Brave, Anyway

Author: bravegirlwannabe

  • Quarantine Stream of Consciousness

    Quarantine Stream of Consciousness

    The Queen’s messages in the first month of this quarantine were the most uplifting and heartfelt of all the messages by world figures/leaders.

    Many religions have festivals which celebrate light overcoming darkness. Such occasions are often accompanied by the lighting of candles. They seem to speak to every culture, and appeal to people of all faiths, and of none. They are lit on birthday cakes and to mark family anniversaries, when we gather happily around a source of light. It unites us.

    I love that. Light unites us.

    The other thing uniting us is how ridiculous we all look in our masks. They are necessary to protect ourselves and others when we have to be out and about, and I know it is a very serious thing, but when people use bandanas as their masks I cannot even contain my grin. Every single time I see someone in a store with a bandana on their face it makes me think “bank robber!” And every single time I have to stifle the giggle inside me.

    I had to go back and double check, and I was surprised that my favorite bank robbers didn’t actually wear bandanas. I assume that’s because it would have been a crime to cover up faces that handsome.

    https://giphy.com/gifs/reaction-laughing-laugh-mcI308p0FcMjS

    It’s definitely time to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid again. My most recent quarantine discovery that will come in handy for that viewing: the wine that best pairs with Krispy Kreme is pinot grigio.

    One of the ways I’m committed to being a professional and responsible adult during this time when all food and desserts are available for delivery is that I wear pants with a button 5 days a week, even though I’m working from home.

    And that brings me to I do not recommend Korean beef during a pandemic. It was something different and it was fantastic, so I ate a ton of it. But then the spiciness made me sweat, which made me think I had a fever, which sent my brain down a dark path for a bit.

    In one of those late night moments when my brain was unable to rest, I came across this gem and I keep coming back to it: Pray. Not until God hears you, but until you listen to God.

    Audrey is praying hard for a new pet and I am not sure which one of us God is listening to or which one of us is listening to God. I completely underestimated how much of an advantage the stay-at-home order gives to children trying to wear parents down about something. She initially wanted a hamster, and I won that battle by revealing their tendency to bite with very sharp teeth. But then she researched rodents/pets that might be more “docile.” Thank you, Virginia Beach City Public Schools, for encouraging a focus on vocabulary as part of distance-learning lesson plans and for the addition of that word to her vocabulary. Each day she’s reading new facts about guinea pigs and reciting them all to me, including through the door of my bathroom, and all the while she’s getting school credit for it. In summary, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to end up buying this child a guinea pig.

    There is noise all the time. Hoverboards and roller skates and televisions and iPads and lawn mowers and cats wanting to overeat and phone notifications. There is noise all the time. Someone is talking all the time. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. And maybe even after, and I just am not aware of it. Because everyone on the planet is stuck in their house, and we are not interacting with friends and coworkers in the same way, everyone just seems to want to talk more – whether in person or on Zoom or on Facetime – and it’s exhausting. I need quiet, and my number one struggle of this time is that there is little-to-no quiet around me or inside my brain.

    This week I let my teenager stay up all night on Facetime with her gal pals because they can’t have sleepovers right now and she didn’t have schoolwork this week – and I think it’s quite possible she will remember those giggles and TikTok dances for the rest of her life. And you know what, judge-y Moms who have maintained bedtime routines, after feeding their children organic brussels sprouts? I’m not sorry. Kudos to those with a work and school schedule that’s neatly color coded on a white board in your kitchen. I fall somewhere in the middle of the human spectrum, with the regular mommas, between the girls capable of being an educator and the girls focused on their makeup and hair.

    This is the longest my hair has been since college. And it’s annoying.

    Mask made by my friend Vida at 406 Creative Vibe.

  • Old Testament Lessons

    Old Testament Lessons

    I recently watched Unorthodox on Netflix and am fascinated by some of the Jewish traditions shown in it. As I’ve been reading up on a couple, I realized that Passover begins tonight – in the middle of the Christian Holy Week.

    I’m not Jewish and I’ve not draped it correctly, but my heart is in the right place. I really love the idea of red on our entryway as a reminder that God delivered His people from destruction.

