Our Oxymoronic Voyage Across the Ocean of Time

It's been an eternity, yet only a heartbeat. Time is such a blurry concept, ever displaying multiple personalities and garnering vastly variant emotional responses, sometimes simultaneously.  The past many months/years of "no posting" has raced by in dragging days and slothed along in whiplashing weeks, all bursting with ordinary vibrancy and passionate plainness, struggling and striving for brilliant representation amid the kaleidoscopic rainbow smears splashed across the palette of our jubilant and solemn lives.

Life seems to often be a curious combination of contrasting facets, doesn't it?  Perhaps we are all experienced adventurers traversing across regions of juxtaposed emotions, weary wanderers among the merry mazes of frosted perspective. Yet, still, we march forth: our planet still spinning, gravitizing us to our here and now.  Sameness is a stabilizing anchor in our sassy sea; change is our propeller, forcing us eagerly onward; faith, our rudder, guides us fervently futureward to our destined harbors.  

Let me define a few of the droplets and specify the splashes that comprise the currents that have carried us along on our voyage through the missing months.  Then, maybe the preceding prattle will make a bit more sense, like the blip of wispy clarity through hand-smeared blotches on a morning, misted mirror.  Tidbits of life teeming with chaotic order, and contradictory harmony.

*Joyous, touching, centennial birthday party celebrating my amazing Grandma.  (later post, probably)
*Pending a visit to Japan, finally receive brief email message from Japanese Mama, informing that "my husband gone heaven last year."   Japanese Papa died from Leukemia a few months earlier.
*Son completes two-and-a-half-year Peace Corps service on Pemba Island in Tanzania, Africa; tours around Asia for about six weeks before returning to USA with plans to marry and attend grad school.
*Father spends week in hospital when a sudden onset of dementia brings dramatic symptoms and frequent agitation and confusion; traumatizing to witness this sad transformation in my calm, brilliant, caring, passionate Dad. Medications have stabilized behaviors, but cognitive abilities remain inconsistently compromised.  We journey up home as often as we can to spend time with them.
*Same day as Dad's hospitalization, dropped daughter off at coastal airport to fly off alone to South Korea to begin a one-year contract teaching English to Korean school children.
*Became Grand-Uncle and Aunt several more times with joyful births of beautiful grand babies to my sisters and older brother, totaling seven now; one grand-niece and six grand-nephews, plus one more baby to arrive later this spring.  How adorable they all are!  If you don't believe me, ask my sisters or brother.
*Special and spunky 93-year-old widowed Aunt who still lives independently tripped and fell, breaking her hip.  After some hours on her entryway floor, she managed to scoot herself to telephone to call for help.  Comes by ambulance to hospital in our town and has immediate partial hip-replacement surgery.  We spend plenty of time in hospital with her for few days she is there.  She recovered in care facility back in hometown for about 4 weeks after hospitalization, but then is released to return home.  We try to go visit and spend time helping her as often as we can make it there.  She is doing amazingly well, and remains as fiery as ever. 
*Daughter adjusts and seems to thrive in her life in Korea, and we travel to Asia to spend time with her during Spring break, with a stop to visit in Japan on the way. We very briefly see Japanese Mama, but she is not well.  Awesome visits, filled with friends and cherry blossoms.  Wondrous to see the daughter also "blossoming" in her adventure.
*Text from son while we are on Asia journey reporting that his pending marriage was "called off" and asking us to come pick him up to move home in a couple of weeks.  We did.
*Amazing Grandma lived in her own home with my uncle's help until passing on to her Savior's arms after just two weeks in care facility when contracted an infection and declined quickly.  What a remarkable 100-1/2-year life!
*A few days before Grandma's death, Great Aunt (Gram's younger sister) experienced a heart attack and had surgeries and hospitalization for a bit.
*Able to schedule several visits with Bride's Dad and brother in CA over interluding months.  Always a pleasure having the opportunities to connect as frequently as possible as time goes by.  Blessed by our relaxing family times together; glorying in beach-wandering, usually sunshine, and very fresh fruit.
*Even got to coordinate one CA visit with a chance to see oldest-nephew perform with his soul band in nearby beach city.  Awesome. . . and fun visit with the amazing, humble, brilliant bass-guitarist nephew too.
*My mother develops some surface-area cancer so undergoes a couple laser surgeries, followed by a six-week regime of radiation treatments.  This necessitated time away from home for my parents, but they had the opportunity to stay in apartment on hospital campus, so was really a blessing for them.  And Mom amazed her doctor by the strength with which she endured her treatments too. 
*We got to spend time with them most every day, as her treatments were in our town.  Such a gift having this extra time together, and to be able to help them out a little.  Praise God.
*Aforementioned Great Aunt (90-years-old) takes a series of falls that cause some brain bleeding, which compromise health enough to prevent safe independent living.  We were happy to help her (and a few of her necessary things) settle into a cozy studio space at an assisted-living facility in town, and then with emptying out her well-filled two-bedroom senior apartment, and mostly moving to storage in our basement.  We also try to see her as frequently as we can; she is being well taken care of in her new "home," and seems to be improving.
*Every now and then, we get the chance to spend time hanging out with imaginative, active, and so cute 3-year-old grand-nephew #4 when his Dad (nephew #2) and Mom have something going on.  So fun building Legos, playing super-heroes, reading books, making Mac & Cheese together with him, and we're so happy we can help out in this way! 
*Expat daughter finishes year contract at English academy, but starts new job three days later in a nearby town as a native-speaking English teacher at a Presbyterian, all girls' high school.  New apartment, new colleagues, more new international friends, and fun activities to involve herself with seem to keep her enjoying her Korean adventure.  We hope to travel to visit again while she is there.
*Email from "sister" in Japan announces that "Mama" went to heaven in Spring also.  It may have been only a few weeks after we saw her so briefly during our Asia visit. Sad news for us, of course, that this remarkable, passionate, loving woman of Faith is gone; but it's so awesome knowing she is healthy and happy, home with Jesus. Many beautiful memories and shared moments help to keep her alive in our hearts.
*After several months worth of research and applications for job as computer programmer/coder, and plenty of personal programming projects (along with his usual gaming and novel writing activities) son had a few interviews, and was offered a job--which he accepted.  He is working remotely from home for first few months but will relocate to Oklahoma when provisional period is over.  Seems like all is going well so far.  We're excited for him and his new adventure opportunities.   

