Judgement Day

We haven't seen a speeding ticket in awhile and our son Reed has never had one so it wasn't completely surprising when he visited a couple of weeks ago and produced the dreaded ticket as soon as he got his courage up.  After raising four children you come to expect this kind of stuff will happen occasionally.  It's a learning experience. 

Reed had traveled from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Cordova, TN which is about a 5 hour trek and that is a huge chunk of time for a student in the architecture program at the U of A. Those guys practically sleep in the studio. But Reed declares on presenting the ticket that he wants to go to court and see if he can get this dropped. Really?  You wanna hoof it back over here and sit in courtroom and take a chance on a goose egg and then hoof it back?  Plus you will loose a day of school which is like losing a week up there. Yes. (That's his mama in him - I hate to back down without a fight)

So Reed shows up in the middle of the night ready to drag it to court the next day.  We drive over to West Memphis where the offence occurred and endure hours of waiting in the hallway and courtroom for all manner of criminals and soon to be criminals to talk to the judge. It was an experience to say the least. I can't remember the judges name but he was a great guy.  He took time with each person and tried to think of the fairest treatment for their situation. He used humor and sage advice to work his way through the sea of human infractions against the laws of man. In a humble kind of awe I watched his technique. I saw his judgment apply only to the matter at hand but not to the person at foot. It was good to see a person of authority trying to help those who society had probably given up on, not all of them but many of them. His goal was clear - to hand out justice in the best way possible hoping that judgment would help the person do better in the future.

Then it was Reed's turn.  It's a strange thing to be proud of your son as you see him stand before a judge for breaking the law.  But in a weird and warped way only a parent could understand I was proud of him.  He had on a nice button down with a sweater and even though his jeans were red they looked nice with his dress shoes.  Even though his hair is long and curly like only a wanna-be rock star architect student would wear it, it was clean. It was obvious, this kid was a good guy.  He stood up straight, he answered with respect. The judge was clearly exhausted from telling the same people the same stuff - so many repeat offenders and he actually knew some of them by name. The judge looked visibly relieved when he talked to Reed. He had to get all the way to the "W"s but finally here was a good guy trying to make something of himself.  The judge even said so, "I like to see a young man doing something with his life". 

Long story short, the judge really cut him a huge break.  Reed learned a few powerful lessons and you know what, so did I.

Lesson 1:  Don't break the law
Lesson 2:  If you are going to break the law be prepared to accept the consequences
Lesson 3:  Show up for your judgment day prepared and with the right attitude
Lesson 4:  Judgment of someone's actions is different than judgment of the person

As a heavy girl I have to admit I can be pretty hard on myself. Perhaps the take away for me is that even though my son broke the law, I could still love him and be proud of him for being a man of character.  Can I not apply that to myself? I went against the law of nature and consumed more calories than I burned.  I am paying the consequences.  Does this make me a bad person?  No way!  So what should I do on "Judgment Day"? (Which for someone overweight is ongoing and I am both the judge and the offender...)

My thoughts? Show up each day dressed and prepped for success.  Stand up straight and accept the judgment.  Have a good attitude. Judge the offence and not the person.  Be kind but be firm, use humor and sage advice but most of all be fair.  That's the only kind of judgment that changes lives.

That's All ~ Thanks Y'all!!

Beautiful Plate = Beautiful Life

If you read my blog, you already guessed, I am a creative.  Boring as it is to talk about oneself, indulge me please, just for a moment. 

I get very confused sometimes because I can be quite the chameleon.  I was raised on a farm in a farming/quasi blue collar family. The values there are hard work, little recreation, more hard work, honesty, faith in God, family, love thy neighbor, do not steal...you farm folks know what I'm saying - the simple, wholesome, God fearing values.  Somehow for some reason I sought out and embraced a totally different set of values to add to the mix.  I seriously thought I was adopted when I was about 10 years old because I felt I did not fit in with my family.  I even launched a secret quest to find my adoption papers buried somewhere in the family vaults. Seriously. I think my mother had to show me my birth certificate and even then I was hardly convinced. 

