Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

a different mustard seed parable

Friends, here is a Mustard Seed parable for you to soak in. But probably not the one you already know. One of the hundreds of delicious little treasures I want to share with you from The Book of Joy is a new way to think of grief and how it connects us to each other.

This story is a Buddhist fable shared by the Dalai Lama. I’m just going to quiet the short paragraph directly from the book:

“A woman lost her child and was inconsolable in her grief, carrying her dead child throughout the land, begging for someone to help heal her child. When she came to the Buddha, she begged him to help her. He told him he could help her if she would collect mustard seeds for the medicine. She eagerly agreed, but then the Buddha explained that the mustard seeds needed to come from a home that had not been touched by death. When the woman visited each house in search of the mustard seeds that might heal her son, she discovered there was no house that had not suffered the loss fo a parent, or a spouse, or a child. Seeing that her suffering was not unique, she was able to bury her child in the forest and release her grief.”

It doesn’t have to be death, though that is a loss that will eventually unite all of us and possibly the one we all fear the most. I can easily think of several bright, terrifying moments of grief in my own life that have actually softened the more I looked around and saw that other people had lived through the same, or worse. Usually much worse. I bet you would agree.

Seeing that her suffering was not unique, she was able to release her grief.

There’s a lot of comfort available in a loving community. And if we can open up enough, there’s a lot of healing and learning that can happen too. How do people survive trauma? How do they make sense of tragedy? How do they cope, and how do they thrive despite their circumstances and mistakes?

In friendships where I feel comfortable sharing the darkest chapters of our family’s story, and when I can be steady-nerved enough to listen to other people’s darkest chapters, God always shows up. He always showers this peaceful, soothing veil over all the chaos and fear. He answers by reminding me that we are not alone. We are neither the first nor the last to be terrified, and His Love accomplishes actual miracles. 

Things are hardly ever as bad as they feel when we think we are alone. When we think our suffering is unique.

Relax a little, into some trusted community. Dare to open up to other people’s suffering, if only to realize how not unique your own suffering is. Then let all of that emotion turn into compassion. And let that compassion turn to hope. 

Check in again soon for more about community (Ubuntu, in the African tradition) and a couple of delicious mustard seed recipes. I wanted to include all of this together, but it’s just so much.

Happy Sunday friends. Thank you for checking in.

“A person is a person through other persons.”
~Archbishop Desmond Tutu
XOXOXO

 

 

a nightmare, a memory, and promises

I am never not thinking about her. Day and night, whether I am alone or with people, she is there in the periphery at least but more often right up front, an up-close but silent line drawing around every face I see, every activity, every thought.

And I don’t know how much I am allowed to talk about it because at this moment there is nothing we can do but pray.

It’s not all worry or grief. I just plain miss her. Her voice, her smile, her skin. I miss her sense of humor, her plans, the way she loves her dogs and the mountains, the photos of what she’s cooking (she is such a wonderful, creative cook!). I miss our conversations, both deep and silly.

I miss that cozy assurance that she is my daughter and I am her mother and that no matter what happened during those years apart, no matter what people said and did, no matter how much time passed, it was always so. And it will always be so. I miss that assurance a lot. I fight voices every day whispering that the last few years were a lie, that she didn’t love me or that we didn’t actually regain that intimacy. That I was blinded by desperation.

She does appear in my dreams still, but less often in that magical way I experienced during her first long absence. Lately, they are nightmares, although sometimes those can deliver a spark of hope too. 

Two nights ago I dreamed she was an infant and we were swimming together in dark purple water, barely lit from above by a single light source. It was a deep, narrow chute of water, like an underwater cave surrounded by nothing. She was drowning. Her tiny face angry and contorted, so blue it was almost black, silent but screaming, panicked for air, furious that she couldn’t breathe, terrified. I was below her. My legs were tied with corrugated pool hoses and wires, tied so tight I couldn’t kick. My arms were reaching out, my fingertips barely touching her. In that dream, I could feel her tiny, fleshy body bob against my hands. It was visceral. All I could do was just barely tap her through the water, toward the surface.

