Portmanteau, pronounced, port-man-toe. The combining of two things to make something new.
I live near the Rickwood Caverns, named from the combining of the owners’ names, Rickles -Rick and Arwood -Wood. Rickwood. I first became aware of that when my son, Shelton, spent several summers being a tour guide for the aforementioned Caverns. It was one such day he came home claiming he was asked what a portmanteau was, it was after he’d given a tour of the caverns when he was asked what the word meant.
“What’d you say? ” I asked.
In his flat matter-of-fact tone he replied, “I told him it’s when you take two words to make a new word.” I asked what the man’s response was, “He said grassy-ass.”
A couple of summers ago the historic Rickwood Field had been in the news. I had seen it on the television of the local Mexican joint, written on the side of a Chevy I passed on the way to work several mornings.
Rickwood field, also a portmanteau incidentally from A. H. “Rick” Woodward’s name. To my knowledge the Rickwoods aren’t related but in an interesting way they’ve come to intersect in my home, in my mind, and in my heart.
Two summers ago there was a televised opportunity to watch the opening portion of the Rickwood Field hosting a MLB game.
I watched as faces of all colors were recognized in a place that once separated them by color, by race claiming equality but separated, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Same but not the same.
Absurdity at its finest.
I watched and I began to cry, sob actually, at the beauty of the restoration, the recognition of the African- American Ball players who did more for humanity and equality by playing a game than their lighter skin counter-parts were doing in office.
I watched through my tears as beauty danced and sang and honored those gone, and those that remain, like a 101 year old Greason, baseball player turned preacher.
I watched as the late Willie Mays was honored and I cried when his son acknowledged that Willie was watching and encouraged the crowd to cheer. I told my people that maybe Willie knew he could go to Heaven knowing that Birmingham was getting it right this time.
As I watched I looked to my left and saw my own brown skinned beauties smiling and dancing and I gave thanks again, for it has not been lost on me that in another time in this very same place they could not have been my children.
And I sobbed out of gratitude for all those unknown and unseen people who paved the way for the combining of two things to make a new thing, my family.
My very own portmanteau.
Recognition, reconciliation, redemption and Rickwood at its finest.
IIt is rainy, I am (or was) sitting on the porch of a small cabin that has been rented and borrowed for a working retreat. The kind of place that is comfortable and creaky, or whose toilets are not my responsibility to keep in working order.
Outside tree trunks are a black and bold contrast to the lush green of the damp leaves. It is a serene moment yet in the peace-filled quiet as bird chitter and flitter, the squirrels scamper and the rustling deer scare me so that nearly make me saturate my old comfortable yoga pants, I am taken in my mind to a place as far from here as Mars.
Galveston Bay, Texas 1865. 161 years ago, I imagine it was hot there, hot as Satan’s armpit as a group of unreached people, slaves, worked day in and day out for nothing. Their skin made darker by the sun high in the sky, their backs made sore from years of toil, their hearts sick by hope deferred.
In my imagination the longing and waiting for something, anything to change can be felt within my own chest. In my imagination I see them boiling and begging Texas unaware of what had already transpired a solid two and half years before. Nine hundred days of waiting, hoping, and longing for something, unbeknownst to them, had already happened. them. I imagine General Granger riding in, parchment in hand, announcing to those broken bodies and long before brokenhearted souls that their prayers had been heard and then I imagine him turning his horse around, heading back north. and that group of people looking around trying to figure out what most of us do in the same sort of situation; what’s next?
In my imagination I hope they celebrated but I reckon they did what I often do when my prayers are answered; I doubt.
In my imagination that day, June 19, 1865, that would become known as Juneteenth, fell into obscurity as many dates do and I imagine that as the clock of time inched forward reconstruction waned, pride and arrogance took hold, that grip gave way to Jim Crowe, segregation and the perpetuation of the continued carrying out of inequality. So much so that on the hundredth anniversary of Juneteenth Birmingham, Alabama was the very epicenter of the fight for Civil Rights.
That summer of 1965 would mark time and eternity itself.
But for those people who had just learned for the first time that slavery had ended a solid two and half years before, in a time and a place so distant from today I reckon I have no real frame of reference with which to compare my own experience, or at least I thought I did, that was until three years ago when the Lord taught me a lesson through Juneteenth that warrants a retelling, a resharing, and a remembering.
January 1, 1861, The Emancipation Proclamation, slavery was made illegal. If a person was once a slave the minute that executive presidential order went into effect enslaved people were made free persons. Abraham Lincoln did a lot of things in his lifetime but giving freedom to 3.5 million African-American people is pretty significant.
I liken it to salvation really. “Can you imagine being so entrenched in something that there is no way that you can get your own self out of it? Someone else has to do it for you?” Throughout their lives, those are the kind of questions I would ask my children.
