Ode To My Knives

Of all the toys in my kitchen so fair,

Eight bits of steel, honed well with care.

A flash of silver to dispatch a rind,

Serrated tips, a steak to find.

My love doth pare

Beyond compare.

A weighted handle calls me softly,

To ply my trade,with goals so lofty.

Twelve years are passed, with nary a day,

That I haven't loved them in some small way.

They nestle so happily in a block of oak,

They're calling me, I hear them, this is no joke!

A twist of fate, a deed unkind,

Out of my house, in a terrible bind.

My household goods, in a warehouse await,

Jacksonville, Florida, their ultimate fate.

Somewhere in those crates, made of stout wood,

My knives await, as good knives should.

My mom has a rack of tools that cut,

Noble, old, sharp enough, but what?

No comfortable handle, no fencing-foil steel

I shouldn't complain, but I miss their feel.

I'm sure I am spoiled, and so I whine,

"I miss you so dearly, you knives of mine."

Mommy Van Winkle....

Generally speaking, I'm not a weepy person. I never have been. My propensity for waterworks increased with the birth of my daughter, but I blame that on hormones.

Even in the sixteen months that my best friend and better half has been away, serving our country and doing meaningful work in Afghanistan, I haven't cried much. That doesn't mean that I haven't missed him. In fact, I don't think I've been a whole person since he left. I guess that part of me shut down; on hold, in a way. Sometimes, when I am alone (if one can ever really be alone with two kids) I look at pictures of Sparky, and the keening ache in my chest is so acute, so sharp, but oh, such a precious hurt!!

Like I said, I've been doing pretty well. Until this morning, when we were stopped by the police at the intersection where we turn to get on the highway that takes us to Fort Carson's Gate One. We walk our dogs there almost every day.

Right in front of us, eight buses, full of America's sons and daughters returned their precious cargo to its home base. The kids and I immediately began to hoot and holler, celebrating the return of a few hundred strangers with clapping and shouting, until the last bus passed, and the police escort turned to follow them. We weren't alone: all of the other cars at the intersection were clapping or honking their horns. Strangers, just like us, just as happy to see those soldiers return as we were.

We proceeded behind the happy caravan, and that's when it hit: to my credit, I didn't completely fall apart, but i made enough noise that the boy had to ask me if I was crying, and why. Nosy little stinker, isn't he?

When the police reached the intersection that led to the gate, they once again stopped traffic on the road, and lined up across that intersection in the oncoming lane, lights flashing, sirens a-wailing as the procession passed.

After the buses went through the gate, there were fire trucks waiting in the roundabout that's right after that gate, its hoses shooting an arch where the buses were to pass through. They were also at full lights and sirens. I thought to myself, "those men and women deserve every damn bit of that fanfare, and more." I love that Colorado Springs is so supportive of the military, and I look forward to settling here after Sparky retires, whenever that is.

I was still bawling as we drove through the base to the park where my grandparents and brother were waiting with their dogs. I guess the missing my husband part caught up with me a little bit. If all goes as planned, he will be home around the 4th of July. That's a little more than a month away. It seems like it gets harder to wait with each passing day. I have never wished my life ahead of where I am now; I don't want to miss a minute of my kids' precious childhood. But now, sometimes, I do. Why can't I just fall asleep, and wake up a few days before he comes home? I just need enough time to decorate the house, get all his clothes put away in the closet (which I have already done), and make some of his favorite food. ( still planning that one)

Part of me was picturing our own family's reunion: The sign I've ordered, the balloons I'll bring, the camcorder, and our brave daddy, running to his screaming, joyfully weeping family, the embraces, the kisses, the death grip my daughter will have on his neck, the boy clinging to his waist, and me, somewhere in all that, my arms around him, too. I'm not sure how we'll make it to the car, much less drive home from the airport.....The joy will be overwhelming, and is so much anticipated! When I made our deployment chain, it stretched nearly all the way around the ceiling on the bottom floor of our house in Washington. Now it's six weeks long, and that's it. I think we'll even have a few days left over. I made the chain long enough to last until the 15th of July.......nothing but smart, that. You never know what's going to happen when it comes to military transportation.

