only if you are not saying hello



to the

best one.

why i married rudy alan jones so fast

i remember back-to-school shopping and how before we ever set out to do it, my mom would always say, without fail, every year, "are you sure you don't want to wait and see what everybody else is wearing first? and then, after you know, we can go out and buy stuff?" and how, always, without fail, every year, i was like, why on earth do i need to know what everybody else is wearing?

(and, as it turned out, i never did need to know.)


i remember the first home i bought. i walked into the entry hall and said, yep, this is the one. i want it. and the realtor said, "don't you think you oughta look around first?" and i was like, why on earth do i need to look around first?

(and, as it turned out, i didn't need to look around first.)


i remember doing the exact same thing on home #2.


i have bought 3 cars without ever having test driven them. 3 of the best cars i have ever owned. actually, thee 3 best i have ever owned. and the only 3 i ever gave a name to. all the rest of them have disappeared, nameless, into the foggy, forgotten background.



and that is why i married rudy alan jones so fast.


a name that is not going to disappear into any kind of background. foggy, forgotten, or whatever.


ever.


because, when you know,


you know.

ending Christmas

when Christmas ends there are pieces to

pick up.


the tissue paper, the box.

the lone card someone didn't open because

there were so many

and oh, here it is!

how did we


forget.


the people leave.

they pack up what they got,

making sure that what they got isn't mixed up

with what someone else

got.

they make sure they didn't throw something out

with the

trash.

do we have the checks....yes.

do we have all the little pieces that go with

the

toys?



they leave, waving and thanking.

they say you shouldn't have but they knew

you would.

and you are glad

you

did.



then,

you close the door. maybe you go to the kitchen

to do

the

dishes.

maybe you sit down and

cry.



not because it was bad but because

it was

good.

not because it is ending but because

this.

is.

Christmas.




and it is just



beginning.