What a Dish!

I love dishes. I love looking at dishes online, on store shelves, and on other people’s tables. I love the beauty of their designs, the colors, the various ways to mix and match them. We own three sets, four if you count the four-place Christmas set I found at our local MCC a couple of years ago.

So it came as a shock when I realized that I have never, in all my 59 years, purchased a new set of dishes. My parents gave us a four-place melamine set when we married, the remains of which went with our youngest son when he moved out. I acquired our “blue onion” set with S & H green stamps when we lived in the States. My brown and white “Royal Mail” set was a hand-me-down from Mom. And our “fancy set” was a freebie from a boss forty years ago. He rented storage units and when customers left items behind in unpaid-for units, I sometimes got first dibs on said left-behinds. (Is that even legal? I hope so. We still have a rocking chair acquired in the same fashion.)

Anyway, I look at this varied collection of chipped and cracked dishes in our cupboards and then I gaze at the gorgeous ones on the store shelf (I’m particularly smitten with the mix and match “Pioneer Woman” line) and I ask myself, “Are you nuts? Why on earth don’t you just break down and buy some new dishes, for cryin’ out loud?”

It’s a good question. I could, without too much difficulty, drum up the money for a nice new set. I could. So what’s my problem? Well, first of all, for many years drumming up the money would have been unrealistic. New dishes are a difficult purchase to justify. I mean even if they’re chipped, they still do their job. Right? That kind of thinking dies hard. It’s why people who survived the Great Depression still save used bits of string in jars labelled “Pieces of String Too Small to Use.”

Secondly, once I choose a set and commit to it—that’s it. I’ll have to be satisfied with my choice and stop drooling over any other set. This is the same reasoning that keeps some people single all their lives.

My new favorite mug dwarfs the one from my 1970's Blue Onion set.

Thirdly, have you noticed how big they make dishes these days? Plates, mugs and cereal bowls hold twice what the old ones hold. Why is that? I am afraid if I get bigger dishes, I will eat more food. It’s a psychological reality. No wonder obesity plagues this continent with all the giant plates and coffee mugs we use!

So I keep resisting. And we keep eating off our reasonably-sized, chipped plates. Food tastes the same either way. Hubby couldn’t care less, as long as he’s not expected to wash them. Speaking of which, I’ll leave you with an old poem you may remember seeing over a kitchen sink or two. It’s attributed to Mary Stuber.

Thank God for dirty dishes;
They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry,
We’re eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence,
God’s been very good to us.

Scrabble with Mom

“Teach me to play Scrabble,” I asked my 86-year old mother. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t know how. It’s just that the last time I played, it was the Junior version with our kids. Two decades ago, at least. I figured if I’m going to fancy myself a writer, I should become better at word games. Maybe increase my vocabulary. And Mom’s an expert. 

I was surprised when she seemed reluctant. It had been a while since she dusted off the game board, and she wasn’t sure she remembered how. Besides, she was fighting a headache. 

But I persisted. I’m nasty like that. And Mom proceeded to skunk me, laughing a little more maniacally with every triple-score word she laid down. 

On the second round, we stayed neck and neck until I finally moved ahead at the end. It’s entirely possible Mom was taking pity on me. At least three times, I started laying tiles in the wrong order and Mom would catch it before I did. Do you realize how quickly one’s brain must shift from right side to left when you’re trying to create words and then immediately tally points? It’s exhausting! That’s why I let Mom handle the score-keeping.

By the end of the evening, our laughter had provided a healthy, temporary escape from the aches and pains. “Let’s do this again,” we said almost in unison as we hugged goodbye. And we have. I hope there will be many more Scrabble nights in our future.

When it comes to mothers, it’s no secret that I hit the jackpot. Most of my peers have either lost their mothers or must devote great chunks of energy to caring for them as physical and mental health issues become all consuming. Doctor’s trips, medications, reminders, and special apparatuses like walkers, hearing aids, and oxygen tanks creep in and take over one’s freedom.