When we studied the Emancipation proclamation signed in January 1, 1863 I made sure they understood no matter how much those slaves wanted to be free the chains of the law made it impossible, if you were born into slavery, you became property not even of the one who bore you but of the one who owned your mother.
Born into slavery and kept that way until that proclamation was made. Too many years spent chained up, locked up, denied humanity.
When we would talk about that I would remind my children we are like that even still, born into a slavery or sorts, we are slaves to sin and try as we may we are incapable of freeing ourselves from it. We become so entrenched in it, it becomes a part of who we are in our humanity and the King alone has the ability to free us.
My children have always understood that, like their mama, we are more grateful than anything of His sacrifice for us, the exchange of His righteousness for our sinful selves.
It was an unfair trade. The most unfair trade actually.
In our family observances we try to keep that understanding and reality at the forefront, Reese’s eggs, springtime frocks, baskets, while they are certainly memorable, they are secondary to the acknowledgment and recognition of that exchange.
Easter, Resurrection Day is the sinner’s equivalent of the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth is the walking out that salvation, that freedom. I’ve often wondered how those Texas slaves continued to live for nine hundred days not knowing they’d been freed. How did they continue in the slave life even after their freedom had been granted? And then the reality of Juneteenth hit me:
I am them in a manner of speaking.
When I came to know the King, by executive order my freedom was granted, yet I continue, even to this very day, to struggle and wrestle with the slavery, the sin, the bondage, that entangles me. Despite having been set free, I continue to live in slavery. I have a mindset of being a slave to sin and I refuse to believe that can be overcome.
On this day, Juneteenth, I used to move through the day oblivious to the significance of it, unmoved by the symbolism and allegory that lives within its moments, now I do differently. I choose differently, I choose to transport myself to another place and another time and to muster within me the empathy that I previously lacked. And not just in my imagination, the world is a better place because of it.
It was in the wee hours of the morning I was watching a PBS documentary on my handheld cell phone. Its backlit screen, despite having had the brightness adjusted, shone bright in the darkness of my bottom bunk. I was at camp serving as a nurse. I was in shared sleeping quarters and in an effort not to disturb anyone else I opted to watch the documentary in low lighting, low volume and with the aid of subtitles.
The subject matter, Agatha Christie. I admire and adore writers of all kinds, mostly because I aspire to be one myself. I had seen the documentary before, a British production, I had not watched it previously with the subtitles on, hence perhaps why I had previously missed what profound thing was found in the darkness of my bunk that morning.
I was already feeling a kinship with Aggie, I had determined that must be what her friends call her, Aggie. Here we were with more in common than not, despite being separated by nearly a century of time and space. I was watching before me a woman in her middle age, a broken marriage, newly divorced, a lackluster writing career, a mental health crisis of sorts, a series of circumstances and choices not necessarily her own having landed us both squarely in the same spot.
Square one, starting over, figuring out who we are in the dawn of the twilight years of our lives. Aggie and Amy, two ol’ broads who love words and writing but couldn’t seem to put voice to the train wrecks and trauma our lives had become.
I knew how Aggie’s story ended, what would become of her, after all I had watched the show before, read her books, and Googled her on occasion, I knew what would become of her and that in those twilight years she would find love again, fulfill her purpose, and would become one of the most prolific, well known writers of all time. Her contribution to the literary world would garnish her a royal bestowed title and a meeting with the Queen.
I knew she would live a life of fullness in that second half and that if I had the opportunity to speak face to face with Aggie over a proper cup of British tea, she’d likely tell me to hang on, press on, things will get better. But hindsight is twenty-twenty as they say, and I am looking forward to my own life as she would be looking backward.
I know not my own future anymore than she would have known her own exactly a century ago when she was in the throes of illness, sorrow, despair and heartbreak but I know how her story goes and it was in this unfolding of the documentary I saw a glimpse of myself, a glint of what I am discovering and a promise of hope before me.
Things were beginning to look up for Aggie, she had begun traveling, visiting far and exotic places that would later serve as backdrops for some of her most famous writings, she was meeting people and gaining experiences that would positively influence her and her writing for the rest of her days. I have no doubt that some of the most beloved characters she gave to the world were an amalgamation of real people and her imagination coming together to produce unforgettable individuals.
The narrator of the documentary pointed out that while she traveled she kept notes, continued to write and pressed forward. Later in life about the time of the second World War she would again find herself in a difficult place and would once again repeat and continue the process. She never let her writing cease despite the circumstances she was in. It was this time in her life the narrator was referring to when she made a statement I had to snap in the form of a screenshot for my own remembrance, to encourage me along in my own difficult times.
