"are you happy?"

I stood on the slanted, uneven floor in the doorway of my stepfather's mom's house.  Grandma Gaye is in her nineties now and still lives alone, in a tiny yellow cottage in what was once a hard part of town.  She cherishes her independence, but willingly gave away her truck keys when she knew it was time to stop driving.  She raised seven children (including surprise twins as the last two) and now she cares for the many cats of East Lawrence.

She doesn't hear that well anymore, and we hadn't come for a long visit anyhow.  We were just stopping by after a day at the municipal pool and public library of my youth.  My kids were hot and tired and wanted to touch her many knick-knacks.  Vicki kept finding "treasures" and trying to convince Gaye to let her take them home (this girl has taught me the meaning of "don't ask, don't get").  I was starting to get anxious to get back onto 40 Highway - the long way to Topeka for the evening, but the way without turnpike tolls.  I just didn't feel like spending $1.40 to take the interstate.  I had stopped working for the year and knew that every penny counted.  That $1.40 could buy a bomb-pop at our corner store back in East Nashville.

My tolerance for chatting was low, and I made ready to make our exit.  In the doorway, Gaye grabbed me gently by the upper arm and looked me right in the eyes.  She is quite short, so this meant she was gazing up at me.

"Are you happy?"

The question came out just like Gaye:  straightforward and simple and unveiled.

I was a bit caught off guard by it.  I knitted my eyebrows for a moment, then said, "Sure.  I'm not having the very happiest time of my life, but it's not like I'm miserable.  I sleep like a baby, in any case."

"Okay," she answered, "just as long as you're happy.  That's the most important thing."

No follow-up questions.  No deeper thrust to the conversation. That was all she had wanted to know.  She wasn't trying to make any kind of other point about my life or her opinion of it.

We piled into the car and the kids were asleep before we got to the highway. I continued to ponder her question until we pulled up to the curb in front of Charlie and Leslie's house.  In fact, I continued to ponder it throughout the rest of our trip, and even after we came home.

At each stop along our road trip (and there were seven more homes that welcomed us after Gaye), I told the story of her question and made the same simple query.  Over late-night beers after the kids went to sleep, or Mexican food, or as we sat together on patios and porches, the things I heard amazed me.  It was a question that really cut through the fog and got to the heart of things.

"I'm happy, I guess.  But I'm stressed.  I'm trying to provide for my family, and that means I'm always thinking about the next thing that we want or need.  I don't really have time to think about whether I'm happy."

"I'm not sure that happiness is even the point.  Mom always used to say that the point of life wasn't to be happy.  It was to be useful and survive."

"I don't know when we will feel happy again."

"I'm really happy in my work.  But in the rest of my life . . . I'm not sure."

"I can't even tell you the last time someone asked me that question.  I have no idea."

"I am happy, because I have figured out how to take life on life's terms."

Most people I asked were like me - they hadn't considered the question in so long that they had to really turn it over in their minds for awhile.

I started my 200-hour yoga teacher training a few weeks ago, and on our first night of class, my teacher Liz made a statement that has ricocheted around my mind since then.  She said, "Mental health isn't just being happy all the time.  It's about having the complete depth and experience of all the feelings."  So many of us seem to be searching for happiness, but is it really something else that we're looking for, and we don't know what other name to call it?  Depth, contentment, acceptance, purpose, an end to suffering?

As for me?  I'm really happy right now.  This is a sweet season in my life.  Taking the hallway time has been a really good decision, I think.  The days seem to float by lightly, strung together with a golden strand of friends over for dinner and walking Vicki to school and picking flowers in the alleyway.  But I'm realizing that the goal isn't to make this last forever.  The goal is to learn what needs to be learned from this time, to take what lessons it has for me, and to keep moving forward.  I won't always be this happy, and that's okay.

kansas day dinner!

We Kansans are a funny bunch.  My husband picked up on it right away when we met, noting that he'd never met someone who knew so much about the history and customs of her particular state.  Part of it has to do with our war-torn genesis into statehood, which centered in the area around my hometown.  Part of it has to do with being derided as a "flyover state," with little to offer the nation in terms of culture.  Part of it was the fact that our state mandated a month of Kansas history every January in the schools, so each year we learned about Kansas history, geography, foods, indigenous animals and plants, and more.  I can tell you without using Google that our state bird is the meadowlark, state flower is the sunflower, state motto is ad astra per aspera, state insect is the honeybee, state reptile is the barred salamander, and that our primary crop is wheat.

