WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

The past month and a half - work, home, life in general - has been a little hairy for me.

If you've known me for very long, you may be thinking, "Seems like this theme keeps repeating itself, Camille. Are you serious?"

Life just seems to have this cycle for me where things get really hard, and then I get a breather, and then things rock along pretty steady, and then problems or difficulties arise and pressure starts to build again like steam in a boiler. Neck muscles turn into steel cables, I develop chronic indigestion, and restful sleep eludes me. I find myself thinking, "This is too much! I can't do this anymore!"

Deep weariness - weariness of not just body, but of soul and spirit - isn't "fixed" by an afternoon off, a trip to the nail salon, or just-one-more margarita. Yoga - when I can make it to class - helps unkink the knots in my neck and sunshine brightens my mood, but even these do not relieve soul weariness.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matt. 11:28-29, NLT; emphasis added)

I am so thankful that God has given me friends who, when I am overwhelmed and discouraged, lead me back to Jesus, the source of true rest.

It is nice to have a safe place where I can put down the weight on my heart and simply breathe. A place where the coffee is strong, the conversation easy, and at the end of the day, a warm bed and soft pillow are waiting.

Christ will hold us fast. But we need gospel friends to hold us close. - Albert Mohler

TINY HOUSE

When I checked on my favorite slow-growing tree in the yard yesterday, I found a house nestled beneath a brittle last-fall leaf.

This tiny house has survived winter snow and ice, torrential spring rains, and ferocious windstorms like the one that took down power lines and hundred-year-old trees in the nearby town of Obion last week.

Do any of us with our brick-&-mortar, concrete, steel, and treated 2x4s live in such safe, snug little houses? I doubt it.

And yet, while incredibly strong and durable, this tiny house is also incredibly fragile. I could have crushed it my hand. If I had committed such violence, the snug resident curled up inside would not have simple counted it unfortunate and then crawled off to begin the labor of rebuilding; no, such violence would have destroyed not only the home, but the occupant as well.

This beautiful coccoon, dancing in the warm spring breeze, is a picture of trust. Trust provides a place of shelter, strength, and resiliency from which incredible storms can be weathered in safety. So strong, and yet so fragile.

I love this time of year, every day greener than the day before. Trees thrum with the music of bees. The irises my sister gave me are just beginning to bloom and my grandmother's rose has a hundred swelling buds.

Spring looks, sounds, smells, and feels like hope to me.

My favoite tree unfolds tender leaves, and beneath the detritus of summer long past, new life waits.

DEAR DAUGHTERS

Twenty-four hours, three hours of sleep. Now, headed in for another full day of work.

That's a lot for this old woman.

Before I left home, my mother complained, "You do not need to go to work today. You need to stay home." No doubt she was concerned about my safety on the road. No doubt she was also feeling neglected.

"Mom, I'm 60 years old. What are you going to do? Write me a note to give my teacher so I can be excused from school?"

As I drove to the office, I thought about what Mom said. If one of my daughters was driving in to begin a full day's work after a 24-hour shift, I would have felt the same way. "No, dear daughter, do not go to work today. You have done enough. Stay home - you need to rest."

But me - I am supposed to be able to do it all and then some. Work, Mom care, all-the-things like groceries and meals and laundry and doctor appointments and car maintenance and keeping up with housework and the yard. And if it feels like too much? I'm supposed to suck it up, stop feeling sorry for myself, and get back to the task at hand.

So I drove, and I wept, and I stumbled into work.

During morning meeting, I thought about my beautiful daughters. I thought how it would grieve me if they felt like they had to keep on doing more and more and more, way past the point of exhaustion, how it would break my heart if they felt like they could never DO enough to finally BE enough. I thought how angry I would feel if someone demanded of them, "No, but you must do more..."

My dear daughters already are enough, just like they are. 

Then I thought: I am Someone's daughter, Someone's beautiful, precious daughter. And He loves me. And He tells me, "Enough, dear daughter. Rest."

And so, after morning meeting, I drove back home.

Emily, Martha, Helen, Abby and Carly: My dear, dear daughters...you have no idea how greatly each one of you blesses and inspires me every single day. Thank you for being the beautiful women you are. Thank you.

A DAY IN THE ORCHARD

I found a friend in the yard today. I was pulling Bermuda grass out of the irises when this chonky fellow popped up.

