Summers at Grandma’s Farm

My summers at Grandma’s farm are some of my most cherished memories. I loved spending all day outside running around the yard with my sister and/or cousins.

I know memory is malleable so my memory of Grandma’s farm is always sunny. I suppose by law of averages it had to have been raining at least once or twice while I was there but I have no memory of that, just pure sunshine and happy days.

At Grandma’s farm there was a sandbox, which I don’t think we ever played in, but we used to walked around balancing on the narrow edges. There was a large, squeaky swing set that had one of those two-seater see-saw swings. My cousin called it the pee-pee squeezer because when you got going high enough the angle of the swinging poles met the metal of the seesaw poles and, if you were sitting close enough, well you can imagine!

My grandma had a very large garden that she would weed early in the mornings, she was always barefoot in the garden––I remember my her telling me about how she loved to run around barefoot, even though her father had spent good money to make sure all the kids had shoes, (she grew up in the Great Depression); I still remember the look on her face as she told me, I could tell she was reliving the joy of those barefoot moments while also appreciating the sacrifices her father had made to provide shoes. I mean, wow, it was a beautiful moment and I treasure that she shared it with me. She rarely spoke of her childhood or her past. She was very good at living in the moment.

There was also a long row of crab apple trees all along one side of the garden and my sister and/or cousins and I could spend all day outside, climbing those trees and eating as many apples as we wanted. We would pull kholrabi out of the garden and take it inside for Grandma to peel it for us so we could walk around eating it like a lollipop, holding it by the stem and chomping the crunchy turnip.

The big door to the garage was always open and inside the garage there was a freezer/fridge. The fridge was always full of Grandma’s cannings and yummy pickles, as well as spooky things like head cheese––I was going to say this is spooky for kids, but let’s face it, even for adults it’s spooky; some people love it though, weirdos! BUT… The best part of that freezer/fridge was the other side, the freezer side that was always fully stocked with Freezies, Revel-O’s and Drumstiks! There was no limit to how many we could eat. We could go back to that freezer again and again if we wanted to. Even though you’d think a kid would take advantage of that, I would say we still ate way more fresh carrots, kholrabis and apples, etc than we ever did freezies. I believe the wisdom of being connected to nature like that and eating fresh from the ground kept those nasty sugar cravings in check. Unfortunately, due to commercial farming and other unsustainable practices, I don’t think a lot of our food has the same nutritional content nowadays as it once did.

There were a couple of tricycles at Grandma’s farm, a big one and a small one, also a few of pairs of old roller-skates and skipping ropes; sometimes we would tie the skipping ropes to the pole supports in the basement and then whip around them on rollerskates. There was no shortage of things to do at Grandma’s farm, it was never boring. Actually, the phrase “I’m bored” probably only ever came out of my mouth once in my life, maybe twice; my mom always said “only boring people get bored.” It’s true.

When I imagine Heaven, it looks a lot like summers at Grandma’s farm.

Writing My Story

I have recently begun a writing workshop, a 7-day book writing challenge by Hay House. I have been meaning to start writing my story since last fall as part of a business program I had committed to. But every time I determined to do it I would inevitably have all kinds of other things to do; my procrastination pattern I mentioned in a previous post was trying to rear its ugly head.

After Day One of the writing challenge, my story is pouring out of me. I have only begun to dictate bits and pieces in my Notes app as they come to me, but this is more than I have done, ever.

Four days before the writing challenge started, I wrote down my goals for this year; one of those goals was to write my story. One week before writing down my goals, I registered for the Hay House writing challenge–something a dear friend sent to me. And exactly one month before that, I made my commitment to write a blog post everyday for 100 days. This is the physics of progress, as one of my mentors would say. I’m biting off pieces that I can chew. I’m taking action and as my mentor always says, action breeds clarity, clarity breeds awareness, and awareness breeds certainty. Each step I take brings me closer to what I want. Each action I take brings me more clarity. And because I’ve set my intention, (and written it down to make it real), more opportunities keep flowing to me. Everytime I make another move that I know is congruent with where I want to go, my story becomes more and more clear to me. For the longest time, I didn’t think I even had a story, not one anybody would be interested in anyway. I was much too ordinary and insignificant to have a story. How many of you feel this way?

There are parts of my story that I am not looking forward to writing. I know it will be therapeutic, and it’s necessary for my growth and healing. There are things that, had I known then what I know now, I would have done differently. But, it is finally time to talk about those things, because I suspect that many of us have those things that we feel we can’t talk about. No matter how big or small, significant or insignificant they seem in our own eyes or in the eyes of others, we all have those moments that we wish we could undo, or do better; the coveted do-over. If I can talk about my stuff, I can empower you to talk about your stuff; to forgive yourself and learn to know and love yourself so that you too can empower others to know and love themselves and we can have a world full of people who truly love themselves.

Church

Yes, I go to church. I love my church, I have been attending the same one since 2003. It is where I first realized that God wanted me to live a full and joyful life. A life of significance with which I could impact others and they too would see how much they are loved and valued.

I volunteered, I joined many study groups and got to know many people who I would call my church family; they visited me when I was sick in the hospital, I dedicated all my children there, they held me as I cried when one of my kids was going through a difficult time. My church was a place that I could always walk into and feel welcomed. No matter what kind of day I was having I would always feel better when I walked out of there.

Today was the first time that I walked in and out of my church and felt invisible. I am heartbroken at the separation that has leaked into even the church due to all the extreme covid measures. Everyone masked, everyone separate.

I felt so alone. It felt worse than when I go into the grocery store, a restaurant or any other public place because at least in those places I don’t expect people to be full of faith.

It’s one thing to temporarily close public places for two weeks, (maybe even four), as we were initially told back in March, but now we’re going on nine MONTHS with no end in sight. I see the church, people and governments bowing down to the false god of “science”and the mainstream media. It has become tyranny and oppression.

I imagined God’s people, people of faith, standing shoulder to shoulder, singing his praises; loving and supporting one another; trusting in him and the gifts of health and prosperity that he has endowed upon us along with the gift of reconciliation and forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today I just felt invisible.

One thing I know in my heart of hearts: what we are doing right now is not something a loving God would ask us to do. Jesus touched lepers, the outcasts of society, and healed them, he spoke to, healed, forgave and loved those that others wouldn’t associate with–Samaritans, the demon-possessed, adulterers, the woman with the issue of blood, so many examples.. and not once have I read about him masking up, hiding at home or keeping a 2 meter bubble around himself to do it.

Disclaimer: my views do not necessarily represent those of the church I attend, nor the Christian faith as a whole, unfortunately.