Musings and Sensible Nonsense

Jesus, lover of my soul,

You should be the first to know;

Abba, Savior, heavenly Friend,

My Beginning, and my End:

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I love You.

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Shepherd of eternity,

I’ll tell You first for all to see.

Secret-Keeper, Morning Star,

Who finds me when I’ve gone too far:

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I love You.

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Creator of the galaxy,

I’m Yours for all eternity;

Jesus, Savior, God, my King,

To You alone my praise I bring.

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I love You.

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God of life and light and power,

You liberate my spirit’s fire.

Illuminating holy Flame,

My life should breathe Your matchless name.

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I love You.

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Jesus, lover of my soul,

You should be the first to know…

I love You.

Blogging inspirations hide from me lately…this isn’t what I typically do, but the idea looked like a bit of a diversion for the end of a long week.

1. Today, I went sledding on the biggest slope I’ve even been on…it was probably close to a quarter of a mile from the very top to the very bottom.

2. My hiking boots are the best – I stepped in puddles and mud as well as slushy snow, and my feet stayed dry and warm.

3.  Imagine six teens from three different families in a house with nobody else home, and they decide to make brownies…well, it happened today, and the brownies were delicious.

4. Because I am so embarrassingly out of shape, one hike up that hill we sledded on had my pulse thudding in my ribs, my throat, my stomach, and the ends of my fingers before I was even a quarter of the way up.

5.  God has given some people the gift of bringing extra goodies to sledding parties; in this way, they bless worn-out teens/young adults with hot chocolate, donut holes, Oreos, and chocolate chip cookies.

6.  Scientists are discovering tiny water droplets inside salt crystals containing entire ecosystems of bacteria, algae, and other “simple” life forms which have been around for thousands of years; Dr. Seuss discovered this concept years ago and wrote “Horton Hears a Who”.

7.  The Dark Side really does exist…it’s on the other side of the moon.

8.  The Dark Side does not have cookies – it has moon pies.

9.  Someday, all the moon pies will cause the moon to come crashing down into the ocean; but by that time, humans will have evolved gills again and will be on their way to becoming primordial slime once more.

10.  I have a phone.  Its name is Mouse.  I keep it in my pocket.
11.  The wind bridges the gap between speech and music…if one could understand this, that person would be the wisest individual that ever lived.

12.  Secretariat is on my list of Movies to See before I Die.

13.  If you are two, you probably know that there is a button on your cheek that, when you push it, opens your mouth when someone is trying to stick food in…and it works best if you push it yourself.

14. The best thing about my MP3 player is the fact that I can put audio books on it…I would take off music to put more books on if the books I was choosing got left out for want of space.

15. Don’t think – just watch your fingers play!

Accident-Prone

I’m not saying I’m a klutz; while I’m not the most graceful person I know, I’m not the kind of person who trips over the floor.  I’m aware of the fact that I avoid accidents in weird ways, usually by the hand of God…I can’t count the times when I should have had an accident and didn’t, and I was sure that the conditions were right for it.  But.  Today was different – evidently God had something for me to learn.

Last night it rained, and this morning it was raining when Esther and I left home to go to my interview.  Side note about interview: I’d brought her along because the set-up was strange.  I’d never heard of this company before, and the interview was to occur at a Moxie Java, not an office.  Those two components, along with the fact that there’d been a deep male voice on the other end of the phone when I got a call, caused red flags to go up as to the legitimacy of the organization, even though I’d done a background check of my own online on their accreditation.  So for security purposes, I took Esther along; she brought the church computer so that she could untangle sermon recordings from the conference we had last week while I talked to whoever it was that showed up.  It ended up being the boss and his wife; and from what I could see, it was all legit and above-board.  Esther and I had debated doing the spy thing, where she went in first and set up, and then I followed 5 minutes later and pretended not to know her; however, we were both dressed spiffy and looked enough alike for it not to have worked very well, so we didn’t.  We just sat in different spots, in case an awkward moment arose about bringing siblings to a professional interview.  And for the record, the interview went well, even though we couldn’t find the Moxie Java place right away, and I had mocha and she had a latte.  Nom nom.  ^_^

