My head is swimming.
I feel chaos threatening in my home, my mind and my body. Staying up late to watch a movie is a rare treat, but it feels deliciously like summer. However, when one's children do not take to bed as soon or as cooperatively as one would like, watching a movie commences even later than one planned.
That's what happened last night and now I am paying for it with a tendency toward crankiness.
With leaving in a week, I have a flurry of SHOULDS in my head and they are as varied as the images I saw yesterday: an old farmer on a tractor with metal wheels, a vertical green dinosaur costume over a sweltering man that I recognized wearing this same get up two years ago at the Drumheller parade. Both times I found myself asking, "Why?" Surely there could be some youth who would not be threatened with a heart attack by wearing this stifling costume in high heat on pavement. But he waves and passes on mysterious, creepy and silent.
Then there's Dave's cluster of tiger lilies in the back yard, just busting with color and swoop and seeming to sing: Rejoice! Rejoice! Orange is the liveliest color around! Ta da!
Then there's Weston's overheated red cheeks in the middle of a bike ride saying, "I want to go home now!" That almost never happens.
Poor Donovan slept in only his undies again last night with the fan directly on him. Poor guy. Dave gave him a close shave with the clippers and now his long eight year old frame looks like a shorn lamb as I cover his lean body with his favorite soft pink blanket in the night that he has kicked off in the heat. Finally in the dark of night, with storm clouds building, I can turn down the fan and snuggle him in.
Dave and I were both up at 3:30 closing all the windows which were letting in the cool so we could keep out the pounding rain! Oh it poured. It was like the whole house was under a strong shower head. It was so loud it reminded me of when I was young and tried to keep my hair dry under a shower cap in the shower. Thunderous!
Today is muggy and my old friend from Trinity: Oz Laurentzen spoke to the congregation. I love when his passion matches a personal conviction of truth and he really challenges us to look again at salvation. What a miracle it is that we want what is good, and yet we treat it too casually, without awe and trembling excitement and respect.
The boys ran around a lot after church so herding them home and through lunch was an exhausting challenge. Dave was trying to clean some of last night's dishes and I was trying to accommodate four different appetites. No wonder we were cranky.
Now Dave is doing the show and I finally just paid a babysitter for two hours so I could get my thoughts together and my needs in front of me instead of swimming.
And I realize I am sad.
The World War II movie I stayed up so late to see was actually quite disturbing. Not only was the real life subject matter heavy, but although the story was compelling, the manner in which the director kept not sparing me the images of sex and violence was very jarring. It stuck with me in a way I'm still trying to process.
If your window is open in the middle of the night around here, you can hear coyotes howling in the hills. One of them starts and the whole pack starts screaming. They sound like hysterical college girls just coming away from a party trying to out sing one another. It is a strange backdrop for the muggy dreams and pounding rain and garish images of war.
I need to eat better.
Why do I spend myself so fully? Why am I so disciplined to make sense with my play, but live with dust and clutter in my home? When will my son learn to pick up after himself and not have to deal with frustrated parents who nag and complain at him? Why are we naturally so lazy?
Thank God for the amazing miracle working in my heart, whether I act on it or not, I want to want what is good.
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