Travel stories: Greece (part 3)

At the Grand Leoniki that evening, Dosia worked the desk and promised to heat the hot tub for me. I strode to our room to change, allowing the necessary thirty minutes for the water to warm. But as I tugged on my bathing suit, the phone on the nightstand rang. Husband answered it.

“Dosia said they can’t get the water in the hot tub higher than 25 degrees,” he said after the call. “She figured that’d be too cold for you.”

I worked the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit. She was right; 77 degrees was too cold for me. I pulled on regular clothes again, and we walked to the beach to watch the sun disappear into the Aegean Sea. Olympic Air would whisk us back to Athens tomorrow, but for now, multi-colored stones speckled the water’s edge, a path of jewels for our last night on Crete.


Pestilence crept through the world, and its uncertainty nipped at my soul as I packed my suitcase the next morning. Like Dosia said when we first arrived, COVID-19 hadn’t yet infected the island, but now the government was calling for the timeshare—and other businesses—to close anyway. As soon as we were gone, the staff at the Grand Leoniki would disinfect every inch of the place and lock their doors for who knew how long.

The previous evening on the TV in Adonis and Murphy’s room, politicians and medical professionals stated different facts about the virus and its prevention, their words spraying droplets of fear everywhere. Everyone had advice of one kind or another. Even Thomas, the employee at the timeshare, had urged us not to ingest hot liquids, like tea, at the airport, lest officials took our temperatures and found them elevated. Even so, on this, our last morning on Crete, the sun still shone.

Our room phone rang, and I answered it.

“I left two cups of coffee on your patio table,” Stathis said on the other end of the line.

Images from our island days breezed through my mind. Dosia and Stathis jumping from the desk to see to our needs and questions. The two of them—and other business owners on Crete too—always holding doors open to welcome us in. Friendly people, friendlier animals. Raki flowing, faces glowing, smiles warming.

And now, the man was sharing his personal coffee again. I grinned. “You just made my day.”

On our way to the airport in Heraklion, we made a stop in Archanes to find Koronekes olive oil, a local variety a travel article online insisted must come home with us. After the GPS guided us through some of the village’s tightest alleys—no more than a few inches to spare on either side of our rented BMW—we emerged onto a street where we parked and breathed again. A few loose dogs—the town’s welcoming committee—trotted next to us, tongues dangling from their smiles.

A bakery snagged our attention, and we stepped inside to admire the employees’ work on display in the glass cases. As we gazed at the confections, I thought of restrooms throughout the world and how, in addition to relief, they gave vacationers stories to tell. And so I asked to use theirs, if one were available to the public.

The woman behind the counter beamed at my question. “Of course!”

With a sweep of her arm, she directed me behind the counter, through a doorway, and around to a tiny room, tucked between supply shelves in the back. Inside, I groped in the dark for the bathroom’s light, finding nothing. I opened the door again, hoping to memorize my surroundings before shutting myself in once more. Still no switch to be found.

Emerging from the utter darkness a few minutes later, I rejoined my group. We exited into the sunshine.

“Look what we got,” Murphy said. I peeked into her paper bag.

Along with purchased koubaponi and a small pastry filled with ham and cheese, the shop owner had given her free kouvaroli, tiny bread rolls—a specialty of Archanes and baked to celebrate weddings and babies—“for happiness and good luck.”

We entered a shop to buy gifts: olive oil, silver rings, raki, honey. The owner, Leo, tended to us with the same graciousness we had enjoyed everywhere. He ladled up dishes of wild figs in honey for me and cherries in honey for Murphy to sample. Our purchases made, we ambled along the streets with our bowls of sweetness, noticing now in the sunlight ants swimming with the fruit in the golden syrup.

Orchids, chamomile, and lemon trees lined our stroll through town, empty of other tourists this early in the season. But no loneliness for us; we had the company of the local dogs, all of them as free as oxygen and sweeter than the honey at Leo’s place. And they saw us safely to our vehicle too when it was time to leave.

While Husband returned the rental car at the airport in Heraklion, we waited inside. I savored the memory of the dogs of Archanes who had cheered us, a reminder we were never alone with other humans on Crete. But cats decorated our time on the island too, and even now in the airport, a feline sat on her haunches nearby, eyeing our luggage—and us.


In Athens again after our short flight, we caught a shuttle to the A for Athens hotel where our rooms—normally 300 euros a night now cost us 82—overlooked Monastiraki Square. Unable to navigate the large van through the narrow street in front of the hotel, our driver dropped us off a block away.

“I’ll be back in three days to pick you up,” he said. “I’ll park right here.”

The man left us with our baggage and a “mind your purses” admonition; apparently pickpockets thrived in this part of town.

The idea of personal theft was a new one. On Crete, we left our glass patio doors unlocked. But something else indicated danger was near—something I hadn’t seen before in Greece. Masks covered the faces of many passersby. The pandemic was real, and here was evidence of it, throwing its shadow over the city and obscuring the sunlight for now.

In our third-floor hotel room, I opened the screen-less window to the buzz of our surroundings. I gazed across the square to the Acropolis, planted on a rocky outcrop above the city.

Beauty in uncertainty.

A quote fluttered through my brain: “The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.”

Cheery words, I thought with a chuckle. Thanks a lot, Homer.

But I pulled my jacket closer anyway.


*Come back next week for the fourth and final installment of the story.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: Greece (part 2)

I fought through my dreams to wakefulness. Yes, someone was really knocking, but who could it be in the middle of the night? I nudged Husband awake, and he shuffled to the door.

Adonis stood in the hallway in his sleeping shorts. Our phones off, we had received neither his nor Murphy’s texts about the most recent COVID-19 developments coming out of the United States.

“Trump is saying all Americans abroad should come home now,” Adonis said, his tone even.

“Oh.” Sleep blurred Husband’s voice. “Okay.”

A beat of silence.

Adonis again. “I’ll just leave it there.”

The door closed behind his words, Husband returned to bed, and questions prodded me. After only a few days into it, would we have to end our vacation? What choice did we have? And how hard would it be now to arrange a new flight home?


The next morning, Murphy waited on the phone for almost an hour with Delta Airlines to check for updates.

“No cancellations on any flights to the U.S. yet,” she said.

The four of us met at the patio table to discuss our next steps. If our flights home were still on—and they were—we might as well enjoy the day.

Chania, a city on the northwest coast of Crete, beckoned us, but on our way to the car, so did the hot tub. I strolled over to it, imagining a relaxing soak at the end of our day.

I swished my hand through the water. “Yikes. It’s freezing.”

Husband dipped a hand in too. “Maybe they don’t feel like heating it for just the six of us staying here.”

As we passed through the reception area, I strode toward the desk where Stathis sat. He jumped from his chair to meet me.

“Could we use the hot tub later?” I asked, curving my words with a smile. “Seems like it’s turned off. The water’s cold.”