Anyway, by the time we left, the rain had let up a half hour before and the parking lot was drying already; so I wasn’t thinking about driving conditions at all, except for puddles at intersections on right turns and so forth.  We pulled out of the complex onto the street, turned left at the light, and headed down the next street to get into the left lane to the interstate.  Esther and I were laughing about the Mormon temple located there, which is a monstrous thing right next to the freeway with four spires at each corner and spire out the front with a great gold edifice of either the angel Morona or Joseph Smith affixed to the spire.  At night, it has these weird greenish spotlights illuminating each spire all the way to the point, and there are several of us at church who refer to it as Minas Morgul…it looks convincing.  Either way, we talking about it, discussing Mormon girls and their life in the cult etc etc etc when I noticed that the cars in front of me had slowed down more slowly than I was anticipating…a lot more slowly…so much so that I needed to step on the brake if I didn’t want to smack into everyone waiting to go to Nampa.  So I did, carefully so as not to throw us through the windshield but still slowing pretty quickly.  We were still doing like 20mph 15 feet away, so I thought “iik!” and stomped on it.  Bad plan.  I had totally forgotten about the road still being wet in spots, because the clouds were starting to clear up and the sun was coming out, and I just didn’t think about it.  After all, the road is the most slick just as it begins to rain and wet the road, right?  Guess not…because I started to skid.  I had one irked “Oh shoot!” thought, went slightly limp and braced myself at the same time, thought what a lovely gold color the car was and thought very quickly and wordlessly “atleastthereisn’tanyonebehindusandEsther’swithmeandwearen’tgoingfast <deep breath> soidon’tthinkwearegoingtodie, butwemighthavetopayforsomething”- and then we did sort of a bouncing off thing on the nice shiny car in front of us.  Yes, I kept my hands on the wheel…and no, I didn’t remember to pump the brake in the short 3 seconds between the point of the skid and the actual collision…and no, I didn’t scream or anything.  I remember putting my hands to my hair as soon as I stopped moving, and I saw the girl in the other car sort of throw her hands up in the air after she was stopped (which I thought was weird – she said later that she’d spilled her coffee), and then we sort of sat there.  I quickly assessed the damage to her car, saw a smudge of blue paint, realized that my car already looked worse anyway, and contemplated shrugging and driving off; however, I reasoned, she can’t see the back of her own car, so she doesn’t know the extent of the damage.  Then she rolled her window down, jerked her thumb over to the curb, and started moving that direction.

A cop pulled up as we were comparing notes.  He surveyed the damage and suggested that we might want to exchange information just in case.  Then he asked us to pull into the subdivision around the corner so that no one hit us again and drove off; he didn’t even ask for our names or check our license plate numbers.  Basically, all we’d done was exchange paint, and there was a little chip about the size of a nickel or smaller where my plate had hit her bumper.  Her neck hurt a little, but she said that she worked at a hospital and it didn’t feel like it would persist…Mom says that judging from the minimal damage and the rate we were going, it’s hard to believe it would have been whiplash.  Either way, we probably should have just handed over name and phone number, but Esther did her secretarial duty and was already writing down insurance information before we had pulled over to the curb.  We told her we didn’t care, that our car was already beat up anyway and one more paint smear wouldn’t hurt; I was rubbing off her blue paint smear.

The thing with me is that once something happens like this and the shock is over, if there hasn’t been much damage or there’s nothing I can do about what happened, I’m more willing to live and let live rather than quibble over little things like a streak of paint.  I like to move on rather than what-if and re-live and think “I should have done…I shouldn’t have done…prolly this or that will happen”.  I was hoping that the lady would do the same because she seemed nice, even if it seemed like she was trying to not lose her temper as she got out…she was mad when she headed over to the curb, I know that.  However, she called our insurance company about it, and the insurance company called Dad saying she was planning to replace the bumper.  Dad said there’s no way we are letting the insurance pay for it, because we’d be paying for it with higher rates for the next three or four years; so if she calls us, we shall meet with her, look at the damage, and treat it like any insurance company would – they get three estimates and pick the one they are going to pay for.  Plus that, Dad intends to get the bumper and sell it on Ebay.    Either way, however much it costs will come out of my 20-hrs-a-week paycheck; thankfully it won’t take but a month and a half or so to take care of it.  Maybe…

So Esther and I decided to go to the library on the way home to pick up a book on hold…but we were almost there when we saw the empty parking lot and remembered that it was closed on Tuesdays.  I was just about ready to pull out into the street and had pulled out a bit farther than usual to peer beyond the cars parked at the curb when she said that, and I took a second to digest her comment before pulling out.  Unfortunately, “he who hesitates is lost”, as the old saying goes; I realized that the car that had been coming was now too close for me to pull out safely, and that I probably needed to back up so as not to freak them out.  So I flipped the gear into reverse and accelerated on the gas pedal.  The engine went “rrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrr..r.r…” and my wheels didn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t move.  It was at that moment that I looked in my rearview mirror like I should have done in the first place and saw the front grill of an F350 filling up my back window.  I looked down at the gearstick and it was still very much in reverse.  I looked at Esther, and she looked at me, and I said “Let’s go home.”  She replied, “Good idea.”  So after popping into the bank really quick, we did.  I’m firmly convinced that God held up the back of the car just enough to make the wheels spin so that I didn’t actually wreck the car that day.

Sometimes I wonder how many accidents we truly avoid by the grace of God, accidents that we will most likely never know about.  Remember the morning when you spilled your drink as you turned the first corner on the way to work, and you stopped to grab a rag from under the seat to mop it off your pants?  You finally got going again, muttering about being late to work, and ten minutes down the road you come across a four-car accident.  It’d just happened.  The police aren’t even there yet.  People are on their phones, and you see still forms inside the twisted metal…and you shudder.  You look down at your pants, resolving to proudly wear your coffee stain that day.  I had no coffee stain, but pretty sure I’ll not give insurance information if the cop doesn’t even take a report.

