On Perfection

My husband has more trouble than I do dealing with the notion that perfection is difficult or impossible to achieve in this fallen world.

We just spent two days at our cottage working on the exterior. The wood on the addition was still bare and needed priming. The rest of the cottage is in bad need of exterior paint, which, of course, necessitates removing all the chipped and loose stuff. The weather didn't cooperate totally on the first day, but one can scrape and wire brush in the rain, so we got started. The second day we finished the scraping and started priming. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that I did the sides and back of the cottage while my husband did a portion of the front.

My husband is stronger than I am and no less ambitious. He is a hard worker, but he is also a perfectionist. I can accept the fact that no matter how much scraping I do, somewhere there will still be a fragment that is loose. At some point added effort does not yield sufficient improvement to warrant expending that effort. My dear husband does not or cannot and, I think, will not ever grasp this concept.

As a child I sometimes drove myself to perfection. When I first started taking piano lessons, I remember forcing myself to go back to the beginning and start over if I made even one tiny little mistake. At some point I decided that I was never going to be a concert pianist...that I was much more interested in being a vocalist...and that I wanted to be able to play adequately to accompany myself to practice singing. I really didn't care if I was a good enough pianist to play publicly.

I also realized that minor mistakes or flaws are never noticed by most people. As a child, I made a beaded belt on a loom following a pattern to create an Americana motif of flags and eagles. I remember purposely putting one black bead where there should have been a dark blue one. I did this by conscious choice to defy my own perfectionistic nature, as though to prove to myself that sometimes a good job wasn't much different that a perfect one.

Now, I must add that as a nurse, there are excellent reasons to be perfectionistic. When I worked in the clinical area, I was totally rigid about administering medications. Having a son with life threatening food allergies, raised my ability to be perfectionistic to an art form...or maybe, to total neurosis.

I guess each of us must decide for ourselves what level of performance we are comfortable with. The world we live in is far from perfect. When God created it, He declared that it was good, but sin and death entered his extraordinary world, and we deal with the results every day. I think it is mentally healthier, and more productive in the long run, to accept that.

When we have a piece of furniture that needs to be assembled, my perfectionistic husband bogs down if everything doesn't line up right. I assume going into the project that either things won't line up right, or some screw or nut will be missing from the packet, or a step will be missing from the instructions, or something else will go wrong. It's just not as upsetting that way, and I have a more realistic estimate of how long the project will take.

So, I didn't try to work on the same side of the cottage as my husband. It was easier on my nerves and better for our relationship, if I didn't have to watch him expending mega-effort to achieve a tiny increment of improvement. That is his choice, not mine.

Suppertime Serenade

We finally had a lovely summer day here in northern New York. Nice enough that the back door into the kitchen was standing open while I fixed supper tonight. I was enjoying the sounds drifting in through the screen door, when I heard a bird's song I don't remember ever hearing before.

Whit, whit, whit, whit, teh-you. Whit, whit, teh-you, teh-you. Whit, whit, whit, whit, teh-you.

The whit was a somewhat gentle whistle, but the teh-you was strong and piercing.

I peered into the apple trees on the grassy median between our drive and the neighbor's drive. After a few seconds, I spied the vocalist....a brilliant red cardinal.

I have seen cardinals before but have never heard their distinctive song. I wonder if he was calling his mate, or announcing the presence of some tasty morsel, or just rejoicing in the pleasantness of the day and the shade of the apple tree.

Whatever his intent, he left me rejoicing in the pleasantness of the day and the spirit of his song.

On Mowing the Lawn

Frequently my husband mows our lawn, but today he was otherwise occupied, and I decided to seize the couple hours of rain-free weather for the chore.

The weather in northern New York has been very wet this summer. Finding a dry day to mow has been difficult. When I declared I would mow today, my husband informed me that while I had slept soundly, he had been up during the night closing windows, and that I might find the grass too wet. With that word of caution, I decided to start where the grass is the least dense.

We have a fairly large area to mow. In addition to a normal sort of front yard, and a large back yard, we own two lots out in the middle of the block. We do not have a riding mower. It is a power mower, but not self-propelled. In other words, the mowing is actual work.

I began out in the middle of the block carefully skirting the day lilies. The forget-me-nots are done blooming so that area went under the blade. By the time I got to our back yard, the sun had still not dried out the dense grass. The mower clogged up repeatedly, and I had to stop it to dig the clumps of wet grass out from around the blade with a stick. Then, of course, it had to be restarted. Yank, pull, yank. I tried to occupy myself with pleasant thoughts to keep my mind off the exertion and the sweat pouring off my forehead and stinging my eyes.

The maple trees that volunteered themselves in the now unused garden area are really getting tall. One is almost 10 feet. The lilac bushes have finally grown to the point that there are enough blossoms to cut for bouquets in late spring. The rose bushes are coming along nicely considering that my care-taking is best described as benign neglect. And the tomatoes..oh, yes...the tomato plants are about 5 feet high and loaded with green tomatoes and blossoms. BLT season is not far away.

After an hour and 45 minutes with only a brief break for a glass of water, I finally finished the task and more or less staggered into the house. I grabbed a soda, rationalizing that even if I didn't need the calories, I needed the electrolytes. I spread a beach towel out on the bed, stripped off my perspiration soaked clothing and collapsed on the beach towel. The idea of the beach towel was to keep the bedspread from being saturated with perspiration too. Eventually I recoved enough to shower.

Maybe 64 year old women aren't supposed to push a mower for almost 2 hours. But, I'm thinking that as long as I keep pushing myself, I will die in my tracks, and not do a slow shrivel.