“Tell us thirty minutes before you want it,” he said, “and we’ll heat it for you.”


After an hour-long drive, we rolled into Chania, a city known for its 14th-century Venetian harbor, colorful architecture, and influences showing Venice had annexed Crete, and the Ottoman Turks had conquered the island too, once upon a time.

We explored the city on foot, wandering through a meat market with its fresh seafood and specialty shops. While we enjoyed coffee (note to self and others: don’t stir Turkish coffee; let the grounds stay on the bottom of the cup) at a café in the market, a friendly cat slinked by our legs.

I asked the employee behind the counter the whereabouts of a restroom, and he motioned for me to follow him—behind the counter, through a back door, and outside. He pointed in the direction of where I would find what I needed.

A number of yards away, I took the steps down to the underground ladies’ room and discovered not a toilet behind each door, but a hole in the floor. I flipped through my memories of public restrooms in France and other countries. Had I ever used one like this?

During my respite in the stall, a question jabbed me. Where was the toilet paper? Maybe it was becoming scarce in Greece like I heard it was in the U.S. because of the pandemic. I looked around, though, and way above my head I spied a roll—something I should’ve taken a swath of while I was still standing, not now while squatting. But we live and learn and hope we remember our vacation lessons for the next time. (And we’re grateful for the Kleenexes in our purses, if we’re lucky enough to have them.)

We strolled along Chania’s harbor, the wind ruffling our hair and jackets. The Greek poet Homer praised Crete as the island that lies “out in the wine-dark sea… a rich and lovely sea-girt land, densely peopled, with 90 cities and several different languages.” And the ancient Minoans had lived right here, this present city built on their history, excavators and archeologists much later unearthing the layers of their lives.

We selected a lunch spot off one of the narrow streets. Our server, the only employee there, greeted us with a smile, indicating an outdoor table for us. We possessed two qualities of good tourists: hungry and open-minded, so we pointed to several dishes on the menu—whether we knew what we were getting into or not—since she didn’t speak English.

The woman repeated the name of each item we tapped on. She ended with one more. “Staka,” she said, nodding.

“No,” Murphy said, shaking her head and waving a hand. “No staka. Thank you.”

The server disappeared with our order. She set to work cooking it all herself and returned with fries, pita bread, fried zucchini, tzatziki, salad—and staka.

As we tasted the staka—a Cretan roux dish made from eggs and goat milk fat—we hadn’t ordered, the word serendipity bloomed in my mind. Maybe the best vacations are the ones strewn with delicious mistakes like this one. 

In Rethymno for dinner that night, we drove to a restaurant Dosia recommended when I had asked her earlier where we could find falafel.

“What’s that?” she said at first.

Wasn’t falafel a staple here? It had been almost impossible to find. Or was it more Middle Eastern than Mediterranean? I described to Dosia the chickpea balls, fried in oil.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her face brightening. She wrote down the name of falafel in Greek, so we could show it to the server, and in English letters for us too: revitho keftedes.

We feasted on delicious meats, courgette balls, garlicky mashed potatoes, and more, at the Taverna Zisi. Falafel, however, was nowhere to be found.

Back at the timeshare, the jacuzzi sat in frigid stillness. Stathis was gone for the day. Instead, a man named Thomas worked the desk, his English scant. Maybe we could remedy the hot tub situation ourselves without disrupting him.

Adonis, Husband, and I poked at a few buttons on the tub, to no avail.

Thomas appeared next to us. He might have confronted us about our tinkering with the tub. He certainly said something about it—maybe that it needed time or fixing or to be left alone. Confused, we nodded and left the cold water for our warm beds.


The next morning, Husband and Adonis talked to Stathis about the situation.

“Could we get the water in the hot tub warmed up for tonight?” Husband asked.

“I know what you did last night,” the man said, a finger raised. Thomas must have reported our previous evening’s troubleshooting. “You tell us when you want to use it. Give us thirty minutes to heat it for you.”

On our trip to Patsos Gorge, I imagined us regaling one another that evening with stories of our hike while sitting in a steaming jacuzzi, thanks to Stathis. Wild thyme jutted from the ditches on our drive, and goats and sheep speckled the kilometers of the roadside along the way while we noshed on two popular kinds of potato chips: BBQ (which tasted like Chicken in a Biskit crackers in the United States) and oregano-flavored chips.

We parked the car and hiked a few minutes from the trailhead into the gorge where we spied a church in a cave—a hermitage with candles, pictures of holy men, and crutches left behind from miracle healings. A wooden bridge over a stream, jagged cliffs, and a distant waterfall graced our explorations.

We wandered into the Taverna Drimos at the trailhead, a huge establishment—chilly inside and void of humanity, except for us—with many long wooden tables and benches to accommodate all the visitors who would come later in the season. A couple of employees emerged from the back to check on us. On the bar, shot glasses circled the obligatory bottle of raki, but next to it was something new: a pistol.

I recalled what I read in the Crete 2019 issue of the travel magazine Greece Is back at the timeshare—how the men of old would settle their vendettas by exchanging lead. Nektarios, a coffee shop owner on Crete, interviewed for the article, said something about the custom of sasmos (the settlement of disputes by an elder rather than a judge) and a gun-friendly mentality still prevalent among the mountain folk.

With more of Crete to see, we climbed back into the car. Little roadside shrines—miniature cross-topped churches on poles by the side of the road—marked the mountainous way we navigated on our route to the Libyan Sea. Those markers, sometimes containing religious paraphernalia, serve to remind survivors of their loved ones lost at their automobile crash sites.

Goats and sheep—and their shepherds, this time—also decorated our drive to southern Crete. Once there, we drank in the tranquility of the Preveli Monastery, and numerous cats sashayed by, some brave enough to rub up against us. A small fenced-in area of kri-kri, a Cretan ibex or goat, belonging to the monks, lay thirty feet below us beyond a sprawling Cypress tree.

Thoughts of the Coronavirus never far away, I squinted across the Libyan Sea toward Africa. We were far from home, and how would we get there now? I had read a quote from The Odyssey, and it chose that moment to spring to mind:

… still eager to leave at once and hurry back to your own home, your beloved native land? Good luck to you, even so. Farewell! But if you only knew, down deep, what pains are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore, you’d stay right here…

Say it wasn’t so.


*Tune in next week for the next installment of our Greece adventures. And now, more pictures.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The picture frames

I returned home one day to a stack of large framed pictures on the dining room table, all new to me. I picked through the pile.

Mr. Neighbor in a graduation cap and gown.

Mr. Neighbor and his wife.

Mr. Neighbor in a cowboy hat, a heavy gold chain circling his neck, his clip-on sunglasses flipped up over regular lenses so we could see his eyes smiling too.

Someone had printed the pictures on regular paper. Horizontal lines streaked through the one of Mr. N and his wife, evidence of a printer’s ink running low.