This is a product of boredom.  I was in driver’s ed…a few years ago, lol…and started writing a nonsense “what-if” poem, and this was one of the ideas I had.  So the other day, I fleshed it out, and here’s the sketch.

Jack and his widowed mother are very poor and decide they need to sell some of their things.  All they have left are their peacocks (or some other outlandish animal), and so his mother tells him to go to town to sell them.  Instead of selling in town, someone on the road trades him the animal(s) for a small paper bag full of potato eyes touted to be magical.  His mother is furious and throws them out the window, and the bag rolls under the house (this is Important).  Jack wakes in the morning with the feeling that the house is swaying gently in the breeze.  He looks out the window to find that the house is resting in the crook of two giant leaves of a potato plant.  He looks down and sees a broad expanse of dirty gold skin, growing larger by the minute.  Without a thought, he climbs out of the window and shinnies down the stem to the potato far below in the ground.  He finds a wooden door set into it, opens it, and goes through.  Inside, he sees a flight of golden stairs descending into the potato…or does he fall down a hole, like Alice down the Rabbit hole?  Either way, he reaches the bottom to find another door, and, falling through, he floats gently down into a strange underworld kingdom, lit by a strange pale sun, with no visible ceiling indicating the surface of the earth.

Everything is huge…the trees, the strange underworld animals, the deserted houses…it all is rather dismal and eerie.  After walking for a long time, he comes to a huge house, larger than the others, with smoke coming out of the chimney.  He has to climb a vine to get to the doorbell.  A giantess answers the door and can’t find him, but he yells very loud and she sees him clinging to the vine.  She laughs and laughs and, catching him in her apron, brings him inside and puts him on the table to look at him.  “You can’t stay here, for my husband will eat you for supper,” she says.  Jack is just telling her that he isn’t afraid of anything, when the entire house begins to shake as the giant comes stomping across the fields on his way home.  Quickly, the giantess hides Jack behind a broom.  The giant comes in and gives the traditional “Fee-fi-fo-fum-what-I-do-I-smell-I-shall-eat-it-if-it-is-Man,” and his wife tells him that it is the stringy cow he brought home…it wasn’t cooking right.   The giant says he’ll eat it anyway and has a hearty meal.  Then he starts counting his gold coins that he stole from somewhere.  Jack recognizes it as his family’s lost treasure and resolves to steal it back.

Etc.  He steals the gold, he steals the golden platypus that lays the golden eggs on the next visit, and…but he doesn’t steal the harp.  Not exactly, because the harp didn’t belong to his family like the gold and the platypus.  Of course, it is enchanted…it is the princess of this kingdom, which wasn’t sunken originally, but was an island.  The giant magically captured the island, set it up underground, made everything giant-sized, and turned all the people into house-hold objects and the princess into a singing harp.  So of course, the harp promises to help him, because killing the giant breaks the spell.  Also, it isn’t really his wife, but his pet monkey that he enchanted.  In the end, he disenchants the princess by doing something random, like sneezing with his eyes open and strumming all the strings at once or something like that.  Therefore, the princess is a girl again when they take off and escape (how they will get to the bottom of the potato I haven’t decided yet…maybe Jack, being a smart boy, hangs a rope down on the next time he goes down)…but the giant notices the absence of the singing harp in his sleep and chases after them.  When he gets to the potato, the starch in it turns him really really old, and he dies just as he reaches the leaves…which makes the island go back to where it was, and all the people are freed from the spell, including the poor monkey who was made to run about in a dress and think people thoughts all day, and one of the objects was Jack’s father.  The potato falls into the cavity left and rots, making the richest dirt there in the country so that Jack’s father becomes quite well-to-do as a result of the fabulous crops he grows.  And, of course, Jack marries the princess when he grows up and they have 3 sons and 4 daughters and lots of grandchildren.  The End!

Please tell me what you think…i’ve haven’t started seriously into the romance of the story yet, and this is sort of a trial; if some or all parts are weird/awkward/dumb, tell me – that’s why i’m posting this.   Also, this is the most dream-like so far, in my opinion, because the latter half of it is adapted from a dream i actually had a few years ago.  Also, bear with me in the description of her costume…i love describing clothes…

The party was over.  However, the lights were on in the castle, and she was getting ready for a special event.  Her room looked different, but she still knew where everything was.  The décor was done in greens and blues and purples, with soft light coming from an invisible source.  However, a cheery fire made itself at home in a grate on the far end, sparking and sending flames dancing up the chimney.  The firelight glinted off of her collection of glass figures set up on her dressing table, and they in turn reflected the resplendence of the gown on her bed.  She had never seen such a gown, and it took her breath away.  She decided she should probably wash her hair again if she was going to put it up, and the mask had to fit over it.  Though why have a party when they had just had one she couldn’t figure out.  The country hadn’t had harvest yet, and they couldn’t afford another big event till the next new moon at least.  She crossed the rich carpet to the door and looked out…and then she recognized where she was.  The big windows across the hall looked out into a starry sky, where the new moon, just into a sliver of a crescent, hung low and huge on the horizon behind a wide, calm sea.  The glass was open onto the balcony, and she wandered through the stone casements to perch on the low wall.  The cool breeze from the bay ruffled the simple white frock she was wearing, and it felt delicious against her skin.  She gazed unseeingly over the dark water, listening to the waves and almost, but not quite, understanding its plaintive song.  She didn’t hear footsteps approaching until a tall figure leaned against the marble pillar next to her and dropped a ribbon into her lap.  “This, madam, is for you I believe.”

