Whoopee

Driving through rural Georgia, radio airwaves offered a honky-tonk country music station.  In one song, a smooth-singing, southern accented crooner related the glories of being a county man, something about tractors and strong arms and other virtues I cannot recall.  What I do remember is that when the song was over I wanted to  holler a “yeehaaw” or a “whoopee” to celebrate the juke-jamming, boot-tapping rhythm and mood of the music.  The look my kids gave me as the sound left my mouth revealed that perhaps they had not heard me whoop before.  I told them each to try it.  Their first attempts arose as the pathetic, self- conscious sounds of little city kids trying to satisfy their potentially crazy mom.  But after a few more tries and some encouragement to bring it to the sky we really had a good time hooting a call that filled our car with revelry.  Whoopee. 

Dictionary.com offered an entry for my unusual word today, whoopee.
1.  (interjection) used as a shout of exuberant joy.

Some music can move you:  different kinds of music, different kinds of inspiration.  I’m not certain if we have a local station that plays the hoe down style we found parading through the pines of pastoral Interstate 20, but for that moment it was perfect.  We were bored.  The road was still long ahead of us.  The music was fun and gave us a reason to make some noise in an otherwise muted space.

 

We simply do not encounter many socially appropriate opportunities to let the lungs loose and shout with exuberant joy.  Unless you count sports games, which might be close but much of that shouting is meant to make athletes motivated for improved performance - different from whoopee just because a song made you want to bellow.  Or the sky was so perfectly blue and spread out over the day’s start you wanted to celebrate.  You got the job you wanted.  The person who just ran a red light did not hit you.  A friend woke up from surgery. A neighbor helped jump start your dead car battery.  Or you have the needed number of bread slices for lunch sandwiches.  A place landed safely. 

 

Joy is jumping out of cracks and crevices in life and I propose bringing the energy of the place up with the sounds of our voices celebrating more often, especially if we are in the space of our car or house where no one can wonder what we’re doing.  If in public, perhaps the voice is one of the heart where we are free to shout “whoopee” anytime.

Holler

lips and lungs getting garrulous, hilarious

what if publicly expelled, downright yelled

by some crazy lucky lady who took a swig

of metaphorical caramel latte, high energy

tongue jig of joy lapping karma juke box

sure shooting true she hooted whoopee

hooray for me and a life swill that fills full

now, maybe moments sound celebrating

 

 

 

Empty

My brood has lived an exhilarating, exhausting flurry of hot, school-is-out activity for the last three months.  We wrapped our arms around summer and squeezed every drop we could out of it.  So much that today - the first day of the school year - arrived with very little energy for fanfare.  We attended open house events to find classrooms.  We packed our new book bags with supplies.  But today dawned much like those before, albeit with a wake up in the dark, and presented itself as new but subtle.  In its wake I find myself in a house that is empty. 

Following are the first four entries offered at Dictionary.com to define empty.   
1.  containing nothing; having none of the usual or appropriate contents
2.  vacant, unoccupied
3.  without cargo or load
4.  destitute of people or human activity

The house is unoccupied by humans except me sitting in a foreign quiet surrounded by motionless marks of cohabitants, various belongings not of my choosing.  It feels so long since a morning with just me in it stretched out its hours like hands, strong and soft, as if asking to come along on a slow walk.   

I know from recent conversations and FB postings that there are many levels of empty being felt by folks wishing their kids off to school.  How do we approach empty?  The quiet makes us listen perhaps in ways we have not had time or energy or desire to do in some time. 

Empty can be like a piece of paper on a spiral bound tablet.  The previous page flipped over was full of things we checked off a list – accomplishments that took a day, like clearing a closet of outgrown clothes, or maybe the better part of a year, like completing a 200 hour yoga teacher certification class, or maybe a week, like a trip to the ocean, or maybe eighteen years, like raising a baby to become a college student.  We listed, prioritized and reprioritized, we deleted, we added, we made the page fit as much as we could.  Now on a new page we may have none of the usual contents.  Instead a canvas on which to paint, new work opportunities to embrace, new friends to make, old friends to cherish,  a blank space to sit with empty as long as feels right.

