Rain and sunshine

Rain and sunshine

North Texas is known for crazy weather, but this year has been unbelievable. I took these photos one afternoon last week when we had a quick shower, but the afternoon sun was still shining. If you look hard enough you can barely see the traces of rain. Rain and sunshine, the combination illustrates how I am feeling about my life. This week, I have discovered 2 more of that life shifting paradigms. Both of fill me with grief and pain of what life has been and hope of what life might be. The first one was finding that underneath my inability of to open mail, to go want to go to work, to want to be involved with people is the fear or dread that they want something from me. There was a time in my life when I thrived on people wanting something from me. The more demands the better. It fed my ego that I was able to provide something no one else could, that I didn’t need what other people need. Most importantly, it kept me busy enough to not deal with the fact that I have needs that weren’t being met. The second thing I learned today is that I want to meet your needs so that I do not cause you to suffer. This wasn’t a new concept, I have heard it before. But today, it was different for me. This goes deep inside of me. What I need to learn is that I am not responsible for the needs of everyone else. Listen, I can type those words as a sentence. I can give a definition of the words, but I don’t have a clue what really believing it would mean for me. My doctor suggested that I watch for being drawn to that response in my relationships. Of course, that is what frightens me the most. I don’t know how to approach people if I am not trying to meet their needs. And even more frightening is that I have to know and express what my needs are. The other advice my doctor had for me was to rest in the confidence and peace of knowing God within me, and knowing that everyone else has that same resource, God within them, to meet their needs. This photo fills me with peace, a peace that only God can bring. I hope it fills you with peace too.

Maybe I was in the heat too long…

Maybe I was in the heat too long…

As a part of my efforts to increase my physical activity, about 6 weeks ago I started walking at lunch. This isn’t a casual walk. I change into my work out clothes and really walk. We have an outdoor track that is across the street from our building, but enclosed by a fence that you use your building badge to enter. Everything I have read indicates that you get a lot more benefit from exercising outside, so as long as I can I am going to walk outside. So, far the heat has been okay, (it’s the afternoon when it is getting too hot.) It is a lot more pleasant to watch the clouds and birds and hear them sing than to guess the Jeopardy answers while toiling on the treadmill. And I know that I am using my arms more than I would on the treadmill. I bought a small MP3 player and loaded it with as much Pathways music as I could. It really makes a difference. Since the tree hit my head, I have been wearing a baseball cap to protect the scar.

This is our second track. They had to rework the first track a couple of years ago when they put in a parking lot. The first track was about a quarter mile long. I had been working on the assumption that it would take 4 laps to go a mile. I have been pushing myself to do the 4 laps every day. This week I was talking with a friend who also walks and he told me the track was a ½ mile. I could hardly believe my ears! I have been walking 2 miles for weeks.
Thursday, when I came in from walking, still in shock that I had walked 2 laps, sweat was pouring off my head. I was able to really look at my scar while I blowing my hair dry. After I changed, I went to the store to buy my lunch. In the checkout line, I saw the kid that plays Harry Potter on the cover of a magazine. Maybe I was in the heat too long, but I realized that my scar is just like Harry Potter’s

It has been a slow week.

It has been a slow week. My head healed nicely, but I had to tell the story again and again. Tuesday, I had my cable switched from the local cable company to AT&T. It is a risk for me, their technology looks good. It took almost 15 hours, but some of that is because it is new for the phone company. I should have faster internet access as well. But, a day without TV was what I needed, especially after the accident. It allowed me to get my journal caught up. I would write a few lines and close my eyes for a few minutes. I also took pictures of the downed tree and took some general measurements. The tree was probably 25 feet in its hayday. Most of the time, I am too worn out after work and working in the yard to mess with the computer. It has taken about 3 days to get the journal typed into the computer.
I have a huge bruise on my left arm. I think I must have fallen on the arm.

This weekend I felt up to working in the yard. The first thing I had to do was to face the tree. I cut it onto pieces. It is funny how things looked different to everyone. With all the rain we have had, and the trunk of the tree never exposed to light, it gave me the feel that the dry wood was totally water logged and a lot heavier than it would have been dry. My brother, who was not struck by the tree, thought it would be lighter than a live tree because it would not contain the water that the live tree would have. After being in the sun, the tree has dried out. It is the consistency of compacted saw dust. I put the pieces out at the street as trash, not even giving it the dignity to be fire wood.