“She [Agatha Christie] was in a bad place emotionally but when [she was writing] she was writing herself better.
I let the statement roll over itself in my own mind, I allowed the words to sit and marinate for a moment more.
“She was in a bad place emotionally but she was writing herself better.”
Those words resonated into my very marrow, into the depths of my bones, echoing within my soul. “She was writing herself better.”
It was then that the joy of writing was crystal clear to me, for the first time in months that had been fraught with fogginess and clarity is a precious commodity, I realized that the joy of writing is in the healing that it ushers in.
From the beginning of time words have ushered in healing, comfort, calm and clarity and yet that truth became clearer when I observed as an outsider, the life of one whom I hold in regard, one whom I highly respect. It was in Aggie’s life that I saw bits of my own broken self. It was in the declaration of the truth I have long known that I began to understand how joy can be found in tragedy and joy felt in the midst of heartbreak. Joy that can be found in words and The Word. The joy of writing is found in knowing we are indeed writing ourselves better.
Several months ago when the nights were long and the tears more prevalent than laughter I took to watching documentaries to relax. They were a short series that unbeknownst to me at the time, walked through the lives of several influential individuals.
They combined three of my favorites elements in life, The Brits, history, and faith. The first documentary in the series I watched promptly sedated me into sleep but it piqued my interest enough to come back to it and finish once I was a tad more rested.
I was rather surprised to learn that Florence Nightingale had an episode dedicated to her. I was surprised for a few reasons really. One, I had always been taught that Flo’ was not a woman of faith. She was in fact very rooted in her faith and her service to the Almighty. Two, I knew she was a statistician, I did not know however that she learned mathematics from her father. Three, I did not know that the Crimean War which was the starting point for Florence’s work was a squabble over ridiculousness. Well maybe not ridiculousness but over religious sites and artifacts. The irony and the character of the King did not escape me. Since watching the documentary about Florence no less than a dozen times I have come to appreciate her immensely and what she, through her obedience to God, has done for millions upon millions of humans.
Florence was named for the city of her birth, her sister, Frances Parenthelope , could attest that the Nightingales were not averse to naming their children after geographical destinations. They were ahead of their time I suppose. They also were people who taught their daughters the skills Flo would need to change the world.
Florence revolutionized what nursing was at the time and made it into a reputable and honorable profession and she started that with towels, soap, pattern recognition, nutrition, dedication and most importantly compassion.
Flo died quite a bit ago but the legacy she left ripples through time, and an entire profession celebrates itself and is celebrated by others this week which coincides with her birthday, May 12th.
During one of the umpteenth times while watching the aforementioned documentary I snapped a photo of the closed captioning the host was describing the horrific working conditions of the hospitals pre-Florence-reform.
It was so bad that in order to cope it was “normal for nurses to arrive drunk for work.” Initially the statement made me giggle, the absurdity of a fully staffed but fully inebriated care team tickled me. My imagination worked overtime and the true recognition of what Florence did for so many, yours truly included, that would follow in her lamp lit footsteps is astounding.
The realization she did not do it with or by extraordinary means, she did it by sheer determination and conviction that she had been called by God makes me want to aspire to be more like her.
To the many nurses I know, have known and are yet to know, may we too work and operate by the same standards of practice and continue to build upon the foundation that she built and may we never ever lose sight of the gift we have given in being a trusted, compassionate, determined, and caring profession.
In the last several months life has taken me some places I never thought I’d go, never wanted to go, didn’t think I’d have to go back to, or couldn’t have predicted I would go.
It was on one such throw back trip I was confronted with something from my past.
It was in the days when Covid was still super scary, an N-95 was my most donned accessory.
In the days before my life seemed to slowly and simultaneously suddenly implode, it was in the days when my world at work revolved around three-twelves, relief charge, a constant achy body and depletion was my baseline.
It was in the days when I questioned my very purpose in life and asked the King regularly if He wouldn’t mind letting me know.
I had picked up a local publication and was perusing it in the break room. I came across something that stopped me in my already exhausted tracks, it was an advertisement for the very place of my employment.
“We work tirelessly to help kids get well because the world needs to see what Natalie dreams up.”
It stopped me cold. I had asked the King for a purpose and here before me in my favorite mediums, newsprint, ink, and words was the answer to why…I promptly tore the page from the publication and made some edits.
Heading: “When you need a reminder why..”
“We work tirelessly (underlined twice for emphasis) to help kids get well because the world needs to see what (Natalie crossed out) they all (inserted above) dream (“s” crossed out) up.”
I then hung it on the break room refrigerator. That was October of 2021.
My nursing life would later take me to another place and I’ll admit I completely forgot about the message on the break room fridge until recent weeks.