I like the feeling of empty to make room for the “What’s Next.”  But empty is also wonderful as “What Is” right now.  Empty may be the just right thing for this moment which, like all the others, offers itself to us as the present.

Bare

empty of thoughts, noise not

no boo hooing barely knowing

what we dare doing, taking

bites and chewing, spewing

eschewing while brewing, see

solitude moments arrive

strive to swallow, exhale

expound sound of breath

breadth of gone, a new day

Adolescence

I recall the difficulty in understanding and accepting oneself during the years of adolescence.  The constant flow of body changes, navigating which social spaces to occupy, constantly comparing among other kids and feeling oneself coming up short on wardrobe, body appearance, financial status, family rules, whatever – all this could set off a stream of simultaneous self-doubt, sadness, glee and fury.  I feel finding oneself a difficult companion in puberty may be foreshadowing of trying to understand one’s offspring during these developmental years!  Adolescence is on my mind as I traverse it once again as a parent.

Dictionary.com defines the noun adolescence.
1.  the transitional period between puberty and adulthood in human development, extending mainly over the teen years and terminating legally when the age of majority of reached; youth
2.  the process or state of growing to maturity
3.  a period or stage of development, as of a society, preceding maturity

In many ways it feels the same.  I see a child changing into an un-kid, more a grown up looking person than a baby.  Parent and offspring now physically see eye to eye but it is merely a height issue as most other things are not so “eye to eye” at all.  I find myself wanting to go to my own room to be alone with my feelings.  Once there I stew.  Have I done something wrong to make my family member act this way?  Did I say something stupid?  Can’t everybody just try harder to get along?  It is so unfair that my time cannot be to do whatever I want with nobody telling me I have to be responsible!  I just want to yell at everybody.  I need to talk to a friend.  And let’s not forget how I long to avoid coming up short on anything – seriously, I am doing my best. 

Sound flash-back familiar? 

I see that the questions I’m sequestering myself to ask are much like my queries of twenty years ago and likely the wonderings just yesterday for my kid.  Perhaps this is a part of a continuing process or state of growing.  The definition of adolescence offers the word maturity quite a few times.  That may be what I need to ponder while I wish all this growing stuff could just be easier.

 

Adult Essence

taller skin, longer limbs, stretched to the edge of a ledge of emotion

spewing livid language lava, a new land to explore later after cooling

old school moves or new school sneakers knowing what to wear out

whimsical whiff of grown up wonderings wound with kid size dreams

friendship bracelets plait to exchange sometimes becoming too tight

slight tingle tells love sweet expansion of self-worth, daughter dating

dance moving music of maturity’s beguiling promises prior to growth

change an individual guarantee given freely of endocrine secretions

seguing transition time telling tootle-ooo to youth preparing to leave

Experiment

I’m conducting an experiment called Life.  Proving and disproving in equal parts.  I can be impulsive instead of methodical.  I arrange things in proper order trying to please.  I gather materials, read instructions (sometimes followed and sometimes ignored), watch what happens and record what I am able in words.  On the cusp of this day I am struck by the trial and error of this experiment and how random a lot of what comes and goes in life feels. 

Experiment is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle, supposition, etc.
2.  the conducting of such operations, experimentation
3.  (obsolete)  experience

Seriously, doesn’t life feel that way sometimes?  That we are consciously or not conducting a tentative discovery procedure as we gather our resources and move through our days testing theories.  We have certain ideas of how things should or could be and we head in the direction they point, adding and mixing and stirring new ingredients of locations, persons, experience.  Much of what we think is sure may turn out to be no so.  Many reactions we don’t expect come to pass. 

We learn.  We find success doesn’t always mean a good outcome.  Being alone is a blessing sometimes.  A person can love unconditionally.  Being a present parent is a giant pain but totally worth it as an investment in a child.  Chocolate makes most things at least a bit better.  A lot of who dies and who lives is unfair.  Really, all kinds of things are totally unfair and there isn’t much use in wanting life to be fair (I long to disprove this to no avail).

