Patchwork

 

What do Lawson Sisters do on a Lawson Sisters' Weekend? I'll tell you.

We squish sisters, babies, suitcases, diaper bags, a cooler of healthy snacks, eight cellphones and two ipods in a Honda Odyssey from Montana and drive to Colorado Springs to Mother Bear's den. We sing to Bon Jovi, Rascal Flatts, Michael Jackson and "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. We find gluten-free and dairy-free meals at fast food chains and swap drivers to allow for nursing and diapering and napping. We talk while enjoying the beautiful scenery of Glenwood Canyon. We learn that our phones even work in Eisenhower Tunnel, the longest tunnel I've ever driven through.

Once the eight of us are safely under one roof we eat homemade meals that satisfy our dainty cravings and do not hear our husbands complain of chick food. We go through 14 avocados and a flat of strawberries in two days. We eat like queens at the dining table that is set with different dishes for each meal. Mother Bear collects dishes.

We try to not go deaf from Andy's ringtone. We answer our own phones to hear spouses ask about laundry and scheduling and where the lemon juice is at the grocery store. We listen to our children say they miss us and our husbands inform us the stomach flu has hit home. We tell them we love them, hang up, and continue to have fun without guilt.

We nest in the basement, two to a buffet table or one per card table. There are two sewing machines, a serger, a Cricut, no less than 3,000 sheets of scrapbook paper, and enough stickers/embellishments to open our own store. We are outnumbered by punches ten to one. We drink water from our Teeno cups and snack on Herb Salsa and grapes and Moose Munch. We take turns picking cds. We sing along while Mother Bear whistles and the babies coo like doves. We eat nutella and wear pajamas and only shower if we want to.

We swap sister gifts and babies and stories. We laugh a lot. Steph teaches us how to do glitter toes and then Leesh, who is too burned out from her 3 trips to Walmart to actually scrap anything, gives us all pedicures on her hands and knees. We get to rummage through the pile of Tracey Imports and wear new earrings home. There are no curfews. There are no deadlines. We get dolled up to enjoy a lunch out on the town.

We eat half-price Sonic shakes lovingly purchased by Dad, who secretly loves Sisters' Week even though he is banished from the basement. What rooster doesn't love all his chicks back in the coop?

We enjoy four days of zero drama. We all needed this break.

It sounds utopian, no? It has been a long time coming.

I married a man with six sisters that were thick as thieves. Their mother lived to serve them. I had convinced myself that I was just a runt in-law piglet that had no chance of squeezing my way in for tasty milk. I tortured myself on and off over the years making up excuses why I'll "never be one of them." I don't listen to country music. I do my eyeliner differently. I hate American cheese. I don't talk on the phone enough. I refuse to shop the day after Thanksgiving. Well, they don't care. It doesn't matter that I'm different. Renee's letter sealed the deal. This weekend I finally realized that I can be a Lawson even though I am cut from Durkovich cloth. My cloth is a beloved square in the Lawson Patchwork Quilt. My differences are not only tolerated, they are embraced.

I never noticed how much stitching has taken place in Our Quilt over the last fifteen years. Careful, thoughtful, steady stitching. Lots of stitching that was no doubt a labor of love. Age and experience have taught me that we are unified although we are not the same. One yearns for a baby. One yearns for a house. One yearns for a husband. Different yearning, but yearning nonetheless. One will have her oldest leave home next year. One hasn't begun having children. Different stages, but similarly facing their personal unknowns. Our quilt of sisterhood will continue to bind us together through life's many care cycles. We will enjoy delicate handwashing, we will wince at rough machine washing, and we will grit our teeth and endure tumbling dry on high heat. Whatever life throws at us, we will take it together.

And we will snicker about goats. (Sorry, you had to be there.)

Smash

I grow tomatoes for two reasons: bruschetta and home-canned spaghetti sauce.

While Greg and I were picking our latest crop of Romas we discovered a petite tomato smashed between the fence slats. Smashed, but still growing on the vine. After picking him we were both astonished

1. He was shaped like a heart.
2. He was still a success (as far as tomatoes go).

If I were that tomato I could be ticked that splintery cedar planks were poking my smooth red skin from both sides.

Or I could be happy I got to see what was on the other side of the fence. No other tomato from this yard has ever had that view. I'm actually pretty special.

If I were that tomato I might curse my claustrophobia because I was never intended for this life. I was supposed to suspend like a jewel in open air.