When she had an emergency appendectomy several years before all of this, her recovery was a miracle. Leading up to her discharge, she very much wanted to do everything the doctors told her to do, such as sit up on her own and learn again to twist out of bed. She was fighting both an infection from lack of antibiotics at the hospital and the normal abdomen pain from the gas they used to inflate her little belly for surgery. Moving on her own was important but uncomfortable, and it was difficult for me to not help her. One moment in particular as she was struggling to sit up, and I was struggling to watch her, she looked at me so sweetly and said, “Just a little nudge, Mama?” I rushed in and gave her the smallest nudge on her lower back and a little pressure on her upper arm, and she gripped me for balance. She twisted and sat up straight and stood up on her own. Gradually she walked and soon she felt so much better.

Just a little nudge, Mama?

In the dream, she was just a baby but she looked at me with those big brown China doll eyes and begged for help I couldn’t provide. Pleaded for it. Her face blue and her body slipping down into the dark water, her pale chubby legs kicking against the shadows.

Again I nudged her lightly, barely a tap, and the water floated her for a moment until she sank again. I cried out to God silently in my thoughts, “SAVE MY BABY, PLEASE COME GET HER, DON’T YOU SEE HER?? I CANNOT REACH HER, SHE IS SINKING!!”

Screamed it.

And He did. He reached down in that instant and pulled her swiftly to the surface, where she found air and warmth and sunlight just in time. I couldn’t see her anymore but I was relieved. I still felt could still feel the hoses around my legs and the thick, oily cold water all over my body, those details only dreams can make you feel.

She was gone but safe. And I woke up.

A little while after waking up I cried telling my husband about the dream, it was so terrifying. But saying it out loud I finally heard the promises:

  • God rescues when we are powerless.
  • He does see.
  • He does hear our silent screams.
  • He will show up just in time.
  • He loves her now just like when she was an infant, just like when she was a little girl in the hospital. Just like always. 

Please keep praying for her.

There is so much more I could say, about what we have learned regarding helping and enabling, or maybe the differences between protecting and teaching, I don’t know. I don’t anything really excpet I miss her and love her so much. And she is so much pain and danger, and I cannot help her. Cannot even give her a nudge right now.

So my days are filled with animals and housework, running and cooking dinner. Unprecedented miracles (how can I tell them?) and awful nightmares. She remains with me every second, an indelible line drawing. My first baby, my friend, and so much more I cannot even express.

Several of you have loved ones in similar peril. I want you to know that every day when I pray for her, I pray for your babies too, no matter how old they are. 

Several of you have reached out to privately share some of your own stories about overcoming, recovery, and straight up the miracle-working Love of God. I cannot thank you enough. It is all oxygen to us.

“And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?
Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea;
And there was a great calm.”
~Matthew 8:26
XOXOXOXO

a much happier storm season blowing through us

When the farm has just emptied of kids, evidence is plenty. The deck, pool, and surrounding lawns are all festooned with brightly colored plastics: Water guns and leaky swim masks, half-inflated floats, sun-crunchy pirate beach towels, and orphaned flip flops and hair ties. They are all scattered like confetti across the calm, green expanse. We discover an empty juice box here and there, a chewed-to-nothing melon rind, a discarded (hopefully used up) bottle of sunblock.

The chairs and chaise lounges are all askew, abandoned and resting happily like exhausted chaperones after a late night middle school dance.

When we bought these nine acres in 2007, our dream and vision was to give our girls, then 10 and 12, a second half of childhood, a healthy, wholesome coming of age with lots of space for deep breathing and long-leg stretching, animals to love and learn from, and much more.

The seeds of that vision had barely germinated when some destructive life storms blew through our family and changed everything for a season. We hung on, everyone survived, and eventually the sun came out again, brighter than ever. But that’s another story for another day.

Now I sit outside soaking up the cheerful debris of a happier storm, one of so many like it, each one important. “Cousin-Palooza 2017” came and went in a flash, leaving in its wake all this color and all these good vibrations. I sit here taking note of how much love and joy have actually grown here in the midst of that other storm.

Despite it? Or because of it?

For all the years that storm took from our family, has it actually nourished our foundation?

I think so.

I think, I feel in my bones, that the culling and strengthening and the deep watering from both tears and sweat have all contributed to an ongoing beautification. Not just a bigger deck or prettier gardens, not just faster internet, better food and more artwork on the walls- although yes to all of that!

But really, more trusting hearts for my husband and me. Freer minds. Effervescent joy that is actually pretty difficult to flatten.

We are blessed beyond reason. Thankful for adult siblings who trust us with their children so we can share these nine acres in some of the ways we always imagined. Happy to cultivate memories and bonds with our nieces and nephews that, despite inevitable storms headed our way in the future (that’s just how life goes), will last a lifetime and anchor us all.