No matter how long I live away from Kansas, I don't think I will ever be able to say that I'm "from" somewhere else.  It's too far back in my blood - at least five generations.  And Vicki is a Jayhawker, too!  Even if she never remembers Topeka, where she was born, she can claim the title of a native-born Kansan.

The reason Kansas history centered on January is because January 29 is Kansas Day.  This commemorates the day that Kansas finally joined the union, as a free state, in 1861 (my elementary school was named Centennial because it opened on 1/29/1961 - the Centennial of Kansas Day).  Walking around my hometown, you might actually hear people wishing one another a happy Kansas Day.

I decided we needed to celebrate.  On Tuesday, the 29th, we had a Kansas Day dinner.  I served:

Buffalo Burgers and fixings (okay, okay - they were going to be buffalo, but that is surprisingly hard to find around here!  It would have meant a crosstown trip to Whole Foods at 12.99/lb.  No thanks!  I served beef)

Buns made of wheat flour

Oven fries with honey mustard to dip

Sunflower seed cookies

All the bolded foods are parts of Kansas agriculture and history.  We had a little crowd of Kansans over and talked geography, history, and just shared our wholesome Midwestern values.  It was lovely.

Sidenote:  Ugh, pregnant fat face + foregrounding myself.  The worst.

This may all sound like a fun and silly idea for a theme party - which it was - but it was also really important for me.  Moving away from Kansas felt like a betrayal of my ancestors and my history, and I wanted to commemorate our special day.  I was talking this over with my Grandpa Louis, who made the very valid point that the Reeves family came from England to Long Island, moved to Kentucky/Tennessee, and then only made the trip to Kansas in the mid-1800s.  So, really - I'm back where my people came from now!

for every stoplight i didn't make . . .

My ten-year high school reunion was last Saturday.  I zoomed home to Lawrence from East Tennessee the day after Thanksgiving, dropping off Jeff and Vicki in Nashville and going solo.  The long drive was really nice, actually - a good time to sort out thoughts without having to stop and feed/entertain a strapped-down toddler who naturally feels antsy.

I stayed with our friends Chuck and Leslie, whose wedding I had to miss in September because of a completely asinine mistake on my behalf (I'll tell you about it sometime maybe).  So it was great to see them and catch up, and see how they are doing in Topeka.  By the way, if you're looking for a very cute house in Topeka, they are trying to sell - and the price can't be beat!  Contact me.

The actual reunion was interesting.  The planning committee included one of my good friends Sarah, and another long-time friend Eric.  Also Katie, with whom I spent many long hours in choirs.  I thought they did a fantastic job of promoting the event, organizing and selling tickets, getting the venue ready, and having a good atmosphere.  Everything you would expect from event organizers!

The dynamics were pretty much just like high school.  So, I guess if you had a very fun time then, you probably had a great time at the reunion.  I will disclose that I was always sort of middle-of-the-pack.  Not super-popular, not unheard-of.  I did lots of music and was in advanced classes.  I was not an athlete.  I think I had recreated a version of high school in my mind where the awkwardness and hormones were erased.  Being back in the situation brought it all back - the good and the bad.

I'm second row from bottom, second from left.

I'm not at all sorry that I went!  It was a great time, and I was able to catch up with plenty of folks I would never have seen otherwise.  (And always very entertaining to see the looks when they find out I'm now a pastor!)  Plus, a visit to my hometown is always centering for me.

I was texting with my sister after getting back to Chuck and Leslie's.  She asked how it was, and I told her the same reflections I wrote above.  But then I wrote, "You know it just makes me really glad for the life I have now."

My husband loves Darius Rucker (and all country music, which I think is kind of funny - as well as hard-core hip-hop and rap).  He has a great song that talks about all the choices and opportunities in life that bring us to where we are now:

For every stoplight I didn't make /
Every chance I did or I didn't take /
All the nights I went too far /
All the girls that broke my heart /
Every door that I had to close /
Everything I knew but I didn't know /
Thank God for all I missed . . . 'cause it led me here to this.