“What’s all this?” I called out to anyone within earshot.

Husband entered the room. “Mr. N brought them out to me in the truck when I got home today.”

Who gives away framed 8 x 10s of themselves? Dread stirred something in my gut. “Why?”

Husband shrugged. “Just wanted us to have them, I guess.”

“People don’t usually give away framed pictures,” I said, “unless they’re dying.”

“I doubt he is.”

I pictured Mr. N wiped from his house, this neighborhood, this life. Tears bubbled at the corners of my eyes. Ours had been a strange relationship. What started out as Mr. N’s animosity towards us in 2004 had shifted in 2010 because of a simple card—our Christmas card—I had delivered to him with some cookies. Warming to us after that, the man had tuned in to our comings and goings, memorizing all of our names and the girls’ ages, and volunteered to help when he saw a project in progress, like the construction of our bocce ball court out front. He even asked my permission to call me Tam.  

“I’m just going to ask him.” I strode to the front door and stepped into flip-flops. “And I don’t really care what he thinks.”

I made a beeline across the street to Mr. N’s place and rapped on the door. Voices inside. Almost a minute passed. I knocked again. The thud of footsteps. A click of the deadbolt. The door opened.

Mr. N stood in the doorway, looking distracted like he usually did, a brown cigarette pinched between his lips. As usual too was the dark interior of his house. Did he ever open the curtains or turn on a light? He nodded hello, removing his smoke and exhaling a plume above our heads.

“I can put this out,” he said, looking past me.

I waved away his offer. “I just came over to thank you for the nice pictures.”

“Well, you gave me your Christmas card in 2010. And every year after that. Remember?”

Of course I did. He wouldn’t let me forget. “Well, yeah.”

“I’ve kept them all. Wanna see?” He glanced at me, then looked into the distance again. “Because I’ll show you right now.” He thumbed the air behind him like I didn’t believe him and he needed to prove it.

“No, I’m good.” I smiled. “I’m just wondering about those pictures you gave us. It’s a big gesture.” How could I politely ask if he was dying? I frowned. “Are you not long for this world, Mr. N?”

He dragged his gaze from everything else around me and zeroed in on my face like my question annoyed him. “Nothing like that. My colonoscopy was clear and the doc said my lungs are good. He can’t believe I’ve smoked for forty-seven years.”

A movement behind him. His thirty-three-year-old son, Ricky, stepped into his shadow and stayed there, maybe hoping to hide so he could overhear the conversation. He was stouter than Mr. N, though, and his borders poked out beyond the older man’s.

I leaned around Mr. N. “Is that you back there, Ricky?”

“Yeah.” The young man mumbled the word, still keeping back.

“I’ve been meaning to write you all a letter,” Mr. N said, taking a drag.

“Oh?”

“Because I have things to say to you.”

“Okay.” Curiosity pricked me—suspicion too—but the Mr. N of 2019 was not the Mr. N of 2004, a man given to muddled accusations he’d hurl at us from his property across the street. His incoherent rants at us all those years ago only lasted a few weeks before the police cars and EMT crew came, strapped Mr. N to a gurney, and whisked him away.

“Or we can all sit out there sometime,” he said, nodding toward the picnic table in his front yard, “and I can tell you what I want to say.”

“Our place works too,” I said. “We’ve been meaning to have you over for pizza anyway.”

“I like pizza,” Ricky mumbled from the shadows.

“Oh, good,” I said, like I had suggested pickled herring and finally found a fan.

“So, you’re okay with a letter?” Mr. N said.

What was his grand pronouncement for us that needed either a visit or a letter? The suspense needled me. “Of course.”

“It’s about my feelings for your family.”

Good ones, I hoped. Ill-will didn’t normally allow someone to part with framed 8 x 10s, did it? “Well, whatever it is, we love you, Mr. N.” I leaned around the man again to catch a glimpse of his son. “And we love you, Ricky.”

A monotone response piped from the shadows. “Love you too.”

“Okay, looking forward to your letter,” I said, patting Mr. N’s arm, and turned to go.

Ricky stepped out of hiding. “Maybe I can find a picture for you too.”


Two days later, someone thumped on our front door, rattling the house. I plucked the curtains back for a look. Ricky.

I opened the door, smiling at our visitor. “How are you?”

“Good,” he said, pushing a picture frame and letter at me. “Here.”

The letter was from Mr. N, written in blue ink on lined notebook paper, and the frame held a photo of Ricky, a woman, and a toddler of about eighteen months—possibly the cutest kid ever.

“This is really nice.” I touched the picture. “Tell me about them.”

“That’s my baby mama and my daughter.” He said their names and tapped on the frame’s glass, pointing to his girl. “She’s twelve now.”

“Twelve already?” While Ricky lived with Mr. N, I hadn’t seen any kids coming or going from his house. Questions stacked in my mind, but I let them stay there.

“I might be getting visitation soon.” His eyes gleamed with hopes and wishes. What story wrapped around his life as he lived in the shadows of his father’s house?

“This picture makes my day,” I said. “Are you sure I can keep it?”

He nodded like he was trying to shake a hat from his head and it wasn’t coming off.

I clutched the picture to my chest. “I’ll take good care of it.”


Back inside, I read the letter from Mr. N. The full page of writing was error-free, his printing impeccably neat. Had he written and rewritten it until each letter stood resolute?

He delivered the backstory of how he wished he could’ve bought Christmas, birthday, and graduation gifts for our girls while they grew up, but he and his wife decided it might not look good, and he didn’t want to seem like “a weird old man or worse.”

As Mr. N built his story about the gifts, my reading picked up speed, waiting for the big revelation he had alluded to in person. But the note ended like someone hitting stop to a movie right when it was getting good.

Did he say everything he meant to say? I looked at the ending. “I love you all,” it said.

Were those the words he tried to tell me in person without being able to say it? The ones he wanted to express while we sat at his picnic table or while we ate pizza together? Or was he only trying to tell us about gifts this whole time?

I reread the letter. No, the big sentiment rested in those final words.

“I love you all.”

And those words were everything.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Finished

A few years ago, The Lutheran Ambassador asked me to write a story about the women of Easter, based on the account in the Gospel of Mark, and so I did. They published it in April 2017, calling it “Mary at the cross and tomb.” I call it “Finished.”

Easter has come and gone, but I guess I’m just not over it. Like Mary Magdalene, I’ve seen too much.

Here’s the story…

*****

Jesus shifted on the iron spikes, and his head drooped. From a distance, my friends and I watched—and prayed. That morning, soldiers had shredded my Lord with their whips and strung him up on a cross to die, but now they laughed as if sharing a joke at the market instead of in this place where hell touched earth. My stomach roiled, and I took a deep breath to quell the nausea.  

Salome looped her arm around mine. “But he was going to be king.” Her features twisted, and she searched my face. “He can’t die, Mary. He can’t.”

