Those Without Preschoolers Need Not Apply

I've been thinking a lot about taking people for who you think they are instead of who they are. It's hard sometimes, because you have no idea who strangers really are. This has been in my head the last couple of weeks. Then yesterday at BSF, this happened:

There's a woman in my BIble study group who seems to treat me that way; like some person she thinks she's figured out, but she actually doesn't know who I am. She pointedly ignores me and only speaks to those who have problems with their toddlers. She seems to enjoy telling then how she fixed hers. (like, a year ago, because her kids aren't that old yet and she's still nursing one.) I tried to join a conversation she started about 5-yr. olds, because a girl my age was saying that she homeschooled hers. (I'm curious about people who homeschool and why they choose to do it, since it was the default setting in my life for so long.)

But this woman wouldn't let me. I felt that she thought I had nothing to contribute. She does the same things with her answers in our group discussions. I don't have any children, I have a pink streak in my hair, I wear scarves and heels, feather earrings and weird second-hand Michael Kors leather loafers. I seem young, I guess. She seems to treat me like a "whippersnapper, " some young hipster, because I don't have kids; like I'm some young spoiled person whose experiences in life are meaningless because changing diapers isn't yet part of my daily routine. I was terribly annoyed. I shouldn't have let it get to me, but I could hardly pay attention in lecture. She's the kind of stiff-minded person who would think I haven't been a Christian very long because I have a streak of pink hair.

I wanted to go to her and tell her that I practically grew up at BSF headquarters, that my grandmother is mentioned in the founder's memoir, that my mother and grandmother have some of Mrs. Johnson's and Mrs. Hertzler's china in their china cabinets. That I am one of seven homeschooled siblings who used to memorize whole chapters of the Bible in King James as part of their grade school curriculum. That I had probably changed more diapers by the age of 14 than she has so far mothering career. That I watched my mother breastfeed from a very young age. That my mother had six of us without any pain medicine whatsoever. (For some reason, I'm proud of having been had with no pain meds. haha! It's not like I was the one in pain!)

Why does my blood boil? It doesn't matter what this woman, this obviously in-a-tight-box, uncreative woman, thinks of me. But see what I did there? I put her in a box, not any better than the box she has me in. I don't like it. I don't like any of this. It's pride, I know, on both sides. But so bothersome. Really, what would it look like if I just sent her an email, so that she could think of me correctly? Horribly arrogant, but since I don't even care what she thinks of me, she can think I'm horribly arrogant, as long as she's sufficiently impressed that I know as much about kids as she does, and more about BSF.

Who is this hideous, arrogant person inside of me?

Sometimes I think the word glossy is glossier than gloss itself.

the vanity table

Mimi's vanity table represents my earliest memories of becoming what I hope to be someday. I was just there yesterday, in the bedroom at Mimi and DanDan's house. The vanity table is no longer there, Mimi has it beside her bed in her new home, but in my mind, I can still see it there in the old bedroom with the lamps glowing around it. My experiences at the table, and lounging on Mimi's bed talking with her while she got ready, are some of the times that are the deepest in my heart.

That table is a place of comfort and glomour, warm light and mirrors, soft cozy socks, silky nightgowns, an incomparable array of makeup and perfume bottles...It is the place where I realize that it's not the end of the world that my favorite jeans have become too tight, that my chin is pointy and my nose is long, that my marriage isn't perfect, that I'm not perfect. It is rich with stories, laughter, the truth of God's word being lived out through the grace, kindness and beauty of my grandmother.

I am a granddaughter of the beautiful lady who sits at this table to prepare for her long days of cooking, serving, decorating and being gracious and lovely at BSF Headquarters. Somehow, the makeup, the perfume, the well-chosen clothing and the tinyness do not matter, even though they are so there and so lovely. It matters that I choose kindness over criticism, prayerfulness over no prayer life, beauty over ugliness. Choosing to treat people carefully, as the eternal creatures that they are is choosing beauty.

Mimi always chooses beauty.

I'm not sure this post would make sense to anyone who has not known my Mimi, but I am working on my articulation of all this. This has been my first attempt.

Love!! (from StyleScout)

Maybe it's because I'm always guilty of throwing on boots with my adidas work-out pants, (and tucking them in!) or maybe because I SO wish I could wear turbans all the time, but this picture gave me energy and bolstered my resolve to really wear my clothes, all of them, not just the things I am used to wearing. Putting together different, non-rut sorts of things is surprisingly easy when you realize it doesn't matter. What's going to happen? they're just clothes.

This one was fun too:

And I like the dirty-ish wash of the guy's jeans. I might think that they really are dirty, but look at that girl's boots. A girl with boots like that would not make out with a guy whose jeans are generally filthy on a normal day at the park. No, it's just a wash I think. London street fashion.

I'm not opinionated

I love real things. The false world that is diets and endless gyms and celebrity-following is so repulsive. I don't know how anyone can stand it. In my life, I have real foods, real sugar, real cream, real stairs.

Small portions of reality are better by far than huge portions of fake things.

A post for February

You know too much is going on when it's March and you've been to church twice this year. Life has been a busy monster these first two months of the year. Not bad, but too busy to continue normally, that's for sure.

We had a New Year's Party, the next weekend was normal, then Steve left on business, then I met him in Vegas, then it was February. My Dan Dan died, we all got together and had the memorial, then we were sick, then was a big wedding, and now it's now.

I feel paralyzed by the many projects I want to do. The beautiful open, unstructured days of my present life overwhelm me. If I were working, I'd want to cancel it, but now there is nothing to cancel, and I still stress out. Human nature.

I want to enjoy the fresh air and the fresh time, and stop putting things off.

Chesterton Quotes for Thought

I was online looking for a specific quote from G. K. Chesterton, and I found several others that have to do with my thoughts of late.

This reminded me of my recent Twilight post: "A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

This next has to do with my problems about loving with abandon what God gives me, and still being willing for Him to take it away. "The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." I don't know how that helps me, but it does a little bit.

Here are a couple that help me when I have complainy thoughts about my body:

"When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?"

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

And I just really identify with these:

"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."

"Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life."

"Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable."

And for good measure, here are some funny but not less true ones that give us a glmpse into that odd, awesome way in which Chesterton thinks:

"The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man."

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."

(I quite agree with this next one.)

"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist."

"Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel."

I am going to Las Vegas tomorrow, to be with my dear Love, who had to leave last Wednesday. I'm going to try, and I hope you do too, to a lovely week, remember to be grateful, think poetically about cheese, and not to free anything from being what it is.