Common Ground

When the girls were little, they colored and painted, drew pictures and dressed up, and played with dollhouses and Barbie dolls.  Their bedroom was sometimes a playground, sometimes a city, sometimes a garden for toys they made themselves.  It was always untidy.

With such a large group of good and loyal friends, it is no surprise that Laura and Mark have been auntie and uncle par excellence. Elementary basketball and volleyball games in the friendly confines of small school gymnasiums, pints and half pints baseball in towns without Starbucks,  outings to the Zoo, the Arch, the Science Center, even the tippy top of the City Museum in St. Louis.   Pernod Gardens is a home away from home with surf 'n turf from Chef Mark...especially for college freshmen. We celebrate whatever the occasion: Farm Bureau Nights at the Ballpark with Kosher brats, New Year's Eves with party poppers and silly hats,  July 4ths with epic fireworks, golf for fun and good causes...

 One of us is a country mouse and one a city mouse, but though we live a state apart, we have many shared loves.  Laura was the very first transplanter at Hurst Greenery years and years ago, and it's still a great pleasure to task Mark with packing posies in the back of their car for a summer's sojourn in St. Louis.  We commiserate when the weather is dry..or hot...cold or windy...we celebrate the beauties of orchids, daylilies, pansies, and hibiscus. Pottery from across the country graces the tables and shelves of our homes; magnets from far and wide decorate the doors of our refrigerators.  Each of us keeps a stack of books close at hand in various states of read and hope to read. And both of us carry the story of our lives in photographs: from Instamatics to iPhones, from big hair to big hats, babies to grandbabies,  weddings and reunions, graduations and good-byes. 

These are the ties that bind through the years, that weave a family history across the miles, and make sisters friends.....

And One More Thing....

Years ago, just a few months before Matt performed the proper and very old-fashioned act of asking for Ann's hand in marriage, Blake penned a wry, wondering, and almost touching, essay about being the father of the bride...and just one step on the road to...being a grandfather.  Embedded in the piece was a daydream, a tableau, of Blake sitting on his front porch surrounded by and dispensing words of wisdom to a circle of grandchildren. 

What makes this a mere vision is the notion that Grandpa's grandkids would sit still long enough to receive much less pay heed to grandfatherly advice. Not to worry, because Grandpa Blake is more into teasing and kidding and telling stories to the young ones than waxing philosophic.  He marshals his punditry and saves his very strong opinions for, say, the management of the St. Louis Cardinals...

He's full of advice for Mike Matheny!

And what about me? If the life I am living doesn't exhibit what I have believed or have learned, then my stint as a sage should be pretty short and as highly regarded as Grandpa's tall tales about going to Texas....

Nonetheless....

To: Aaron and Lizzie,  Gabe and Abbie, Josh and Levi:

Be curious.  Ask the question, learn the name, make the trip, read the book, take the class.  Be enthralled with your surroundings and walk with your eyes and ears open to the details and wonders around you.  You will amass more books than you will ever read and chances are you will forget names and places and dates you should remember...but you will have known them once and might still get asked to play Trivia.  

Do one more thing before you go to bed.  Achieving one task no matter how mundane before you sleep makes you feel as if you've got a leg up on the next day.  So put the coffee cups away or start the wash or match some socks....Or maybe that's just me....

Play music, sing music, listen to music.  The cares and worries of the day will fade to gray and you will be refreshed.  Your music brain will ''cure what ails you."  In the same vein, read your Bible.  Not just in times of need, but routinely. Read a Psalm, or a Letter, or some of your Lord's Red Letter Words to His disciples.  Practice makes perfect...in music...and routine makes for good habits makes for self discipline. Romans 5:4 puts it this way: "and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."

Lift up your face to the world.  Smile at those you meet or give them the good old country wave.  Take a good look around as you go on your way. Your moms and dads are doing a great job of teaching you to work and study and be kind.  I'm just reminding you to multitask and be cheerful at the same time.

I would tell you to plant flowers, but that might be too much pressure! Just because weeding and dirt, daylilies and terracotta are home for me doesn't mean that flowers will be for you. But taking pictures should!  Reflecting on the past cannot help but reinforce an attitude of gratitude, whether boisterous or pensive, joyful or tearful.  Enjoying the good times as recorded in pictures stretches time, brings loved ones from the past to the present and places and stories long gone and forgotten back to mind. Take the pictures....and tell the stories to your children...and your grandchildren...as they gather around you on the couch.

Or on that front porch....

Oh.... one more piece of advice.

Visit your grandma.