Another Mary, the mother of James and Joses, peered at me, and her chin wobbled.

“Maybe we didn’t understand,” I said. “Maybe he knew something we didn’t. And it was better.” But my heart clenched like a fist, refusing to let go.

The one who is forgiven much, loves much.

Years earlier, I had loved nothing. My broken body had housed a shattered mind. Illnesses, accidents, and compulsions battered me. Once, I even thrashed into the flames of my cooking fire. Afterward, I writhed in the dirt in blistered skin; my hours melted into blackness.  

But then came Jesus. He rested his hand on me, calling out the seven demons that had tormented me.

“Mary Magdalene,” he said. And for the first time, my name had sounded like beauty. “It is finished.”

And it was.

The crowds at the cross scattered, exposing us women, huddled far from where the masses had jeered or sobbed. Many of Jesus’ followers had vanished too. But my heart anchored me to the soil. How could I leave my Lord to his pain when he had saved me from mine?

Jesus struggled against his nails and scanned the meager gathering. Then his gaze rested on me. Those eyes that had once seen through my affliction still saw me.

“It is finished,” he cried out.

The same words that had made me new.

His muscles twitched; his head slumped. The sky darkened, and although only mid-afternoon, shadows draped the body of my Savior. Jesus was gone.

A rich man named Joseph carried Jesus’ body to a tomb in his garden. Mary and I trailed him and hid behind a tree as we watched the man spread ointment and spices onto fresh linens. And then he wrapped our friend. The burial complete, Joseph heaved a stone into place to seal the entrance to the grave. Dusk was approaching; the Sabbath was near. And I had work to do.

I scurried home and scooped sweet spices into a bowl, my hands trembling. I thumbed away tears as I stirred. The day before, I had prepared the meal for Jesus’ supper in the upper room with his followers. If only I were mixing oil into the flour for bread tonight instead of oil with perfumes to anoint my friend’s body. If only I were roasting the lamb with thyme and rosemary instead of blending my tears with myrrh and aloes. If only I had known then what was to come.

On the first day of the week, I squinted at the early rays of light that sliced through the darkness of my house. The start of a new week without my Jesus. How would I live without him?

A knock at the door. I unlatched it. Mary and Salome stood outside, each holding a bowl. Grief had stripped their faces of color and rimmed their eyes with purple.

“I’m ready,” I said, my own bowl of spices cradled in one arm.

Gravel crunched under our sandals, and dew drenched the hems of our tunics as we trudged to the garden.

“Oh no,” said Salome. “How will we anoint his body? Remember the stone? It’s too big for us.” A sob jostled her words. “Who will move it?”

I inhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t know.”

Mary gripped her bowl in both hands. She stared into the distance, her mouth a straight line.

In the garden, the crocuses exploded in yellow and the hyacinths in pink. White narcissus curled around our path. Where were these flowers two days ago? Or had our sadness hidden them? They bloomed now—the bougainvillea as profuse as forgiveness and the lilies as fragrant as hope. 

We neared the grave. But what was that up ahead?

I gasped. “The stone’s already been moved.”

I hurried into the tomb, and my friends followed. A young man, in a robe whiter than light, sat inside. Salome shrieked. My heart hammered, and my bowl clattered onto the stone floor, spilling the spices. Terror clawed its way up my throat. Mary splayed a hand over her mouth.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the young man. “You’re looking for Jesus who was crucified. But he’s not here. He’s risen.” He stood and gestured toward the door. “Go and tell his disciples.”

My friends and I clambered from the tomb and scrambled back onto the path. We clutched the fabric of our skirts and ran. Blinded by joy, we forgot all about our tear-soaked beds, our morning’s task at the tomb, and the spices we had abandoned somewhere along the way.

Because it didn’t matter anymore.

Your quarantine virtual scrapbook

Last week, reader, I invited you to send me photos from your life in quarantine. Thank you for these submissions, everyone; I loved the glimpses into your days at home.

*****

Me, Armanda, keeping abreast of this pandemic! Trusting God for protection and a cure.

Armanda, Saint Paul, Minnesota

*****

Scenes from home.

I’m also sorting and throwing old college materials—student letters, grade books, etc.

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

Ann, Minneapolis Riverfront, Minnesota

*****

Here’s Darci and me playing the card game, Hand and Foot.

Jim, eastern Washington

*****

Finding a kite when cleaning out the garage… and thankful God gave us a windy day.

Kilee, Maple Grove, Minnesota

*****

My new administrative assistant is very needy and doesn’t know how to type, but the therapy he provides during conference calls is all I need to get through the stressful day.

Karyn, Mounds View, Minnesota

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The quarantine virtual scrapbook

Hi there, reader!

Want to exchange pictures of life in quarantine? Send me one or more of yours (with short descriptions of each), and I’ll publish them in next week’s blog installment. (Include your city and state too, please.) Subscribers, hit reply to this email to submit your photos. Other readers, send yours here.

Here are some of our family’s stay-at-home pictures. Enjoy!


The phone call

I frittered away yesterday in my bathrobe.

I had ample time to write today’s blog, but instead I listened to the governor’s new executive order and watched reruns of Dharma and Greg while sampling four kinds of potato chips. (Note: Lay’s Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle flavor wins.)

Enjoy this blog post from a simpler time when news of the worst pestilence ever came from the nurse’s office at school.

*****  

They say 84% of our fears never come true. That leaves a 16% chance they’re well-founded.

In late April of 2009, I had just finished coordinating the gala fundraiser for arts programming at the girls’ school. While there was plenty to do to tie up loose ends, the biggest pressure was off, and I was living in the gleaming satisfaction of having completed a monumental job.

One day, which began like any other, I scurried the girls off to school and then attacked my to-do list: call gala patrons who had left the event before learning they had won art in the silent auction, update the list of final bids, and make sure all the event rental places got their items back.

As I sipped my coffee between tasks, the phone rang.  

“Hi, Mom,” Flicka said, her voice low. “I’m in the nurse’s office.”

My mind rushed to the last time I had gotten a call from the nurse’s office. Then, the nurse told me Ricka—a kindergartner at the time—had taken a spill on the playground and split her chin open, she undoubtedly needed stitches, and could I take her to the ER right now? When I picked up Ricka from school that day, her shirt was soaked with blood, but it didn’t alarm me. I was calm on the drive to the ER and cool during the six stitches. Today’s call, however, felt different.

“Hi, honey,” I said, wary. “You didn’t throw up, did you?”

“I have lice.”

My mouth dried. My heart thudded. Of all the maladies announced by the school nurse on those sheets of paper traveling home by backpack—strep throat, impetigo, pink eye, scabies—head lice was my biggest fear and the pestilence I dreaded most.

“Okay,” I said, quelling my panic. “I’ll come and get you.”