I am in need of funds that can be supplemented by the picking up of extra shifts, extra shifts that had landed me right back from whence I once came. It was a sunny Saturday, the DT as I’ve long called it was moving on up to “The BR” and like any family that moves things were being sorted and situated all around. The break room was no exception.
Maybe it was the sparsity of it all that made me notice that clipped to the side of the fridge was a yellowed piece of paper, I wondered what it was. It was familiar but hadn’t yet registered.
I read the edited advertisement and I knew the handwriting at once.
I remembered, the why…and I’d left it and there years before and there it had stayed. I wondered how many eyes had seen it in the nearly half a decade since. I wondered if it had served others like it had me, and I wondered if that small act had been like so many other small acts in that very place, rippling through time growing bigger and outwardly as time went on.
I wondered and I marveled at how I found myself in the same spot, doing the same thing, asking the same questions and here by my very own hand, in a previous time of desperation was the answer preserved on the break room frigidaire.
Life had turned sideways but it wasn’t without purpose, the pain wasn’t being wasted and the gifts of grace that were being shared and were to await would serve as confirmation.
The Lord is not bound by time or space, paychecks, living arrangements, moves to different places or returns to previous ones. He is not surprised or caught off guard by anything, he is not afraid of the future and what it holds. The posted newsprint from the past affirming that He is already there and has been the whole time.
Some of my favorite gifts have been donkey paraphernalia.
Once I received a set of donkey facts for my birthday, I’ve kept that list in my important documents tab for some years now.
Recently on a particularly rough day a dear friend slipped something in my hand, it was a donkey. I drew strength from that wooden donkey effigy and in the weeks following I slipped that donkey in my pocket and would rub my hand over it when I needed a bit of reassurance. I place him on the bathroom counter next to a tiny Jesus and look at them each and every day.
On really hard days I take the donkey with me and leave Jesus to stand firm.
My love of donkeys began about the time my children were the age where they acted like donkeys. Donkey became a part of the Martin lexicon as noun, adjective and an adverb.
As I’ve aged and my children have as well I’ve come to love and appreciate donkeys for the beautiful creatures they are and it all harkens back to one day, this day, Palm Sunday.
That first Palm Sunday morning the King rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, a sign of coming peace. There were shouts of praise and accolades, knowing in less than a week’s time those same fickle folks would be shouting “Crucify Him!”
I think about that donkey from time to time, the one that had never been ridden, the one that fulfilled an over four century old prophecy, that baby donkey that wasn’t too far from his mama but was charged with the responsibility that would literally mark all future donkeys thereafter. I think about how he ushered in the single most significant event in all of history, in all of mankind, and in all of the world.
Did that singular donkey have any idea what his act of obedience and service would mean for all of humanity?
Do any of us donkeys for that matter?
Palm Sunday was just the beginning, the beginning of out with the old and in with the new, the beginning of a new way of healing, a new way of living and a new way of being.
Palm Sunday was the countdown to the completion of the work that began way back in the Garden. A setting right what our Mom, Eve and our Dad, Adam got so messed up. Palm Sunday was so much more than palm fronds and donkeys, Palm Sunday is the day humility wins, servant-hood prevails, and the evidence is put forth that the donkeys of this world really do make a difference.
I have given her credit for helping me to help save Mama’s life. She has a fairly short resume but saving Mama is on the list for sure.
Back when Dottie had been a Martin for a mere two weeks she and I had a family meeting of sorts. I explained to Dottie that while I understand she was uncivilized, had been institutionalized, and had no idea how to operate within the confines of a family, she was going to have to learn how to acclimate immediately.
Adoption was to be followed by adaptation. Step one was to learn not to urinate indoors.
We were out for a training session pertaining to the evacuation of her bowel or bladder one Sunny September Sunday afternoon when my phone rang and it was my Mama. She was having a medical emergency, had Dottie not needed house-trained training, I would not have otherwise been in a close enough proximity to help Mama.
Dottie helped me help Mama.
Dottie was acquired from a shelter, we were told she was a dachshund mix, we were told wrong. In the words of my Mama, “Dottie is as much a dachshund as I am.”
Dot’s shelter start made her eligible for a largely discounted spaying, she was filed under the “Fix yo’ Mama” heading of the allotted spay scholarship funds.
In the beginning I thought she was the Dumbest not-a-dachshund ever. In the beginning she was Charlotte’s dog, Charlotte’s responsibility, I was merely the homeowner.
Dottie had other plans. I did not give Dottie credit for potentially being smart.
I taught Dottie made up sign language and it is our primary means of communication. Just recently I gave Dottie several commands via our made up language. Maggie marveled and said, “She doesn’t even need words anymore to know what to do.”
