How to pick a life partner

I was thinking this weekend when I caught the worst barf bug in the history of barf bugs, Dang. I'm so lucky. I was reminded as I hinged at the waist over that porcelain portal, how once upon a time at 19 years of age, a college boy I was dating would hold my hair back when I was upchucking for other unseemly reasons. Did I think at the time that he would make a good life partner for this and other attributes? Probably? Did I also like to stare at the groove in his two front teeth and imagine kissing them for, like, hours? Entirely possible.

Fast forward 15 years and I am nearly ralphing out all of my organs on Saturday night, while on a work retreat in the Smoky Mountains. Our children, fast asleep in the bed next to ours in a cabin in the remote reaches of northeastern Tennessee. They were tired, their little limbs in frozen flail, because while their mama was tossing her cookies, their daddy had taken them on a latenight rendezvous into Pigeon Forge parts where go-karts and other amusements could be found. But there's more!  Their daddy was also among few--it has been reported--Asians for miles, in the face of a prolific supply of Confederate flags a-waving. That same good daddy also went on a reconnaissance mission for Gatorade the next early morning for his now-dehydrated and depleted wife.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's a good man. The same boy-man who once held my hair back as we sowed wild oats.

We said our vows ten years ago, in sickness and in health, in poverty and wealth, but we could never have envisioned how truly practical they would be. The equity and humility of it all, how it plays out in an endless day of babies and barf and bottles of purple Gatorade. I have no idea how I fortuned in to such an amazing partner, such a truly exceptional life mate who always seeks to make our lives better. I only know that this is what Grace looks like, walking around in spikey black hair and flip-flops, carrying sleeping children up a flight of stairs to their room in a lodge where I lay barfing. Grace is getting more than we deserve when all we can do is throw up all the other good things we've been given. Grace is showing up, waking up, carrying up a flight of stairs what is heavier than we think we are capable because we are more than just good deeds. Grace is about being more than we think we can be, Grace is about getting more than we give because so much has already been extended to us by a Perfect Love.

I'm so grateful for Lovey Loverpants, who shows me Grace. Amen.

photo credit: Garrett Nudd/Joy Nudd

Crepe Myrtle Season, see also: when I cry on the inside

I'm not a flowers-phile like some folks who know all the pretty ones that grow in shade and bloom hard in direct sunlight. I do know crepe myrtles, though. They are the only thing in Tennessee that stands outside looking pretty in July and August. The rest of us are all drippy faint and upping our deodorant game.

***

In 2011, crepe myrtles greeted us as we drove up our long serpentine driveway when we first arrived to our rental home in Tennessee. They looked as though they'd been waiting just for us, practicing their pageant wave. Park here, they said. We've spruced up this place just for you.

*** The crepe myrtles remind me now that we are still here. We've lapped the sun four times and we know when to anticipate the chorus of cicadas, the halo of autumn leaves, the brisk mornings and the humid incubator that is crepe myrtle season.

***

I spend most of July and August in a state of homesickness, grieving a home and a people that are contained in one big amoeba of pain that globs around inside of me, never allowing me to feel perfectly at ease wherever I live. WAHHHH MEEEE. I'm a pilgrim from a lot of places and I ache privately because I think I'm alone in this. My country 'tis of thee, you confuse the heyyy y'all out of me, of thee I sing.

***

The beautiful crepe myrtles earmark another season of being here and being a misfit. They also usher in another school year. I've been so excited about sending both of the punks back to their school work-a-day routines that I practically forgot to mourn their own growth, to feel the full freight of their being a whole school year more advanced than the people they were last year when the crepe myrtles were in full glory.

*** Kids are only capable of two kinds of good-byes, it seems. The unceremonious "Bye Felicia"-esque dismissal, or the neck-wringing ugly cry adieu. How long, or should I say, how many crepe myrtle seasons until they realize their parents are all Bye Felicia on the outside but on the inside?

Disgustingly perfect

This afternoon was one of those disgustingly perfect Sunday afternoons where you just want to punch yourself in the face to counteract the goodness. I suppose some would settle for a more polite pinch to make sure they're alive, but you know that feeling where the beauty just overwhelms. This sweet, intoxicating prelude to summer weather we're having. You get so high off of it that you forget to worry about your diet, the lawn you need to mow before it rains, the e-mail bombshell that is ticking like a tell-tale heart in your inbox awaiting your reply. We went to a Chattanooga Lookouts game today and it was bliss. We overbought slushies and overate overly salty pretzels and we cheered and switched seats and ogled fat babies. It was just so disgustingly perfect, all four of us sitting in a row with backed bleachers, Loverpants and I putting the bookends on our little treasures in the middle. I held their hands and prayed a silent prayer over and over. Gross, right?

This school year has been a satisfying one for me. For the kids, it has been much harder. There have been some mean-spirited things done to our children, and by the same token, I have complete faith in the fact that our kids have done mean-spirited things to others in return. But this year things felt a little more magnified. The safe hedge that surrounded them in years past seemed to get cropped out. Kids showed true colors. Cold shoulders jabbed from unexpected places. Silent treatments were prescribed. We talked through a lot of things and role-played more playground theatrics than I can recall.

With all the anti-bullying education that is infused into elementary ed these days, I just have to return to our sun-drenched bleacher bench above first base. I know the next years will be hard on our parent hearts as we lead little hearts toward the truth: They are eternally cherished and made for more than this world. I mean, some days/weeks/months are just going to be plain terrible, right? But our hope is that our kids will remember days like this, where it kind of didn't matter who won or lost but that they got sick on Dippin' Dots and too much love.