Living-Deliberately.com

Today’s her day. I have no idea how old she is…well, I have some, give or take a year on either side, if I attempt to do the math of my age minus her age when she had me or whatever. Doesn’t matter. The point is, birthdays come once a year to us all and this day is hers. As I age myself I’m less and less concerned with actual numbers. Hmmm. Wonder why that is?

She recently did something that reminded me of how determined she can be, how patient with biding her time to accomplish something she wants, never setting aside the goal until it’s seen its fruition. In my world, I call ‘em Big Hairy Audacious Goals (bhags). What was profound about this particular one was the timing of it all and the spontaneity in which she grasped it. For the past few years life had taken on a very rythmic regularity. The same things happened every week, every year, a certain numbness set in. It affected all of us and I think we all began to grow frustrated even as we seemed unable to do anything with it. We all just got used to not trying much new; just living life as we knew it. I’m sure that in the tradition of mothers and daughters I’m too hard on her at times, I put her in a box as much as we all do with those we know well enough to expect things from. And I think we all got to a place where we didn’t expect anything to be different from how it was.
This year has seen alot of changes! We moved away, they sold thier house, bought land, and and are now starting fresh. That’s the short version. If stagnancy ruled before there certainly is not much of it left. What was unforseeable in the rythm and drive of the previous year was the whole new world that we live in now. Which brings me to the setting necessary for the culmination of this goal of Mom’s.

She used to ice skate years ago. Several states away, years away, injuries and sore joints away. She held onto those skates, packed them up in a closet, but would never get rid of them and sometimes talked about skating again one day. I have to be honest and say that eventually enough time passed and life took on such a different pattern than would allow for mom on ice skates that I figured it would never happen. I don’t know how much she believed it herself. But what is evident is that she never let go of it, sore hips and all.

Enter our move here to a climate with four seasons. And….ice rinks. Mom has a certain grand daughter that dreamed of skating like the kindred spirit she is and when the kids added thier christmas money to thier savings they realized they had enough to buy themselves ice skates. Co-inidence or predestined events led to my family all coming for a visit after christmas and an activity needing to be planned and we found ourselves promising the kids to go skating.

And Grandma decided to bring hers. “I’m gonna skate with my grandchildren” she said.

Maybe that’s not so heroic to some. Who cares? It is. Those of us who live in the sway and shadow of her business year know that this visit was right on the cusp of “Easter Rush” and Pastor’s Conference. Mom already has a bad back and bad hips. She hadn’t skated in nearly 20 years. She wasn’t sure how sharp the blades were. I feel certain my dad’s reflux and anxiety went up several notches as the trip approached. I still didn’t really believe she’d go through with it, and I had a lump in my throat as we entered the humid chill of the ice rink.

When did I know she’d do it? Once the kids found out, there was little going back I suppose. The rink was pretty crowded that Saturday; she stayed with Celia while the guy sharpened C’s skates and inspected Mom’s. She laced up, she walked the mats. And then…

She skated! She never fell. There was a calm euphoria as she glided and showed Celia some steps. It wasn’t at night, outdoors, or snowing but it was beautiful. She went round and round; my dad breathed. I think he finally exhaled fully once she sat down and unlaced. And it was with a quiet, “I’m glad I did that” checking-off-the-list that she dried her blades and talked about selling them. Big Hairy Audacious Goal accomplished and laid to rest.

If she has a wish for this coming year, I’m sure it involves a certain amount of settletude. (Is that a word? If not, call it a Tia-ism). Calm and Quiet and Routine and most definately four walls and a roof on the farm for shop and home. It’s been a tumultuous few months and there are more coming. But my hope is that they both, Mom and Dad, don’t get too much of that calmness and routine…seeing them stretch and work together and shake the dust off old dreams has been revitalizing and healthy.

So Happy Birthday and many more! I love you Mom.

(It’s painfully anti-climatic but I have great pictures of this trip and they are all loaded and ready to insert into this post. Today, for whatever cosmic reason, Photobucket has shut down for maintaince and I can’t post them. So, here’s the post in time for the day but the pictures will have to wait.)

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