She looked up and grinned.  “Is this the one you stole?”

He laughed.  “No, the other one was black.  I had to unravel it, remember.”

“Yes, for to splice your fishing line.  I never did quite figure out how my hair ribbon would suffice to hold a twenty-five pound fish.”  She let the ribbon play through her fingers; it was a light lavender and was just long enough so that she could wear it as a headband, tied under her hair or behind her ear.

“So…what is this party for?  Didn’t you have one yesterday or the day before?”

“Yes.  The Varun have a ball every midsummer’s eve, and while many people are invited, none know where it is to be held until after it is over.  This time…though I didn’t know you were invited… it would seem strange, yet it is not.”

“All things are strange, Lady.  This world is neither yours nor mine, and all things are possible.  The Varun are not tame creatures.”

“Of course not!”she replied, laughter in her voice.  “They aren’t expected to be.  This castle in particular belongs to these lords only because they have many friends to entertain, and not all of us are comfortable on the sea floor.”

“Maybe you would be.”

“Maybe I would not be.”

“You seem to be on good terms with these kinds of people.”

“My friend, that does not change my own physical make-up,” smiling.

He shrugged at that.  With a quick leap, he climbed up onto the wall next to her and paced the length of it to the next column and back.  Presently he asked, “Isn’t that one baron escorting you to this?  You are, after all, too young to be out yet.”  He was laughing at her, she knew.

“No, not him.  I dismissed him.”  She hoped her words came across as lofty and regal; she had been nervous doing it and anxious that the baron would not take no for an answer.  But he had…or else her parents had seen to it that he did.  She hated it when they stepped in like that, for she was headstrong and independent…but perhaps their guidance benefited her more than she knew.

“Oh really?  What was wrong with him?  He seemed like a decent fellow.”

She made a face.  “Do you realize what kind of a life I would have?  He’s nearly 40 and he wants a trophy wife; and this masque is one step toward that goal.  I would die.”  She flung an arm out into the air in a soulful gesture.

He laughed out loud at her dramatics and slipped down, arranging himself comfortably with his back to the sea.  “So then, who is escorting your young, tender Highness?”

She raised one shoulder.  “That I haven’t decided.  There are always a couple (and I quote) “promising young nobles”; or rather, there are seeming now more and more to be several lining up for every occasion.  Though not all of them are young…note our Baron friend.  But as of now, there isn’t anyone to escort my poor, young, tender self.  Yet.”

“Then…”  His voice dropped a pitch, and he bent his head.  “May I have the honor?”

Though her eyes playfully regarded him, inwardly she sighed.   She treasured the beauty of their friendship and wished it always to remain so, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him becoming like the others, and the serious pleading of his eyes told her that he didn’t have friendship only in mind with his request.  For a moment, she thought of him beside her in the brilliance of the lights, tall and broad-shouldered, moving at her side with the easy grace of a young lion…guests nodding to them and  smiling through their masks, unaware of both their identities yet aware that they were a couple…the fun they would have talking about people’s costumes and dress, analyzing actions and mannerisms, trying to figure out who they were…the thrill of him seating her and being attentive to her, a true gentleman always, and the graceful way she would acknowledge him…then the unmasking at the end, just before the concert, and watching laughter quirk his mouth when he saw how suitably everyone’s disguise fit their individual personalities, because it always happened that way no matter the guests…

“No,” she said.  “Thank you.”

In the end, he had declared that he would keep the horses company rather than be bored at a party.  She didn’t see how he could not go, once invited, but had tossed her head, not caring.

She didn’t remember who did her hair.  Perhaps it was Isa with her gentle brown fingers coaxing curls and waves into place.  But either way, when she finally regarded herself in the mirror, she hardly recognized herself.  Yards upon yards of dark purple satin cascaded down to the floor, draping around her slender form in a way that was very attractive without being overly so.  Tiny gold slippers encased her feet, but they couldn’t very well be seen except to occasionally peep shyly out from under the sweeping hem.  The gauzy sleeves were merely streamers of material that flowed down from her shoulder and fastened around her wrists with pearl-studded ribbon, her arms slipping in and out of them when she moved or gestured.  She wore nothing at her throat, deciding against it because of the mask, which was a masterpiece.  She had picked it out especially, she remembered, because it wasn’t bejeweled and beribboned within an inch of its life like the others; but instead a single opal, set carefully in the supple brown leather, had its place above and between her eyebrows.  The edges flamed in green and orange embroidery, but it was far from excessive.  Also, she liked it because the ties attached to her hairpiece, which held the wayward wisps back from her face and allowed the rest to tumble down in pale gold waves over her shoulders and down her back.  She was beautiful and she knew it…but suddenly, it repulsed her, and she turned away from the mirror.