Chloe, Kenzie, & Greg. July 2017 xoxo
Daybreak in Fort City, upstairs in the Apartment. They slept hard for almost 7 hours then sprang awake at full power, ready for chocolate chip pancakes and more fun.
Little fishes doing tricks all day long.

I always resist the hurry to clean up after a party. I am in no hurry to see it all wiped away, all the colorful debris that kids especially leave behind.

Except that other good stuff is on its way, and we need to make room. Every day, every moment, holds a new promise and a host of surprises. The whole big, beautiful, equally colorful future is about to happen.

I’m ready.

XOXOXOXO

 

“I knew it could be done!”

A story goes that he and his daughter-in-law, my Aunt Deni, went to the State Capitol for an afternoon of dancing. A Western Swing band was playing in the Rotunda, and they dressed for the occasion. She led him by following in reverse and counting out a smooth, circular waltz. This was some kind of very exact thrill for him, having been told be previous dance partners that waltzing would never work for country music. But they continued swirling and counting, keeping beat and broadening their smiles. “I knew it could be done!” he exclaimed. He was overjoyed by this simple breakthrough, this very real pleasure.

With my Mom, his youngest, and Miss Judy, his very sweet long time girlfriend.
With my Mom, his youngest, and Miss Judy, his very sweet long time girlfriend.

Once on an average visit to see my sweet Grandpa, at his last house before moving to assisted living. the first thing he said when I walked in the front door was, “Honey you have grown!” He exclaimed it, really. With a lot of emphasis. And friends, I was forty years old when this happened. I had not grown in 28 years, at least not vertically. Grandpa was always keeping track of how tall we were.

On this day we hugged tight then walked directly to the sun room in the back of his house, Here he kept a menagerie of tropical plants, art projects, hand-lettered signs of every variety, books, cards from loved ones, and very comfortable chairs for sitting. In the corner of the room was a heavy electric organ with a painted portrait of my Grandma perched on the music ledge. Nothing in there matched exactly, but everything together looked so perfect. The room made you want to sit and stay for hours, which he would tell you was exactly his plan every day.

We sat and watched through the expansive glass windows as dozens of different birds visited the seven or eight feeders he kept full of seed. Cannas grew in every tight little corner. Hot pink crepe myrtles. A new peach tree. Tomato plants, green beans, even corn… All wedged neatly in his postage stamp back yard, backed by a pristine white vinyl fence. In the middle of it all was a small garden shed painted the color of cannas leaves in fall. I remembered him planning this building addition several years before, explaining that he wanted to paint it this exact color so it would blend in with his favorite plants. And it did, perfectly. It wasn’t quite brown, not quite purple. But a wonderful muted bruise color, deep and alive looking.

With his great-grandson Greg.
With his great-grandson Greg, in that same sun room.

He always loved little girls and women wearing hats. He loved music and dancing and greatly preferred collegiate sports over professional. He gave himself Spanish lessons late in life to make the most of a road trip to Mexico with his best friend Roger. While there he hiked the Aztec ruins with Roger’s pregnant daughter. I would love to have heard his joy at seeing all that evidence of ancient history, right before his eyes.

gps fam C

He served in the Navy at the end of World War II. He married his high school sweetheart, my beautiful Grandma, after wooing her with a Portuguese sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which he claimed to have penned himself. She knew the poem already, and its true author, but preserved the moment by letting him keep the secret.

tall tomatoes july 2016

Grandpa Stubbs was an avid and self-taught home gardener, all my life growing the most delicious tomatoes, fragrant herbs (lemon balm and basil will always remind me of him) larkspur, and more. I can scarcely walk outside at the farm or think of one gardening task without hearing his voice. He taught me how to use grass clippings as compost, how to double dig a new vegetable bed to eliminate weeds and grassroots, and how to plant and prune tomatoes in a cool, weird way. If I ever asked him a gardening question (or any question, for that matter) to which he didn’t have an answer, his response was a swift and silly, “Well honey I just don’t want to tell you right now.”

gpas boots
These were his actual gardening boots which he gifted me the same autumn we bought this little acreage. He also gave me his tan quilted zip-up vest, which I always wear over a sweater on chilly days. It has pockets.

He and my grandmother raised their family of five, two girls and a son, in small town Oklahoma and then spent the oil-bust years in Oklahoma City. He was an avid salesman, providing to the buying market everything from bristle brushes to caskets, wholesale.

gps baby gen C
Holding my baby sister, Viva Michelle.