I thought head lice was something the school was supposed to keep on the down-low to protect the victim’s identity, but when I arrived in the main office, the nurse came out of her room to show me—in front of a handful of onlookers—exactly what to look for, picking through Flicka’s hair right there. And in that moment I cared more about the information than my pride. I needed the knowledge ASAP. I was a rapt student, but while I could see the adult lice all right, I couldn’t see the nits she pointed out with a toothpick.

I took Flicka home, called Husband to share the news, and his reaction mirrored mine. Next, I phoned my sister. She had been there before, and she had some leftover products and a good lice comb I could have.

“Do you want me to check you too?” she said when I got to her house.

“I suppose.”

She picked through my hair. “Uh oh.”

“No!”

“Yeah. And you better check everyone else in the family too.”

I left feeling hopeless—and itchy. Husband got home early, and I checked him. He already had a case of the crankies—and now this. I checked Ricka and Dicka too. We all had the scourge, and the job ahead of us seemed insurmountable.

I devoured information online, shuddering through a delousing video or two, boiled all the brushes and hair supplies in the house, and then tackled the job on the girls’ heads—spending an hour on each—praying my novice eye would detect everything. I spent time on Husband’s head too, but since no one else in the family had the eye for it, I did what I could on myself and hoped for the best.

We started The Big Eradication. We bagged up every stitch of bedding and clothing in the house—whether we had worn it in the last month or not. The stuffed animals that weren’t washable got bagged up for the prescribed two weeks to starve the intruders. A hot dryer was a good thing, I read, so we lugged the twenty-eight garbage bags of laundry outside, heaved them into the truck, and sped off to a laundromat. As I watched countless loads swirling around in the industrial washers, my scalp crawled. The mental torture is the worst thing about a case of head lice; you’re never quite sure you got them all. And your dreams are haunted by that likelihood.

I sprayed the furniture with a special lice pesticide when we got home—something I learned later was overkill. In fact, much of what I did was overkill. But what else to do when stuck with the proverbial Old Maid card for the first time?

I wish I could say our first confrontation with head lice was our last, but our kids go to school with other children. And they’re girls with clean, silky hair head lice loves and a penchant for hugging their friends and having sleepovers. The second time the little buggers hit our house, I panicked again.

“’You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness’,” I said, delivering Psalm 91 in funereal solemnity over Flicka’s head while picking through her hair.

But while extracting nits, I had an epiphany. If “the arrow that flies by day” was the neighborhood’s gunfire, then “the pestilence that stalks in the darkness” was what I was trying to banish from my girls’ heads. The second terrified me more.

Wide-eyed, Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka watched my meltdown without a word. Before I went into full hyperventilation mode, though, I caught myself.

“Girls,” I said and took a deep breath, putting down the fine-toothed comb. “Let’s all calm down here. We’ll get through this thing together. No need to panic.”

They burst out laughing; my preaching was meant for just me.

I struggled for balance. Should I let my girls have friends, or cut them off from human contact to protect us all from further infestations? As it was, I had become obsessive and developed a hidden agenda when I hugged the kids: it was a good way to examine their scalps. And I subjected them to monthly head checks—for years. In the end, I allowed our girls the pleasure of companionship, and the unwelcome pests came back to visit more times than I could count on two hands. But I had developed a sharp eye for the critters and got their annihilation down to an efficient system.

Eventually, worn down by life and lice, I made peace with the possibility of the unwanted bugs. And I learned an important lesson: the 16% of our fears that actually happen aren’t really so bad after all.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Baby Leon

Husband and I returned from Greece on March 17. While we were away for eight days, the world flipped upside-down. Now in self-quarantine, I’m mulling over life and COVID-19 news.

Do you need a distraction today as much as I do? If so, here’s a story—from a few years ago—I haven’t told you yet.

*****

My girl Dicka and I enter the family’s living room in the cramped upstairs apartment in that old house on Fremont, and Monique motions toward the couch, inviting us to sit. We settle into it, the smell of stale cigarettes wafting from the cushions’ fabric. I curtail a grimace. What’s worse? The smell of cigarette smoke, thick in the air and permeating our clothes, or the heat of the place, which probably hovers around eighty degrees?

I gaze at my surroundings. Who all lives here? Monique points out a few relatives, but some others, whom she doesn’t label, mill around in the tiny kitchen too. When I answered the urgent needs request to care for her baby for a couple of weeks, Safe Families for Children informed me of the place where we would pick him up. The address startled me—only five blocks from our house. The roads today, crusted with snow the plows have yet to scrape clean, make me want to stay in, but this pick-up situation—so close to home—is an easy one.

From the couch, Dicka and I have a split view of two rooms: the kitchen where two people sit at a small Formica table, crushing out one spent cigarette after another into an ashtray like it’s a contest, and the bedroom where Monique pulls together little Leon’s clothing for his stay with us. The ten-month-old baby is planted on the bed like Buddha, facing his mama while she packs, naked except for his diaper. His hair is a dark mass, curling now from perspiration.

“He’s huge,” Dicka whispers, wrinkling her nose. “Huge and sweaty.”

The place vibrates with activity and noise, but I keep my voice low anyway. “I think he’s kind of cute.”

Leon flaps his arms while this three older brothers—all under five years old—buzz around the cramped apartment with a light saber, a truck, and a ball. They zip through the bedroom, hooting and shouting, where their mama works.

“You get out of here now, you hear me?” Monique hollers at them, swatting one of them on the back side as he runs by, and the group of them bolts from the room.

As we wait, the heat and smoke roil my stomach. Soon, we’ll be back outside in December’s cruel wind, but at least we’ll breathe new air. I’ll have this baby in my arms too then—this little one we promised to take care of for the next two weeks. The mama and daddy will use their freer time to do some apartment hunting while they stay with extended family members in this house.

A few details about Monique’s situation warm me. There’s a man in her life, the father of their four children. He’s a good man, from the sounds of it, committed to the mother of his kids, and holds a steady custodial position at the Twins stadium.

Monique leaves Leon sitting on his wide base on the bed while she lugs two brimming bags of baby clothing out to the living room and drops them at my feet. “This should be enough.”

The moms are always generous with their packing—except for the mother of our first set of twins. Those babies came to us in one set of diapers and the onesies on their bodies—no extras—and we scrambled to gather more for them. Monique gives us enough for Leon to stay a month.

She saunters into the kitchen to collect new and partly used cans of formula. She returns and pokes them into one of the bags at my feet.

“I put a few diapers in there—that’s all I got—,” she says, “so I guess he’ll need more. He wears size fours.”

“He’ll be good,” I say, waving away her concerns. “I have lots of diapers his size in my stash at home.”

I think of my diaper lady, a woman at church who works fulltime, but wants to support us in some way. She can’t host kids herself, but she plies me with diapers and the specific kinds of formula needed for the babies. Every time I eye the stack of size fours shelved in our basement, I see her commitment. And every time I watch the milk drain from a bottle as I feed a baby in the night, I see her love.

