And The Seasons They Go Round And Round

In my hunt for some pictures for yesterday's Hodgepodge I came across this photograph-

...and I keep thinking about the way it made my head spin. My heart too. 

That's my oldest daughter in the picture, sitting in the grass in front of Canterbury Cathedral on one of the brightest blue sky days there ever was in the history of England. 

She is seventeen. 

It's funny the way a picture can peel back the years and remind me that once upon a time I had teenagers living in my house. If you have teenagers at home you might wonder how in the world you could ever forget this season of intense everything, but I'm here to tell you time is sometimes blurry in the rear view mirror. 

The now grown women I birthed and adore, the ones I talk to about recipes and books and parenting and politics and culture wars and Jesus and everything under the sun, well they used to be teenagers. Not so long ago they were sleeping in their bedrooms upstairs and eating breakfast at our kitchen table. They were asking for rides or cash or permission, doing homework, dancing, dreaming, and planning their futures.

Was it not so long ago? 

Nineteen summers have come and gone since this photo was snapped. The teenage girl in this photograph went off to uni, worked in our nations capital, married her doctor-captain -major-now civilian, birthed three children, moved west across the country, east across an ocean, then south, then up and over to the midwest and, as I type, is preparing for yet another move. 

A move that will bring her back to the dirt she is sitting on in this photograph. 

England. 

Her hubs will complete a six-month orthopedic surgical fellowship there and she will introduce her children to tea and scones, the English countryside, village life, 1000 years of history, kings and castles, old churches and new experiences. The same language only different.  

The seventeen year old girl in that picture had no idea all the ways God was going to work out His plans and His purposes in her life. 

She's going back to the place she first learned the world is big and change is a given. That when a door opens wide we can walk on through, knowing God goes before us. Knowing too that He meets us there and walks beside us wherever we may roam. 

She doesn't have to wonder if that's really true. She knows it because she's lived it. As a young teenager moving across the pond, as a young wife moving across the country, as a young mom giving birth in South Korea. In all the places and seasons and changes life has brought God's been there. 

I cannot wait to hear how that seventeen year old girl sees England now...

Through her grown up eyes and the lens of time. 

"If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." Isaiah 139: 9-10

Rabbit Ears

This week's Hodgepodge questions linked here

In thinking about my theme for this year's A-Z Blog Challenge I decided it would be fun to describe some of what life looked like in my childhood, how those same things looked in my children's growing up years, and to see how that compares with life today in my grandchildren's childhood. 

I'm going to start with television because that's the first thing that came to mind. And since the line between TVs and computers has gone completely blurry I'll likely touch on that as well. 

K is for When I Was A Kid

When I was a child the television programs we enjoyed aired once a week or, in the case of holiday specials, once a year. You snooze you lose, something like that. 

My sister and I couldn't wait to get up on Saturday mornings and watch our favorite cartoons...Bugs, Foghorn Leghorn, The Road Runner, Johnny Quest. When the holidays rolled in we would count the days until Rudolph, The Grinch, and Frosty were mentioned in the TV guide. 

fyi-the TV guide was not something you scrolled through on your television screen because in 1960-something there was no scrolling. The TV guide was an actual magazine you held in your hand and looked through to find what programs were airing when. If you didn't subscribe to the TV guide you could also find program listings in the local paper. 

Our family did eventually have a color television set, but our first TV was black and white, and we owned just one. Uno. Singular. For the whole entire house. Where six people of varying ages and interests lived. In fact most families we knew owned just one and that was fine. We made it work. 

Once upon a time TV viewing was a family activity, and a favorite was everyone piling on the couch to watch The Wonderful World of Disney together on Sunday evenings. We got three basic channels, plus PBS. Later we added what was then called UHF which gave us I think two additional channels, and that was thrilling. For real. 

In order to change the channels you had to get up, walk over to the tv, and physically turn a knob. Sometimes we would argue over who was going to get up and change the channel. For the record if kids and parents were watching together it was never the parents-ha! 

The televisions of my childhood had antennas, or rabbit ears as they were known. When you changed the channel you would almost alway have to jiggle the antenna while someone watching from the couch would shout instructions...'a little more, no wait! back to the left!, hold it right there!, no wait!, okay that's good"

Everyday life before technology was king. 

I remember when my parents put in central air one of the 'perks' was the company they bought from gave a small TV as a thank you for your business. I mostly remember that little tiny TV living in my brother's bedroom, but I guess the only boy in a houseful of sisters needed his own TV. He would set it on a chair beside his bed to watch, and sometimes my sisters and I would all go into his tiny room and sit around that tiny TV. Good times! 

