Exactly where you're supposed to be

As a treat to myself this pre-Christmas week, I bought some dark chocolate to keep in my car and share with nobody but myself. Today on my way home from work, seeking a little indulgence, I unwrapped a Dove chocolate, popped it in my mouth, and looked for which of the magical Dove “promises” was printed on the inside of the wrapper. Instead of something sweet and pithy, like chocolate being the best way to a person’s heart, or smiles being contagious, what I read was a little more pointed.

“You are exactly where you are supposed to be.” 

What?

That’s kind of a big observation for piece of chocolate. I immediately had questions.  I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, in what way? Alone, in my car, scarfing down empty calories? In my job? In my community? In my church? No further answers came from my little aluminum fortuneteller.

This quickly got under my skin, as I’ve been feeling antsy lately to make some changes. Was this a sign? Am I supposed to stay right where I am? Was God trying to tell me something via chocolate? Certainly the Dove company isn’t entitled to pass on such a weighty observation on their own. How would they know if I’m where I’m supposed to be? 

Then I stopped to consider if these words of wisdom could possibly be true, for me or for anyone who might have unwrapped this particular candy. AM I where I’m supposed to be? Are YOU exactly where you’re supposed to be? And furthermore, if something changes tomorrow, would I still be where I’m supposed to be, even if it’s in a different place? Maybe the point is that we treat each day as if we have a special calling to be there, right where we are, making a difference and having significance in whatever our roles are in that place and time. 

On the flip side, what happens if I don’t think I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be? What if I long to be somewhere else or in some different situation? Do I lose the capacity to be totally present right where I am, and do I miss opportunities to bless and be blessed? 

This week I’ve been thinking about the Christmas story, and sweet, trusting Mary -- pregnant and far away from home, giving birth to a baby, apparently among animals. I wonder if she had moments of doubting whether she was where she was supposed to be. And yet, after a visit from the shepherds, the account says “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Her situation couldn’t have felt comfortably picture-perfect, but she was present in the moment, absorbing the wonder of the reality around her. 

I’m guessing that can only happen when you believe you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be, whether it’s in a stable In Bethlehem, or in Iowa in the winter, or wherever life finds you today… or tomorrow.

Run.

I love cross country meets. These words, verbatim, come from my mouth at least 10 times during any meet I attend. I get a runner's high just by proximity.

I'll tell you why.

Races are pure. Runners run. The faster, the better. The fastest runners win. It's the simplest form of sport. There's no advantage to kids or schools with more money. It doesn't matter if you're the coach's kid, or if the coach hates you. You don't receive playing time or bench time by how connected your parents are to the politics of the sport.

You just run.

It's a team sport in scoring method, but your team can't hold you back from doing your individual best.
And while the runners are trying to beat each other, they are really trying to best themselves. At the end of the race, it comes down to the competition between the runner and the clock. Is the time faster than it was the last time? If so, you've won.

Everybody earns clapping and cheering at the finish chute, no matter the uniform they wear, no matter if they are the one breaking the tape or the one lagging at the end. The closest thing to contentiousness is rooting for athletes to kick it in and catch the runners in front of them.

This sport doesn't have the equivalent of cheering when your opponent fumbles or strikes out or misses a shot. I saw a runner fall yesterday, and I saw the distress on the face of someone from another school on the sideline, conflicted that she couldn't help the runner up, lest it result in a disqualification. (She did ultimately help the runner, who wasn't a frontrunner, and didn't decline the assistance.)

Any athlete who enters a race and runs 2 miles or 5 miles or 26.2 miles, gutting it out and pushing themselves beyond their own limits, earns and receives respect. And a cool Gatorade at the end.

ebooks - still making up my mind

Six months after jumping into the ebooks world, I'm still deciding exactly where my loyalty lies. I'm one foot in Camp-Old-School, and one foot in Camp-Paperless-Future.

At the outset, I knew that I'd miss the smell of the paper, the tactile experience of holding the book. I knew that curling up with electronica wouldn't be as warm and fuzzy. On the other hand, I knew that ebooks are the more responsible, earth-friendly choice, and that counts for a lot.

Here's what I don't like. When I download a book to read, I don't know how big of a book it is. When it tells me I'm 25% of the way through, I don't know if that means I have a half-inch of book left, or two inches. I guess I want to know how accomplished I should feel at the conclusion of a book.

I like that I can instantly look at the definitions of all the big (or small) words I don't know. Downside, it takes me longer to get through a difficult read, because now I feel like I should pause long enough to be a smart reader about those formerly elusive words.

Another tally in the pro-Kindle column, I like that it's lightweight enough I can hold it in one hand, dangling off the side of the bed, when I'm reading away the last waking moments of my day. And when I inevitably nod off and drop the book, Kindle holds my page.

Oh. But I miss cute bookmarks.

Look Up

Staying at Las Vegas's Bellagio for work, I was disappointed to be checked into a room without a view of the famous fountains. My vista is in the opposite direction, toward the mountains. But after taking it in, I think I like this view better. At least it's something "real," in contrast to most of the Vegas scene. It's easy to look at those mountains and, I don't know, just get lost a little.

A coworker whose room faces the same direction as mine said she was disappointed to only have a view of the freeway. "What about the mountains?," I asked. She didn't realize her view looked to the mountains, because the freeway was what initially caught her eye.

If the view gets you down, look up.

Have I told you this story?

Today I was talking with a coworker about genealogy and family histories, when I remembered a story that hardly ever crosses my mind, but astounds me fresh every time. 

