I posted a picture earlier of the girls when they were aged three and four. Later, we were talking over dinner and I mentioned something about my blog and they said they don't read it. They are afraid to, no telling what I am saying about them. I said they can do whatever they want, but I kind of prefer it this way. Kimberly said well what if you write something we don't like?
My answer to that is obvious to me: Get your own blog.
I felt pretty safe because she can't even remember to fold a load of laundry every day, so writing on a blog is not going to happen. She might post to facebook about me, but I don't have time for that either, so I guess that works out fairly.
And, this might sound arrogant, but I am the writer in this house.
I told them I posted pictures of them and so they went and looked at my blog (without reading). They said I may only post pictures of them up to five years of age.
Literally, I laughed. I said I am not asking permission for anything.
Seriously, I'm still paying their rent, so they lack a certain credibility as authority figures where my behavior is concerned. It isn't like I am being mean to them here, but a big part of who I am is related directly to them. I have to be free to write what there is to say.
Akira Kurosawa, the famous Japanese film director, is quoted saying: Being an artist means to never avert one's eyes.
You can't look at what you want to see, only what is really there. You must look at all of it.
The last guy I was thinking about said he never wanted me to write about him. I told him I could not make that promise. He will probably make an appearance here sooner or later.
Tommy LaSorda is famous for saying: Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon. He was a coach and was talking about sports writers, meaning that you never win an argument with someone who will publish the last word. I do have a promise to myself to keep my agenda focused on writing that will keep my eye simple.
So I looked again at the latest daughter picture, seeing how smoothly brown my little beans' arms and legs are. They tanned so well in summer, and I would bathe in maximum spf 5000 and still just burn, peel, and freckle. For once, a dominant gene from their father for which I am grateful.
One time, a sister in Arkansas was pregnant with a boy named Jared, already having a daughter named Cierra. She told me she prayed everyday for pretty babies. I was shocked.
Sort of. I prayed every day for smart babies. We both did okay.
Kimberly got more piercing in Pittsburgh and wants to make the holes she already has bigger. Have you seen kids in the mall with those donuts in their ear lobes you could stick your finger through? She doesn't want them that big (thank you Jehovah for this much) but she wants to put gauges in that will make it go up. You can't just stick a donut in your ear. You have to go up a size every few months. It takes years to get to the donuts. Thank you for something else.
And I simply cannot understand this. I have laid down the law that this is not acceptable to go bigger as long as she lives in my house, and she has accepted that but promises when she finishes school next year and is on her own, to expect, not donuts, but she will be going up some.
I wonder if Jehovah looks down at humans and the stupid things we sometimes do and feels how I feel. I remember when she was a baby in my arms, the smoothest skin and the prettiest thickest hair, and I can live with her experimenting with hair color (not permanent, it grows back) and earrings all lined up on the cartilage of her ear and not just the lobe, but why this? Why would she want to stretch out that perfect little baby ear lobe I see in these pictures? I gave her that ear, I birthed it and for years I washed it. She has perfect ears, and this is how she treats them?
This must be what Jehovah feels when people take illegal drugs or have mohawks or how about those people who are addicted to plastic surgery? How about the ones turning themselves into cats, putting in whiskers and all sorts of eye tattoos to give themselves the appearance of elliptical pupils?
And I would not be surprised if Jehovah didn't groan just a little bit every time I fail to resist the donuts at Giant Eagle and eat another one. What is that girl doing to her triglicerides? Doesn't she know when she was born she was normal and healthy?
Which of course is kind of good news coming from me. All my life, I have been on a pendulum swinging between beneath Jehovah's notice to getting too much notice. Balance is the key to happiness, my mother always said, but I could never tie that key on a string around my neck.
I have two sisters who had told me this past week about their children. One is the mother of a disfellowshipped daughter. The other is the mother of a son who died faithful in death. I feel like my pendulum is somewhere between those two positions. I still have them with me, despite the fact their ears are no longer the slight curve of baby skin beneath hair that smells like lavender baby shampoo. They are not disapproved, but neither are they working to become approved.
A few weeks ago, they went to Giant Eagle together. They are couponing, and Kim was going to get in line with a male checker and Carly said, no not him, he studies.
"Really?" Kim asked. "Why can't we check out with him for that? Who is he studying with?"
"What?" Carly echoed.
"Who is he studying with?" she said, a bit exasperated. "Someone in East Hills or someone in Windber congregation?"
Carly burst out laughing. "Not like that," she finally gasped out. "He studies each coupon, reads all the fine print. It will take an hour to check out in his line."
In the WT last week, in the opening paragraph, it states: "When the Son of man arrives in his glory" and separates "people one from another," how will you and your family fare?
Leslie commented that this indicates, in a lesson devoted to the need Christian families have to keep ready, that not all members of a family might make it. Some of us might be separated from family members.
I cannot write about the good things in my life only. If I am to write anything worthy of sharing, I must be true to my art form and never look away, or choose only certain things to write about. Some of you dear friends email me and say you could never be so open in a public forum, but you enjoy reading what I write about. How can I do this, you ask. I simply must. I have to write. I must be true to the art form, or I'm not worth a bean.
Even if I write about those smooth brown bean skinned babies. And ultimately, I know that my relationship with Jehovah is the most important one I have, more important than my own life even.
Still, I am glad he is not slow respecting his promise as some consider slowness, but desires everyone to gain salvation. Most of the time we think that means the preaching work, reaching the sheep in the field.
Some are here in the barn. I have hope for all of them too.
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