more normal than not

Dreams are pretty strange.

I think I’ve covered that territory in an earlier blog post .

They’re weird…they don’t make any sense.

I kind of like dreams, though.  It’s nice to have something that doesn’t make sense that’s easy to wake up from.

It’s nice to be able to leave something strange behind in the morning.

Last night or very early this morning, I dreamed I found another cheap apartment.

I had some pretty strange living conditions before I got married and we had our children.

When you’re actively looking for the “cheapest”, sometimes you get exactly what you pay for.

In this dream, I’d found a place that rented for, if I remember correctly, about 65 dollars a month.

We have a dirt floor crawl space under our porch and I think the apartment in my dream was kind of like that…except it had a higher ceiling and a door that was easier to lock.

It had a curtain that covered the dirt side wall, and it looked like it had been freshly painted sometime in the past.

One small room…I don’t remember a bathroom….and now that I think about it, I don’t remember a kitchen, either.

It did have a light bulb…so I guess I could see at night…but I don’t remember much about it that was very nice.

I don’t remember a window.

But, man, it was cheap.

It was a place to hang my knapsack…stack some clothes…it even had a corner where I could put my library books. It was big enough for me and the tiny bed that was included in the monthly rent.

In my dream, I was kind of excited.

I’m not even sure what country it was in.

The dream was kind of a combination of “House Hunters International” and the worst expression of my tendency to be a cheapskate.  It really could have been anywhere.

It could have been just about any family’s crawl space.

No…that’s too creepy.  It could have been a cheap one-room apartment just about anywhere. Forget the crawl space angle.

I haven’t lived like that for a while now.  I’m glad.

When you have a family, you want things to be a couple of steps up from a third-world existence if you can swing it.

You want it to be nicer than “not so nice”.

I do love seeing the hopeful aspects of weird situations.  I love trying to figure out how to make something that’s maybe a little “non-traditional” nicer.

Robert Schuller used to call that aspect of our personalities being a “possibility thinker”. I always appreciated that.

“Possibility Thinker”.

When we were first married, we bought a house that was gutted,  and spent the first couple of years getting it back up to speed.

I remember that first winter, bare tin roof and rafters, no insulation yet. That was kind of hard.

It was like camping in a hard-walled tent.

You don’t want to be camping like that all winter with a newborn in the family.

That was our reality that first year.

It wasn’t a dream that we could wake up from.

But it was a good dream to imagine the possibilities of a wreck of an old country house.

It was a good waking dream to think that things could be better in a place that seemed close to “too far gone”.

I’ve grown out of “cheap apartments” and the dreams of inexpensive places to live.

That’s a part of my life that I’m glad is behind me.

I wouldn’t trade my family for all the cheap apartments in the world.

I like being awake.

The rooster on the porch didn’t get the memo that the government was rolling the time back an hour.

He was right on time this morning.

Of course, that means that if I can sleep until what used to be six in the morning so that I can get up at my usual 5:00 AM, the rooster is going to get up at our new 4:00 AM so that he can maintain some consistency, too.

This time change is always kind of weird…no matter how many years I’ve been doing it.

So I woke up at the right time, according to my clock.

I was correct this morning.

Correct is all in my head, of course.  I have a bunch of bright numbers on a piece of plastic that I plug into the wall to back me up…but really, correct is only a matter of my own perspective.

This time change may be nothing more than the biggest test of obedience that’s ever been concocted.

What’s our option, though?  We don’t want to be the one guy who’s constantly late…or early.

It would be bad to mess up with time. It would be a failure not to be able to read all the signs.

We don’t want to be an oddball.

That rooster’s an oddball but he’s just doing his job well.

I think I heard the other rooster….the one who lives in the garden…crowing back in answer to the porch rooster….so the porch rooster is not alone in his refusal to buy into the mass delusion.

In their minds, they’re right on time.

This daylight savings time stuff hasn’t been around forever.

Apparently, the concept was proposed in 1895…and then actually adopted by Germany and Hungary in 1916.

And not everyone uses it…here’s a map…

I guess that the blue countries use it every year, the orange countries don’t use it at all anymore, and the red colored countries never used it.

It looks like we have more to worry about than what the international dateline is when we travel.

Thinking about that rooster on the porch reminds me that we “go with what we know”.

He doesn’t know jack about mandates or rules.

There’s a fox and some birds of prey, maybe a loose dog who want to kill and eat him out somewhere in the night.

Why should he worry about some rule set up to help the workers of the world milk a little more daylight out of the working day?

He has bigger worries on his mind.

I think I’ve heard that a chicken’s brain is really small.  He probably doesn’t have room for more than a couple of dogs and a silent owl in there. Why complicate things with a rule that requires a clock he doesn’t even know how to read?

A chicken doesn’t need those kinds of additional stress.