The coach drew up at the base of the broad marble steps, drawn by two teams of dapple grey ponies.  Already the sky was alight with the party at the beach pavilions, and her eyes were bright with it.  She drew her cloak a little tighter about her with a shiver of anticipation.  She saw that her escort had been chosen for her…a tall personage with grey hair and a grey goatee, wearing a dove-grey suit.  He came around to her side to hand her in, and she saw that his mask was black; other than that, she didn’t look at his face.  For a moment she had thought that somehow…but no, he was too thin.  She settled herself carefully, her head bent demurely so that her hood hid him from her sight.  Somehow, he was beside her again before she could blink, and the carriage was rolling forward, and he bent slightly and touched her, lifting her hair back in order to look into her face…she looked at him then, and with a shock, she saw that he had Gareth’s eyes…

If you would like, feel free to copy/paste, make comments in it, and email it to me.  In fact, i would love that.

On Facebook, I’m part of a group called “Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman”; today, they shared on my newsfeed an article written on a piece of news that has to do with Google.

I have stopped wondering what our country is “coming to”…it’s already all around us.

I’m editing and re-vamping my story “Eleven Dancing Princesses”; some things I’m throwing out, others I’m just changing to fit new ideas.  This bit though is one of my favorite parts, and I thought I’d share it.

A few times, though, Cyrus would really play.  The first time Isaak heard him was the third day they were traveling together, and they had stopped for the night.  A horseman had approached them on the road and had been rather rough with them, demanding to know where they were going and why, and if they had any valuables with them.  Cyrus had been wearing his hood low over his eyes, and when the man accosted them roughly, he had tipped it back to look up at him.  The man immediately growled something that made Lia’s eyes widen and rode off…”a highway man,” Cyrus said grimly, “…they all know me well.”  But it had disturbed both Lia and her brother; so that night around the small fire, he had pulled out his instrument and began tuning it, using a silver rod that played a single note in correspondence with a single string.  “Play something?” Lia asked sleepily.  “Please?”

“Something nice…and pretty…something that tells a picture story.”

Cyrus smiled and ran rosin over his bow.  “Something pretty…with mood…a tall order, no?”  He glanced at Isaak.  “Any preference?”

Isaak shook his head.  “Not in particular.”

“Well then, I shall play what I want to play…as I always do…”  He winked and lifted his bow.  It poised over the strings like a bird ready to take flight, and his eyes half closed, envisioning the music in his head.  Then, softly, he began to play, caressing the bow like a lover.  It was mystery…dark and dusky purple, wreathing the small group in dreams.  It peeked out from around the dark tree trunks and vanished into the sky in a shower of sparks.  It spoke of far-off lands of spice and heat, of desert sand and camels and beautiful horses that run like the wind; of the deep green undersea, of the king under the ocean in his pearly bed, the weedy ships and sleeping sailors, forever hidden in peaceful oblivion; of dark clouds obscuring the moon on a windy night, sullen and cold.  His bow dipped and glided and suddenly the fiddle changed.  No longer was it shy and mysterious; it darted out of the shadows and started to dance, playing and spinning in a mad, happy frolic.  It sang of sunflowers in a field and long-ago fairs.  It created images…of young girls pirouetting in brightly-colored skirts…blue, red, green, orange…their feet tapping on a hardwood floor.  Of hot, spicy sips of cider on a freezing slope…of a flurry of butterflies leaving a tree in a swarm and rising in a golden cloud into the sky.  It crooned, it laughed, it yodeled…and Isaak and the children sat enraptured.  Then it slowed.  The bow lengthened, drawing out droplets of sound and spinning them like sweet amber taffy.  The very stars began to sing, and the wind crooned a lullaby in the branches of the trees.  The leaves stirred softly, and the fiddle sang them to stillness.  It became a murky blue, swathing them again in dreams and sleep-like fancies.  No longer was it spicy…no longer did it speak of places far away and exciting.  It was there, among them, weaving a spell of purple slumber around over, weighting their eyes with silver sand…a muted gold, streaked with mauve and flecked with teal.  It wandered with the smoke from the dying fire and returned to the fiddle bow; then in a last melodic spurt, it rose to the stars and died away on the night breeze.

Milo and Lia were asleep.  Cyrus put down his bow and breathed a deep silent sigh and stared into the flames.  Isaak drew a long breath.  “That was beautiful,” he said softly.  “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

Cyrus smiled faintly…dreamily.  “We have always known.”