I’d like to know how the experiment turns out, if I am doing the right things.  Conflictingly I am in no hurry to get to the end.

                This Is Just a Test

Tubes percolating, gravity driven floating zygote in novel dark drifting
gifting some lass and lad with life they are not prepared for no matter
what books read or written baby blows the lid off beakers and boobs

Booboos heal and scab and without kneecaps who feels the hard floor
searching for more crumbs dropped, soon scooped and licked, weighed
record whose eye color and seeing size and proper scale of proportion 

Pudgy marshmallow roast middle grade toaster treat kisses, noble gas
devil may care about safety spectacles, beer goggles instead teen time
we lack listening when told by old and bold because we think we know

Better get the whole body figured out, read the right tome while home
with a secret between Danny and Sandy amid songs longing and leather
not a touch too much or too little heat to keep the heaping heart full

Cooking and changing, creating balanced solutions without blowing up
tiny cup of toxic concoction offered by hereditarily engineered science
become light one flowing, growing daily dropper full of faith at a time

Peaches

A local roadside produce stand is a fabulous find.  Fresh peaches, watermelon, tomatoes, cantaloupe and cucumbers are delicious.  I count it among the positive things about my home that such a spot rests on a nearby highway on my summer driving route.  Recently a friend and I were dishing over how mind-blowingly wonderful the peaches purchased there have been.  My pal made a statement that stuck with me.  It was something like, “In the summer I try to eat peaches every day because they are just so delicious right now.” 

Dictionary.com defines the noun peach.
1.  the subacid, juicy, drupaceous fruit of a tree Prunus persica, of the rose family.
2.  the tree itself, cultivated in temperate climates.
3.  a light pinkish yellow, as of a peach.
4.  (informal)  a person or thing that is especially attractive, liked, or enjoyed.

I think mindfully about peaches now each time I eat one or share a bowlful of freshly peeled and pared fruit with my family.  It makes me wonder what else happens so simply each day that I can savor.   What can we take in on a seemingly ordinary, routine day that is just for us at this time - so perfect right now? 

We can offer ourselves actual fruit and also perhaps consider what metaphorical peaches we can give ourselves.  The view out a window of a fully leafed tree?  The gusty breeze that always blows on the cusp of a summer evening storm?  The colors of the dry, hot, earth spreading along a dirt road, spraying orange dust behind as we drive?  The sacred silence of being alone?  A tingly-cold drink of ice water?   The just right bumps and curves of a favorite chair?  A popsicle with a joke on the stick? 

It is so easy to dwell on what we don’t have instead of the simple pleasure and enjoyment that we do possess.  We so long for fantastical things to make our life seemingly perfect that they distract us from the simple daily richness we might have already.  Too often we become victim to the media images that tell us we do NOT have enough, we need more or different stuff while simple, nearby peaches rest uncelebrated.

We likely all agree life has work and needs to fill in it.  No doubt it is correctly said that life ain’t all peaches and cream.  Maybe sometimes it is just plain peaches and that can be wonderful enough.      

Jim-dandy

fuzzy friend - a fruit - ripe fresh from picking

perfect with dabs of dirt and a small bottom bruise

perfect with thin skin and hard center pitted heart

perfect offering hues orange red and yellow brown

perfect with blush lopsided cheeks offering sweet

perfect only now in summer heat, choose to eat

perfect treat which proffers fleeting familiar yield

gently round beneath lips lightly kissing a prize

Pooped

I have been having fun since school let out at the end of May.  So much fun in fact that I am totally pooped! 

Dictionary.com defines the adjective pooped as an informal word meaning fatigued, exhausted. 