If I'd never stepped out to work at a summer camp where I knew no one . . . I would never have met Jeff.  If I'd never applied early for college in New York City . . . I would never have met my best friend Amanda, or have been invited to officiate at her wedding in March.  And if I hadn't decided to come home for the Free State High '02 Reunion . . . I wouldn't have had a chance to reflect on how happy my life is ten years out.

bygone days

Kansans know about prohibition.  Isn't it crazy to think that our country just out-and-out illegalized alcohol for fourteen years?  Back when we had cable included in the cost of our rent, watching Boardwalk Empire was one of my favorite Sunday evening activities.  What a fantastically done representation of this time period in American history.

But Kansans, special gluttons for punishment, outlawed liquor and beer from 1881 to 1948 - longer than any other state.  And on-site sale of liquor (i.e. licensing for bars and restaurants to sell alcohol "by the drink") was prohibited until 1987!  Over one hundred years of restricted access.  Did it work?  All I can say is that a large number of my family members managed to become alcoholic Kansans during that time period - so I think not.

Even still, there are complicated laws about alcohol percentage, what time different percentages can be sold, where they can be sold (proximity to schools and churches), and what days of the week. In my younger days, there was a frequent dash to the store before 11 pm so we could buy something over 3.2% by volume.

The first legal brewery to open in Kansas after prohibition ended is in my hometown.  It's called Free State Brewing Company (I will save the Jayhawker obsession with all things "Free State" for another post).  Open since 1989, Free State is a landmark in downtown Lawrence, occupying the space of an old train station.  It was mandatory in my adolescence to own at least one shirt with their locally famous slogan:  "because, without beer, things do not seem to go as well . . ."

Their beers are scrumptious, hand-crafted, seasonally changing, and are probably responsible for establishing a discriminating palate for fine brews amongst the people of northeastern Kansas. 

It doesn't hurt that the food is pretty freaking good, too.

One perennial favorite of picky kids and open-minded adults alike is the Cheddar Ale soup.  It warms you in fall and winter.  My friend Lauren notoriously ordered chicken fingers and Cheddar Ale soup at Free State for years. 

Naturally, their Ad Astra Ale (a rich, balanced amber ale) features prominently in the recipe, but I have no access to it here in Nashville.  They also use Alma cheddar, which I can't get ahold of either.  So I made some adaptations.  I subbed Yazoo Gerst Amber Ale (Nashville local brew) and cheddar from our CSA.  I found the recipe in a 2010 issue of the Lawrence Journal-World.

Cheddar Ale Soup



3 T butter
3 T AP flour
1/4 C minced onion
1/4 C small diced red bell pepper
1/4 C small diced green bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 C amber ale
3 oz cream cheese
3 C cream
2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 t hot sauce
fresh parsley and thyme to taste
6 oz grated sharp cheddar

Add 1 T butter to a large Dutch oven.  Cook peppers, onion, and garlic over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until translucent.  Add remaining 2 T butter and flour, whisking vigorously to incorporate.  Lower heat to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the ale in small increments, whisking well to avoid clumping.  Cut cream cheese into smaller cubes and add to pot.  Mash and stir cream cheese until it is totally melted.  Gradually add the cream to the pot, mixing well after each addition.  Add salt, pepper, hot sauce, thyme and/or parsley, and mix well.  Bring the heat up a little bit (you may want to use a thermometer - they suggest heating just to 160 degrees, but not above). 

Add the grated cheese in three increments, mixing well after each addition. Stir until totally melted.  If the soup seems thin, add more cheese.  If it seems thick, add a bit of milk.

Serves 6-8. 

the water's fine!

I don't remember learning to swim. Truly, I don't. I was one of those "brother/sister threw me in and I figured it out" stories. I do remember swimming lessons every summer. They were in the morning at the Lawrence Municipal Pool. It was usually still dewy and cool, and we would jump in quickly. There were sometimes storms and lightning. Then we would have to clear the pool until the lightning stopped. But if it was just raining, we kept on. I took lessons every summer for six or seven years. The final level was pretty crazy, now that I think back on it. We had to jump in fully clothed with jeans, remove our clothes while treading water, and tie our jeans into a knot to use to help rescue someone who was drowning. We had to tread water for five minutes. We had to do the dead man's float for ten minutes. We had to do four pool lengths of each of the strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, sidestroke). I doubt I could do any of that anymore! But I was and am a proficient swimmer. I have no fear of drowning unless I am sucked into a very strong current.