I wrote this during Spanish class, i think…it was after i had finished a test and i hadn’t brought anything else to do.  So i wasn’t rhyming… 

No color exists like the green of a chalkboard

The shade of it glows relentlessly smooth

Struggles and trials trace themselves on its surface

In torturous beauty are grades lost or won

Clicking and shirring, the chalk adds a contrast

Stroking its marks on the closely-clipped turf

Like jet trails, they string cryptic messages skyward

In undefiled white visualizing one’s thoughts

The throes! The writhings! To understand the lost art

To etch out a living from green-slated lawn

No billows disturb the insistent flat color

Nor rival arises to challenge its hue

Again I sit down to write a frivolous blog post based on the ramblings from inside my head.  I’ve written thought processes upon watering beans…I’ve written on sleepy tektek interpretations…I’ve written a smooshing-together of bits of knowledge I’ve stored up…surely one more random post won’t hurt.

What brought about this idea was the fact that I have a very odd sister who is fond of thinking up crazy ways to do things, including make her bed.  I laughed at her, even though I had just awakened and usually I’m pretty taciturn for another half hour or so.  But later on I thought, “How DO people make their beds…all over the world?” and since I was too lazy to research it, I started making stuff up, using logic if I felt like it and leaving it out otherwise.  Then I decided to look and see what the internet said about making your bed, just for kicks; and according to www.wikihow.com, this is the standard way for when you wake up in the morning, plus my own commentary.

1)      Clear everything off the bed and put it away.  <neat freak>

2)      Remove all pillows from the bed.  <after all, everyone always has more than one pillow>

3)      Dust the sheets so you get rid of extra dead skin from the night before.  <for those who shed in their sleep>

4)      Push the comforter or top blanket near the foot of the bed.  <the innocent bystander…though you have to adapt this step if your bed is in a corner>

5)      Take the lowest sheet and pull tightly to end of the bed where your head rests; center it by folding to find the center and tuck in all sides under the mattress.  <and you always have time first thing in the morning to fold the bottom sheet a little in order to find the center, right?>

6)      Repeat this for as many sheets as you have, making sure that a printed sheet had the printed side down, so there will be a pretty envelope of color as you open the covers.  <actually, it’s so that you can see the pretty printed part from underneath as you lay in the scary dark>

7)      Pull the comforter or the top blanket over the sheets tightly.  <no starch for you!>

8)      Fold up any blankets you keep on your bed.  <nothing about seeing the pretty print here…sheets are overrated>

9)      Decoratively place pillows back on bed for extra pleasure and happiness; the open sides of the pillows should face the edge of the bed.  <because every bed only has on edge after all, and they must face The Edge for your “pleasure and happiness”>

There are also warnings, for you just might make your bed wrong.

-          Warning #1: Do not pull the sheets too hard or they will come undone, adding more stress onto you. Make it easy so you are happy.  <happiness is the best policy, always>

-          Warning #2: If it is in the summer, don’t put too many blankets on the bed; this will make you hot and sweaty through the night.  <…and you will not be happy>

I hope you know how to make your bed.  If you didn’t, now’s a good time to laugh and learn.  But this is the way one makes a normal bed as the average American thinks of a bed.  But what about people who have different beds?  It isn’t true that everyone sleeps pretty much alike.

The research on bed-making interested me so much that I went on to check out how other customs did it and why.  In more primitive countries such as Africa, Paraguay, or Indonesia, there is a general communal sleeping area because of safety.  Some people sleep on animal skins, mats, wooden platforms, or rugs; some even sleep on the ground…so much for making your bed…and in most cases a pillow is completely foreign.  A mat or a rug one would only have to roll up and put away, after removing whatever dirt was on it, and a wooden platform would only have to be kept clean.  So what’s the big deal about making your bed?

We’ve all heard the proverb “as you make your bed, so you must lie upon it”, which originated in the 15^th century.  Even though the saying has a double meaning, sleeping in a bed that is rumpled does cause discomfort and often leads to insomnia; and while many people don’t see the need for making their beds in the morning, not doing so lends an atmosphere of mindlessness and disorderliness…I wouldn’t go so far as to say that rumpled covers equals a rumpled mind…maybe.  For me, it helps me wake up more thoroughly if I make my bed immediately upon rising; it gets my body in gear and working at least enough so that I can think more coherently about getting ready for the day.

But, psychologically, you sleep better in a restful environment; silly as it sounds, coming to sleep in a neatly ordered room is more relaxing than trying to wind down in an atmosphere of sloppiness.  Imagine this: It is bed-time.  You have had a long day, and it didn’t quit even after supper and you are exhausted.  You were able to relax a little bit by taking a shower, but you are still a little uptight and it’s late.  You walk into your room to find your pyjamas and are greeted with a disheartening sight as you flip on the lights.  Your blinds are still open and the dark gapes through; the window is closed, and so a warmly stale stuffiness permeates the room.   Your pj pants lie flung over your chair, and one slipper waves hello to the other from across the room.  And, to complete the picture, your covers are tossed haphazardly across your bed, trailing on the floor.  It reminds you of how much you needed to get done today…as opposed to how much you actually accomplished, and your sleep, when everything is quiet and your rumpled sheets are pulled up to you chin, is anything but restful.