Dottie does on occasion need words typically one word, “No!”
Over the course of our relationship Dottie has taught me many things, and everyday if I am paying enough attention she teaches me new things. Today was just such a day.
Dottie loves a ball, not just any ball some particular brand I purchased on discount without a shred of foresight. I never questioned why they were discounted or how difficult it may be to locate similar orbs at a deeply discounted cost in the future.
I never imagined we would need buckets of the balls because Dottie, not being dumb at all, would hide them from us just to watch us assume some variation of a yoga slash pretzel pose to retrieve the alleged misplaced balls.
I can demonstrate our made up sign for the ball and she will bring it to me. She will then wait patiently (most normal non-Dottie owners call this “sit”) for me to throw it. Dottie then bounds toward the ball with such speed and ferocity one would think she is taking part in the Iditarod.
Dottie has failed to master one particular aspect of the ball retrieval. We have been working for quite some time on this skill, nearly as long as we have been fetching the ball.
Release of the retrieved ball.
The expectation is that upon retrieval of the ball Dottie returns to my side, waits and releases the ball so that we can do the whole thing all over again. This is where things get sketchy.
I give Dottie the sign and say the words and she grips that ball between her jaws and refuses to let go. She will whine and whimper and tell me in Dottie language that she wants me to throw the ball, the only issue, she will not give me said ball to throw. I will occasionally pry the ball from her mouth, wrestle it from her clenched jaws imploring her through my own clenched teeth,
“Release Dotte!”
This lovely Spring morning we were in the backyard. I was looking through the clovers, talking to Jesus about healing and wholeness. I was taking my frustrations and hurt to Him and telling Him how hurt I truly am and asking why He is not doing anything about it.
I kept asking Him how to feel better.
Intermittently I played fetch with Dottie. I would throw the ball, she would retrieve it and bring it in my direction and per her usual she would not let me have the ball.
I bent forward and wrestled with the dog-drool covered ball. She was relentless in her grip. Her refusal to relinquish it was almost comical.
How could I give her what she wanted, another round of fetch, if she refused to let me have what she was holding onto so tightly?
And that’s when it hit me…
The Lord Himself could’ve just said: “Same Aim. Same.”
How can I expect Him to give me healing from the hurt of all the things if I refuse to relinquish them to Him? How can I expect Him to do what I have asked of Him if I am white knuckled gripped hanging onto my issues rather than the hem of His garment?
Dottie helped me to gain clarity that I just hadn’t had.
to usher in healing, I have to loosen my grip, open my hands and let Him have what so deeply hurts. He is not going to pry it out of my hands because He knows I, like Dottie, will only bear down harder.
In those moments sitting on the cool green clover of the backyard, I came to an understanding, to feel better is to relinquish those hurts to Him, to make the willful choice to surrender my hurts over to Him.
I have since added Theologian and Therapist to Dottie’s resume.
“Ohhhh I know this one, but I can’t think of what it’s called. Shelton do you know?” Charlotte was thinking hard.
Shelton paused and affirmed what his sister had stated. He knew it too but couldn’t remember the name.
Almost simultaneously, “Shazam it!” And then the song faded and was gone.
I was walking alongside them when I stated a fact,
“I have Shazam for birds!”
Again simultaneously, they rolled their eyes and the older and darker of the unlikely and unbioligical twins, said
“We know mom. You remind us all the time and it’s not Shazam, it’s some other app, you just call it that.”
Shazam is an app that can hear a part of a song, identify it and let the listener know to whom and what they are listening to. The three Martins all have the app and use it with regularity to identify song titles and artists.
The Shazam for birds to which I was referring is an app that a couple of years ago a dear friend introduced me to. It was a hot summer afternoon, we were taking a popsicle break in the shade and the only sounds that could be heard were the birds.
The app has a real name I can never remember but it identifies birds based on their sounds. It highlights the bird as it sings. I was telling someone about it once and she said, “You have Shazam for birds!” I’ve called it that ever since.
There used to be a time when I couldn’t have cared less for birds, or their songs. I was apathetic towards the fowl of the earth, the class aves. Birds grossed me out. I didn’t love birds but like a lot of things in my life, times have changed for me. I see something in them I didn’t before.
I think that my new found bird-brained intel started long about three years ago when the very atmosphere of my life began to dramatically shift.
I was looking out the window and I saw a bird, the only bird I could identify. A “Robin Red Breast” the only bird possessing the power of time travel and nostalgia. Not really, they just made me feel that way.
I was about nine, it had been a tumultuous time. I was learning to navigate life with corrected vision. Swimming was my favorite pastime, I loved reading and writing stories. Kellie was my constant companion. My Mama’s sister had died the previous July and as to be expected Mama wasn’t okay, none of us were really I suppose. I had no way of knowing it then but things would be okay, never the same, but okay.