The local news aired once a day, around suppertime, followed by the national news. We read newspapers for more in-depth coverage of the day's happenings and everyone was less cranky-ha! There were some afternoon talk shows but they were mostly in the entertainment lane as opposed to politics and social commentary. 

No reality programming unless it was in the form of nature, no real housewives, Kardashians, or people spilling family secrets for all the world to see. There were daytime soaps which I suppose were the precursor to the real-life soaps we see today. Along came Phil and Oprah and later Jerry and everybody in everybody's business which seemed relatively harmless initially, but it's like we're on steroids now.  

As a teenager I babysat pretty regularly and late night weekends I would watch Don Kirschner's Rock Concert or Soul Train. Because those were the choices. For most of my childhood stations signed off the air at midnight. Yup. No TV. People slept or didn't sleep but they didn't watch TV at 3 a.m. or scroll their phone screens because phones were like televisions. One or two per family and plugged in to the wall.  In 1970-something screens were for windows, the glass kind not the computer kind. 

Language is complicated. 

In the early days of married life hubs and I had a console TV. These were a huge thing in the 1980's. Literally huge. As in a great big piece of furniture you decorated around. Still plugged in to the wall, but a bigger picture and better clarity than what we'd grown up with. Nothing like we have today but a big deal to poor newlyweds.  

We never put televisions in our children's bedrooms, but we did have more than one TV in the house. My kids grew up in the age of VHS tapes, Blockbuster rentals on Friday nights, and the excitement of purchasing a device that could rewind those videos faster than your VHS player because if you returned a VHS tape un-rewound you were fined. 

When we moved to the UK we owned one DVD. We brought our VHS player with us because we had no idea and also because in late 2003 technology hadn't sped up to supersonic speed. But speed up it did and now we watch television on devices we hold in our hands. 

Parents walk a daily tightrope in trying to limit the limitless, We know more, which is both good and awful, but we can't put the genie back in the bottle and most days don't really want to.  

We bought our first home computer when our girls were in elementary school. We didn't know what we had and they mostly painted and played games we purchased from actual stores. Oregon Trail and Math Blaster were two favorites. We might have owned four games? Life did not revolve around the computer and we had just one for the family, in a shared space so no secrets. They had computer lab in school each week and became adept at typing. 

I think it was a year or so after we arrived in England that my girls set up My Space accounts. They spent a lot of time choosing the music that would play when someone logged on and also ranking friends. Have mercy. When Facebook rolled in you needed a college email address to have an account, and then people found ways around that, and before you knew it the world discovered twelve year old children chatting with 40-year old men who were up to no good. Voila! Pandora's Box was open for all the world to see. 

The good news is that while the box is full of garbage it's also full of treasure. In the age of grandparenting I am so very thankful for how far we've come. My grands are many thousands of miles away, yet most evenings we talk and they show me things and I watch them play and read all from the comfort of my kitchen on the other side of the world. Facetime connects us and I appreciate that more than I can say. 

As I watch my daughter be a mother to her sons I see a thoughtful parent. One who is intentional in what she allows into her home via television, ipads, or the phone screen. I think her generation sees technology from a helpful vantage point. They appreciate the connection and support that can be found there, but they've also seen what too much has wrought, and they're trying to strike a balance. 

I feel certain one day I'll be chatting with my grandsons via a hologram. Or maybe some whiz kid will finally figure out how to 'beam me up Scotty'. 

Until then I write about my life here, send greeting cards and letters the old-fashioned way, and break into a smile every single time their little boy faces fill my screen. 

The Roaring 40's

If you're looking for this week's Hodgepodge questions you'll find them in the post before this one. 

I know technically that term 'roaring' is linked with the 20's, but I'm talking age today not world culture, so The Roaring 40's it is. My roaring 40's.

A while back (two years if you're counting) I asked a question in my weekly Hodgepodge wanting people to describe their 20's in a single sentence. I enjoyed reading their answers so much so that I eventually wrote an entire post reflecting on my 20's some three decades out (you'll find it here), and later two posts about my 30's (here and here). My plan was to hit all the decades, but you know what they say about plans.

Since I've officially entered the year of a 'big birthday' I wanted to come back to the decades I missed and revisit them in the form of a blog post or two.  Today that means The Roaring 40's. Like your 20s only better because there's less striving and more seizing the day.

I've written bits and pieces about this decade over the course of my blog's life, but these reflection posts are more about life lessons learned, and how a particular season looks in the rear view mirror.

My 40's started with hubs planning a fun birthday surprise, a weekend away in a cute little B & B on Maryland's Eastern Shore. He even managed to sneak my mom into town to stay with our girls which meant so much to me. I wrote about it in great detail in a post linked here so I'm not going to say more about that now.