As lonely as I've been, and as difficult as it has been at times, I have never once begrudged my husband this voluntary deployment. He has been waiting to do his part for so many years; now it's his turn. Sparky is honorable, brave, intelligent, kind, compassionate, and my best friend on earth. The things that make him want to put himself in harm's way (and believe me, this is no cake assignment, sitting somewhere in a big, safe base for a year) for a bunch of ungrateful stranger,and do what he's trained for so long to do is as much a part of him as the things that make me love him. I wouldn't have him any other way.

And I can't wait for him to come home. So please, Lord, continue to watch over my husband as you have so faithfully for the past year, and please bring him safely home to us, if it is your will. Amen.

Touch

My husband has been gone for almost a year. It's just the kids, and me. I get to see Sparky in about two weeks, for two weeks. Of course, I'm excited. Nervous, too. It will feel strange, i think, to be touched by somebody other than my kids. My daughter is constantly crawling all over me, cuddling on the sofa, curling herself into the curve of my body when she has a bad dream and comes to sleep with me, hugs from the boy, nudges from the dog when I have something in my hand that she wants. That's about it. I am and always have been, a touchy-feely person. I'm sure it annoys some people, even if all I do is put my hand on their upper arm to emphasize what I'm saying, or to reinforce my sincerity. That's just me.

I've always understood the importance of touch, and valued it, incorrectly sometimes, even. And it's not all about sex. It's about a mental connection that extends into some kind of subconscious understanding. I miss holding his hand, the way he runs his hand down my arm, the soft brush across the back of my neck when he puts his arm around me in church. Touch is a very personal thing. In my relationship, it's many things: acceptance, understanding, as I stated earlier, love, compassion, joy, and of course, desire. I feel bad that I've forgotten what he feels like. How soft his face is right after he shaves, the rough hair on his arm, the warmth of his hands on my shoulders when I'm working at my desk, resting against the solid security of him, while we listen to the Lord's word preached and proclaimed every Sunday, all of it. When I met my husband, he wasn't a "touch" person. His family just wasn't that way. Somehow, after 12 years of marriage, he misses me touching him, and misses touching me, too. Don't get me wrong: The Afghan People are big huggers, and I mean BIG. But it's always men, and it makes him uncomfortable, and besides, I smell way better then they do.

The way I touch my daughter has caught my attention, too. I stroke her long hair as she sits on my lap, I feel her soft cheek against my own , and tell her how much I love her, holding her tiny hand when we cross the street or parking lot, gently examining ber "boo-boo" when she comes to me after she has hurt herself, brushing her hair, trying not to pull to hard when I find a tangle, rubbing her with lotion after her bath, to keep her skin from becoming itchy.

It's trickier with the boy. He still likes his hugs, but not in front of people. And he usually pulls away when I ruffle his hair or give his shoulder a gentle squeeze. Stinker..... :)

I try to touch with love, even when I am meting out deserved discipline. And to some degree, I know that I am successful: I see it mirrored in the way my daughter plays with her own dolly, pretending to be its mommy, or watching the boy with her, when he is teaching her how to do something. I also feel it in the way my kids touch me. My daughter cups my face in her little hand, mimicking me, and the boy pats me on the back every now and then.

All of this tells me how much touch means to me, and to my family. It's funny how something so simple can be so complicated at times, but also how fulfilling it can be.

I miss that from my husband the most. I don't know how I'm going to let go of him long enough to drive to the time share we are staying in for those two weeks, and how I'm going to put him on a plane at the end of those two weeks, knowing that he will be home four months after that.
After all of that, I can hardly wait......

The politics of shopping

Politics and shopping...ne'er the twain shall meet, at least you'd think so.

I happen to disagree, and here's why:

OK, a flat screen TV at Costco is from $2-5,000. A pair of Prada heels goes for more than $850 at Saks' Fifth Avenue. You can buy $200 tee-shirts, $400 pairs of jeans, $3,000 dresses, $200 iPhones, the list goes on and on.

