Ascension

Pin It I was driving to work the other morning when I noticed the hot air balloons. There were a few of them rising on air currents above the awakening city. To those still a slumber, these vestibules of flight slipped silently over their homes, reminiscent of dreams. The orange cream of early morning light broke though the malt-o-meal, candy floss clouds, and glinted off of their great, curving sides.

In watching through my windshield, it didn’t take long to surmise that some of these balloons were ascending to greater heights than the others were; though they were all riding upon the same air.

Why was this? I wondered. If I were captaining one of those balloons, I’d take it up as high as it’d allow, and enjoy every vista it afforded to me for as long as I possibly could.

I continued on my drive to work, balloons drifting in and out of my thoughts all morning.

As school began and my students entered the classroom, I at once noticed several different ‘altitudes’ to the children who arrived that morning. While most of them were buoyed up with the exhilaration of a new day, and the thrill of being in school; a few others entered half deflated and drifted in at different levels throughout the room. I’m convinced that one of them had even popped his balloon, and had then since used the string to tether himself to the ground in an effort not to rise.

As I watched these different altitudes, it was glaringly obvious that each of them had made a conscious decision as to how high they were going to rise that day; it dredged to the surface of memory a bulletin board someone had put up in my middle school years ago.

Your attitude determines your altitude.

How true those words ring, even after a myriad of years, and a lifetime of experiences.

I thought about myself—about my own life.

Like those great creatures of flight I’d seen that morning, how many moments had passed when I had felt my spirits buoyed to the skies and still—allowed it to last only for the moment? How often had I made the decision to not fly free and unfettered to the heavens, but to plummet as Icarus, down to my own personal valley of consuming waves, wondering if I would ever find myself in the sun?

In a discussion with a friend of mine not too long ago, I made the comment, “The ground is a safe place.”

To this she replied, “Yes, it is, but if you don’t ever allow yourself to ascend to the skies, you will miss the amazing view.”

I think back to those celestial orbs ascending over the slumbering city and I decide that for now, I’ll rise.

Insignificant

Pin It Speaking of the unseen appendages of scuttling mice, the speed of thought and all things invisible to my naked myopic eyes, I make an addendum.

I live in the seasons of the northern Northwest, the rain, the mist, the fog. In 55 years of living I have not yet observed for myself every variety of plant proffered me on the 40 acres of 10-minute soil I inhabit. I have tried, oh, I have tried to notice. Today a roadside sapling caught my attention. A yearling of a tree, spindly, aspen-like, it's leaves sporadically trembled here and there with unseen drops of water.

I crouched beneath the shivering tree, plastic caped and hooded, until I cramped trying with unblinking intensity to see a single raindrop before it struck the leaf. I could not detect the invisible force try as I would. Only the evidence of the sudden tremble of the leaf could I see. The single drop of water eluded me until it struck a surface. That was the only "sight" I was allowed, that delicate shiver.

I remembered hearing of a British woman blinded at a young age from some nameless childhood disease. Sight was returned to her years later as a result of an inovative surgery. Nevertheless, though seeing now, she had left one simple frustration. She could never see a single drop of water. Hours at a time she would spend fiddling with her kitchen faucet cutting a full stream of water down, down, until it was a trickle and then a series of single sporadic drips. At that point, no matter how fiercely she focused, the water would disappear for her. Each time she was left sightless to the single drop.

I examine a life, insignificant in it's span, the blink of an eye, commonest of the common in it's ability to blink that eye and yet, perhaps at the completion of this monumental task, this labor of Thor we call life, a single drop will slow enough to define itself against that mighty stream of consciousness. Perhaps not.

Response to "I'll Park Here" (aka "The Parking Space")

Pin It GUEST BLOGGER: PAUL

The ninth of ten children, I now find myself the father of six. Currently attending law school and frequently the subject of his wife's blog topics, I have been an IT professional, student, and hockey coach for the community youth league. I enjoy both time with the family and meandering through parking lots searching for the 'perfect spot.'