When Dennis and I got engaged 20 years ago, a couple of my aunts who enjoy genealogy asked if they could trace some of Dennis's family history. (He obviously passed the pedigree test.) Dennis was born and raised in Iowa. His parents are both from Algona, Iowa, nearly 500 miles from the rural area east of St. Louis where I grew up. (Dennis and I met in college in Missouri.) He knew some basics about his family tree, and armed with that information, my savvy aunts were able to find out much more. What they uncovered, to the great surprise of everyone, was that his great-great grandparents had lived in the St. Louis area, and WERE BURIED IN A SMALL FAMILY CEMETERY LITERALLY JUST UP THE ROAD FROM WHERE I GREW UP. Like, a mile and a half up the road. 

The cemetery, no bigger than my living room, sits in the middle of a field. It's usually overgrown with brush and is separated from rows of beans or corn by a simple iron fence. My aunts got permission from the current landowner to clean up the small plot, and enlisted the help of a teen who needed a project for his Eagle Scout badge. They found a number of headstones, including those of Dennis's great-great grandparents, still legible after about a century's worth of weathering and neglect. 

Imagine. Dennis didn't know his ancestors had ever lived even remotely close to this area, and members of his direct bloodline are laid to rest just a short walk from where I grew up. 

I've never known quite how to process this, other than to simply let it affirm that some things are amazingly beyond explanation. 

Lower left blue marker: my parents' house

Top right blue marker: Schmitt family cemetery

The Little Things. Like 1000 Tic Tacs.

As the boys get further into their teen years, I find perpetual adjustment is needed in finding ways of connecting with them. When opportunities open up, I try to be aware and make the most of them.

Take, for example, breath mints and gum.

Sometime in the past year, I noticed that when I had a pack of gum or mints in my car, the kids would always go for a piece. I started buying different flavors of gums, various types of mints... freshmint, spearmint, cherry mint (I don't recommend it), super mint blast, green leaf mint, whatever... and when a new flavor was introduced to the collection, it usually got notice. "oooh, blue arctic blast mint. cool."

Which only encouraged this mint discovery and hoarding practice.

This week I noticed that my console is literally overflowing with an assortment of checkout-lane impulse buys.

The casual observer might think I'm really into fresh breath.

Really, I'm just into my kids.

Bloom Where You're Planted

We've lived in Des Moines for almost 12 years. Five years ago, we started to feel the slow crawl of the 7-year itch beneath our skins. It was time to move. Time for a change of scenery, time to do something new. The object of our wanderlust was St. Thomas. Yes, the St. Thomas surrounded by water and bathed in sunlight. We had been there a number of times, had planned our inevitable move over many a rum punch, and 2006 was going to be the year to do it. We had already done a lot of research... talked with people who moved there and stayed, people who had moved there and moved back... we took a scouting trip where we shopped the local grocery stores, drove through residential areas, and visited an elementary school with the kids. We decided from the outset that the final decision had to be an "all-in" vote, or we would pull the plug.

The vote was not all-in, and the plug was pulled. Heartbreaking.

Since our mental mindset was already gearing toward simplifying and scaling back, we ended up doing just that in West Des Moines. We simplified, got rid of a ton of stuff, moved to a smaller house in an unpretentious neighborhood.

The restless spirit was temporarily quieted but not appeased.

After another couple years, we began looking into a move to North Carolina -- this would be nice, right? Milder winters but still a change of seasons. Mountains one direction, ocean the other. One hop from warmer waters and dive boats. Resumes have been submitted, interviews have been had, but the deal has not been closed.

And we are tired of the effort, wondering why it has been so difficult to make it happen.

We're still here. Not because we haven't tried to see what else is out there. Not because we haven't prayed for doors to open. But we're still here.

I used to have a home decoration that someone gave me a long time ago, a cute country doll holding a bouquet of flowers, with the words: "Bloom Where You're Planted." (Actually, it said "Bloom Where Your Planted," but I took a Sharpie to the glaring error.)

I'm trying to live with Bloom Where You're Planted. Sometimes seeds stay in the ground, sometimes they blow in the wind. Maybe this seed needs to stay in this dirt a little while longer.

Start Seeing

This morning, sitting at a stoplight, I noticed the bumper sticker on the car in front of me: "Start Seeing Motorcycles." I've seen variants of these bumper stickers before and, while I understand the message, the wording has always puzzled me. See motorcycles. They're not invisible. Of course we see them. But the message really is that we need to go a step beyond seeing them. We need to SEE them. As in, PROCESS the seeing of them to that next step of being aware of how we need to drive differently when one in in front of or next to us. It's not just knowing when a motorcycle is there; it's thinking about what that motorcyclist needs from us as sharers of the road.

Could it be that we also need to start seeing -- really seeing -- the people who are around us in our daily lives? I think about my husband. I see him daily when neither of us is traveling, and I talk with him almost every day when either of us is on the road. I know, in general, what he has going on at work. I know what nights he has church meetings or plays basketball. I know what TV shows he likes, because, at the end of the day when the house is quiet, we cozy down to the family room couch and watch them together. We share life. And yet, do I truly "see" him? Do I see when he needs a little extra encouragement? Do I see when he accomplishes something, and compliment him on it? Do I see when he has made great strides in an area of personal growth, and acknowledge that? And then I think about the others with whom I share life's path... children, friends, parents, coworkers... I see them, but do I SEE them?