When we were little and spending gobs of time at his and Grandma’s house, most evenings ended with an ice cream sundae, unless for some reason the day called for a tall glass of cold milk with saltine crackers crushed up in the bottom. If we could not quite finish our treat, he would cajole us onward, to take just a few more bites, “C’mon, be a sport. Be a sport.” And he would wiggle his substantial eyebrows at us.

gps w greats C
Grandpa Rex with four of his great-grandchildren. Jessica, baby Chloe, Jocelyn & Dante.

From when I was a little girl until very recently, any time I would walk into the room he would call me his pretty little granddaughter. To him (and to my Dad) I am “Ma-ree-zie.” And I always loved the way that made me feel.

Grandpa made friends easily and had no boundaries that I could ever detect. He had a deep, clear voice, warm and welcoming, energetic, not intimidating at all. He laughed hard from a place deep inside himself, somewhere strong and limitless. His smile was genuine and warm.

gps klaus LOL C
Last summer and again at Christmas, every time Grandpa came to the farm and interacted with Klaus (my gigantic lap puppy) he laughed in that best Grandpa way. I loved every second. He also laughed this way watching Klaus and the great-grand kids play in the pond.

I always thought he was handsome whether clean-shaven or wearing a trim mustache or covered by a full beard and shoulder-length hair. In fact he is one of the few men who to me still looked gentlemanly groomed this way.

In my mind he is always wearing either a pair of pressed slacks and a high-sheen golf shirt or Bermuda shorts and a white tee, sweaty from working outside.

The sound of football on t.v. will always make me think of him, as will the smell of strong (pleasantly stale) coffee and tobacco. I cannot walk into a garden center and see onion sets or bagged flower bulbs, smell all the fertilizers and peat mixes, without thinking of him. Driving past the old Horn Seed on Northwest Expressway has for years made me cry, just from nostalgia.

Did you know that my Grandpa once played in a professional golf tournament?

Later in life but when he was still driving, Grandpa took great pleasure in scaring his passengers half to death. On more than one occasion, after making a risky left turn against traffic, he would grin and pat me on the shoulder, assuring me he wasn’t worried because had we collided with anyone, “It was on your side honey.” 

You know about Grandpa’s peanut butter cookies, right?

pb cookies bowl unmixed

This recipe is one of my most favorite treats to make for people. Lots of love is stirred into it, because it was by sharing this with me over the phone that Grandpa made sure I had enough groceries when I was a young mom. (Side note worth mentioning: He was never convinced that I had installed my baby’s car seat correctly. I came by my worrying genes naturally.)

What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance.
They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life.
And, most importantly, cookies.
~Rudy Giuliani

He was a ravenous student of history, ancient history was his favorite I think. Or maybe it was WWII. He was unashamedly fascinated by mysteries like Stonehenge and Easter Island, loved the Northern Lights, and was the first person to spark in my mind the amazing truth that what we call “history” was actually not that long ago. He illustrated for me how recently, in fact, Abraham Lincoln walked the earth.

Grandpa seemed to understand how quickly time passes and how temporary everything is. Surely that is why he developed such an appetite for squeezing life out of his days.

At age 51, together with Grandma and my Dad, he started Village Art Lamp Company. They literally started assembling lamps and lamp shades on the floor of their living room floor, built up a unique inventory, and proceeded to sell to retail chains and hotels all over the state, eventually nationwide. He was stern about selling by consignment at first, and he was attentive to his lamps’ shelf placement. A natural salesman, Grandpa knew how to be seen and heard and how to get the same attention to his merchandise. That one chapter of his life illustrated my entire childhood and provided an excellent living for dozens of big families over the years. 

After a hard-earned retirement Grandpa delighted in announcing, each time as if the first, that he had the day off. When I was first a stay-at-home Mom, he would frequently drop in for coffee or call and invite me out, enjoying the joke together. I wish I still had a “day off” to enjoy with him.

He lived a life of variety, passion, joy, hard work, constant seeking, romance (definitely a ladies’ man), pleasure, overcoming of hardship, and genuine interest in things past, present, and future. He eschewed organized religion but made frequent, friendly mention of “The Man Upstairs.” 

gps chrismtas 2016 C

 

As our family has sat in vigil this past week, exchanging memories and simmering in love and grief, I marveled at how each of us clearly felt a unique bond to this man. Everyone told a story that no one had heard before, and I suspect I am not the only one who over the years felt a little extra special to him. That is just how he managed to love everyone, no matter how big the family grew.  He imparted great doses of himself to each of us in vivid ways. More family members are gathering in Oklahoma City tonight, and I am excited to hear even more. 