But, then again, maybe ignorance is bliss.  Maybe until the moment plays out, a rooster doesn’t know he’s being eaten.

I’m not rooster expert. I really don’t know what they think.

The South tried to secede from the Union a while back.

I wonder what would happen if someone started a movement to secede from Daylight Savings Time?

Except for showing up late for all the meetings with the opposing side, the idea might stand a chance.

They could call themselves the “Real Timers”.

I may get going on that idea in about…oh…let’s say, about an hour.

I can’t wait.

 

We took our 4-year-old trick or treating the other night.

We took him trick or treating on Halloween night.  His success rate went up astronomically.

Actually, we took him twice.

The first time, Jenny took him into town to walk around Main St. with all the other costumed sugar addicts, but he fell asleep in the car and because he hadn’t been feeling well earlier, she decided it might not be a good time to wake him up…so she came on back home without doing any candy harvesting.

The second time, I went with them after I got off work.

We went to one of the little “country churches” around here…for their “trunk or treat”.

What nice folks…it was a good experience.

Nate woke up in the parking lot of the church, so he was still pretty groggy as he made the acquisition loop.

He didn’t respond much to the comments about his costume except to say a quiet “thankyou” when they gave him some more candy.

Nate was the human embodiment of the Transformers character “Bumblebee” this year.

He was proud of his costume…polyfill muscles and simulated strength…it was macho but not menacing.

He was the best Transformer of the bunch…the character in all the cartoons and movies that people find themselves loving without reserve.

He was in the pocket…he was in the groove…he was Bumblebee.

No matter how bad he was feeling…even if he was starting to come down with the flu…even if he was groggy after waking up in a strange parking lot…he was on top of the world.

We went by one “candy station/trunk”, and the lady dressed as a zombie gave him some candy…and then she said, “OH, LOOK!!! YOU ARE THE CUTEST YELLOW POWER RANGER!!! ISN’T IT THE CUTEST YELLOW POWER RANGER?!!!  SO CUTE!!

Nate got even more quiet for the rest of the walk around.

It was his own version of a quiet walk of shame.

When we got back to the car, it looked like he was tearing up a little, and then he frantically tore off his prized Bumblebee uniform.

“The Yellow Power Ranger is a girl character”, Jenny whispered to me.

I don’t think Nate is sexist or anything, but it didn’t have the same cool factor to be a little dude dressed in a “girl’s costume” that being the appealing and powerful Bumblebee had held for him.

There really is a fine line between a genuinely helpful suggestion or observation and a misspoken comment that we can mull over the rest of our lives.

That lady didn’t know who Bumblebee was, probably, but it blew Nate out of the water that she didn’t have a handle on the names of all the Transformers.

When someone says something that seems to define us…like “Aren’t you a cute Yellow Power Ranger” or “You could be a hairdresser”, they usually always mean well.

It’s helpful to figure our someone else’s deal.  It’s good to guide and shepherd. It’s a comfort to be able to pigeonhole someone else efficiently.

The quicker we can do that, the sooner we can get back to the real business at hand…thinking about ourselves.

“I hear that the sanitation department might be hiring” isn’t a bad observation, but when it seems to be a commentary on abilities or potential…and you have dreams of doing something really grand…it can seem like a cut.

(No one ever suggested that I should be a garbageman…it’s just an example.  There’s nothing wrong with being a garbageman, either…any steady work is good. )

I guess that what I’m thinking is that the Yellow Power Ranger is pretty cool, in her own way. Her gender doesn’t have anything to do with being…or not being… cool. She’s cool because she’s a Power Ranger.

It’s just not cool to be dressed as Bumblebee and be mistaken for a “girl hero”.

Especially when you have your mask off.

I overfilled my coffee cup the other morning.

On the way back up the steep stairs that lead from the kitchen to the living room, I was watching the coffee move gently in the cup, almost touching the rim of the cup…but never spilling over.

This particular morning I didn’t spill a drop.

I didn’t spill any coffee.

What a feat of balance.

It was in that moment that I realized something about myself while I balanced that overfull cup perfectly.

I’M PRETTY FREAKING AMAZING!!!

I’M A HUMAN GYROSCOPE!!!

Now, I know some folks might be thinking something like, “wellllll….that is so prideful.  When did he get so full of pride?”

And they would be dead on, one hundred percent CORRECT!!

Darn straight, I’m full of PRIDE!!!

That’s some pretty amazing stuff I can do…balancing and all.  That’s pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

Now, if you get down to it, I suppose that I really can’t take credit for most of my accomplishment.  It’s the way I’m put together…something about the inner ear and synapses and sheer muscular coordination.

It’s not all me…it’s not an effort, it’s just another gift I’ve been given.

So I guess that it is PRIDEFUL to notice just how GREAT I AM.