    It seems like the perfect visual to accompany a verse I’ve been focused on recently, from Job 11 (Good News Translation): You will live secure and full of hope; God will protect you and give you rest.

  • What is even happening right now?

    What is even happening right now?

    My internal voice keeps saying it. My external voice keeps saying it. Over and over and over again in the last couple of weeks.

    What is even happening right now?

    Daily death tolls. People need medical care and can’t get it. Countries and states on lockdown. People stranded and they can’t get home. Grocery stores with limited or empty shelves, reminiscent of the market in Gilead.

    How is this suddenly our life? No school. No office. No church. No gymnastics. No spring break plans. No roaming around TJ Maxx. No salon. No Skinny Dip. No teenagers packed in my car for basketball or football or lacrosse games.

    Now, instead, it’s work-at-home and learn-at-home and church-at-home. Cooking and SkipBo and 1500 piece jigsaw puzzles.

    How did we get here, and what is even happening right now?!

    What are people doing with all the toilet paper? I bought some TP, and instead focused on caffeine, chocolate, OJ and carbs. I don’t know what the rest of you are eating, but it’s not normal to “go” so much you need 96 rolls of Charmin during your four weeks at home.

    Then, Virginia schools are closed for the remainder of this academic year. Ohhhhhhhkay. I mean, that seems like jumping the gun a bit with only a handful of cases in our state but I can work from home so I think this will be OK.

    Then, I start receiving emails about remote learning and instructions for guiding my children through the exercises. Wait, what? I’m not an educator. Someone trained to educate needs to be responsible for that. And most importantly someone patient and relaxed. And patient. And without a full-time job. Do these guys running all the school stuff and making these decisions realize how many classes were skipped by those of us now responsible for this distance learning of the next generation?

    And then, I miss church. It’s funny how sometimes I struggle to get up on Sundays, but in the last couple of weeks when forbidden to go I am up and feeling like something big is amiss. I have watched so many sermons on Facebook recently and while the messages are good, there’s just something about being in a room full of people worshipping. With the exception of the four years I was in college when Sunday morning was primarily about recovery and the year or so after I had Audrey, I’ve said The Lord’s Prayer with a large group of people every Sunday my entire life – but I never knew how special community prayer was to me until I wasn’t able to do it in the last couple of weeks. It turns out it’s so special to me that I broke into tears during a Facebook live when I heard familiar voices saying it.

    And then the longer I’m stuck at home the more snarky my internal voice becomes. I KNOW Jesus slept on the boat during a crisis, but Jesus didn’t have to shut out the noise of a child in roller skates on hard wood floors racing to catch a cat while also shouting because she discovered someone ate the last Krispy Kreme without us all talking about who should get it.

    And then the Texas Lt. Governor said he and other grandparents are willing to risk their lives for the economy. And some people applauded him and agreed. I dare even one of those people to tell me they vote the way the do because they are pro-life. The tigress in me is ready for lunch.

    And now the President of the United States is tweeting words like “lamestream media” and talking about the virus in relation to how it effects his re-election. It just makes me want to scream NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU! Can the President be presidential just this once? Pretty please.

    What is even happening right now?

    WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?!

    Oh how I long for the What is even happening right nows of just three weeks ago, when Chipotle removed carne asada from its menu. Remember that? I do. And I’m *still* mad at you, Chipotle!

  • Go Go Go

    Go Go Go

    It was such a beautiful day today, even though I didn’t get to really see much of it. After 6 am Ancient Greece instruction for my 8-year old followed by a Food Lion run to secure TP and OJ followed by 9 meetings, I walked outside of the house – by myself – to our neighborhood circle, and just laid down in the grass.

    I didn’t care about allergies or mosquitos or wet earth on my hair and jeans or the people who walked by and tentatively asked if I was OK because they thought I was crazy. I just needed a few minutes of feeling not like a robot who must go go go.

    Go to help with school work. Go to work, even though it’s inside my house right now. Go to the market to keep the pantry stocked. Go to run errands for prescriptions and dry cleaning. Go to follow up on baths and teeth brushing. Go to prepare meals and do laundry and declutter and clean.