Now imagine this: Same you, same kind of day, same kind of relaxation methods complete with the shower.  You even had a hot cup of herbal tea, and you are so tired.  You walk into your room, and this time the window is open, allowing a cool breeze through your curtains.  One slipper has wandered across the room from the other, and your pjs are tossed over your chair.  There is a thick, leather-bound book on your nightstand…and your bed is made!  The quilt is smooth, the sheets look crisp, and your pillow plumps up at the headboard.  Your extra throw lies neatly folded at the foot of the bed.  You change, walk around in your slippers just for kicks, then fold back your blankets and go brush your teeth.  When you come back, the atmosphere is so inviting that you fall right into bed and into a deep restful sleep.

Note: that was slightly facetious…I played with words there, but it was fun and you get the idea.  A lot of people will tell me (mainly guys, you’ll note) that there isn’t really a point in making your bed, since you will just unmake it again at night; the idea isn’t so much convenience as it is neatness, which would be a completely different debate.  Or you could opt to sleep on the floor and not have to make your bed at all, like the African goat-herders.  Your choice.

Then again, you could be creative in making your bed…I couldn’t find anything on that, but the other day, like I said, Esther made me laugh.  We had just woken up with my alarm and I was sitting cross-legged on my bed blinking sleepily out the window.  Esther becomes fully conscious upon waking, with full thinking capabilities immediately.  I don’t.  But she was lying there thinking, and presently she said, “You know, I wonder if you can make your bed without getting out of bed.”

I said, “Mm.”

She lay there for a moment, and then flipped the covers over her head; since she is a bit on the petite side and her comforter is fluffy, it looked like someone had already made the bed, with some random lumpies.  She pulled them tight, lay still for a second, and then slowly one leg sort of oozed out from underneath and drooped to the floor…then an arm…then she slid off the bed, reminding me somewhat of Dalí’s melting watches.  I laughed and laughed.  The bed looked perfect.

Whatever…so long as your bed-making techniques are conducive your ultimate pleasure and happiness.

Life is like a chessboard.  Each person and event fits in its own particular place in an orderly fashion, and they each move according to as one learns more about them.  Sometimes they corner each other and have to be resolved, rearranged, changed; there is no check-mate because one cannot conquer the other.  Simple logic, right?  However, sometimes these leave the chessboard and hang suspended so as to make room for a third party…you.  They become orbs of different substances and with different purposes and affect you as you move through them across the squares of black and white.

Some orbs just shine.  They exist.  They have no particular purpose except to make you aware of your world around you.  They could be your likes and dislikes, your personality, your favorite color, a beautiful song or good book.  They could be a visit from a good friend, the refreshment of a thunderstorm, the rustle of grass as the wind combs through it, etc.  They may be particular people who are special in your life, like your parents or a teacher who shaped the person you are now.  Sometimes they like to show up as a good-friend-turned-spouse, someone with whom you have shared much of your life and heart…an orb that has matured into something much deeper and more meaningful; typically in this case, no one notices the change except to observe that a different closeness has appeared…something is vaguely different in a good way.  There isn’t a lot of fanfare…it just creeps up on you to shine in your peripheral vision and enrich your life.

Some orbs exist for the purpose of reflection.  They serve to make you look at yourself and see yourself for who you really are, and sometimes it’s appalling.  They may be another person…someone whom you admire or who acts as a mentor in your life; you may see them as having or being something unattainable, yet you pursue it all the same.  It’s not that you are putting them on a pedestal and displacing the true Example that we as believers should follow; however, there are those godly people that we all look up to, taking their good qualities and emulating them in our own personal process toward Christ likeness.  Ultimately, this orb is the Word of God…”whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein…this man shall be blessed in his deed.”

Other orbs are like those sacs made of spider silk that hold myriad upon myriad of tiny babies, all ready to spill out and affect the world however they were designed.  But these orbs , like the baby spider nests, are all webby…they fling out slender gossamer threads at you, trying to ensnare you in whatever foolishness they have to offer.  This may be pointless conversation, full of idealistic goals and things that one has no right to be planning for or thinking about.  It may be something that someone has involved you in, pulling you into it and making you feel as though the burden of the entire situation lies on your shoulders when in reality it doesn’t.  Or maybe it is those thoughts, those scenarios you make up in your mind, during those final couple of hours before sleep, about something you wish to have happen; it’s not exactly a day-dream…almost a made up story…but everything is set just so, things happen how you want them to, and often it reflects some desire of your heart.  It sometimes manifests itself in your dreams as your mind falls into this rut of thinking, and you find yourself defaulting to it.  Perhaps it’s a person, someone that you are obsessing over…and you are so good at thinking about that person that you can all but imagine him or her standing beside you at any moment you wish, breathing beside you, thinking about you, interacting in your mind with what you are doing…and then when you turn around, they aren’t there.  Or perhaps a treasured goal answers the summons; that goal may very well be a noble calling, but what noble ideas populate a mind that blocks everything out but that goal? The problem is that these orbs throw their loops around your mind, clouding it with thoughts and ideas that aren’t profitable or edifying…this is “what-if”ing in a way that isn’t healthy.  It becomes idolatry as the obsession crowds out all promptings of the Holy Spirit, setting itself up on the throne of your heart, controlling your desires and goals.