When Mama wasn’t at home she was working and while she worked Kellie and I stayed with our grandmother, Mam-Maw.
Mam-Maw loved birds and she loved nicknames.
If you were born Debbie you’d be dubbed “Bean”, born Brian you would earn the moniker “Tapsly” shortened to “Taps”, born Amy you’d be given the name, “Mamie.” A term of endearment that to this day I still carry and only the closest call me.
One warm spring day, much like this one, Mamie sat next to her Mam-maw, they swung in a porch swing. That’s what they did, Mamie and Mam-Maw they swung and they were mostly quiet. Perhaps Mam-maw was doing her own kind of brain dump as she processed in quiet the loss of her child and husband and who knows what else. Maybe the Alzheimer’s was taking its early hold.
Suddenly a Robin came into view. She sang and she flittered about, she tugged a fat juicy earthworm from the ground and she sang. Mam-Maw pointed a slightly crooked finger and whispered,
“Mame, that there is a Robin Red Breast and whenever I see one I think of you because they are like you. Unusual and unique.” Unusual had only three syllables when she said it rather than the standard four.
I studied the Robin and I committed her to memory, when I would see one I would be reminded of what Mam-Maw had said that day long about 1988.
She said I was unusual and unique. I held onto her declaration as I’ve navigated life, remembered her observations of me and the association she made with a bird.
I didn’t know it then and wouldn’t for quite some time, that the American Robin, like most everyone else in her world, had a nickname and that’s what she had taught me, and they are unique but that is contingent on the season they are in.
They are in actuality one of the most common birds in America.
They are typically the first birds of spring, so in that season they are rare until their other bird counterparts begin to make their appearances.
Robins flitter about on the ground, they are dumpy little fellas and gals, they are hearty eaters, kind of particular like, eating worms in the morning and fruits in afternoons and in the fall. They’ve got a bad habit of getting intoxicated from Honeysuckle berries in the spring.
The ladies like to nap.
I reviewed these bird-brained characteristics and I chuckled…forty plus years ago my Mam-maw looked into the future and she saw an accurate representation of her granddaughter as a forty plus year old woman.
This afternoon I took to the back porch for a little Vitamin D and thinking time.
My own bird-brain has been filled to capacity and I needed to empty it out.
I’ve learned a few techniques to assist with the brain dump. I’ve been told it is called “self care” and “processing.”
Call it whatever you like. But for me it is taking time to be quiet, reduced screen time, throwing Dottie her ball and wrestling it back when she brings it to me. It is thinking and talking to Jesus, making myself sit with the hurt and the questions and circling back to there are some things I just can’t understand. It’s having a snack and allowing myself just to be still so that I can know Who is in charge and trust He will make right all the broken things, especially my crushed to bits heart.
About the time my brain was settling down I felt the cool steady breeze, heard the wind chimes ring below me and the birds chirping above me. The truth is they had probably been doing it the whole time I was outside, but my mind was so noisy I couldn’t discern the sounds of peace or feel the breath of Heaven.
I smiled and wondered what bird friends I was hearing.
Maybe the Tufted Titmouse or the Cardinal that’s been making frequent appearances and tweeting the same phrase over and over. He sounds as if he is telling me “Birdie, Birdie, pretty pretty Birdie” he kind of gets on my nerves with his boastfulness but he is correct, he is pretty.
I grabbed my phone, opened my app and let it do its thing, and there I was, or the bird representation of me, the Bird of the Day, along with quite an ensemble this fine sunny spring afternoon. There was a new friend, Yellow-rumped Warbler. “At least I’m not him” I thought.
The Robin signifies change and better days are on the horizon, she is resilient and pudgy and when she is in community with her other bird friends she is indeed unique and at her red breast, I mean her best. She will be okay and she will persevere and maybe in that she is indeed unique and unusual.
Job lost everything…he questioned God, he questioned his friends, he questioned everything not knowing that God had allowed the losing of all the things to demonstrate his purity and willingness to serve the Lord despite the circumstances and loss of it all.
Job was taken to the crucible of tragedy and came through it acknowledging God.
I have declared recently that I sit on a pile of ash and ruin and in my imagination that is exactly what I see, me sitting atop a soot and ash pile, unworthy, dirty, broken, exposed and humiliated. For weeks I’ve tried to figure out exactly how beauty comes from ashes…ashes make soap..maybe something to do with cleaning but I am struggling to make that work in my mind.
“Ashes are good for?…Reminder, do a Google search and find positive uses for ashes.” Google says: “Soil improvement, making soap (I knew that one) and mild abrasive cleaning.”