More neighbors stopped by for minutes this weekend to comment on the work I was doing. One couple, whom I didn’t know, asked about my overall health indicating that they knew about my cancer. Evidently they were part of the countless number of people unknown to me who were praying for me.

It took me a couple of days to get my nerve up to wash my hair. The stitches came out today; I didn’t feel a thing. One of the nurses told me to use Neosporin a couple of times a day on the stitches. She told me it would help them come out. The PA told me the injury looked healed and I shouldn’t have any problems with it. I went straight to my regular therapy session. I was exhausted by the time I got home. Once, the trauma was over, I allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the strain of the event. How is that a mirror to my life?
July 16, 2007

I got a tetanus shot Sunday

I got a tetanus shot Sunday. It was something I have been meaning to do for a while, an action item on my life plan. It just wasn’t scheduled for Sunday. I was feeling pretty good about what I had gotten done on Saturday. Today I have a daunting task. There is a fairly narrow access area next to the road about 3 feet from between the street and my property. A couple of weeks ago I got the access strip cleaned up. Now I am working down the property line. Clearing the undergrowth on the street had revealed a dead cedar tree that has been encumbered by a grouping of privet hedge stalks.

At some time the tree broke about 3 feet off the ground. The base of the tree fell against the incline and the trunk of the tree had rested on top of it. The trunk appeared to be reaching as tall as the electrical lines and the top of the tree was intertwined with other tree branches and hedge stalks. There 8 or 9 privet hedge stalks that had grown around it, some of them were actually wrapped around the trunk. It was hard to tell which cut would be the one to break the tree free. If the tree fell in the direction it was leaning, it would have fallen into the electrical lines. As long as the undergrowth was there it was held fairly securely, but now that I had cleared most of the undergrowth, the tree was trouble waiting to happen. My plan was to influence the tree and shrubs to come straight down to the ground. Then, my plan was to push the tree in the direction I wanted it to fall.

I carefully cut each stalk around the tree. Each time trying to stay on the side opposite of the direction I thought the tree would fall. None of them were the magic stalk holding the tree in place. And none of them were coming out by themselves. They were a unit, all intertwined up at the top. I put the power tools aside. It was just me and the tree. I started by pulling the trunk of the tree as far as it would come down. I pulled each stalk as far as would it come, always staying out of the path of the tree. I couldn’t believe it, the plan was working; each pull brought the entire unit - the tree and the privet stalks – a little father down. To reach the next stalk, I had to stand on an angle on the incline, at the side of the tree. I wish I could explain what happened next, but since I was in the middle of it and not just a spectator. As I pulled, I heard and felt the tree break free. Then I heard a sound that I had heard once in a movie, Z, back in the 70’s. During a demonstration the police went into the crowd with bully clubs. The sound of wood against bone was one I never wanted to hear again. And bang, I was on the ground. Between that sound and my hitting the ground, I thought the same thing the Travelocity Nome says when he plugs the American electric device into the European socket, ‘Am I going to die now?’

I didn’t die, I didn’t pass out, I didn’t even close my eyes, but I know I am bleeding. I get up from the ground and manage to move around the fallen brush and tree, which has evidently broken into a couple of pieces, probably from hitting my head. If there had been someone around, I would have yelled out call ‘911’. But there was only me. My goal was to let someone know I was hurt and get the bleeding stopped. Amazingly, I was still conscious when I got to my garden cart where my cell phone and wash rag I use to wipe the sweat off my face are. I am able to sit down in my lawn chair and apply pressure to my wound. It’s amazing, even at my age; my first inclination was to call my parents. There I was with my head leaned back applying pressure with one hand and trying to get the address book open on my phone to speed dial my parents. They are listed under ‘p’. Then I thought, ‘You silly thing, Bill (my brother) lives down the street. And he is a ‘B’, so you don’t have to mess with the address book.’ Actually the phone was new. I hadn’t stored Bill’s home number on my SIM card, so I had to manually dial the number. I had to calm down enough to hold the phone over my head and dial the 9 digits with one hand. Luckily, he was there and could help me.