What I will say is people freak out a little bit when this birthday approaches, but when my 40th rolled around I felt great. Vibrant, relevant, mentally sharp, and looking towards the future with anticipation and delight. I was physically healthy, and also really happy in marriage, motherhood, and the wider world as I knew it. Of all the decades this one holds a tender place in my heart.

My girls were in grades 5 and 7 when I entered my 40's and were university students when the decade drew to a close. In between there was a whole lotta life lived. A lot a lot. On a grand global scale we had 9-11, war in the desert, the housing crisis, and economic collapse. On a personal level there were job changes, an overseas move, middle school-high school-college for the kids, and so many new people, places, and experiences shared it would be impossible to list them all here.

What I see when I look back at any decade is how God orchestrated the events of one season to make me ready for the next and this one was no exception. I started my 40's living in a sweet little town beside the bay, a place we all loved and where my family of four had become comfortably comfortable. Maybe even a teensy bit complacent? I don't mean complacent in the sense we weren't busy working-going-doing, but more life is good and let's not look for ways to rock the boat k?

Except what if the boat is meant to be rocked now and then?
What if it's better, stronger and more sea-worthy if it's rocked from time to time?

There's nothing wrong with living a comfortable life, but I know me and sometimes when I get too comfortable with something I hold on with a tightly clenched fist. Two tighly clenched fists. And God is always teaching me to cling tightly to just one thing-Him. I finally figured that out in my 40's, but it took being catapulted from the ordinary every day familiar into something new and different before it stuck.

I've written probably more than anyone wants to read about moving overseas as a 43 year old grown woman who had been perfectly fine thank you very much, right where she was, only to discover she still had some growing to do and a new home and country were just the place to do it. We traded life in America for life across the pond at what I can see now was absolutely perfect timing, although for young teenagers it maybe didn't feel like it.

My 40-something self had a heap of anxiety percolating on the inside too, but I went with what has worked for moms since the dawn of time. I slapped a smile on my face and repeated my oft repeated mantra -every little thing is gonna be alright.

And it was.

One of the miracles of parenting is that we moms and dads learn a lot of life's most important lessons as we walk beside our tweens and teens, and I had one of each when we hopped the pond. 'Cept we didn't call them tweens back then.

We did talk a lot about the new millennium but had no idea they'd be dubbed with that moniker some twenty years later. Sorry kids!

I spent most of my 40's in the UK and traveled extensively while I was there. My kids even more so, and hubs most of all, but more than the traveling it was the everyday living that changed us in ways that mattered and lasted.

I think I need ten years to write about ten years, but since we don't have that kind of time I'll wrap it up with a few priceless (to me) treasures unearthed in my 40's that I've carried in my pocket ever since-

There is great value in periodically examining the direction of my life and deciding if a course correction is needed. Am I doing what God created me to do, or am I living from habit?

I am capable of learning and doing hard things, things outside my imaginary comfort zone.

God's timing is providential and perfect and sometimes we might need a little bit of hindsight to see just how true that really is.

I can trust Him with my kids. Really trust Him. This has served me well every year since as my daughters have spread their wings and flown in ways my 40-something self could not have imagined or predicted.

It's a small big world and it is beautiful.

'If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast." Psalm 139:9-10

Wherever I roam there He is.

Once Upon A Time

I'm playing a little bit of catch up today since I was without power earlier in the week and missed a letter.

Today's letters come from my sister and also from a long time dear friend who worked with hubs for many many years. Both made trips to our home in England way back when and the words they chose go together, so it's a combo post today. 

Day 12-L is for London

Day 15-O is for Once

Once upon a time we lived in England. Not London, but nearby in a small village about 15 miles west of the city. A dot on the map where we walked our pup through the commons, met friends for dinner in the local pub, and hopped a train to London any time we pleased. Which was often. 

Where we mastered the art of parallel parking in minuscule spaces, puzzled over the rules of Cricket, and learned a whole new vocabulary.

Where we fell in love with Indian curries, iced buns, and Sunday roasts with a side of yorkshire pudding. 

Where we indulged daily in the pure pleasure of a cuppa with a friend. 

Where we raised teenagers...

Drove left while seated right...

And spent hours in a garden where poppies and foxglove and people grew. 

Where we donned wellies to hike past ancient trees and fields of rapeseed...

Across moors and bridges and old stone walls in the middle of nowhere.

Around bluebell blankets and fields of sheep. 

Through kissing gates that led to wide open spaces and beauty as far as the eye could see. 

Where history was at every turn...

And when the sun shone it was your favorite day of all the days. 

This picture popped up on my Facebook page last week, our first tagged photo on the site some 11 years ago-

We're in front of Buckingham Palace here and asked a stranger to take our picture. Selfies weren't a thing yet, or at least they weren't for us. I think the trend was just getting started back in 2009 but 11 years later we still haven't mastered it, so yeah. We asked a stranger to take a picture and they obliged. 