So, why do we balk at a $300 grocery bill? A family of four can eat at Applebee's for about $50. You can eat at home for almost a week with that much money, if you break down the cost of each ingredient at an incremental level. All of civilized America and Europe pays an endless amount of money for clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup: material possessions, all. But we don't like to pay for groceries. And organic? Who can afford it?

But how can we afford not to? If you ever wonder how your dinner gets to your plate, watch Food, inc., or read any number of expose books on the subject. One of the things you'll learn is there is very little regulation, and that labeling is a joke. USDA Certified Organic means about as much as "The check's in the mail". A handful of companies have complete control over what we eat, how it's processed, and what we pay for it. What you don't see behind the smiling artifice of TV and print commercials should be enough to scare all of us into buying everything we eat at the local co-op. The brutality of the meat for food business (and not just the animals are needlessly brutalized) This is the main reason I am a vegetarian. I really can't walk past the chicken case at the grocery store and not wonder if that poor animal was still alive when it was dumped into the scalding tank, to make its feathers come out easier. I know God gave us meat to eat, but He couldn't have meant for it to happen this way. We have a responsibility to treat lesser creatures than us in a humane manner, or we risk our very own morality and humanity.

So, yes, you can make a political statement by your choice of store. If enough people forsake their local Safeway or Albertson's for the store that sells organic and safely produced foods, that tells the politicians in DC that we as a people don't care for their relationship with the owners of "big food". (Tyson, Monsanto, etc.)

The catch is that we have to work a bit harder at keeping our food, and buy more often. Organic fruits and vegetables have not been sprayed with nasty chemicals, nor has the soil been treated with anything that was made in a factory by a chemist. The apples aren't as pretty, the oranges spoil a bit faster, as does everything else that hasn't been inundated within an inch of its life with chemicals. If we can make that adjustment, our bodies will feel better, and mass producers will have to figure out a safer way to sell their wares. This will also mean eating food that's actually in season, not imported from Chile or Argentina, where food standards will never be as demanding as America's admittedly flawed regulations. Is that so bad?

I'll never understand why we spend thousands on what we put on our bodies, but complain about what we have to spend to put in them. If we don't keep the inside working and fed properly, then eventually it will find its way to the outside, something we are all so concerned with.

Think about. Join your local Co-op. Find a CSA, and pay into it. Grow you own food, if you can. The things we harvest from our own soil tastes 100 times better than anything we can buy n the store.

Try it and see! ;)

Purple Mountains' Majesty

The Olympic Peninsula stretches out before me, capped in flawless white snow. The tops of some peaks are obscured by clouds, and the light behind them casts their features into sharp relief: craggy, rugged, beautiful. The Cascades are behind me, equally majestic in their youthful splendor. The view of Mt. Rainier from my front door, pink and violet in the light of the rising sun leaves me speechless and grateful to a God who not only gave us life and salvation, but also a beautiful planet to live our earthly life upon.

They make me homesick.

We went to Colorado in December 2007, to see my sister married. We drove, and the farther East we went, the more open the scenery became. On the last day of our trip, I remember walking out of a hotel in Wyoming, heading through the frigid morning to our car. I scanned the scenery, and was amazed that I could see for miles, nothing but prairie until the line between sky and land was divided by a mountain. Unbidden, the thought, "I'm home" rang out in my mind, over and over. A litany, almost shouting the answer to the question my husband has been asking me for the last five or six years: " Where do you want to live when I retire?"

Now I know that I've been away for far too long.

My upbringing was dysfunctional and painful enough that when I failed out of college and joined the Navy, I couldn't get far enough away from home. For a while, my parents didn't even know where I was, and I liked it that way. Even after my mother became sober and made amends, I never really felt like there was anyone there at home for me. There weren't many happy memories there for me, but the few that I did have always involved nature. To this day, I have to sleep with something covering my eyes, because it was so dark, and so quiet where we lived- I finally managed to ditch the earplugs ten years after I left. Our house was at the top of a rather steep hill, carved into the side of a deep valley. We were up high enough that we could see for a very long way in either direction. The only sound at night was the wind in the conifers and aspens that surrounded our house and blanketed the sides of the hills. The deep bass undertone was almost an ominous rumble, but I never felt frightened by it. I found the sheer enormity of it comforting somehow. I could lay in my bed next to the window and see stars that were unsullied by the unnatural orange of streetlights-there were none. Sometimes I could make out features in the landscape outside by their light alone. One year, I even saw the Aurora Borealis. It was amazing.