Or I could feel safe knowing no grasshopper or pet could gnaw on me thanks to my wooden security.

If I were that tomato I might be lonely. I could convince myself I was intentionally neglected and think really hateful things about the clusters of free-hanging tomatoes chatting it up on other vines.

Or I could make friends with the zucchini leaves because we are currently living at the same exact altitude.

If I were that tomato I might feel ugly. I'm only a centimeter wide. I'm flat. I'm different. I'm a late bloomer. I'm anything but "heirloom."

Or I could look inward and be sure I, too, am full of Vitamin A and seeds. I can still feel the day's rays and hear birds and feel the sprinkler hit parts of me. I ripened like everyone else. In fact, I marvel I am growing too tight for my enclosure.

If I were that tomato I'd have a choice between despair and hope. Heart-shaped tomatoes and humans with smashed hearts have a lot in common.

Choose hope.

It's okay if life is fencing you in. You can still be a smashing success.

 

*My favorite lesson on Hope in the world. I think I've read it 100 times. I always think about the smashed pansy overcoming the brick, which is probably why I thought of hope the second I saw our smashed tomato. My hope is centered in Jesus Christ. Everything He touches lives.

Amateur

I love Van Gogh.

I have his Cafe Terrace at Night print above my desk. Someday I'll get to Europe and see if that's what eating on cobblestones before bedtime is really like. I also love his painting of the great peacock moth. One of his lesser-known works. Sometimes a beautiful moth gets outshined by a starry, starry night.

Vincent wasn't always The Van Gogh We All Know. He started out painting like everyone else and slowly left bits of paint behind on the canvas. The bits grew to globs. The globs attached themselves to swirls. The swirls and globs that so easily identify him now weren't so easy for him then. The way I heard an art historian describe Van Gogh's metamorphosis of leaving the paint behind:

He was only learning to be himself.

I am still learning to be myself. Erasing traits I don't want to be associated with. Figuring out what I want to be known for. Hoping it's not too late to register for a swirling class or to hire a technique tutor. Budgeting a little more time to throw some paint around.

Far from what I once was but not yet who I am going to be.

*Photo by Sydney Durkovich, my cousin who paints early on Sunday mornings.

Checkmate

Remind me to remind myself I hate the game of chess.

I thought I liked it in 6th grade, when you could play if you were done with your homework. I liked the shapes and feel and names of the pieces. I liked that kings played it in drafty stone castles. But then we went to Café Terrace for my 36th birthday to feast on strawberry-nutella crepes. There was a vacant chess set available for play. Greg tried to teach RE. She wasn't getting it. I took him on. I wasn't getting it. He played me like a pawn and annihilated me.

I find it extremely bothersome that every piece has its own set of moves. It's too much to keep track of. It should really be called "Are You Sure You Want To Move There?" or "That's a Great Spot But You Better Watch Your Back" or "Did You Ascertain the 73 Possible Consequences Of Positioning Yourself There and Remember To Think Ahead Six Moves?" Forget it.

There were two problems playing against Greg. One, he turned out to be Bobby Fischer. Two, he takes donkey's years to move.

Things I Could Do While Waiting For Greg To Take His Turn In Chess:

• prep a 5-course gourmet meal
• at least 400 lunges
• finish staining our fence

Game Board Chess with Greg = the biggest bore.

I think the reason I hate chess is it mimics real life. That was an easy and obvious move. SMACK! I just got obliterated by a knight. I feel good about this square. SMACK! How did that sneaky rook topple me? 

I'm glad Greg is on my team in the chess game of life. Us versus Obstacles. There are benefits to being married to Bobby Fischer. He's so good at strategy and risk-taking and thinking with a level head. He's precise and calculated and steady. I'm never worried about any move we make together. His coattails? Yes, please.

Life Chess with Greg = the biggest blessing.

Bumpy Road

As I've been copying my medical records for the IVF doctor I came across a fairly large stack of old dermatology statements. I should preface this story by saying if there is a rare virus, rash, or skin ailment that can be caught by human flesh my flesh will catch it. I should also preface this story by saying all my life I have somewhat hated my skin (despite David Oreck telling me to my face I have a "Peaches & Cream" complexion).

