Summer 2014 Wrap Up

At the end of a project or an event there is always a Wrap Up Session.  It’s the time for reviewing, re-visiting, criticizing, praising, tweaking the reasons for success or failure.  On the agenda will be things like What Went Right and What Went Wrong and Ways to Improve and Things to Repeat. 

Today my brain is in Wrap Up mode.  Me and Jesus have been meeting all morning to discuss this summer’s projects and events.  Subpoints on today’s agenda under What Went Right include Deep Conversations, Meaningful Connections and Solidifying Relationships.  Under What Went Wrong in big, bold, CAPITAL letters are LESS FAT AND MORE FRUIT!  Thankfully flight weight limits will only apply to my baggage and not me.  I might be left behind. 

Truth be told, though, if joy added weight I would be extremely over every limit!  I have reveled in angelbaby kisses, stories and laughter.  I have drank deeply of friendships new and old.  I have been immersed in moments with God until my skin feels saturated.  Family and friends have poured love into me this summer and I feel valued. 

This summer is very interesting to me.  It’s as though my being away has made me realize even more the importance of people in my life.  That’s odd to someone who is alone most of the time.  For many years I drove to work alone, I lived alone, I walked alone, I shopped alone, I ate alone.  If I spent any time with anyone it was on purpose.  Apparently, those purposeful times of connection connected me with strong ties.  The kind of ties that need only an afternoon to tighten, strengthen, freshen.

The conversations I have had this summer were all over the map!  Politics, religion, overcoming deep sadness, sharing great happy moments, God talks and family memories.  Words and phrases danced around topics from every viewpoint.  It was captivating.  It was heartbreaking.  It was uplifting. It was transparent. It was real. 

Someone asked me once where I like to vacation.  I realized I didn’t have a favorite WHERE, but lots of favorite WHO to vacation with.  Time spent with someone invigorates me.  And so this summer I have VACATIONED with almost all of my favorite people.  I didn’t get to see my sister face-to-face, but we chatted randomly many times about everything and nothing.  I woke almost every morning to one angelbaby face or another.  My relationship with my daughter-in-law grew exponentially when she opened her house, and her heart, to me.  I enjoyed normal, every-day family time with my sons.  I strolled, drank coffee, shopped, pedicured, cooked, cleaned, sat in the sun with amazing friends in many different seasons of life.  We cried some, laughed some, intellectualized some. 

In conclusion I find I don’t mind being alone, but I am glad to not be alone, too.  I have looked deep into the eyes of myself through my friends’ views.  I have seen doubts removed, watched fears subside, and built courage while the summer slipped away.  Bridges were built and tended many times over.

All of this has strengthened me.  I am resolved to do more, be better, stretch further to share Jesus with someone in Moscow.  I am convinced I am compassionate enough, grace-full enough, loving enough to get the job done.  A difficult life has given me strong resources to draw from and I am ready to give. 

The summer in America is quickly wrapping up.  The hours are counting down.  I am looking forward to this school year.  Amazed by all God has privileged me to experience.  Full to bursting with happy memories. 

Ah, excuse me, back to the business at hand. 

The Chairman has a final statement:  It is determined this summer vacation project has been very successful.  We will repeat all events marked with a smile beginning next June.  Those marked with tears will be reviewed on an ongoing basis to determine advancement of healing.  Prayers of gratitude and notification of needs will be ongoing.  This meeting is adjourned.

It’s time.  Let’s write this next chapter:  Moscow – The Second Year.

Population: 485 - Meeting Your Neighbor One Siren at a Time

I like to read.  I read a lot, actually, and have a general opinion about everything I read.  From magazine articles to cereal boxes to books to political pieces.... I have an opinion.

I like biographies the best.  Every once in awhile I read a book and find myself so delved in that I don’t want it to end.  Like the little kid afraid to turn the page with Grover and find the Monster at the End of the Book, I hesitate the page turning in hopes to prolong the inevitable.

Population: 485 : Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry was exactly that kind of book. 

I probably would never have picked it up to read on my own.  It’s about small town life, which I’m living enough of these days.  Stories of a volunteer EMT/firefighter, of which I know nothing.   A co-worker, however, suggested the book to me.  “He writes like you.  I think you’d like it a lot.”

Like me?  Well, now that makes a difference.  Maybe I could unravel the mystery of why anyone reads my rambles.  After having read Michael Perry, I understand what she was saying, but he and I are very different.  I am honored to have the comparison made. I think what she meant was we write with the same first-person transparency.  But I am nowhere near as polished and smart as Perry.

I hope I write like him when I grow up.  I hope my words will shift someone’s paradigms, but that’s hard to measure.

What did I like about the book?  I liked how it drew me in and made me want to know more.  I liked his turns of phrases, use of language and honesty.  I liked the funny stories, the poignant memories and the simple portraits drawn adjective by adjective. 

What didn’t I like?  Well, it ended much too soon for me.  I felt as though I was finally getting to know the characters and then it ended!  There I was all alone again without my new-found friends.  Ugh!  Where’s the justice?  I want to know more!  

It’s honestly been awhile since I’ve gotten so involved with the characters of a book that I felt I could recognize them walking down the street.  That’s how much life Michael Perry gives to characters.  Although, to be honest, his characters are real people and perhaps that’s why they are so alive in these pages.

Perry’s viewpoint is the key to what I love and hate about this work. I haven’t quite come to terms with, haven’t quite gotten a grasp of, don’t understand mostly the small town culture.  There I said it.  I’m a city girl.  Urban bred.  I know how to behave in a world of clashing, clanging, clinging dust and noise.  Navigating personal city relationships is an easy thing for me. 

Small town life, not so much.

Perry’s insight into cause and effect of small town culture was a treasure trove of references for me.  Why people talk about some things and not others, how people perceive my intentions, which actions are intrusive, which are expected.... it’s all different in a small town because everyone is so intrinsically connected.  Everyone is related somehow. 

In a city, people are expected to come and go frequently.  Ties are less binding.  Change is the only constant.  There is a freedom in knowing you will acquire other friends as time moves along in a shifting city.  Small towns are made of  consistency, of continuity, of connections.  Relationships are slower to bond and have older foundations.

At the end of a particularly tragic scene in Population: 485, Perry comments on the comfort of sharing grief with those who have shared most of his family’s history.  The chord that binds these families and friends together is beautiful and mysterious to me.

Michael Perry will sit on the shelf of  favorite authors in my mind.  He joins Mitch Albom and Andrew Bridge on the list of those I’d like to meet to thank for changing my perspectives. 

I highly recommend Population: 485.  I have just dug into Truck, A Love Story and can’t wait to meet the truck, and the love, of his life.  Maybe this one will teach me how to be a writer when I grow up.


If you want to know more about Michael Perry's work, his website is here:  SneezingCow