Okay, I didn’t die. I let someone know I need help. I haven’t passed out. Although the bleeding seems to be under control, the wash rag on my head is soaked with blood. I calm down a little. I drink some water. I am sure that I was quite a sight setting in my chair, with the bloody rag, calmly drinking water when a neighbor drove by. In just a second, they drove back to check on me.

My Mom has been worried about me working with the chain saw by myself. But when I got hurt, the power tools were on the ground. This was just me and the tree and gravity. If someone else had been there, they probably would have been hit by some part of the tree.

Twelve stitches later, I was waiting for the results of the head x-rays. I remembered that I had my cell phone in my pants pocket. I was worried that Bill was going to miss his flying lesson. So I called him in the waiting room. He was more concerned about what was happening with me than the flying lesson, so he was glad I called. When he answered, the absurdity of me calling him on a cell phone when he was less than 15 feet from me, but not knowing what was going on made me giggle. But giggling made my forehead hurt, so I had to stop that.

The x-ray was negative, which is a evidently a good thing. They wrapped my head in gauze to secure a small pad over the incision. Once again, I was quite a sight with my bandage and hair going in all directions. When I was checking out, the receptionist gave me a paper bag for my bloody rag. She said when I saw the blood I knew we had to get you into a room. We had to stop at a pharmacy on the way home. We were back in the car in less than 10 minutes. Evidently bloody rags and bandage heads get you great customer service.

The tree is in 4 pieces on the ground. It had once been around 25 feet tall. I am standing, so I figure I won. Probably, though there are better ways to get a tetanus shot.

Overgrown hedges need to be cut out

Last week, I read that overgrown shrubs and hedges need to be cut to the ground and dug up. It is best to start with young, new plants. This was sad news to me. I had trimmed the row of hedges at the street to waist high, but I stopped there. It was safe; I thought it would give me more options. Now, I know that I have to cut them down and take them out. I don’t want to do it. It was much more comfortable knowing no one could see in. The moment I cut them down, I’ll have to admit that the hedges I have grown around my heart can’t just be trimmed down to a decent height either. I am going to have to cut them down and dig them out the root.

I don’t know exactly what that means, I just know it scares me. Deep inside, I want to be openly in the light. I don’t just want the light to bask the tip top of my life, I want my whole body to see and feel the warmth, the love. I want the light to penetrate my heart.

All morning, I’ve tried to keep my gaze off the hedges, but my eyes keep going to them. I am trying to get my courage up to cut them down. I keep hearing in my head all the reasons for not doing it. Finally, I know it is time. If I don’t do it now, I will have to live with a whole bunch of should haves. I grab the chain saw and head up the hill. I start intentionally cutting each stalk as close to the ground as I can. It is hard. At times, I think I am going to be sick, but maybe it is the heat. And then, it is done.

I step across the street to look at my trimmed property. I know that the glass is half full folks would say it looks clean now. To tell you the truth, it looks barren and vulnerable to me. My heart sinks a little. I know that’s how I will feel. I am also glad. I can take a photo of it with the 4th of July flag. The boy scouts will be along any time to collect it. It makes it not so barren.

Later in the evening, I run an errand. When I return to the house, I am amazed at how open and inviting my land looked, almost like a park. More than anything, it looks normal. I think this is what I intended to do all along; cut the front hedge so everyone could enjoy my property. My plan was to leave it in place until everything behind it was perfect. I am afraid that is what I am doing in my life. I am existing in a comfortable place until I was strong enough, bright enough to blossom into the world. My property has taught me to live in a ‘safe’, ‘comfortable’ world, you don’t have the resources to really grow, your roots can’t take hold to keep you steady and you become worthless as you stretch yourself so thin to reach the light. And only the top catches the light. To really grow, to really blossom, I need all parts of me to bask in the light.

Even more, I would have never seen the landscaping possibilities for my land if I hadn’t taken the hedge down first.

Now I have the courage to clear at the street to the property line. I don’t know how long it will take or what I will be facing to complete the task.

It is not just that the work is hard

It is not just that the work is hard, it is also frustrating. First there is the problem of getting the tools from the garage the 200 feet out to the street. Driving the tools and using the Astek as a work station is not an option. The parking at the street is the same place the cut brush is left for pickup. I have a great garden cart that I load up with chain saws, hedge cutters, water, gloves, insect repellant, sun block, camera and chair. By the time I get the cart down and up the driveway, I am usually out of breath.(This gets better everyday.) The driveway is steep in both directions and when it is wet (like it has been all spring) it slippery.