He has been the very best example of Carpe Diem to my life. And for that I will always be deeply grateful.

Friends and loved ones, I would appreciate it greatly if you knew Grandpa Stubbs, to leave us a memory here. Thank you so much, and thanks also for your condolences this week. He passed peacefully on March first, at the satisfied end of a life nearly ninety years long. 

“Well how do you like those apples?”
~Rex Stubbs
XOXOXOXO

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farewell to chunk

What I’m not going to write is one more piece on love and loss and the importance of keeping our eyes on the silver lining. We’ve had so much of that here on this blog, because my husband and I have had so much of it in real life. It’s all a worthy lesson, no doubt; but today we just need to rest a bit in a new reality here at the farm. I am writing to ask you for your best loving energy. Your prayers, good vibrations, kind words, or just you quietly nodding head as you read. Handsome and I will appreciate your embrace from a distance.

Just the facts, ma’am.

Okay.

Today we are saying goodbye to a beloved farm-ily member, Chunk-hi the buffalo. Our bottle baby-turned cuddle bug for nearly seven years, our cookie-loving, face-scratch-begging, engine-racing, tractor-tire flipping behemoth is moving on to his next life chapter. We are caught in that all too familiar brackish water where salty tears mix with fresh starts and past meets future face to face.

buff BW face

Chunk is alive and well, don’t worry, just going to live on another ranch. Thankfully, that ranch is here in Oklahoma and owned by the parents of some friends of ours, so it’s possible we can go visit Chunk in his new digs. We could see his new girlfriend. Maybe next year meet his little golden calves. (We could become bison grandparents!!) This ranch happens to be in Stratford, so we can also stock up on peaches when they’re in season.

Those are all silver linings, Marie, stop.

Sorry.

This decision is not one at which we’ve arrived easily, and the factors have been many and building in intensity. During angry, bitter moments we find people to blame (new neighbors usually, the Turnpike Authority also). In tender moments we see that maybe this was always meant to happen, eventually. Our bison dreams way back in 2009 were big, and life has taken so many unexpected twists and turns since then. Whatever you believe about fate and bad luck, these last six and three-quarter years have just evaporated with our sweet buff. He quickly became part of our farm-ily during those early summer bottle feedings. He has etched himself into our identity at the Lazy W (how many children have visited to feed him cookies and scruff his wooly face?). He will always of course own a slice of our hearts.

I promised not to wax too poetic about this. It’s just such an emotional thing.

Chunk is being picked up today around Noon, and it will be only his second time in a trailer. He will be arriving at only the third place he has ever seen on this beautiful earth, and besides his mother (moments before she was hunted, I feel the need to point that out), he will soon meet his first adult American Bison. Word on the prairie is she’s quite a looker and feeling amorous.

Wink-wink…

We are not heart broken, exactly. We are heart-aching. We know this is the responsible thing to do and that Chunk-hi will be safer (uninvited attention from passersby on our road has been a huge problem this year), and we even believe he will find a whole new level of happiness in his new life. Of course that last part stings a bit, but gosh. We have survived a child leaving the nest and finding happiness. We’ll survive this too.

It’s all for the best.

So please keep us in your happy thoughts, and for sure keep Chunk-hi in your happy thoughts. Hope for him wide, green pastures, abundant fresh water, excellent romantic companions, and just enough human interaction to help him remember us fondly. Believe in these hopes and we will too, and no doubt he will be okay.

To Robbie and your family, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Knowing that good people love Chunk is such a comfort. We reminisced this morning that it was Robbie who helped us feed Chunk grass clippings when we were neighbors. It was Robbie who held off a dog attack before Chunk had horns to defend himself. And it has been Robbie all along who watched Chunk grow just as both our families’ kids were growing. As poetic full circles go, this is a lovely one.

Friends of the Lazy W, if you have ever visited our farm and shown love to our buff, thank you too. Thank you so much. Thank you for your cookie generosity, your inquisitiveness, your sense of caution and bravado. We have enjoyed it all. We would really love it if you took a moment to share a Chunk-hi memory with us.

We love you Chunk! We already miss you, sweet boy.

Oh give me a home
Where the buffalo roam..
XOXOXO