Surely there is something better, more beautiful?
Work, home, worsening of already terrible life circumstances, conflict, and confusion. I feel stretched and torn, ripped to shreds and still I sit atop the ash heap hoping that some good thing can come of this ugly mess.
I persist in the things I know are good, know are right and have come to understand are the only lasting and truly decent things this world has to offer; those are the things of Christ. I go to church, CBS, continue to encourage and to love those around me, I point to truth and I read the Word per the usual, as part of the routine.
Chronologically I am in Job, the irony of it all makes me chuckle, I’ve often thought at some point God had to’ve said, “Have you considered my servant, Amy Martin?”
Back in the early morning hours of February 1st, February-a historically horrible month. February-the month I dread most, February short in its duration, yet catastrophic in its devastation.
When February was just a few hours old I completed my unfinished January reading. I was exhausted, behind, a day of work, bitter cold, achy eyes and more shedding of tears forced me to abandon my reading just prior to bed. I took up January 31st reading early, I’ve been in Job, lived like Job, was finishing up Job when I began to read.
“Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1-6
The last line hit me square between the eyes: there Job sat and what of all things brought about his repentant heart? Dust and ashes! Well they were a sign of his repentant heart, I reckon but the answer had been given to me.
What good can come from ash and ruin? Repentance, change, reconciliation to God and restoration of relationship. In His kindness the Lord led me to a place of understanding and revelation right atop the ash heap.
Ash, the catalyst for the cleansing of the heart.
Post Script…I wrote this fast and furiously in the wee hours of the morning, in early February. I wrote it using my cellphone, a google doc, and my One Year Chronological Bible, my one and only sidekick, unless of course you count the box of Dolla’ Store tissues that I keep bedside in the event there is the shedding of tears, a nearly daily occurrence, but like Job the Lord has answered me with the declaration of Who He is, in His kindness He is revealing to me the very fact that it is indeed His kindness that brings us to repentance and cleanliness.
I scrolled through my phone and saw the photo taken the previous Tuesday.
I looked at the photo of the two women. One of them I know well, the other not so much.
The lighter haired, shorter one, a bit pudgy around the middle, with blue eyes that are wide open windows to my very soul, left puffy from a day spent in tears. The other woman, a Writer whom until moments before I had only seen in pictures.
I had been waiting in line to meet her, but more specifically so she could sign the books I had brought with me. I had come alone. My very first date with myself.
I had to make myself do it.
Just a few minutes before I had met two other ladies. We chatted in line while each waiting for our turn to meet the Writer. Janice and Whitney were their names, I introduced myself to them first. I introduced them to one another. They were ideal book fans, and spoke of her writings and reputation. I had little to offer. We inched forward in line.
It was my turn, I handed the dark haired Writer my small stack of books. Books that she had written and that I had read and counted as life savers in some of my most difficult days.
None more difficult than the last, or the current one.
My scribblings and notes littered the pages, a random five-dollar bill shoved in the cover of one of them fell in her direction. She moved her hands over my scribblings and said, “I love this.” She recognized, I reckon, that I had made her books my very own.
The top two books she signed without question, she spoke pleasantries and asked me how I was doing. I squeaked out a reply. She asked my name, I said what I always say. “Amy Martin.” She looked puzzled so I clarified. “Amy.” She had written my first name with a big scripted handwriting. I wondered how many times she’d written my same name in books that bore her own name on the cover.
I awkwardly thanked her for signing the books. When she pointed out the magazine in my hand to her cohort, I offered her the free magazine with her picture on the front, but she declined.
She closed the top two books, their messages sealed, I had averted my gaze so that the inscriptions would be a surprise. I wanted to wait and read them later on. She saw the smallest one, I had placed it deliberately on the bottom of the stack. I had deliberately been hiding it for nearly the entire eleven weeks it had been in my possession.
The book’s title felt like a jack-in-box that would burst out at any random time scaring the heck out of me. Once that clown was out he swayed back and forth taunting me with what the revelation of himself meant to me and for me.
The book had been a gift. To: Me From: Me.
Merry Christmas Eve.
“Is this for you?” She had said, I couldn’t make my vocal cords work so I nodded in the affirmative. For the umpteenth time that Tuesday tears began to well up within my eyes. She understood, she knew, for she had written that book from her very own similar journey.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. The tears fell again.
I couldn’t have seen what she was writing even if I hadn’t have averted my gaze. She handed the stack back to me, the smallest and bottommost book now on the top of the heap. I thanked her and began cramming my books back into my bag. For weeks I had been hiding it, if it weren’t for its very soothing pastels across the front, I would have sworn that the Jack-in-a-box book shone like a scarlet letter in my personal library.
A banner flying over me of brokenness, bewilderment and bondage.
