A Sort of Freedom

I was driving on the Northside, where it is always fun to people watch.  People from all over the world live on the Northside, alongside many whose families have been there forever.  It's such an interesting part of town.  An Italian deli that's been there forever might be next to a new Somali market.  Tattoo parlors are housed in buildings that look like a drugstore with a soda fountain should be in them instead.

And then I saw her.  A little old lady who in certain ways, did not look like an old lady at all.  Though she kind of hobbled, she still had that 1940's movie star sashay.  She was dressed in a perfectly pristine dress that was the height of fashion in the 1940's (well, judging by what Ingrid Bergman wore in Casablanca).  She had a scarf tied around her head to match her dress, just like Ingrid Bergman.  She had on big sunglasses and pumps that matched her handbag.  And she was smiling up into the sun as she sashayed/hobbled down the street, as if she were just so glad to be out on such a beautiful day. She totally pulled it off. I wanted to pull over and ask her to go grab a cup of coffee and with me and tell me about her life.

Do you ever wonder what you'll be like when you're that age? We don't like to think about being old.  It seems scary to acquire more wrinkles and sagging and less agility and mental capacity.  We fight to stay young.  We chase trends and dye our hair. There is a sort of freedom that comes in getting older, though, I suspect.  A permission to not diet or worry about cellulite.   A release from keeping up.  I'm starting to feel it.  And I like the deeper sense of who I am that is taking the place of worrying about stuff I spent way too much time worrying about when I was younger.

When I am that lady's age, I want to sashay down the street dressed up in the clothes that still make me feel good.  I have always wished I could pull of 1940's clothes because I think they are somehow still very chic.  But I can't now so I probably won't in my 70's. I hope I'm not trying to look like a teenager.  I also don't want to adopt the standard old lady wardrobe.  I wonder what I'll wear?  A bandana and t-shirt and cut-offs and canvas sneakers? Khakis and a button down collar shirt and loafers? (I am positive that's what my husband would be wearing: it's what he's been wearing since 1999.  But I would wear a cute little bright colored sweater around my shoulders too). A flowered tunic dress and sandals and a big floppy hat?

 I hope I'm smiling up at the sun, happy to be alive and about on such a beautiful day.

Blind Enough to See

 Some of the most rewarding things that have happened in my life have been the craziest - the ones I thought I might not make it through, or didn't want to do in the first place, or had others questioning my ability to make grown-up decisions.  This is the pep talk I'm giving myself this Sunday evening leading into yet another week at work I can't quite figure out how I will get through, but somehow will.  Truly though, it's that crazy stuff, not the house, the car, the degree, that had any success satisfying real soul thirst.

The project I am doing now has parts of it that make me want to mouth off or walk away.  But I also get this amazing privilege of hearing people's stories and their hopes of what their lives could be.  A husband dying in a refugee camp, the widow bravely starting life in a new country with 6 children alone. A young man's dreams of being a doctor thwarted by war and famine, but finding hope again of pursuing a medical career. If these people get good jobs and are able to finally find security, I can think of few things less wonderful to have been a part of.

Recently my children have been talking to me nonstop about fostering or adopting another child/children. They have been asking me what happens to kids who don't have families, who don't get adopted. They are especially interested in the plight of unaccompanied minor refugees, and with breathtaking honesty and purity, they explain that even if we are from a different culture, our family would be a nice place for a kid who doesn't have one.  "We could do it, Mom!" In my practical adult mind the math of us becoming a foster family doesn't add up.  But when I stuff down my adultness and come to the situation as a child, the same incredulous, "Why are we not doing this?!" is what I think too.

I told my husband about the kids' campaign, half expecting a long, back and forth conversation about pros and cons ending with "Let's think about this." Instead he responded with, "Why have we not started this process yet?"  I started to articulate a pros and cons list and was promptly silenced with  "Call your contact this week." The cons he began to pick off, like a sharpshooter, one by one.  

There's this song we sing at church that snotty me thinks is outdated and tired: "Open the eyes of my heart." The music starts and I inwardly groan and try to think up a new harmony to sing along with so it doesn't feel like torture.  My first grader, however, stands on her chair and sings it with all of her heart at the top of her lungs.  For the record, my first grader is the one with the open eyes and heart and can see God in things like bringing children who need families into ours.  The chances of me ever liking that song again perished sometime back in 2004, but I keep trying to think up new ways to express the prayer embedded in that irritating tune.  Like a mantra, I keep repeating its essence over and over as I prepare for the week: let me see clearly enough to make good decisions, but blind enough to trust the hand that guides me. Tough enough to shoulder what I need to carry, but soft enough to still be re-molded.