Okay, so perhaps now I've splashed enough drips of detail across the deck that we are mostly updated on the key goings-on from the "missing months," and the commingling of turbulence and calm, joy and grief, the humdrum and the extraordinary are now sufficiently evident.  And my perhaps perplexing opening paragraphs are more clearly comprehensible.  May clarity and passion reign throughout the adventures of your life in these days.

  

Turning Leaves. . .

Again, I'm here.  Motivated by the kind encouragement to "keep writing" from a long-time friend I'd recently shared my blog-site with, and by the dedication of my son serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa--who committed himself to posting to his blog every day for a month, and who nobly fulfilled that goal--I'm again feeling compelled to attempt my as-of-yet-way-less-than-successful objective of publishing more frequent and regular posts.  I am wondering if my former, unimpressive progress resulted from the inordinate amount of time I take to complete a post, and my "need" to share SO much in each post. In hopes of addressing these flaws, I feel that a "reorganization" here may help provide direction and focus for my ideas.  My blessed life is a colorful autumn forest; multitudes of leaves--brilliant scarlet, rusty red, shimmering gold--collaborating to create stunning arboreal artistry. Each beautiful leaf that comprises my life-masterpiece may become a separate share-worthy topic.  So, if it unfolds as I imagine, my succeeding posts will be a magic mixture of musings from any of the following sections.  Join me in fervent hope that this "revamping" will accomplish my desired intent, and we'll "connect" more consistently in the future. 

Fun Shirt Friday

Not a whole "new leaf" topic, but maybe an intriguing addition to my posting, the Fun Shirt Friday Report will show up in the left sidebar.  Dressing casual on Fridays is nothing new in the work-a-day world, and at my school that's followed different trends through the years. Seems when I first started at my building years ago, jeans paired with a Hawaii print shirt was the guys' casual dress choice. More recently it's trended into jeans and a t-shirt with school colors, mascot, or team. I've haphazardly followed both those patterns from time to time. Definitely sticking with the jeans on Friday thing; but this year, I personally decided to switch it up a bit with the t-shirt. While I am perfectly okay with showing pride in my school, our school colors are orange and green--and frankly, the t-shirt is kind of ugly--in my opinion.  Since my family through the years has gifted me with various t-shirts with interesting pictures/logos that always garner positive comments, I declared it the year for "Fun Shirt Fridays."  Let me tell you, middle-schoolers DO notice and appreciate fun t-shirts.  After the first couple of "Love-your-shirt!"-filled Fridays, I thought I needed to devise a plan for tallying an actual number of verbal "thumbs-ups" the shirts brought my way.  Haven't quite figured out that accurate totaling method yet though; any suggestions?  Anyway, keep your eyes open for facts and figures (possibly even photos) regarding my fun t-shirts in the weeks to come. 