Sometimes when I awoke in the morning, deer were eating the grass in the side yard, and in the meadow next to our property. I also loved that I could see for miles. When I left home, those things had taken a backseat to my need for escape.

It was many years before my relationship with my family was even close to what anyone would call normal, and it is only that way now by the Grace of God, and HIS power to help us learn how to forgive.

So, now I know that I want to live close to home when we can finally choose where we live. I am always at the mercy of the Lord's will, though. I pray that it is what He has in mind for us. I really want to raise my kids there.

We went back to my hometown last June, before Sparky shipped out for Afghanistan. I took photos of the kids sliding on the same slide in the park that I played on as a child. That was just about the only thing familiar left in the park.

We drove around the same streets upon which I rode my bicycle as a child. I was reminded of 1 Corinthians 14: 11&12. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." The rose colored glasses of youth, the darker, face- obscuring lenses of young adulthood, the changes maturity, marriage, and childbirth bring: full circle, in a way.

Everything seemed so....overgrown. The trees were thirty years smaller back then, and shaded the sidewalks perfectly from the summer sun, making an ideal place to play dolls, hopscotch, jumprope.....all gone away. Nobody plays on the sidewalks any more. Some of them are barely even passable, the tree roots turning a leisurely stroll into an ankle injury.

A trip to the cemetary brought many memories and refreshed grief long forgotten. Friends, killed in automobile accidents on the treacherous roads, my grandmother and grandfather, my baby sister. I am so thankful to know that some of the people I lost in my youth are waiting for me in Heaven; we have so much catching up to do.

The saying, "you can never really go home" became so patently obvious after this last visit, yet the area itself, with the open prairie, the foothills, dotted with scub oak that turns the countryside into an exquisite patchwork quilt in the fall, the delicate spiderwebs of snow on the on the spindly branches of barren winter trees and of course the Huajatollas themselves.....the beautiful Spanish Peaks, and the Sangre de Cristo Range to the West....it's still home, and it always will be.

The lure of Edward Cullen

Yes, lure. In her YA (young adult) fiction series that began with "Twilight", author Stephenie Meyer weaves a sweet, sad, fast-paced tale of romance, rivalry......and vampires. Of course, the story line is far more complicated than the the three words I used to describe them, but those three themes figure heavily in the story's complicated-but-followable storyline.

For my friends who do not read secular fiction, the story involves an ordinary girl, named Bella. She moves to the cloudiest town in Washington Sate, a sleepy backwater village called Forks. There, she meets the boy who becomes her greatest love, greatest pain, and eventually, her destiny.

It is here that I will stop and write for a moment on vampires. The Bible says nothing about them. I'm positive that they are completely ficitonal, a fact that I have elaborated upon greatly with my children, especially after my 4 1/2 year old decided she was a zombie. (more on that later) The beauty of such a fictional thing is that an author may do whatever he or she pleases with the myth in order to suit a particular storyline. The irresistable draw of the vampire is so fleshly in nature, on the part of the human, and the vampire. The human is drawn by the vampire's appearance, his seemingly inescapable pull upon their senses and darker side. The vampire must lure the human close enough to drink their blood to survive, trading the human pleasure of eating, for the darker, more evil act of murdering merely to survive. With that in mind, it obviously makes for very scintillating reading, especially to young adults.

I had to think about why it appealed to me so much. (for the record, I am Team Edward) I've read pretty much everything Anne Rice has written, fascinated by her portrayal of the vampire Lestat, and his odd, violent family. Much of this reading took place before I began to really walk with the Lord, to include Him in any choices I made in my life. To me, they are all stories. I am left yearning not to become a vampire, but to feel passion and love and joy the way the characters in the novels felt them.