A moment marked with the click of a camera.
There were a thousand more. 

Once upon a time we fell in love with a place and words and people. 

We are in love with them still. 

What Time Forgot

Our girls gave us a Legacy Box for Christmas which, if you're not familiar, is a company that transfers your old media to DVD or memory stick or both. We've been toting around a box of VHS tapes lovingly referred to in our house as 'the baby' tapes since the 90's, and then we also have 'the Europe years' in the form of 8mm.

We packaged up eight VHS tapes and two of the 8mm about a month ago, and they arrived newly formatted on our doorstep late last week. I was excited to watch the 'baby' tapes because we purchased our first video camera when Daughter1 was six months old and now her son is six months old. I was so eager to see the shared DNA live and I'm sure I'll write more about that another day.

We've watched these early newborn days periodically through the years so I knew some of what was there. The sweetness of my baby girls on the screen always makes my heart flip but I know to be ready for that when the tape rolls.

What I wasn't ready for was the sight of my teenagers. Young teenagers. My then fifteen year old daughter practicing a speech for school on the subject of ballet. In FRENCH! And it's wonderful.

I don't remember that day.

It was just another ordinary day, school-homework-dinner prep happening...not unlike hundreds of other ordinary days lived yet this one is captured and marked. There's my youngest looking back at me, age thirteen, blue eyes dancing behind brand new wire framed lenses. She's got a Gameboy in hand and that look of perpetual expectancy on her face, the one she always wore that said Life! Bring it! 

I'm there too...with my teenagers on the beach at Normandy our hair blowing wild in the wind...smiling for the camera from a narrow side street in a fairy tale village an ocean away...in a family room in England recording the happy teenage chatter of my girls and their friends as they sit in a comfortable heap atop my too big American furniture.

Ordinary days. Where time was passing and you let it because you had no way to say slow down. Didn't really consider if you even wanted to. Life with children is about forward motion -tomorrow, next week, next year, college, infinity and beyond.

Fifteen years doesn't sound like such a long time ago, but there it is pirouetting across a kitchen where I cracked ice cubes from a tray, finally learned the metric system, and converted oven temps from Fahrenheit to centigrade without batting an eye.

The days of mothering babies I remember pretty well. In those early years one day is not that different from the next. Lots of days felt long and you were often overly tired, but your love for this tiny human was big and bursting, simple and obvious.

Teenagers are complex. They test you. In many ways they ARE you which makes you smile and sigh but also makes you acknowledge things about yourself you'd just as soon leave unexamined. I watch these snippets of ordinary life today, years and miles from when and where they happened and I think wow, we grew. All of us. Not just my teenagers, but me... as a mother and a person.

There are big moments in the life of a teenager, occasions celebrated and remembered...ballet recitals, musical performances, birthdays, graduations. We tell ourselves this is the stuff of life, and in some ways it is. But as I watch my teens on videotape turned memory stick playing on a smart TV that didn't exist fifteen years ago I know it was the 'just another ordinary days' that mattered most.

The everyday interactions between a mother and daughter. A speech practiced at the kitchen counter while supper is fixed. Hanging out in the back yard on a blue sky day. Talking about nothing and everything as we drove to piano lessons every single week. Quiet fears whispered in the bedroom she loved with the chintz curtains she hated. Holding hands while we cross a busy London street because she knew it meant something even if she couldn't articulate at the age of 16 what that something was. Only that it was something to hold your mother's hand when the world says you're too big.

Mothers of teenagers-hold your kids hands every now and then. They look all big and grown up on the outside but inside they sometimes feel so small. Holding your hand puts life into perspective. Yours too.

Know that you have the immense privilege of being part gate keeper, part bridge builder, part cheerleader as your teenager navigates the sometimes dark and scary, but mostly beautiful chasm between childhood and full fledged adult living.

When I look at my girls on the other side of the video screen I remember with exquisite clarity how much I loved them in the teen years. Like when they were babies only more so, something you cannot imagine is possible when they actually are babies.

A hundred tiny moments run through my brain and I think back to how these now grown women not so long ago slept in a bedroom upstairs, came to breakfast in their pjs, played guitar in the stairwell nook, walked with me to town where we ate iced buns at a sidewalk cafe. How they talked of life and love and hopes and dreams in a far off future they could only imagine.

How they amazed, entertained, frustrated, humored, and challenged me as we grew up side by each. How my life was blessed by a season of parenting people tell us to fear, and how God equips us as parents for whatever season we're living.

How in teaching my teenaged girls to be strong and brave I became a little bit stronger and braver too.