“I bet you were on the road a long time today,” Monique says. “Was it slow coming in from the suburbs?”

For a number of reasons, all wrapped around safety, the organization counsels us host families to give the parents our contact numbers, but never to tell them where we live. Monique sizes me up as a suburban lady.

“It was no big deal.” I smile. “Really a quick trip.”

If she only knew how quick. If she only knew I lived in the inner city, just like her, and only five blocks from where she now prepares her baby for his stay with our family.  

I mull over Monique’s words. What makes her assume I’m a suburban woman? Does she judge me by my externals? Do I judge her by hers? We humans do that kind of thing, making assumptions about life and those around us—not knowing much of anything until we listen.

Monique dresses Leon in the bedroom, totes him out to the living room, and plunks him into my lap. He feels like a twenty-five pounder; no doubt my arms will be stronger after his stay. He flashes me a broad grin, and dimples skewer his cheeks.

I smile at Dicka, grateful for her presence; I need the extra arms for the baby and all his bags of clothes. Monique follows us out to the car, and Leon’s dad pulls up in front of the place—freshly home from work—and climbs out of his vehicle. He joins us, buckles his youngest son into the car seat in the back of my Honda, and smooches the baby’s head.

The two young parents wave goodbye as I drive away from the curb with one of theirs, maybe imagining I’ll care for their baby in a world far from their own. I think about Monique, looking at my skin, my clothes, and making guesses about my life. And I contemplate what I think I know about her too.

Underneath our differences, does she know we’re alike?

Do I?

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Patience

Much has changed since I wrote and posted this blog in 2016. For one, I now have more drivers in the house. Two, in the past year I’ve repainted the girls bedrooms white, the new hot color—if white can be called a color. But I digress…

Enjoy!

*****

“Why didn’t you buy four bags instead of three?” My girl skewered me with a look in the checkout bagging area at IKEA. Her tone had an edge that cut me right in the feelings.

I had spent the previous three days painting a sophisticated grey—the hot color choice of teens and tweens everywhere—over my girls’ pink, yellow, and turquoise bedroom walls. And that morning, I had doled out a chunk of money to each of my offspring, explaining they could spend the allotment for their bedrooms however they liked at IKEA. Before the shopping trip—while everyone was in good spirits—I had announced the ground rules, promising to dock any gripers $5 per complaint. So help me if they’re not grateful after all I’ve done, I had thought while counting out the cash into their hands.

But it had been one of those weeks, and now this, with something as silly as an IKEA bag.

I leveled my gaze at my girl, my voice as smooth as the Svenbertil chair I had seen on display. “I made a mistake. I bought three bags for our stuff—and not four. We’ll figure it out.”

But she craved the final say, and disrespectfulness waltzed in with her words. I bit my tongue and shoved our cart of purchased goods into a corner near the elevator to the parking ramp. I crammed every last item—bedding, pillows, lamps, and curtains—into a couple of the blue bags to make the point that two bags could hold everything. In fact, three was superfluous, I hoped to demonstrate with my vigorous stuffing.

“Why are you in such a hurry, Mom?” my lovely asked.

I drove the cartload into the open elevator—wishing Husband had been with me—vowing I’d leave with or without my people. But somehow the three girls picked up the pace and scooted into the Honda before I peeled out of the parking lot. I tromped on the gas and clamped my mouth shut. Silence blared from the back seat, and maybe eyes widened too, but I didn’t care enough to look back.

I turned my thoughts to the past months. Besides the recent room painting, I had poured much of my energy into the girls and their pursuits, driving them—and their friends—anywhere at any time for sports commitments and friend engagements. Their requests echoed through my thoughts: So-and-so only has a bus pass, so could we drive her home since it’s -12 degrees? When you take me to so-and-so’s, could we pick up Friend A and Friend B first since they live near us? And can they get a ride home too? I’ll text you when we’re ready, since I don’t know a time right now. Oh, and can I get $15 for food after school and money for the game?

I had gotten a breezy thank-you here or there—from my own darlings and their friends—tossed to me like pieces of junk mail. Reality hit me in the gut: I was a free ride and a wallet, and nothing more.

In the previous weeks, I had told myself lies about my girls’ friends: Maybe their parents don’t have cars—or driver’s licenses—and they work 24-7 to put food on the table. Or maybe these kids don’t have parents at all and live a kind of Pippi Longstocking lifestyle, fending for themselves and their pet monkeys.

But my thoughts on the drive home from IKEA distracted me, and by accident, I took the Terminal 1 exit to the airport instead of the 55/Hiawatha exit to Minneapolis. Really? I looped around, inching along behind people loading and unloading their luggage at baggage claim—drumming my fingers on the steering wheel—before I finally got back onto the freeway home.

Later, I texted my friend: Wanna run away with me? No one will know I’m gone. Wait. Maybe they’ll notice after all. They won’t have their taxi service.

She texted back: I’ve wanted to run away for years. Or go on strike. I’ve read about those moms who stop doing EVERYTHING and stand outside with their signs. I’ve considered it.

Later in the day, I drove two of my girls to their sports practices.

“So-and-so needs a ride home,” one of them said me. “Is that okay?”

I exhaled. “Sure. It’s on our way.”

After practice, my kid and her friend jumped into the car.

“Could she have a sleepover at our place tonight?” my girl asked me, her face eager.

“No.” Then I yanked my politeness back out of the glove compartment and smiled into the back seat at her friend. “It’s always fun to have you over, but we have a family day tomorrow. Another time?”

I deposited the girl at her house, and then turned to my kid. “Honey, don’t ask me things like that in front of your friends. It makes me look bad when I say no.”

“Sorry, Mom.” She looked down at her hands, and my close companion, Guilt, elbowed me.

On the drive, I contemplated life and my job as a chauffeur. I could say no, I told myself. I could lay down an “Absolutely not!” to driving everyone anywhere at any time. But then at 9:30 p.m., another one of my girls texted from her friend’s house: Could we give Friend C a ride home? If not, that’s okay. She can take the bus.

Sure, I texted back.

But before I could get her, I had to retrieve the other girl from practice and see that her two friends got home safely. Tired from the IKEA day and the endless driving, I pulled up to my last stop. My daughter scurried out to the car, along with Friend C who wore pajama pants. And she had thought she could take the bus? It was too cold at -5 degrees to be in thin flannel; I drove her home and rubbed my temples as I watched her unlock her door. She waved to us before entering her house.

At last, we made the day’s final trip home. Once inside, the girls disappeared to their bedrooms. I fixed a cup of tea and made a beeline for the bathroom. While I filled the bathtub, I selected the Mr. Mister station on Pandora—my go-to for self-soothing—and cranked up the volume. At last, I stepped into the tub and sank into the steaming water.