But Edward......what a fascinating character. Changed in 1918, at the very end of the Victorian Era, he was nearly an adult when he became what he is. The values he was raised with are so very different from those we now see in our crumbling society. A true gentleman, polite and somewhat reserved with his feelings, Edward still believes in marriage, and physical purity reserved for the marriage bed. He is socially adept and more mature than any 17-year old I've ever met. His confidence equals that of a grown man. (I assume I'd be pretty confident at 108 years of age, too) In spite of everything he has experienced, he remains insecure to a degree about Bella, because he can't read her mind.

He is a mix of many things, and they all add up to something irresistable to any girl who reads this series. What is it about Edward Cullen that has so many girls swooning? Let's list the physical charatceristics: He's tall, reddish hair, exquisite features, different eyes, that slender, elegant, graceful form that screams vampire, what's not to love? Oh, I forgot: he smells really good, too. Edward is polite, attentive, sensitive, intuitive, and adoring. He carries Bella, he saves and protects Bella, he defends her against hostile vampires who want to kill her. This combination of teenage perfection is deadly, pun intended.

Edward is everything today's teenage boy is not. Bella is not your average empty headed teenage girl. Bella reads and loves the classics: today's teenagers can't speak enough english to understand them any more. Edward listens to Debussy and composes his own piano music: today's teenage boys consider beating "Call of Duty 4" an accomplishment. What girl wouldn't want to be wooed by such a fellow? What teenage girl is mature enough to appreciate what Edward offers, beyond looking good in his designer clothes, and the fact that his family is very wealthy.

Bella is a breath of fresh air in today's teenage world. She doesn't own a cell phone, or a metric ton of clothing, CD's, makeup, or shoes. She prefers reading to TV, hates shopping, and behaves very resposibly.

Neither character has a realistic place in today's society, more's the pity.

Yet so many girls can identify with Bella, can understand her hurt when Edward leaves her "for her own good", and the friendship (for her, anyway) she subsequently develops with Jacob. That's why it makes for such good reading, and why the series has so many devoted (if you don't believe me, check out youtube) fans.

I can even see why adult women like the books. Romance isn't every women's cup of tea, but it sure is mine. And, since this is my blog, I can safely say that most women who might be reading this have some ideas about romance in her mind. We are so self-centered sometimes, that instead of considering what the object of our affection might consider romantic, we give them what we think is romantic. Unfortunately, this isn't always received the way we think it should be. To me, the key to romance, especially the kind we want from our husbands, is recognizing the difference, and acting on it. When my husband kisses my hand, I think "mmmm, nice, maybe he'll kiss my fingers, too, like Edward did when he proposed to Bella." He's probably thinking "Hey, guys in romance movies do this, maybe it will work for me, too." The disparity between thought processes is very clear, right? But how to communicate those unconscious wishes?

I think Stephenie Meyer needs to write a new book: "Edward Cullen's guide for sincere, well- meaning, romantically inept men". Oh, no self-respecting guy would be caught dead in line at Borders with that tome clutched in his beefy hands.......but he may still find himself in possession of a copy. ;)

Inaugural blogural.....

Well, here it is. The first installment of the Perils of the Navywife. I should probably tell anybody who's bored enough to read this a little bit about myself.

Obviously, I am married to a sailor. I've had this affliction for twelve years now, with two lovely children as my happy side-effect. We are currently in Oak Harbor, Washington, while Sparky (totally not his real name) is away in Afghanistan, doing his part to rebuild the country's non-existent infrastructure.

I keep busy while Sparky's gone with volunteering. I work three ministries in our church, (www.bbcoakharbor.org), one afternoon a week that the base's Retired Activities Office, and I'm a mentor for a program called COMPASS. It's kind of like Navywife 101. It's a fantastic three day course that covers most of what a new spouse, or even a "seasoned" spouse like me would need to know to survive, maybe even thriver, in the Navy.

I love The Lord, and my church family. The Lord led us to this duty station, and has blessed us with excellent discipleship and for that we are so thankful.

I don't have time for more right now, but as asoon as I can, I will begin to record some anecdotes about my life as a spouse, mother, Christian, and American. I hope you all enjoy it!