Recent weather reports from the nor’easters blasting the eastern coastline as well as the storms to the north of us in Washington state brought back memories. As I watched the news, I was taken back to the year 1951.
To a child’s delight, snow began to fall on January 28, 1951, as did a lot of ice in the form of freezing rain (to no adult’s delight). Winds blew taking down power poles. Roads were blocked by fallen trees. How little I knew about the wildness and harm of it all. Continue reading
The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing,Up in the air so blue?Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thingEver a child can do!Up in the air and over the wall,Till I can see so wide,Rivers and trees and cattle and allOver the countryside—Till I look down on the garden green,Down on the roof so brown—Up in the air I go flying again,Up in the air and down!Source: A Child’s Garden of Verses (1999)*
*See Disclosures
Image attribution: Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
Summer activities during my childhood were simpler than today’s activities. Water to cool off came via a sprinkler connected to a garden hose. Or an inflated wading pool filled to the brim with cool water.
We rode our bikes on neighborhood streets. Hopscotch boards appeared on sidewalks drawn with chalk. And there was the simple joy of lying in the grass beneath a large tree and looking up through the tree branches.
One of my favorite past times was lying beneath a large sycamore tree in our front yard. As I looked through its branches, I could see the sky and clouds.
My imagination would run a bit wild, and I’d be able to see interesting shapes among the clouds. Animal shapes were my favorites, but to discover any shape was a success!
Imagination is one of God’s great gifts to the human mind. Think of the many ways the imagination helps the artist, whether painting or writing.
So thankful God created imagination!
Oregon is HOT in our neck of the woods. Usually, summer days aren’t filled with temperatures nearing 100 or humidity starting the day at 70% or more. We’re accustomed to average summer temps in the low to mid 80’s, low humidity, and nights cooling down into the 60s or even high 50s.
Mornings now you can hear the sounds of neighbors doing what you’re doing–opening windows and doors to let the cool morning air in. At our place, in Meyers Woods, this will keep the house cool throughout the day with the help of shade from our old growth firs and cedars.
Many older homes in the area have no air conditioning. Oregonians are somewhat complacent thinking that global warming isn’t going to affect the Pacific NW. Best we think again, dear neighbors!
But global warming and current days are not my subject matter today. I want to talk about…
There was no evidence of air conditioning in any of the homes on our block. None anywhere we knew about. But people fared the summer weather without a hitch.
I grew up in Nashville, TN. The south offers a hot summer for the most part. The humidity can often be as high as the temperature. Mosquitoes are everywhere.
Unlike Oregon and the NW, summer nights in Tennessee didn’t cool off much. But I didn’t mind. I counted lightning bugs and stars until Mama or Daddy called us at bedtime.
Monday was wash day at our house, and Mama laundered sheets and pillowcases. A favorite activity was handing her the clothespins, or some call them clothes pegs, for hanging the wash.
Going to bed with air-dried linens made summer nights a delight!
Windows were open as far as they would go. Hopes were high for a slight breeze or a hefty draft blowing through.
I could hear Mama using the Coca-Cola bottle she used to dampen clothes for ironing. This signaled the preparation of cooling sheets, as she called them, for the long, hot night.
Each sheet was dampened as much as she felt necessary to keep us cool enough to fall asleep. When she brought the sheet to you, Mama carefully laid it over you spreading it to its full size.
Now the hope for breezes was at its peak. And as soon as someone felt a breeze, the whole house knew–there was either a long “ahhhhhhhh,” or a giggle, or one big yawn.
It was time to fall asleep and dream dreams.
Perhaps there’s something you’d share with us in the comments below, or perhaps this is good fodder for a short writing piece you’ve been putting off.
Either way, my hope is that it’s not so hot where you are that you can’t sleep! Sweet dreams!
Anna Jarvis was the force behind founding Mother’s Day in the US. Despite never marrying and having children, Anna Jarvis is known as the Mother of Mothers Day, a proper title for one who worked hard to show honor to all mothers.
Anna’s mother, Mrs. Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis, was her inspiration. An activist and social worker, Mrs. Jarvis often expressed a wish that someday someone would honor all mothers, living and dead, and pay tribute to their contributions.
A loving daughter, Anna never forgot her mother’s words and when her mother died in 1905, she resolved to fulfill her mother’s wish. The growing negligent attitude of adult Americans toward their mothers and a wish to honor her mother soared her ambitions.
Anna along with supporters wrote letters to people in positions of power lobbying for the official declaration of Mother’s Day holiday. By 1911, almost every state in the Union recognized Mother’s Day, and on May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
It is unfortunate to note that Anna Jarvis, who devoted her life to the declaration of Mother’s Day, was deeply hurt to note the huge commercialization of the day as time passed on.
(Adapted from Mother’s Day History)
* * *
My memories of Mother’s Day are a bit cloudy, filled with confusion, and frustration. Each year it was a shopping trip with Dad to buy a Mother’s Day gift and card for Mom.
When I was young, the experience was not meaningful to me because Dad did the shopping and card picking. However, later as an adolescent with good reading skills and developing interpersonal skills, I would read the cards in the stand at the drugstore and think to myself:
So I would move on to the next store. And they were all the same.
It was almost like it would be easier if I had no mother to celebrate on this special occasion. Gripping pains in my heart and mind made it an almost unbearable experience. How was I to honor a mother who didn’t care, who worked at frightening and demoralizing, who seemed to find her joy in hurting?
Then, I became a mother. My son brought home handmade cards. He picked out some trinket at the five-and-dime. They brought smiles to my face. Pain upon pain missing something that the very woman to be celebrated on this day set aside to celebrate mothers had taken away.
Years later we moved away. I thought it would be easier now — order flowers, have them delivered, somebody else would sign the card. And yet, it was the act of choosing to send this magnificent bouquet. I went through the motions on an annual basis. It was what this day required of me.
Finally, one year — 2001 — I knew what to do. I knew which card to select. I knew why she had been the way she was toward me. Silently forgiveness had graced our relationship as she lay dying. Then, I could only wish I had known the “other woman” she was a little longer.
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that
it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.
~ Anne Lamott
Life in the Slow Lane by Sherrey Meyer is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