I love toads. They seem so...wholesome. Simple, earthy, unpretentious.

We had a toad once that would hop up our front steps at night to hunt for bugs that were drawn to the porch lights.

I cannot encounter a toad without speaking to it. "Well, hello, friend! How are you today?" I have often said that if I had a spirit animal, it would be a manatee. Perhaps, instead, it would be a toad.

Today, I worked in the abandoned orchard that clings to the hills behind our house. Despite being grossly neglected, the little trees just keep growing, sinking their roots a little deeper each year, struggling against the weeds and bugs and diseases that threaten them.

A friend and I used to attend an annual gardening expo. My friend Donna is a Garden Goddess, a gifted woman who grows all things beautiful and unique. My grandmother Louise was a Garden Witch with terrifying magical powers: I honestly believe she could poke a dead stick in the ground and be harvesting a bumper crop of peaches or apples from it a year later. Me...I think I could plant Kudzu and it would die.

One workshop Donna and I attended many years ago was on growing fruit trees. The extension agent who taught the workshop lamented the number of folks who asked her to come out and assess their trees to determine what was wrong with them because they bore little to no fruit. She would arrive at a little orchard to find the trees choked with waist-high grass and weeds.

"How often do you mow around your trees?"

"Mow around them? Never. They're trees. Why do I need to mow around them?"

"When do you spray your trees to protect them from harmful pests?"

"Spray? I don't spray them at all. I thought trees just kinda take care of themselves."

The extension agent went on: "If you are not going to provide your home orchard even the very minimum of care, why do you expect it to bear fruit for you? Don't expect me to give you some miracle solution to offset your blatant neglect!"

Camille's summary of the workshop: Fruit trees (vegetables, flowers, people, etc) require basic care and routine maintenance to be fruitful.

So, back to the neglected little orchard behind our house...

My son planted the trees when he was a boy. He planted and tended the little orchard when the trees were no more than thin limbless whips. The trees put down roots and pushed out branches. My son pruned and shaped the trees, helping them grow strong so they would be ready to bear the weight of the fruit they would one day produce.

My son is a grown man now and has not lived here for many, many years. The little trees stand surrounded by waist-high weeds, all but forgotten in the field behind the house.

I asked Granddaddy once - many years ago - to teach me how to use the tractor and bush-hog mower, so that I could mow the orchard. Granddaddy said that driving a tractor was not a thing for women to do, and so he would not teach me. Granddaddy said he would "take care of it," except that mowing the orchard behind my house was not a priority on his list. He had a thousand other more pressing obligations. 

(I still don't understand what it was about mowing with a tractor and bush-hog that Granddaddy thought required a person to have a penis. I have a friend - a very womanly woman friend - who drives a tractor and mows fields without any difficulty at all, despite the fact that she has no penis at all. Maybe someone failed to explain to her that she is not qualified for the job?)

Anyway, the orchard did not get mowed, and privet grew up around the little trees. So much privet, in fact, that there was more privet than fruit trees.

I think even I could plant privet and it would grow, but I know better than to plant privet. Privet is a devil plant. Nobody - NOBODY - should ever, ever, ever plant privet.

But somebody did plant privet here on the farm, many-many-many years ago, and now it is everywhere. No matter where I walk on the farm, I find privet. Birds eat the fruit from the privet and scatter seeds when they poop, because birds don't know any better.

But back to the sad, struggling little orchard behind the house...

Today was beautiful - sunshiny and warm, a day to be outside. So, I finished the laundry and grocery shopping this morning, then headed outdoors this afternoon to absorb some much-needed Vitamin D.

Before

I bought myself a little pruning saw. It is lovely and works like a dream.

Today, I cleared privet out of the neglected orchard. As I sawed and hacked and dragged privet away from the little fruit trees, I remembered the gardening workshop years ago, and the extension agent's amazement at and frustration with people who do nothing to tend their trees and yet are disappointed that their trees bear no fruit. I also thought how much easier it would be to mow regularly than to do the back-breaking work of clearing years-old privet. Oh, well.

After

Tomorrow, I may not be able to walk or raise my arms above my head. But today? Today was very, very good.

And the little fruit trees? They look like they can breathe freely again.

PRIVET OR PLUM?

I have decided there are two kinds of people in the world: those who plant privet, and those who plant fruit trees.

(I am being facetious, of course. Humor me. This is my blog, and I have had a difficult day.)