    Go. Go. Go.

    I already had a full schedule and now suddenly I am also not in the office where I’m organized as well as helping two children with distance learning. I am not patient or even that smart, and I don’t have any additional hours in the day.

    And in that maxed out moment today when I really wanted to give in to the desire to complain about all that’s on my plate, I reigned it in to focus on what all the GOing really means.

    I’m thankful to be able to work from home while my girls are out of school and while there’s so much uncertainty about sickness. I’m thankful all of my parents and my children are home and healthy and safe. I’m thankful to see my girls in the middle of the day and that they are always close by. I’m thankful that they share little musings and findings during the day, which is not something we normally can do. I’m thankful for made up games and pranks and dances and songs that make the girls giggle, and I’m thankful for the time to encourage culinary creativity.

    I’m thankful for technology that enables me to work remotely and that keeps us all occupied. I’m thankful for a stocked pantry. I’m thankful for my job and my work family. I’m thankful for messages and texts from friends and family near and far.

    I’m thankful for 20 minutes to myself today, to lay in the grass and feel alive and thankful again. And I’m guessing I will soon be thankful for Calamine and Benedryl. I’m thankful I take terrible selfies and can provide a source of laughter for teenagers.

    I’m thankful, thankful, thankful in all my go go go-ing.

  • Corona and Communion

    Corona and Communion

    Everything is different, and yet everything is the same. The most important people are still the most important people. The most important things are still the most important things. And yet, everything seems different somehow.

    I guess it’s not actually that things are different so much as that things have been even more revealed. What was there and true all along is simply no longer as hidden. How drug companies profit. How the poor have less access to health care and technology and education. How the selfish hoard, and are incapable of considering and unwilling to consider the community and the greater good. How little some people respect and value and care for our nation’s aging citizens and family members.

    I guess it’s true that adversity brings out the best and worst of humanity, and I am just done with the coverage of and from the worst of humanity. I am done with the fear mongering and the finger-pointing and the projections.

    Translate: I am now rationing my news intake. I want to know what’s closed and what steps the CDC says I need to take, but I am *done* with pictures of empty grocery shelves and listening to pundits say the president mishandled this virus situation (is that actually news?) or that kids should or should not be in school. I need to be informed, but I need to balance information with stories and news about the best of humanity. For my own sanity.

    You know what hasn’t changed, ever? What was true 6 months ago and 6 years ago and 6 decades ago, and is still true today? People are mostly good. Most people are good. We tend to focus on the small percentage that is bad, and it’s gotten so out of hand that it can seem like the bad outweighs the good – and that’s just not truth.

    I believe in science and I believe in God. It doesn’t have to be one or the other; it can be both. I can pray and I can take vitamins and vaccines. And I may even knock on wood. Because I can be a faith person who’s also a little superstitious and who believes that it’s my job to do what I can while letting God worry about the rest. And that’s not awful. I think it’s probably actually pretty normal. And people just won’t admit it because faith people want you to be all faith all the time and science people want you to be all science all the time, and the two are not supposed to mix. But I am faith and science both, and I’d like to say all the time but the truth is sometimes my faith in science and my faith in God can be shaken a little.

    Such as when I watch too much news.

    I am a person who prepares and also a person of faith. I have a stocked pantry and a stocked bible. I have my doctor and my pastor in my contacts. And this morning I balanced yesterday’s worry about a potential lack of things – the result of too much news intake – with communion, taken with a few dozen strangers, before the sun lit the sky.

    And it felt awesome. Awesome to have quiet moments. Awesome to be part of a community of people focusing on the same thing. Awesome to focus on good things at the start of the day. Awesome to throw out old and unhealthy thoughts and fill those parts of my brain with goodness and quiet. Awesome to, for just a few moments, be the child instead of the parent. Awesome to worry about nothing. Awesome to be imperfect and loved anyway. Awesome to be a contradiction and loved anyway.

    1 Corinthians 11:28 says, “Everyone should look into his own heart before he eats the bread and drinks the cup.” International Children’s Bible