“Do you want to take a picture?” I shook my head and said, “No, I’m not really a good picture taker,” in the seconds it took me to formulate my sentence she was standing on her feet. I fumbled with my phone. The new one I had to get, I had to exchange my old simple phone, the “baby phone” as I called it, the one I loved and was used to surrendered for this bulky monstrosity of gigabytes, screens, apps and mass confusion.
So much surrendering.
I managed to open the camera feature, the phone just one more new thing, new way, new and unchartered waters in a sea of heartbreak. The Writer pulled me in close, I did my best to smile. She hugged me, photo snapped and saved in digital format in my camera roll.
My turn was over.
I walked outside for fresh air, soon I saw Whitney and Janice again. A beautiful blonde woman sat on an adjacent bench to my left. Something in me told me we had to have similar stories, she too held the Jack-in-the Box-Scarlet-Letter Book.
She spoke in our direction, we all chatted again, I asked her her name. “Crystal” she had said. I introduced myself, AMy Martin, Whitney and Janice to Crystal. Janice said she was impressed with my name remembering skills. I was too honestly. I confided in Janice that normally I struggle to remember names. My sister can remember names like nobody’s business, in this we are not the same.
I asked Crystal where she lived, come to find out she and Whitney lived in the same neighborhood, they had much in common and their conversation flourished. I giggled, The doors to the main speaking event opened, we said good-byes and each made our way in looking for our own separately purchased individual seats.
I had chosen my seat purposefully in the dark-thirty hours of the day I bought it. An aisle seat, down an exit row in the event the tears were so overwhelming I should need to make a quick getaway. I made my way to my seat and who should be seated in front of me? Whitney and her new found neighbor Crystal. They became even better acquainted.
I wondered what would have happened had I not been the one to formally introduce these previously unknown neighbors and newfound friends? What if I hadn’t gone on a date with myself? What if I had chickened out like I really wanted to just mere moments before I walked through the door? I had unknowingly been the catalyst for the gift of friendship between two what likely would have remained strangers.
I asked the Lord on the way home if that is what this season is for? If this is the why behind so much of what I do not nor can I understand. I asked Him if His plan is to use this season of yet to be named full of its moments of surrender, doing hard and previously unknown things. Is this obedience to Him meant to bring blessing not just to myself but to others as well?
I landed on perhaps. Perhaps so.
When I arrived home, a few hours past my get ready for bed-time, I opened the books one at a time to read their signed inscriptions. They were kind encouraging words and exhortations. I saved the smallest for last. It made me weep.
I rubbed my hand over the cover, The gift for Me from Me, purchased in haste and through tears at the Hobby Lobby in the hustle and bustle this past Christmas Eve. I had just gone through the single most traumatic time in my life. My body still throbbed and was numb all at the same time. My mind spinning and searching every moment of the day. I had gone in the familiar craft store because I knew they would likely have a Martin Family Christmas tradition that I had failed up until that point to purchase, Christmas Crackers. They had them, I grabbed them and made my way to the checkout.
As I stood in the line to checkout, my gaze fell to the books stationed at the front of the store, my gaze can always find its way to the books. It was at that point I saw it, “Surviving an Unwanted Divorce” by Lysa Terkeurst. If there were ever a book title that could make sense of all the nonsense in my spinning mind maybe it was this one.
God alone knew I had just asked myself, “How am I ever going to survive this?” The week’s events had brought me to a place I had not, did not and was not wanting to be. Facing something I never wanted, a divorce. I could hardly say the word, much less acknowledge and accept what it meant for my marriage.
Even now, at this point, I am struggling to write the word, to attach it to myself, d–i-v-o-r-c-e spelled out on a backlit screen with a twelve-point font in front of my face.
To: Me, From: Me. Merry Christmas Eve.
I began reading it almost immediately. Pen in hand, notes in the margin, notes on the sticky notes crammed on the side, book jacket removed so no one knew what I was reading lest I be asked about my…divorce…about the death of my marriage. I saw it coming, and I didn’t see it coming. I most certainly didn’t see how it would finally be put to death coming.
I was left in absolute shock, some days I still am, but the farther I get from Christmas Eve the more I am coming to realize there are some things that I may never be able to understand, to reconcile, to make heads or tails of, that may forever remain a mystery to me.
I am choosing to find the gifts in all of it. The gifts began long before Christmas Eve and have steadily been making their way to me. It took a little while for my vision to clear but as it has I felt like maybe I should share the gifts I have given, the gifts I had been given, the gifts I have surrendered, the gifts I have yet to receive. Share the gifts through my gift of words from The Word.
To: Me, From: Me. To: Me, From: You. To You, From: Me and To: Us, From: The King.