Toto crooned, Not quite a year since she went away, Rosanna. Now she’s gone and I have to say…

She’s gone! Toto had said so. How depressing. Big drops of self-pity plopped into my bathwater.

Meet you all the way, meet you all the way, Rosanna…

So even the Toto guy covered the driving, it sounded like. I bawled some more and reached for my mug of tea. I reclined and listened to Journey’s “Only the Young” and Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” And then I stopped my blubbering.

Exhausted from days of painting and home improvements? First world problems. Feeling put upon for driving everyone to kingdom come—and back—by my own choice? Child’s play. Feeling unappreciated for being the mom? An issue as old as time.

Then I thought of many in the neighborhood around me—mourning, struggling, freezing, hungry, lonely. All of them had worse things to deal with than fresh paint, new bedding from IKEA, and having three healthy girls to drive around the city. And I also thought of the characters from my favorite book who had been flogged, stoned, tortured, imprisoned, and mistreated. All of them had shown patience in suffering.

Patience.

My reactions to the day had been less than commendable; my attitude, stinky. And the fruit of my patience sat rotten in its bowl.

I sighed and pulled myself out of the bathtub. Tomorrow would be a new day.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The high heels

The world around us is strewn with evidence.

I’m no detective, but when I see strange objects scattered around my life, I want the backstories. Like that positive pregnancy test ditched in our alley years ago, a pair of men’s boxer shorts discarded near it. What happened there? Curiosity ignited me, but there was nothing I could do about it—except scoop up the clues and drop them into the garbage bin.

Abandoned shoes fascinate me, and sometimes those vestiges of an exciting night appear on the street in front of our house. If only our security cameras could catch the entire drama behind what turns a full pair into a hapless single in the span of one evening.

I return home one day to something glinting on the sidewalk in front of our house. A pair of plastic silver stilettos—their heels so high I almost sprain my ankle looking at them—hangs out sans owner near our front steps. Two matching shoes? Together? Usually at some point in the night, one shoe divorces its partner. But this? Their strong marriage in the face of adversity is refreshing.

I crouch to examine the mystery. One heel looks like it skidded a ways on the pavement before it chose to spend the night at our place, and the other one stayed with it. Sweet, really. But what became of its human? Those shoes’ feet had landed somewhere, and they were worse off than Cinderella’s—a crazy night behind them with no souvenirs to keep.

Usually found mementos from soirees take a walk around the house and head straight for our garbage can in the alley, but not this time. I pluck the shoes off our walk and carry them inside the house. I dab them with a Clorox wipe. My friend calls heels this high “curb shoes.” They were never meant for walking. To wear a shoe of this height, you need your honey to drop you off at the curb of the establishment before he parks the car.

“You’re keeping them?” Flicka says, watching me swipe away the dirt.

“Yeah, what?” Ricka says with a smirk.

“Well, no,” I say.

Dicka laughs. “Can I try them on?”

I hand them over, and she does. They’re too big for her size sevens, but she takes a spin in them anyway. She clomps around like they’re play shoes. Next is my turn.

I slip them on. I’m no stranger to high heels of many heights and have put in the hours so I can walk naturally in them. Still, these plastic creatures trip me up as I take a lap around the living room rug.

A picture of the shoes’ owner flashes into my mind. A stereotypical picture of someone who would wear stilettos like these—and lose them.

They’re uncomfortable, these shoes, but that’s not what I notice next.

I notice they’re size nines. My size.

A famous quote wings through my brain now—an urgent reminder—and I see how little I know.

I couldn’t walk a mile in these shoes, but maybe I should try.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

A garden

This blog installment of mine from May 2017 plays in my mind as I wake up today in the beginning of Lent. It’s all because of a garden—a particular garden—at the beginning of time.

And here we are.

*****

The rain streak just ended. No more excuses.

The grass is bushy now and as tangled as my thoughts; I can think straighter when the lawn is cut. Other people have already planted their splashy annuals and lovely perennials, but not me. Yet.

I break free of my eternal captors—the calendar and the clock, the deadlines and the doing—and head out to the back yard. With hands on my hips, I survey what winter concealed. New green things poke up from the flower beds—some desirable, others not so much.

I imagine how it used to be when The Gardener planted the garden in the east, in Eden, and in the cool of the day strolled through its lushness with the world’s first people. They were all friends back then—back before weeds and pesticides, suicide and depressed kids, CT scans and chemo. Before the dirt in our jeans and the stains in our souls.

I sigh now because of The Incident in that ancient garden. It happened too soon, and the rift between The Gardener and humanity has left a mark. The cosmic divorce was as messy as they come. And along with all the other groanings, we sweat and dig harder into the earth to make pretty things emerge. Not like before The Break-Up when beauty came easy.

A pool of light warms my dog Lala, slabbed out on the pavement, her nose twitching for information about her surroundings even as she dozes. And the scene reminds me all is not lost. The Son shone on the ancient garden too—even after The Split—promising us a future garden, if we want it.

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

It started in a garden, and it ends in a garden. But for now, I work the soil while I wait.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Curb appeal

At a house one block away, the grass looked like turf instead of something real, and diagonal lines ran through the weed-free growth, evidence of a meticulous mower. I had never seen anyone—neither living there nor working in the yard—but I imagined an elderly homeowner loving the lawn so much, he or she even used the kind of long-handled dandelion remover I’d seen advertised in home improvement store fliers. Cheery flower pots squatted on each side of the orange front door, colorful blossoms trailing from them. But this yard, bursting with curb appeal, was an exception in the neighborhood.

Attractiveness of a person’s residential property, as viewed from the street, matters, is the message we hear everywhere. If the outside is pretty enough, it may lure someone inside to take a look—and pay more for the place—if it’s for sale.

Two blocks away, Doris’s yard suffered. She appeared to be a collector of things, and maybe those things were claustrophobic, because they broke out of her house and spilled onto her lawn like they needed fresh air. A tipped over antique milk can, rumpled chicken wire, wood crates, a portion of an old wood fence, garden tools, and a bent screen door all lay in her back yard, the lawn jutting up like prairie grass around it all.

If a realtor rolled by, they would’ve cringed at Doris’s property. They would’ve advised her to freshen up her trim with several coats of paint, swap out her rusty mailbox for something new, and replace her damaged walk with new cement. But those things didn’t happen.

What did happen was Doris’s hard work in Mr. N’s yard day after day. She raked leaves, worked the weed trimmer, and mowed his lawn instead of her own, droplets of sweat rising on the mottled skin of her cheeks. I’d come out of our house and head to the car, and she’d set down whatever tool she was using and stroll toward me.

“How are those sweet girls of yours?” she said one time, dabbing her face with her sleeve.

“They’re good.” I abandoned thoughts of going where I needed to go and crossed the street to be closer to her. “They talk about you whenever they see you over here. They love you, Doris.”

She didn’t respond to my last sentence, but her face reddened, so I knew she heard it.