If you are of the first camp - those who plant privet - I want you to know: Jesus died for all sinners, even you. He loves you, too. Indeed, "today is the day of salvation" for all who repent.

If you are of the second camp - those who plant fruit trees: Thank you. Again, I say: Thank you.

The plum tree is absolutely roaring with bees today.

And to the privet threatening the orchard: I have the pruners out, and I am coming for YOU.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

The sweet-breath-of-spring is blooming.

This is my favorite plant in the yard. It is a special favorite for two reasons:

1.) It blooms at the end of winter, when everything outside still looks dead and gray, and it smells like distilled sunshine. I am so tired of dead and gray. The delicate, sweet-smelling blossoms promise me: "Spring is coming! Hold on!"

2.) This plant is from my friend Donna. Everytime it blooms and envelopes me in its sweetness, I feel like Donna is giving me a long-distance hug.

I took the RAV4 for a drive today. Man, I sure do love this car! Now that I drive a company car for work, the Toyota only gets out on weekends. Big Red and I drove down Yellowhammer Lane, past the 140+-year-old house where I spent all but the first two years of my childhood. The house was built by great-great-granddaddy from yellow poplar milled right there on the property, then passed down to Uncle John and Aunt Lulie, then modernized by my parents. All of my childhood memories of home, save one, are set in that house. My wedding reception was held in that house. I don't know who lives there now.

Big Red and I drove on to Ebenezer Cemetery, to check on the long-dead grandparents and the recently-dead parents. At the cemetery, a white-whiskered man stood at the base of a tree, coon dog at his side, shotgun cradled across his right forearm. He paused from staring up into the tree limbs to glance at me.

"Have you no respect for the dead," I wondered, "following a coon into a cemetery?!" Then I thought: there are probably many folks buried here who, if they could speak, would holler, "Get 'im, Cletus!" I did not stop to walk among the gravestones but kept driving. Cletus had a job to do. I didn't want to interrupt.

After we got back home, I parked Big Red and took a walk back on the farm today, first time in over a month. Mr. Baker has installed a new gate on the road leading back to the pastures. It is nice, swings easily on its hinges, so easy to open. There were lots of new babies - brown and black and cream-colored fuzzballs that snorted and kicked up their heels when I said, "Hello, baby!"

And there were more signs of a farm sinking into increasing neglect: the sinkholes below the old pond are larger now, and there are more of them. Great holes gape in the deteriorating walls of the green barn, which no longer has a single spot of green paint on it.

As I returned home, I stopped in the thicket below Grammy's house and picked a bouquet of volunteer daffodils. They sit like a spot of sunshine on the kitchen table now.

Today was a melancholy day for me. Seems like more and more days are, lately. I don't know if that's because I stay chronically tired, or because I miss my children, or because my work is often sad, or because it's late winter, or because I don't sleep well when the moon is full, or because I often feel lonely, or because I am frickin' tired of being the person responsible for figuring out what's for lunch after church on Sunday, or whatever.

But today was also lovely. The comfortable familiarity of an old frame house, granite headstones, and a path over hills that feel like members of my family.

Warm sunshine, high blue skies, new life exploding with energy across winter-weary fields, golden daffodils nodding on slender stems.

And a hug from Donna, the sweet-breath-of-spring.

SHE PASSED QUIETLY

She passed quietly, like fog in sunlight.

The last time we were together, there was little I could do for her. I could not move her legs and arms to ease the tension of too-tight muscles. I could not massage fragrant lotion gently into her bloated hands and feet.

I washed her face, moistened her lips, and smoothed her hair.

I leaned close to her, held her swollen hands, and prayed aloud that she would know that she was loved, that she would know there are people in the world who care about her, that she would know that Jesus himself loves her so much that he walked through death's door himself, just so that he could be with her right now to show her the way.

As I prayed, tears slipped from her beautiful gray eyes, eyes fixed on a horizon a million miles away.

"Soon," I said. I wiped her tears and brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. I kissed her forehead. "I will be back tomorrow."

Tomorrow came...

Her breath was shallow as a sleeping baby's, her skin cool and waxen. The beautiful gray eyes stared into eternity.

She had held on through the night, waiting.

"Good morning." I took her hand and stroked it. "You are not alone. I am here."

She closed her eyes, sighed, and slept.

She passed quietly, like fog in sunlight.