While I may pass up a parking stall on occasion; when I park, I park straight, within the lines, and all the way to the front (or back depending on direction). My parking jobs have been admired for their perfect symmetry and I'm sure that more than one tape-measure-clad workman has secretly used that measuring tape to satisfy the urge to verify the perfect park job.

So, while the content and message of the previous post are generally accurate - despite no recollection on my part of picking up the mail and immediately proposing - one cannot argue with the level of commitment to my stall or exactness of my park job. The type of exactness that is the envy of others who have parked their cars less carefully and now find themselves with dings in their doors, slashes in their tires, or who find themselves vacating their stall altogether.

Maybe Hollywood IS more romantic...but no one can argue with perfect results.

The parking space

Pin It GUEST BLOGGER: MISTY

I belong on the beach, but live in the desert. I belong in a hammock eating mangoes, but somehow have ended up sitting on a plastic lawn chair in the street eating otter pops. Every Mini Cooper that drives by I’m pretty sure should be mine, while the huge Suburban is the car I actually have the keys for. The great thing about my life is that I have all of things I never thought I could have and I can’t have all the things I thought I wanted—every sticky kiss and chubby-armed hug I get brings me one step closer to the perfect life; I wouldn't have it any other way...

Driving into a parking lot with my husband can be excruciating. The way I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world: the decisive and the indecisive. I am proud to announce that when choosing a parking spot, I am decisive. Paul, on the other hand, will pass by 10 perfectly good parking spaces only to pull into one that isn’t any better than the rest. That, my friends, is called indecisive.

Picking a wife is a little trickier than picking a parking space. There are consequences to passing by 10 perfectly good potential wives only to pick the next one that comes along. Keep that up and you might not get one at all. It’s a good thing my husband had the good sense to pick the best option right from the start, albeit on the indecisive side of things.

I will have everyone know that he deserves the beating he is about to get as I describe the details of “The Worst Proposal in History.”

A little background: Paul gets home from a two year stint of service (we call that a mission where I’m from) with only one thing on his mind.....date as many girls as possible and kiss them all. (Sorry honey, Blogging isn’t for the faint of heart.) He meets me. We date. Yep, just me. Poor Paul just dated little ole’ me, and before he knew it I was telling him that I was done being pals.

Translation: If you’re gonna pick this parking space you had better do it, because it isn’t going to remain available much longer.

Under duress the poor guy had to make his move....and here is how it went.

We drove into his parent’s driveway. He checked the mail. He ended up with a REJECTION letter from the Brigham Young University. He turned to me and said, “So, what would you say if I asked you to marry me?”

(My thought: “Oh, sure, get a rejection letter from a place that actually HAS an endless supply of girls you can date and kiss so just settle for the one sitting in front of you?!” Next thought: “What a baby! Probably can’t even pick his own stinking parking spot without help.”)

My answer? “I guess you would have to ask to find out, wouldn’t you?” He did. I did. End of story? Not even close! THREE MONTHS later Paul is still halfway in and halfway out of the parking space. He hadn’t REALLY decided what he wanted, he was just stalling. I handed back the engagement ring and told him he could keep it. Well, he had a nice heart to heart with his dad. He prayed. I won’t go into detail here, it isn’t my moment to share, but I will say this, I looked really good in that wedding dress.

Paul and I have now been married for 14 ½ years and I am still waiting for a redo on that proposal. However, let’s skip the driveway and rejection letter this time. Take me straight to Hollywood, baby!

Vision Correction

Pin It
Sometimes we see things wrong.

We, as humans beings, have an inherent need for visual proof that things exist.

Did you know that there was already technology in place which could reach into space and discover countless heavenly objects without the use of a telescope? The only reason telescopes were necessary was to fulfill the need that humans have to actually see what we were already told was there.

How would it be if we used our internal radar more than our tendency to visually perceive others? I'm sure it would be difficult since we are so dependent upon our vision to initially discern things.

But don't you think it would make a difference if we looked at each other with more insight instead of depending so much on eyesight?

I'm going to say yes.

What do you say?