The work seems to have 4 parts, plan, cut down, cut up, and haul to the street. The hauling to the street is the hardest part, with the bending over to pick the limbs up and carry them up and down the landscape. Sometimes I can not face the hauling. I have decided that it is definitely a morning activity. I have noticed that I generally carry the brush like you would carry a massive arrangement of flowers. As I head toward the street, I often step into a fantasy of being named Queen of the Forest (it is my forest) and I am walking down the runway with my bouquet to the admiring forest animals. I wonder if guys carry bundles of limbs in a different way and invoke different fantasies.
I would be able to do this if I had not been doing strength training the last couple of years. The first time I would have gotten winded, I would have thought, that’s it, I have exerted myself, I am done for the day. Strength training has taught me that you exert yourself, get out of breath, recover and exert yourself again. I wouldn’t have gotten very far with this project without this information.

While hauling to the street is hard, the cut down and cut up phases are even more frustrating. I take frequent small breaks in my chair to recover. During these breaks I am planning my next move. From the chairs the hedge stalks look thinner and lower to the ground than they really are. It always looks like it will take only 2 swipes with the hedge hog to clear a 3 foot section, one at about waist level and one at ground level. When you get to the work area, at least half of the stalks are thick enough to require the chain saw. There is no broad sweeping of the clutter here. Each stalk has to be intentionally cut. I can’t see the tops of the stalks. They are intertwined with other trees and other stalks.
(time frame June)

The planets have aligned

One day in the midst of considering how to make my home, property and myself more inviting, how to be a good steward of my land, how to increase my physical activity, the planets must have aligned and I received a letter from the city. Letters from the city are never good news. Often they remind me of something I know that needs to be done, but I haven’t gotten around to. This letter was different. The city had bought a new fire truck that was 2 feet taller than the current ordnance allowed the trees to hang over the street. In other words, they can’t get the truck down most of the older streets. They asked us to trim our trees as soon as we could. Working on my property became my next project. I started out to just trim at the street, but once I started clearing, I couldn’t stop. Most everyday I try to spend some time working on the land. As I cleared the overgrowth, I also started learning about my life.

People ask me how far I am going with this clearing project. I don’t know. Maybe it is until I can’t clear anything else. Maybe it will be until it is just too hot. I will know when it is enough for a while.

You would think that this would be a project without supervision. I don't think you can do anything without supervision. Rusty, the cat, who believes he owns the property is my supervisor. He always near, sometimes too close to the street for me. He listens to all the sounds, checks how the breeze is moving leaves, and often disappears into the forest. Amazingly, the moment I stop for a break he pops out of the woods.

(time frame June)

Increasing my physical activity

Then there was the diabetes diagnosis. My triglycerides have always been higher than normal. Since the chemo, nothing has seemed to phase the counts. With my April cholesterol check, the counts were high enough to trigger the diabetes switch. In reading about diabetes and talking with my doctors, I decided that the best thing I could do to prevent the increased blood sugar was to increase my physical activity. Working on clearing my land every day would be a great way to increase my physical activity.

Being a good stewart

In this same time period, a reoccurring theme has been appearing in my Bible studies, that of being a good steward of God’s creation. It is easy to adopt a universal approach to nature. The world is as God intended it. (The thought terrifies me just to write it.) God did not intend for life on earth to just exist, growing wild. God intended for life to be nurtured, loved and cared for. It began to weigh on me that this included my property.

The light in my forest

My land is composed of 2 acres of overgrown forest. It is one of several lots on my street that you can’t see the houses from the street. I was intrigued by the mystery of not knowing what was down the driveway. My house sets in the middle of the 2 acres. Each room has large windows that allow you to have a panoramic view of 2 sides of the forest. There is very little evidence of the surrounding suburb. You can almost believe that the birds and occasional small animals scurrying around were the only neighbors. And somewhere in the sounds and colors of nature bouncing through the trees, you overwhelmed with a sense of life. The sounds always take me back to the hot days of summer church camp in Cedar Hill. While it is memories of being hot and miserable, they are always outweighed by the tremendous sense of peace and tranquility that comes from being aware of being in the center of God’s creation. It is a sound that made me think the trees were so hot that their branches and leaves could only creek in pain. It is possible that it certain type of bird or the chirping of crickets, but whatever it is my property is full of it. And the afternoons on my land can take me back to those childhood afternoons of peace.