Mom is also aware of how blessed she is, unencumbered by such devices. Still, she feels better knowing someone expects her to check in each day. Several weeks ago, we came up with a system where, upon rising each morning, Mom calls and leaves a voice message (we’ve normally left the house by then). When I return home at one o’clock, I listen to it and know she’s okay. 

After the first week, I said, “Mom, your messages are getting monotonous. Maybe you could spice it up a bit by leaving us a good quote or a joke or a Bible verse or something.” Since then, we’ve been treated to a “power thought for the day” and I’ve come to look forward to what these thoughts will be and how they might apply to my day. I delete the message immediately to ensure we never mistake an old message for a current one and think everything is okay when it’s not. Each day, as I delete that message, the thought occurs to me that one day I will delete Mom’s final “power thought for the day” and I won’t know I’m doing it.

Each day is a gift. I imagine no one knows that better than the mothers and fathers in Humboldt and the surrounding area. While the rest of us have moved on, they are just now beginning to comprehend the depth of their losses.

This Mother’s Day, wherever you find yourself on the Mother/Child/Grandchild spectrum, I hope you take time to treasure what is yours for today. Because “love” is always a triple-score word.

Yes or No? The Struggle is Real

I almost said no.

I’ve become good at saying no. No, I’m sorry. I can’t come to your classroom and talk to the kids about being a writer. I can’t speak at your women’s group. I’d love to talk to your book club, but I can’t.

It’s not a fear of public speaking. That fear flew out the window with my first taste of high school theater. 

It’s the fear of exhaustion. Living with a chronic lung disease will do that to a person. You learn to guard and schedule your days like you would for a toddler. Sorry, that’s my nap time. I won’t make it through the day otherwise. Or No, I’ll be up too late. I’ll be ill the next day. Not worth it. Besides, I’m subject to coughing fits if I talk a lot.

I don’t say all this, of course. It sounds too pathetic. I just say no. Or I might drop a hint about physical limitation that sounds lame even to myself. After all, I walk a half hour every day. I hold down a job. I look fine. What’s the deal?

I’m filled with angst if I say yes and riddled with guilt if I say no. Guilt, because I’ve been given so much, and we’re supposed to take what we’re given and pass it on to others. 

So when I’m invited to lead a writing workshop with the Country Quills group which meets in the TigerHills Art Gallery in Holland, I almost say no. But guilt wins out for a change, and I agree to come. And immediately ask myself what on earth I’ve done. Spend several hours prepping for it, still grappling. Then the event is postponed due to a storm, and I spend another month anxious about how I will manage to be “on” for the duration of a four-hour workshop, plus drive an hour each way. Spend another Saturday reviewing my preps from a month earlier because my old brain hasn’t retained it.

And somewhere in the middle of that Saturday, I finally begin to realize I feel far more concern for myself than for the people I am going to serve. Had I bothered to ask God what they might need from me? How I could best encourage them? I hadn’t. 

I ask his forgiveness and try to shift my focus. Before I hunker down for my nap, I read a portion of AnnVoskamp’s book, The Broken Way. She quotes Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl, who said meaning comes when one does something that “points, and is directed to, something, or someone, other than oneself…by giving himself to a cause to serve, or another person to love.” She says, “maybe that’s how you peel back everything that distracts and cheapens and derails a life—transcend this life by giving yourself for someone else.”

Sunday morning, I drive to Holland with an adjusted attitude, trusting God to increase my stamina and decrease my cough. 

And I meet some wonderful writers. I share with them my journey and hear a bit of theirs. Pass on some of what I’m learning. Listen to them read their brilliant words. And begin to hear things like, “This has been so helpful! Thank you for coming!”

Yes, I arrive home exhausted. But the good kind of exhausted, the kind that comes when you’ve spent yourself with passion and seen others gain from it. Voskamp says, “The abundant life doesn’t have a bucket list so much as it has an empty bucket—the givenness of pouring out.”

And I find myself hoping for another opportunity to say yes.