Then there are those orbs that come at you out of the darkness of your thoughts, whirling like a waterspout, intent on creating a vacuum to suck all the air out of your space, making it impossible for you to think clearly.  They come to you as those parts of your life you have been trying to forget, those times when your world fell apart, leaving black holes in the way of answers.  They descend upon you like a panic in the night, when you wake up with a nameless fear sitting just below your collarbone, suffocating you with its terror and leaving you not knowing which way to turn.  You can’t get out…you’ve tried…there is no way out…you can just cling to the Rock of God’s Word with the realization that He is the only constant providing stability when everything you’ve known or have been building up in your mind is turning upside down.  Many times, these orbs prey upon you when you are already at your weakest, when you are exhausted emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and your guard is down because you have already just weathered a storm that beat you against the rocks, and it was all you could do to keep your head above the pounding waves.  Then they spiral down on you like vultures that have been wheeling  in the sky, waiting for you to fall.  They create a wall of wind and noise and chaos in your mind that drowns out everything else…except that still small Voice.  You have to be listening to it, categorizing all the noise as a whole and searching for that one other sound that says “Peace, be still.”

Then there are those orbs that refresh you like a shock of clear, sweet water on a hot day.  C. S. Lewis described something similar in Perelandra, the second book in his Space Trilogy, which details Ransom’s second journey through the Outer Heaven, this time to Venus…or “Perelandra” being the name which it calls itself.  One of the delights he discovered was a grove of trees on which hung a delightful kind of fruit, much like a sack bursting with liquid that refreshed whoever or whatever passed through them in a revitalizing shower.  Like Ransom’s fruit, these orbs are best experienced rarely, otherwise they become spoiled and the experience loses something out of wanton pleasure.  For instance, they can be a small child impulsively throwing his arms around your neck to bestow a warm, sticky kiss before running off to whatever business he has to do; for that to happen all the time in exactly that manner would be to lose some of the sweetness of the moment.  It could be a fireworks show…you wish it were longer, but you know it wouldn’t be as good if it kept going on and on.  It could also be a brush with an old friend or an old soul, be it person, animal, place, or event.  For example, have you ever met someone briefly, or interacted with them, and it seemed like you knew each other already?  Often, you don’t even have to talk…your eyes connect and there is instant recognition as though, if previous lives existed, you’d known each other very well once upon a time.  This has happened to me three times in my life: one with a literature teacher in high school, one with a girl on the plane during one of my cross-continental flights between school, and one with a small girl I met at a friend’s church.  With the teacher, we connected form the start and formed a bond quickly; it wasn’t just that we both loved books and deep thinking, but our personalities were in tune.  Then there was the time when I went to church with Heather and Zau and met a wee person who seemed to be me in miniature.  We knew all about the important stuff in 5 minutes flat…stuff like favorite color and how old we were and shoe size…all that fun junk.  I’m sure we would have been “best friends forever”, sworn over running water and everything, had we been the same age; but the time came for me to leave…though our lives have crossed paths a couple of times since, they are separate paths.  Then the last one happened during a layover in Charlotte on my way home from a visit the year I sat out from school.  It wasn’t super spectacular…with an oriental girl, the tiny type, looked to be about 16…although with them you can’t really tell, and they always look younger than they are. But we were boarding the plane, and I saw her the same time she saw me; our eyes locked for a split second, and it was the same recognition of souls, in which her eyes warmed briefly into mine, and there was a definite connection.  We saw each other getting onto the plane, then again getting off, but after that I didn’t see her again and I probably never will.  But it was one of those times that, unless it rarely happens, it isn’t really special…it’s the kind of something that would lose its refreshment if you could do it over and over again.

One of the things about these orbs is that they don’t stay the same.  The very circumstance/habit that snared you in its webs easily becomes something that haunts you when you can’t sleep…something that pounces on you when your mind wanders during the day…and you don’t have the answers.  That reflective orb that you see yourself in and aspire to become like can develop into one of the brightest aspects of your life as that person you look up to suddenly becomes your equal, and your friendship with that person grows and develops like a bean plant striving to reach the sun.  Then again, maybe your orb is the one that sucks the life out of you, the spectre that perches on your shoulder and whispers all your failures in your ear.  If you cling to what you know to be true of the Lord and give all that baggage over to Him, He will help you gain the victory…because He already has won the victory Himself.  Your orb of darkness will be transformed into a glowing reminder of what He has done for you.

Life is about black and white…grey areas really don’t exist of your sieve is fine enough, and Scripture assures us repeatedly that its wisdom equips us for every area of life.  People and circumstances never stay the same; they hover in uncertainty like orbs and are subject to change as you wander through your chessboard.  But there is always the chessboard.  There is always you.  And there is always the Master who controls the chessboard…and the pieces…and the orbs.  Does that mean you are a “pawn”?  Not necessarily.  The chessboard reflects the goodness and the glory of the Master, and as the epitome of perfection He moves the people and circumstances as He wills in order to conform you to the image of His Son.