For the big holidays, Doris dropped off gifts for the girls on our doorstep: trinkets and candy in sparkly bags, plastic pumpkins, and heart-shaped boxes. So, who cared about the condition of her yard? We didn’t. Her life, like a delicious fragrance, scented our neighborhood.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Doris is gone now, but her actions stay lodged in our memories.

So, what if we turned our gazes inside out to see the goodness of the homeowner who rescues dogs, letting them rip up her back yard while they play? What if we overlooked the mess to see the generous parent who throws a party for kids who shriek in delight as they club a piñata in the front yard? What if we switched our focuses away from pretty façades and instead judged houses by the kindness inside them?

What if we looked at the heart too?

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The ducks

I take the France Avenue exit off Highway 100 North and turn right, pointing the Honda toward home. Gone are the days of ice and snowy road conditions; now my attention is tuned in to the avid bikers and outdoorsy children of summer who might enter my path.  

A flock of ducks hops onto the street up ahead. I press the brake pedal, stopping the vehicle for the winged pedestrians. A car coming from the opposite direction rolls to a stop too. Like me, the other driver, a woman, watches the spontaneous parade, and she and I swap grins as our entertainment waddles by.

The mama duck, strutting with purpose, leads her family across France Avenue. Her small ones have grown, and here they are, medium-sized—a bunch of teenagers, from the looks of it—but still content to follow her. And I think of my own teens, no longer the littles who once clutched my shirt hem as we crossed streets together—still my followers too.

In the middle of the road, the mama duck jumps.

Did a sound startle her? Or does she sense danger, realizing now the two cars so close to her family? She halts in the center of the street, swivels to face her progeny, and hustles them all back the way they came. Her teens—the compliant type—bob along behind her, retracing their steps.

I laugh. The lady in the other car and I exchange looks, and she laughs with me. We’re witnesses to the cutest impromptu show of the summer, and from her expression, she thinks it too.

The moment glides by—probably forty seconds in all—but I flip the events of that feathered crossing around in my brain even now in the sub-zero temps of winter.

A mama leading her teens to safety. A stranger enjoying a laugh with me. Nature pausing my busy day to delight me.

Sometimes the small things are big.  

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Belonging

The phone call went to voicemail. Again. Three times trying to reach Sheena—the mother of Latika, the one-year-old baby girl we had hosted—and still nothing.

My girls and I waited in the car behind Sheena’s high rise in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, baby Latika in her car seat. It was the last day of the hosting, and Sheena had agreed to meet us in the parking lot, so we could return Latika to her. Because of her health condition, it would’ve been too taxing for Sheena—who didn’t own a car—to walk to meet us at the Safe Families for Children office nestled deeper into the downtown.

I dialed her number one more time. Still no answer.

Latika squawked, protesting the extra time in her car seat. My girl Dicka bounced a stuffed animal in the baby’s face, tapping it to her nose every few seconds.  

I checked my cell phone again. “Girls, it’s been twenty minutes. Let’s go in and find her.”

I carried the baby, and the girls toted her things to the building’s back door—the one we had seen Sheena use—right near our parked car. When a tenant emerged, we slipped in. Once inside, I scanned the place for a directory. Nothing. And the access door to the apartments was locked.

“Let’s head back out and around to the front,” I said. “We shouldn’t have come in this way.”

We exited and trudged around the building with Latika and her possessions. We passed a bus stop, swarming with people, but when a bus hissed to a halt, no one got on. Instead, all gazes zeroed in on us.

Inside the front doors of the high rise, I spotted a directory. I clicked through it, trying to locate Sheena’s name. No success.

A broad-chested security guard hustled toward us, a gun in his holster. “I saw you on the cameras trying to come in the back, and I thought, ‘They don’t belong here.’” The man’s mouth flatlined. I caught a hint of a Brooklyn accent. “Who are you looking for?”

I blew a piece of hair out of my eyes and told him Sheena’s full name, shifting the baby to my other hip. “We’re a host family for Safe Families for Children, and we’re trying to return her baby to her.”

“Well, isn’t that sweet of you.” The corners of his mouth curved up slightly, warming his expression. “She’s got a bad deal with her health, poor lady.”

“I know.” I shot a look around the lobby. Even in the broad daylight, it was dim. The walls were dingy, the atmosphere tattered. People meandered around the room, pelting us with looks. A woman cooed at Latika.

“I’ll take you up to her.” The security guard flicked a finger for us to follow him, and he mashed a button on the wall. He eyed the lit numbers above the metal doors, and when they opened, he motioned us on first, then followed—and so did two other men, so tall their heads grazed the elevator’s ceiling. One of them tilted his ear to our conversation, glancing between the guard and me as we spoke. I furrowed my brow and steered the topic to trivial things.

We exited the elevator on Sheena’s floor. The security guard sauntered to her door and knocked. When she answered, he gestured for us to enter. I thanked him, and he disappeared around the corner.

Sheena closed the door behind us and plunked down onto a bed in the living room. The heat of the room blasted us. A can of something warmed in a pot on the stove. Boxes of medical equipment lined one wall.

I frowned. “Are you feeling okay?”

She waved away my question. “Oh, yeah.”

Maybe she thought she had to be brave for us. Or for herself. But was she too sick to answer her phone?

“Did you get my messages, Sheena?”

She took the baby from my arms. “Sometimes my phone acts up.”

I briefed her on a few things about our time with her baby, and before we left, the girls and I took turns planting kisses on the crown of Latika’s head.

When we stepped back into the hallway, I spied the security guard leaning against a wall. He joined us again. On our ride back down in the elevator—free from prying eyes this time—he handed me a slip of paper with some information scrawled on it.

“I’m Vince, the supervisor. If you come here again, call first.” He tapped a finger on the paper. “This is our security line. Ask for an escort to accompany you from the parking lot. Don’t come in on your own again.” His eyes sparked intensity, even though his voice was even. “This place is full of lowlifes. Dope dealers, you name it. You don’t belong here.”

And we had just left a baby there—with her ailing mother. Did they belong there?

“I’ll do what you say,” I said, leveling my gaze at Vince. “But I’m not afraid. I live in North Minneapolis.”

He darted a look at me, frowning. “You live on the Northside? Why?”

“Because we’re supposed to be there.”

Vince raised an eyebrow, bunched his lips to one side, and nodded. When our elevator ride ended, he walked us to our car in the parking lot. I got in and put the key in the ignition. Before backing out of my spot, though, I glimpsed Vince in the rearview mirror, my thoughts switching again to a baby and her sick mama. Unfortunate circumstances had tossed them away, and poverty—its appetite never satisfied—had devoured them.

Mine wasn’t a world of unmet needs or one of subsidized housing where a security guard worked overtime to keep me alive.

My heart twisted for Sheena because she—like the rest of us—belonged in a better place.

We were all meant for the bigger life. We were all created for more.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.