One of my very few early-early childhood memories is of being at the pool with my mom. I assume we were there because my brother and sister wanted to swim. She would hold me close and walk around the waist-level water. I would float in her arms, falling in and out of sleep. I remember it was warm and the water noises were very soothing.

For all these reasons and more, I love going to the pool now. I love boating and being out on the lake and ocean, as well. But something is special about the pool. I was so excited at the beginning of this summer because Vicki Jo is old enough to go to the pool and really have a few hours of fun before the sun tires her out. Before we moved from Topeka, in the nasty armpit of a heat wave, we were going three and four times a week:

Topeka has a couple of very awesome aquatic centers. Going there invariably made my day better. I would race home from work, throw on our swimsuits and slather on sunscreen, and speed to the pool. It made me feel like I was seven years old. All day long I would be fantasizing about jumping off the 5-meter platform. Jeff would get a hot dog, some Cheetos, and a Mountain Dew and we would split our naughty snacks before going home to eat dinner.

When we moved to Nashville, I was confident that a major metropolitan area would have dozens of these kinds of neighborhood pools or municipal aquatic centers. Sadly, I was wrong. There is a wave pool, and there are YMCAs, but there isn't something like what I had as a child: a gathering space for swimming and fun as a part of the city's recreational bureau. Someone at church mentioned the pool that used to be in Centennial Park (Nashville's huge, central green space west of downtown). I learned the rueful history of a magnificent city pool that closed rather than be integrated in the 60s. And I realized we had moved to the South.

Ronald, our church's custodian, who is also African-American, told a story this morning about how he used to wash houseboats out on Old Hickory Lake to make money as a teenager. He blew me away when he got to this point in his story: "And I couldn't swim." What!? You washed houseboats, were on the lake every day, and you couldn't swim?

Then, I went to my office, sat down at the desk and turned on the radio, and heard this podcast about how American minorities struggle to learn how to swim and have the highest child drowning rates. It was so sad for me because I was immediately aware that one of the issues has to be lack of access. If there isn't a cheap neighborhood pool within walking distance to go and hang out in the summer, how will you learn to swim?

To me, this seems to be a basic public safety concern. Our society's children should know how to swim, if they are able. I view it as essential for my child to learn those skills. She will certainly take lessons when the time comes. And hopefully, she will want to do it because she loves being at the pool, out on the lake, or taking a dip in the ocean. I want her to feel comfortable and safe around the water. I want that for all children.

parents as teachers

One of the things I love about my great home state of Kansas is the support offered to parents.  One program offered to anyone who applies, free of charge, is called Parents as Teachers.  All I had to do was call and give some information about our family and be placed on their list.  The one downside was that if you don't call by the time the child is six months old, it's unlikely that you will be able to start the program.  In Parents as Teachers, a parent educator makes a monthly home visit to discuss your child's development, make observations, give suggestions, and help you think of toys and activities to do with your young one that need not cost anything.  And this is all for standardly-developing children - the supports and early interventions offered for children with any delays are even better!!

Tennessee, where we are moving in just a few weeks, just doesn't have this awesome program (methinks because in Kansas, it is funded from tobacco settlement money.  In Tennessee, tobacco is still one of the largest cash crops!).  It does have the Dolly Parton book-a-month program, which is pretty amazing.  But nothing like Parents as Teachers. 

Sandy, a retired teacher and my parent educator, made a visit on Thursday.  She is always so encouraging and reassuring about any worries that I'm having.  We talked for the better part of an hour, and then she showed me this fine-motor activity to do with Vicki Jo.  We were both impressed that she has the coordination, perception, and pincer to do the smaller one!

As you can see, this is a kind of size- and shape-sorting activity.  The large bottle is from juice, the smaller one from water.  The blue tube is a travel toothbrush container and the small wooden things are old-fashioned clothespins.  Sandy gave me all these materials, but I estimate you could put this activity together yourself for about five dollars.