In the Raspberry Patch

About 30 years ago, neighbors gave us a small clump of raspberry plants they had dug up from their yard. We planted them next to a narrow sidewalk which runs along the side of our carriage house. Each year as runners from the plants came up out in the lawn, we dug them up and planted them along the sidewalk. We now have a dense thicket of raspberry plants about 20 feet long and 3-4 feet wide.

We have been out of town the past ten days, and in our absence the berries have ripened. Tonight I picked 2 quarts of raspberries. Lots more will be ripening over the next couple of weeks.

As I picked, I thought about the first few years when I was lucky if I got as much as a handful to bring into the house. The plants were fewer in number and the children playing on the swingset next to them were greater in number. My daughters were the first berry-snatchers. But, I do need to admit that the fact that my son and his friends cleaned off the bushes was my fault.

My son's first summer, he was about 8 months old when the berries were ripe. I would put him in the stroller and take him with me to work in the garden. As we passed the bushes, I would find one perfect berry, break it into small fragments and put them in his mouth. He would smack his little lips and enjoy the berry. I suppose I programmed him to be unable to pass those bushes without sampling the fruit.

Eventually the patch expanded to the point where even though my son and his friends helped themselves, I got enough in the house to make a pie or two, and have some to put in muffins or on top of ice cream.

The swingset rusted out and is long gone. No berry-snatchers play near by. I guess I'll be baking pies tomorrow. No amount of sugar will make them anything other than bittersweet.

Asking the Impolite Question

Two very famous people died yesterday....along with a whole lot of other people who were not famous. The media talks on and on and on about the contributions of those who were famous. No one asks what has apparently become an impolite question....where are they today?

Of course, no one really knows the answer to that for any of us. No one else knows what is in our minds and hearts, all private and hidden away in our innermost beings.

Most of those in the media probably believe there is no 'today' for those who died yesterday, or perhaps, they believe in a peaceful beyond into which we all pass regardless of the life we have lived.

But suppose, heaven and hell actually exist, and there is some defining question? Has your life conformed to God's plan for you? Have you considered God's claim on your life? What have you done with Jesus?

Last night I listened to a clip from an interview Barbara Walters did with Farrah Fawcett. At one point, Farrah said, "I just think I should be able to do what I want to do." Now maybe this was not her basic life philosophy, maybe the clip was somehow taken out of context. But, what if it was the theme of her life? Would her talent, beauty, bravery in her fight against cancer, or love for her son mean more in evaluating her life, than such an underlying philosophy?

Similarly, I saw a clip of an interview Ed Bradley did with Michael Jackson. He tried to get Michael to admit that his behavior with young boys certainly looked 'bad' to others...allowing young boys who were not related to him to sleep in his bed. Michael's response indicated that he could do this, and that anyone who thought ill of it was just plain wrong. He could defy social convention, and it should be ignored. In other words, he should be allowed to do what he wanted to do. His talent was immense, but does that entitle him to go against what society views as acceptable in dealing with children?

Here's the thing....none of us gets to do what we want to do all...or even most...of the time. We all have to live in the context of a family and a society and many other relationships in which someone else's needs or wishes may override ours. For many of us, we also decide to live in the context of a relationship with God. We believe it is that relationship, and not immense talent or fame, which will determine our destiny for eternity.

I don't know where Michael or Farrah or anyone else who died yesterday is today. God is wiser than I. He alone knows what is hidden to all others. But, 'today' someone who died yesterday in obscurity may be the one receiving the loudest applause.

Reflections on 41 years of marriage

Today I am celebrating the anniversary of marriage to my wonderful husband. I can't believe it is 41 years already. For the most part, it seems as though the years have flown past. While one is in the midst of a difficult day, it seems interminable. But, when one looks back on the years, they have gone by in a flash.
So here we are 4 kids and 8 grandkids later. We have only lived in two homes, and Bill has only had one job, but life has been full and varied. We have stuck together through wonderful times and absolutely horrible times.
We have had fewer fights than can be counted on the fingers of one hand....lots of debates and discussions...but very very few harsh words. We respect each other, and we each defer to the other in certain areas. He never argues with me about health or education related issues, and I never argue with him about money. That is not to say that we never ask each other quetions about these topics. We use each other as a sounding board when thinking through issues. We always consult each other on decisions which impact the others life.
There are some things about him that drive me crazy, but I expect there are things that I do and say that drive him crazy too.
Even if we have 41 more years together...which I know we won't...it won't be enough.

Backyard Drama

Instead of a traditional garage, we have a large carriage house. However, like many traditional garages, it has a basketball hoop on the front. Unfortunately, this creates a cozy space in which pigeons have been building a nest for many years. We have tried numerous means of getting rid of the pigeons nesting behind the backboard, but nothing has worked...not the plastic owl...not the rubber snake...not multiple occasions when my husband has destroyed the entire nest.

On Saturday I looked out the kitchen window and noticed that the current resident of the nest was sitting up on the backboard with two young offspring. The young ones were stretching their wings thinking about trying them out. The mother pushed against one of the birds moving it towards the end of the backboard. She pushed again and again until finally the young bird was clinging to the last inch of space.

Underneath the backboard watching every move were...not one...not two....but three neighborhood cats. One was sitting ready to pounce, one was standing with tail moving slowly from side to side. The third was laying on his back with eyes fixed on the activity above him. I imagine they were all salivating.

I was thinking that pigeons aren't very bright. She was about to push junior off and turn him into an early Thanksgiving dinner. But, after pushing the young bird to the very edge, she flew off, and a short time later, the young bird flew off too. Later I saw the mother and both young birds perched on the barn roof. Either she is lucky or smarter than I thought.

The cats had wandered off. I expect they were deeply disappointed.