Something about noticing that greatness that might help put it into perspective a little is that knowing I’m GREAT doesn’t mean that I think I’m BETTER.

Maybe needing to be BETTER than other people comes from a place of doubting my worth?  Maybe it comes from a place of doubting the worth of the people around me?

Maybe that’s where the real COMPETITION comes in?

You really have to work to get a leg up over all the flawed people around you.

In a world of flawed, fallen angels, you really have to push to shine more than them.

So the prideful part is well deserved and overdue.  Why discount the miracle that God has plopped me down into…the miracle with all its trials and victories….all its potential…why discount that miracle with false modesty and a self-prescribed negative self-image?

You really don’t earn any brownie points for always looking at the ground.

It doesn’t help you carry your coffee to only look at the ground.

I’m a HUMAN GYROSCOPE!!! ONE OF MANY!!!  I DESERVE TO BE PRETTY PROUD OF THAT!!!

And I better not forget that all the other people are pretty amazing, too.

We all have accomplishments that deserve to be celebrated.

We have gifts that deserve to be appreciated and celebrated without reserve.

YOU GO, HUMAN GYROSCOPE!!! YOU’RE ANOTHER ONE OF THE AMAZING OUT THERE IN THE WORLD!!!

YOU GO, BOYEEEEEEE!!!

Some people might say that repetition is the death of creativity.

Look at me, for example.  I get up every morning at about the same time, go downstairs, put on a pot of water for the coffee, feed the cat who’s mewling at the door, pour half a coffee cup of orange juice to take my three vitamins with, go upstairs to start writing this blog, run downstairs when the tea kettle whistles, make my coffee and …after putting 1/2 an inch of half and half in my coffee cup that I used to drink my orange juice (I rinse it out after the orange juice), I go back upstairs to wait for the coffee to be ready to drink…and I write this blog.

Every. Single. Freaking. Day.

Unless…I’m running ( I took a short break for a cold that featured a weird metallic hacking cough).  If I’m running I do all that after I go out for my run.

I won’t bore you with the details of my running preparation.

So…I’m a creature of habit.  I don’t count my cheese puffs like Raymond in that Tom Cruise movie…but I’m almost as bad as that.

Always the same.

I was thinking about repetition the other day, and I thought of my father again.

I’ve mentioned that my mother was “physically challenged” the last 15 years of her life.  (I almost used the phrase “an invalid”…we’re so sensitive about what’s politically correct, calling each other out for phrases that might slander or irritate certain groups…careful with our words…but unaware of what we’re really saying when we say things like “invalid”.  It’s not like we went to the library to hear them say, “Would you like me to VALIDATE that parking ticket for you?”….”No, thankyou…I’m an INVALID…doesn’t work for me.  Thanks, anyway…” INVALID?  What the heck? It’s kind of like certain “groups” are outside our awareness of what might be an insensitive thing to say….weird. )

Anyway, she needed help sometimes.

My father worked for ATT at a facility about 8 miles from our house.  He worked it out with his boss that he could take a longer lunch break so he could come home and help my mother…and then make up the time at the end of the day.

Here’s where the repetitive part comes in.

For, what?….12 years or so, I guess…he would drive home, help mom, make sure she was alright and had what she needed until we got home from school, and then he’d make a bologna and cheese sandwich, grab a coke out of the refrigerator…and head back to work.

I think he ate his sandwich on the trip back so he’d be ready to do whatever he did for ATT when he got back to the office.

Every day during the week, he’d make the drive home and do his routine.

It says in the Bible that there’s no greater love than being willing to lay down your life for a friend.

I used to think that was for soldiers or people who could jump in front of a bullet for someone.

I thought it meant saving a life by giving up your own.

I thought it meant actually dying for someone else.

I understand it a different way now.

Nothing is heroic in the day-to-day.  It’s just our lives…it’s what we do between breaths. We don’t see the heroic until we’ve had a chance to distance ourselves a little.

A bologna sandwich is not a dramatic image of heroism.

It’s just part of a routine.

It’s part of a long-term routine done out of necessity and consideration…and love.

I have a deep and everlasting respect for every “caregiver” I meet out in the world.  That’s a beautiful thing for people to do for each other.

Maybe waking up in a different country every week, picking up local habits and languages as you go…eating new foods and dealing only with the unfamiliar…maybe that’s creative. Being an unstructured nomad with nobody to think about but yourself has to be creative…it sure sounds like a creative way to live, anyway.

I’m sure it is.  It has to be creative.

Never retracing your steps is one way to be creative…it’s always a new thing.

But the constancy of a loving caregiver…that’s what really impresses me.

Maybe I’ll eat a bologna sandwich for lunch today.

And…maybe I’ll do it again tomorrow.

Who knows?