Middle School Moments

When you cram over a thousand "tween/young teens" into a contained rambling space, sprinkle in several dozen adventurous, caring and dedicated adults, and stir in liberal handfuls of creativity, methods and models, and ordered ideas--you get a delightful, magical mixture called "middle school."  I bet for most folks the term conjures up two or three all-but-forgotten--or deliberately-unremembered--years of life from a hazy past; maybe a few wispy, rosy memories of a first crush, or possibly some dark, angsty recollections of being misunderstood, or unaccepted as you bravely attempted to forge the stormy social and emotional abyss.  Middle school definitely is all that, and so much more.  The observations from my vantage point as one of the caring adults sprinkled in differ greatly from those of a tween-aged participant--of course.  But, as you may imagine, "life" at a middle-school could never be described as "dull."  The vast range of maturity, abilities, intellect, behavior, and life-experience in a building of this size is astounding.  Consequently, I am witness to countless moments of ridiculous, silly, clever, bizarre, and amusing drama; comedy, nonsense, farce, tragedy, musical. . . it's all part of daily life at a middle school.  I figured, why not share the wealth with others?   So, the Middle School Moments column will present for you actual scenarios, statistics, or trends that I've encountered, and found compelling in some way. Hope you enjoy traversing the broad expanses of middle-school life with me.

Glories of the Garden

Figured the other portion of my "nurturer" life fits well into the "new leaf" options too.  Not only are the busy months caring for garden goodies at my greenhouse job impactful moments for me, but plants and gardens have been an influential constant in my life since childhood.  Growing up as a country kid, the folks always grew (still do) a sizable vegetable garden which supplied the "root-cellar-closet" and freezer with potatoes, carrots, peas, broccoli. . .  for a good part of the year.  Mom has also always been a "flower" enthusiast, so there were always patches of blooming this and that here and there around home, not to mention the sometimes 30-40 houseplants that decorated inside the house.  And, wildflowers--of course--reliably bloomed nearby in the forests, meadows, hills, and creek bottom all around our mountain ranch.  Mom made it her business to know the names of all of them, and happily shares her knowledge with those around her.  Small vegetable gardens and plenty of ornamental pretties have augmented the landscape at our home as well--a reasonable intersection, I suppose, of my "garden-ous" upbringing and my spring/summer job through the years.  So, I figured photos, ideas, experiments, plans, thoughts. . . from my "garden experiences" might be appealing material to post.  Let me know what you think of your virtual "garden-stroll."

Festival of Family

If you've been one of the faithful few followers of my very tenuous tenure as a "blogger,"--or if you actually know me--I'm certain you are aware that I consider FAMILY premier among the influential blessings of my life.  If we're as-of-yet-acquainted, consider it fact. Accordingly, then, the relative likelihood (pun intended) of me desiring to share facts, emotions and activities that revolve around this remarkable blessing is very high.  So, this section will provide my descriptions, reactions, discussion, analysis, and inspirations from all things family.  Welcome to the clan!

Away Adventuring

My final "leaf" also will likely be no surprise to many readers.  My wife and I essentially met, courted, and married while living and working in Japan. Prior to uniting our lives as one, both of us had separately traveled in other countries as well, and in the quarter-century-plus since, we and our kids have chalked-up innumerable highway miles, motel nights, airplane rides, and vacation moments seeing sights and doing stuff wherever the winds of whimsy wafted us to.  Always a thrill to fill the tea thermos, pack the trunk, and head out for a weekend--or a week, or two-- of adventuring together.  We revisit favorite locales, connect with family or friends, soak up solace and scenic sights, or seek new and inviting ventures--finding fun and making memories along the way.  So, look to this section to read my "adventure-logue."  Sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey!

So, this introduction to the reorganization plan that's supposed to shorten my writing process has taken over two weeks to compose.  Is that irony?  Will it succeed?  Or, am I simply too verbose and passionate to achieve my goal?  Well--guess only time will tell. Come back soon to find the answer.  Until then, God bless your moments!