Vicki Jo wanted to work on this material for forty minutes this morning!  Her concentration was admirable.  She kept filling up the bottles and then asking me to dump them so she could do it again.  It reminded me of the Montessori concept of "the match."  Finding that magical activity for your child that is perfectly at the edge of their developmental level; challenging enough to keep them interested, but also accomplishable, so they feel encouraged by their progress.  I think we found it!  This also made me think she may be ready for a coin slot activity, where I cut a slit in the top of a plastic-lidded container and give her something small like poker chips to poke through.  She may even be ready for multiple-shape sorting!

One thing that troubles me about Montessori is that sometimes it can seem overly focused on the materials, and a little fussy.  And I start to think, "If I can't do it perfectly, should I even be doing it at all?"  And, if I don't have the money to buy a fancy set of materials, will the method do any good?  This activity showed me that the heart of the philosophy is observing the child, offering simple and straightforward work, and allowing them to grow in their confidence and independence through accomplishment.  Just the reassurance I needed this morning!

the clutter murders

For those who are not fanatical Kansas natives (called Jayhawkers - there's your crossword trivia for the day) and don't know about the horrific Clutter murders of 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas:  the Clutters were a well-off farm family.  Two marauders were convinced that they had bunches of money and valuables hidden in their house, so they broke in, held them hostage, then savagely axed the whole family to death.  Turns out there were no valuables.  Oops.  The murderers were found pretty immediately, tried, and neatly dispatched (hanged).  Truman Capote came to Kansas and wrote a little story about called In Cold Blood.  I'm sure he shocked the hell out of Southwestern Kansas with his gayness.

My mom grew up not fifty miles from Holcomb, and all she would ever remark on this incident (that happened when she was eight) was that that was when they started to lock their doors at night.

But, happily for you, this post isn't actually about the Clutter murders of 1959.  It's about the clutter murders of 2011.  That's right, folks.  I'm taking you on a tour of the dark bowels of my home.  These four areas that I'm determined to clutter-bust before the year is out.

Don't know about you all, but clutter makes me feel chaotic.  Watching "Hoarders" is scary.  Some of my relatives have been on the line of problem "collecting," and I've had to clean out too many great-grandmas' and grandparents' houses to ever, EVER become a packrat.  Unfortunately, my husband hasn't had the same experiences, and loves to come home with new little tidbits of junk.

We moved homes every year from 2007 through 2010, and moving is an fantastic motivator to get rid of all your old crap so you don't have to U-Haul it anywhere.  I've made it my mission to only have one of anything, so Goodwill has benefited mightily from my prunings.  Alas, we've been in our home in Topeka for almost fifteen months now, and some detritus has begun accumulating.

First:  Jeff's closet.

We have a bad habit of just leaving things in the big plastic Rubbermaid bins, rather than storing it more attractively.  This is a symptom of my frugality, as I'm hesitant to buy shelving even though we need it.  This just needs a good once-over.

Next up, the pantry:

Our house is old and funny and has lots of nooks and crannies that are perfect for tossing junk when you're in a hurry.  The pantry sits under the staircase, and extends its entire length.  We use the top shelf for food, and the bottom for the stuff we would put in a garage if we had a garage (dog food, Jeff's tools and milk crates, charcoal for BBQ, etc).  I'm not totally sure how to solve this space issue until we have a garage, but I can at least neaten it up.

Then, upstairs:

This one is really Jeff's to deal with, since for some reason he absolutely despises putting his clothes away after I launder and fold them.  But he won't do it until I twist his arm, so I just need to get started on the arm-twisting.

And this.  Kind of like the pantry-garage, this is the stuff I would put in the basement if we had a basement.  Old journals, baby and maternity clothes I'm saving for next time (!), art supplies.  Instead of a basement, they live in a corner of our giant upstairs loft-bedroom.  Again, just need shelving to neatly store this stuff.  In fact, I'd kind of like to see if I can't consolidate it into the pantry-garage and use this corner for the baby's "prepared environment."

Wish me luck!  I feel like to really complete this endeavor, I'll have to take a few days off work with the baby at the sitter.  And there's the small matter of getting Jeff on board . . .