But it is the light that really intrigues me. Light that filters through the trees to the bottom of the forest. Light that makes every leaf, every limb, every branch, unique, vital, alive. In the summer, there are thousands of greens against lines of brown. It makes me want to take needle and yarn and fill a canvas of hundreds of green loops. In the hottest part of the summer and through the fall, the colors change, the cedars hold on their green as the other greens fade away. Eventually the greens have become oranges and then they are gone. In the winter, the light drops through a back drop of brown limbs and branches. The darkness of the trees is so stark against the winter light. At first, my eyes are captivated by how quickly the light is dropping to the floor of the forest. My line of sight never reaches the forest floor: it always caught by the bare limbs and driven upward, upward in praise. There are those rare winter days that water freezes on the limbs and my forest becomes a brilliant field of diamonds blowing in the wind.

It is not only the light from the sun that creates the palate of my forest. Each cycle of the moon through each season the year leaves each own highlights on the forest. Night after night I watch as the moonlight moves up and down, side to side in my forest. During the full moon my forest is a very dark place.

(time frame May-June)

I recently embarked on a project to clear my land.

I recently embarked on a project to clear my land. It is part of an overall project to take my property, the house and the grounds, into my home, my land. I started last August. It has been a daunting project. I changed the function of almost every room in the house. Each furniture move and paint stroke has made the house more comfortable. My goal is for people, including me, to feel invited to enter and relax. I haven’t exactly finished anything. I reached a point just before Christmas that I could stop the interior work and host a few parties. When I was ready to return to work after Christmas, I realized it was winter and I needed to work in the garage while it was cooler. Every year I have waited until summer and then the heat makes working in the garage unbearable. Each week of the winter and early spring, I sorted through clutter in the house and garage. I gave away stuff; filled trash cans and recycle buckets. Still, there is so much more.

It has been a painful process. Sometimes it has been physically painful, like the day I stepped off the second rung of the ladder onto a concrete floor, once for each leg. Most of the time, it has been emotionally painful for me. Can I dare to color the walls with paint? Can I dare to move large pieces of furniture? Can I throw away what I don’t need? Why is every item a battle? Can I dare to pull order out of the chaos of my life. Each stroke of color has encouraged me; each bag of trash removed has made it easier for me to breathe. This spring, as I was ready to get back to the interior decorating, things happened that made me turn my focus to my property.
I love my property. My house sets in the middle of 2 acres of heavily wooded land. Some of the wood is trees. Some of it is overgrown privet hedge. The back of my land slopes down to the clearing where the house sets, then down to the creek that runs when it rains, and then rises to meet the street. My driveway weaves through the trees that line its sharp drop to the creek and quick rise to the garage. The view from the street is just a concept of the drop to the creek, but leaves everything else to your imagination. My brother moved to this street first. I was drawn to the mystery of the forest every time I drove by. Even now sitting in the midst of the forest, I can hear the persistent call of a bird and wonder where is he and who is he calling?

My last house was on a city lot, in the middle of an ordinary neighborhood, not far from a busy street and the high school football stadium. From my bedroom, I could hear my neighbor’s phone ring. Cars, sirens and traffic noise were always in the background. The windows were small. The house was always dark. Outside, there was always a haze of artificial light. Yet, my house was always full of life. There always seemed to be a reason to invite people over. And the people came, and usually in large numbers.

Then I moved to my sanctuary, my special place, and the people stopped coming.

Slowly some of my braver friends dropped hints that my driveway was intimidating. They weren’t quite sure which driveway was mine. What if it wasn’t the right driveway? Would they be able to turn around? To my surprise, they didn’t find the mystery of my land intriguing at all.

Here is a secret. Until yesterday, it was a secret to me too. I would have been frightened by the driveway, too.

And as I ponder my unapproachable property, I have to wonder is this a reflection of my life. (time frame Sept-June)