In the last seven weeks I have been wading off to swim team practice in the mornings and swim meets two evenings a week armed with towels and chairs and snacks and sunscreen.  I arranged and attended a pizza pool party for my oldest daughter to celebrate turning twelve.  A mermaid themed waterpark bash was the wish of my other daughter to turn six in splashy style so I made that happen, too.  To mark my son’s tenth birthday, I tromped through the woods masked, sweaty and armed with a paintball air gun shooting and being shot at with my son and his friends.  My 14^th wedding anniversary arrived in the mix, too, as did a couple of potluck dinners and out of town guests.  We have been to the state museum, friends’ houses, and bi-weekly karate classes.  I have tried to maintain a commitment to regular yoga practice while also working to build the ability to teach yoga.  The beautiful South Carolina coast and the Blue Ridge Mountains called my family to come for visits.  How blessed am I to have all these wonderful opportunities?  But, all of these delightful events required planning and execution.

Let it not be misinterpreted, I am not complaining.  Just noticing.  Noticing how much rest my body would like.  Noticing how we can overextend ourselves even with positive behaviors.  Noticing how my six year old daughter slept 14 hours last night. 

This household is headed for some rest.  Next on the agenda is, well, nothing.  I’m shooting for not one event this week so we can hunker down and avoid the encroaching heat.  It is time for us to find some stillness.  Maybe we can get to playing some of the great games garnered as birthday presents.  Maybe we can watch my rainbow colored thigh welt, courtesy of paintball, heal.  Maybe we can look over the photos of the fun things we have done.  Maybe we can allow my dear, sweet baby child an age-appropriate bedtime.  Maybe we can eat tomato pie and cucumber salad from the garden-fresh produce arriving in abundance.  We might slurp popsicles on the fan-cooled porch and tell the stories we’ve written as we worked our way toward being pooped by the middle of July.

Dog-tired

piled people puppies pooped, tuckered

plum spent of fun ideas, doings decadent

delicious desserts, dainty dinner dresses

blue bruises, red ribbons, birthday cakes

drip castles, cucumber vines, campfires

paintball, picnics, the pool to cool bathe

splash bodies tanned calf brown soft

youth under aging palms rubbed safe

beneath brother sun so much fun begun

best arms of mother Juno first knowing

as August hits the hot will make us rest.

Study

I am a school-loving kind of gal.  I have always enjoyed what back in the day might be called “book learning” and embrace the chance to study new things.  It brings me joy to learn!  In recent years I am discovering that the desire to learn facts and phrases outside of me is quite possibly an extension of wanting to learn about myself.  How do I fit into all this knowledge abounding? 

At dictionary.com study is defined as a verb without an object in four entries.
1.  to apply oneself to the acquisition of knowledge, as by reading, investigation or practice.
2.  to apply oneself; endeavor.
3.  to think deeply, reflect, or consider.
4.  to take a course of study as at college.

There are so many wise people sharing themselves and their knowledge in person and through books.  I study with them to perhaps fill myself with tools and find the best way of living.  Study doesn’t have to involve a book.  It can be listening to someone talk.  It can be enjoying music.  Any endeavor in which we apply ourselves can be an act of study.  Cooking.  Gardening.  Writing.  Exercise.  Working.  Meditation.  Everything can teach us.  Anything can offer opportunity to think deeply, reflect, or consider.

Taking time to study is also not necessarily pleasant all the time even if purely voluntary.  Continuous time spent in the acquisition of knowledge often makes me tired.  Sometimes makes me bored.  Sometimes seems too hard.  Sometimes doesn’t make sense.  Sometimes I learn things I truly cannot understand or that my gut tells me to reject or that conflict with some information I already assume to correctly possess.  Sometimes I learn things I did not want to know.

I feel camaraderie as I study with fellow folks I know are right there with me approaching life as a kind of classroom.  We want to know more so that we can know ourselves. 

Schooling

sponge soaked in abundance, spilled
information leaping

lapping up pages scribbled by hands
holding heart queries

answers with questions never simply
accepting squeeze

intuition wrings what we don’t know
may harm or make

us lighter.  With inquiry bodies discern
true knowledge

a quest for you without smoked mirrors
instead clear sight