My personal values, seemingly since birth, included creativity, emotional expression, compassion for other cultures especially minorities, justice, individuality and later in life these grew into a quest for education, travel, anthropology, adventure, recreation, personal style, and many other beliefs that I'm not sure my family always understood completely.  They love me, but they don't always get me.  

So this blend of values I hold dear has created a hardworking, God fearing artist who can still produce a garden but also loves the farmer's market. I can fit in with a variety of people and I can be successful at a variety of endeavors. But I have a hard time really knowing what I want in life and following a single path.  Where is my focus???? I want so much and at 49 I am afraid I am running out of time to really pull off anything great. Leaving a legacy of change is one thing I greatly desire.  I want to make a difference in peoples lives. Is that just me getting older and embracing a new set of values? Hmmm...

All of this to say, even though I am unsure which path to pursue in the days ahead, I am sure of a couple of things.  Clarity is important to me, knowing myself is high on the list and I don't like to be too long around people who don't understand that.  If you habitually lie to yourself and never try to see yourself and your context to the world, I probably don't have much in common with you.  I like to see the big picture and I like to talk to others about their place in the big picture as well. That's just me.

By the way, thank you for indulging me in talking about me without any obvious point but there is a point to all of this rambling I think.

The point is, even though I don't know what to do with myself employment wise during this hiatus in Tennessee, I do know two things that I always want and those are a peaceful life and a beautiful life. The farm girl in me says to work hard and not worry about where I work, but the other me says change things, make the world around you better, even if it is just helping one person at a time and you only have time for a handful. Beauty to me is appreciating the little things, the nuances.  Some Japanese would say, "the crystallization of the moment" like appreciating the beauty of the tiny cherry blossom, forget the whole tree, focus on the one blossom and soak it in, remember it and cherish it. This is the beauty of life to cherish what we have today, in this moment.

I made a yummy omelet this morning and because I have been watching the food network so much these days I put it on the plate with a focus on presentation.  I realized that focusing on the presentation gave me more pleasure in the food and the meal as a whole.  It reflects so very much about the life I am trying to cultivate here.  I can only imagine if I set a plate of food down in front of my dad that was well designed and purposely presented.  He would either be skeptical of what the "fancy food" had in it or he would not even notice.  Not a problem - presentation is not important to him.  He values other things like sticking to the staples of food (meat and potatoes), the texture of food, and taste of food, the cleanliness of food and the man of the house providing the food.  Those are good values for sure, just a not altogether my values.  We learn to disagree on things without being disagreeable. It costs me nothing to let other people live their values and vice versa. Live and let live.

Strangely enough even though I miss them terribly I feel more free to be me when I am miles away from my family.  I gave birth for the first time at 19 so almost all my life has been geared around being what someone else needed or wanted me to be.  Almost straight from my parents home to building my own home with children and a spouse I went from being someone's child to having a child, then three more. Not to mention being born in the "don't question your parents" generation. I tried to be every thing I thought they wanted me to be growing up and later even as a mother and wife I strove to live by their specific values.  Until I realized one day, I can't do that anymore.  I have to be myself.  To live my life for anyone else is too much pressure and it robs me of the peace I feel in just being me. 

I am thankful for the values they taught me.  They are strong and worthwhile values and I cherish them.  But I also cherish my own additions and subtractions from their values.  Case in point, creating a plate of food that looks beautiful and tastes beautiful and adds health to my life as well as satisfying my need for creative expression means I am being me.  I value that.  This is the life I am trying to live, a peaceful, beautiful life. 

If your life values lead you to cook five chicken breasts with rice and broccoli on the side and eat that every day this week then by all means - go for it. Eat a half of grapefruit for snack everyday while you are at it!  I'm no hater but that just doesn't work for me.  At least not today.  And the beauty of being me, if that works for me next week, then I will adjust accordingly. This is how we do it!  We find the healthy life according to our values.  We embrace what works for us, we examine the results and finding them satisfactory, we dismiss the rest.  This is true and real.

Today is about finding beauty in healthy living and that's all ~ thanks y'all.