When I was 32 and in Denver for a MNF Broncos game pityriasis rosea appeared. It covered my entire body except for my face. It's common in kids aged 6 to 12 and nearly unheard of after age 30. When the doc looked at my back and saw the "marker" he went and got all of the nurses and residents and secretaries so that EVERYONE could see the "most defined Christmas tree striations he had ever seen." That made me feel awesome. To have the most defined case of a high contrast viral rash that has no cure and has to run its course before it vanishes in 6-8 weeks.

Don't forget my bouts of molluscum contagiosum, folliculitis, the two M&M-sized bumps cut out of my scalp (Greg called them my antennas) which ended up being sebaceous cysts, the week my feet were entirely covered in eczema while in the Dominican Republic on vacation (I thought it was a sand rash), the volcano-sized bites that oozed pus bestowed from a hotel hot tub that was a little short on chlorine (to quote the doc: "You were just stewing in a vat of living bacteria that clung to your suit and bit you up") and endless years of on-again-off-again adult acne. In summary, my skin is writing its first tell-all book destined to become a New York Times' bestseller.

Nothing was worse than 2008.

I went in for a routine check-up, probably for acne or wondering why my pores were enlarging or to see if any cream really stops crow's feet:

Doctor: Are we here to burn those warts off your face?

Me: Excuse me? I have no warts.

Doctor: Yes, you do. See here? All along your jaw. There's about 9 of them.

Me: Those are just shiny freckles. They are flat.

Doctor: They are flat warts. Let me burn them off real quick with some nitrogen. They'll scab and then the scabs will fall off and you'll be done with them.

Me: Okay.

It sounded great. They scabbed and the scabs fell off. Then they came back, but bumpy. At first they came back in their original spots. Then they started to spread. They spread from my jaw all the way across my face to the opposite side of my forehead. I essentially had a mask of warts similar in shape to the Phantom of the Opera's mask. Every day I woke up and raced to the mirror to see if it was all a bad dream but they had spread further and were even growing on top of each other. My face was seriously textured. One night I tried to count them and when I passed 300 I ran into my closet and bawled in the dark. I reminded myself of the weasel in Arnold Lobel's Mouse Soup, a book I still own that was purchased via kindergarten Scholastic book orders. At this point I was completely freaked out and went back to the doc.

Doctor: What am I seeing you for?

Me, in tears: Um, this obtrusive festival of warts covering my entire face except for my eyeballs. Why did this happen? This isn't "being done with them."

Doctor: Hmm. Sometimes this happens. Your body senses the warts are gone so it fights back with a vengeance and makes more warts. I've never seen a case this bad. (Story of my life! If I had a nickel...)

Me: I don't recall you warning me this was a possibility.

Doctor: Really? Well, I should have. It's rare. Nothing to do except hope your body decides to fight off the virus.

Me: Do I still have to pay for this appointment?

Nothing to do. He did send me home with a Rx for a topical gel used to treat STDs that was guaranteed to turn my face into raw hamburger. I threw that piece of paper away. I was not going to treat myself for an STD. Oh, just remembering this is so awful. It was the worst. RE made me a sweet card and left it on my pillow:

I had become a hermit in the two weeks this happened. I went nowhere except church. I was terrified to be seen. Greg still kissed me goodnight and said he thought I was beautiful and even let me lean my face on his chest at night. He's not scared of anything.

I will never forget sitting in church, on the left edge of the left aisle with my hair swooped over my warts the best it could, looking to the left and wanting to die. Hating myself. Feeling so ugly. The lady giving the Sunday School lesson was teaching on adversity. I listened through the hating. I softened. I stepped back and assessed the situation. Was my skin really going to shut me down? Halt my love of interacting with people? Murder my joie de vivre? Return the gifts I have to offer? No.

I prayed a pretty sincere final prayer to the Lord and then got over it. In my prayer I asked that if He was indifferent to my skin healing to please let it go back to the old skin, but if I needed the warts to become who I needed to be to let me accept them in winning fashion. I also started taking L-Methionine, an amino acid that aids in skin cell renewal. And I upped my dosage of leafy greens.

Time passed. One morning they seemed smaller. The next morning they seemed flatter. And one morning they were gone and my skin was how it used to be. The skin that had never pleased me was now the skin I will always be thankful for. The Wart Experience taught me two important life lessons:

1) Be thankful for what you currently have because you have no idea how things will better or worsen. I found a scripture for this one in the Bible. It’s Philippians 4:11:

...for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

2) Worldly, skin deep beauty is fickle. You can race time and gravity, but they will win. Inner beauty can't fade unless you let it.

*Illustration of weasel from Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel.