Today when I called my daughter we were both cleaning out make-up, hair products and cosmetics that had built up in our bathroom drawers over the past year. I swear that I just did this last spring, but somehow more had arrived. We compared – lipsticks, lip glosses, hair spray, perfume samples, moisturizers that didn’t work, self-tanning products that turned our skin orange…. Our trash cans runneth over.

A friend called while I was rummaging, folding and removing towels and sheets in the guest-bath linen closet. We both laughed. She had just done the same.

My sister has been cleaning kitchen cupboards, drawers, and her side-board while I just completed my china hutch. My garage now houses three boxes of dishes; the set of china is headed to my daughter’s. The hutch is nearly empty. There are white linen tablecloths and napkins… who uses linen these days? You have to iron them or send them to the dry cleaners every time you use them and a red cloth and napkins we always used for Christmas. Now we’re lucky if we haul out the place mats. I try to buy something festive at least. And paper napkins seem to work just fine.

I love watching the tops of shelves re-appear from under piles. Wiping them clean is so cathartic. My sister swears she will not go to another estate sale or antique store this year. I just shake my head…. sure, sis.  My daughter says she’s going to get rid of everything and sell the house. I shake my head again. My good friend who actually is selling her home says she’s just going to set fire to the darned thing. Now that I agree with!

Anyway, it must be fall, even though today’s temp in Phoenixwill be over 100 degrees by kick-off for the Cardinals game at one o’clock. It seems that whether you’re in Oklahoma at 85 degrees, Phoenix at 100, or Oregon at 70, our internal clock says it is fall and it is time to clean house!

            I’m not a theologian, so I won’t even touch that centuries’ old debate in a blog. Besides, I’m sure it would fill a thousand-page book. About the time I settle on one position, questions attack my mind like flies to sugar, and I’m left wondering once again.

 God has always placed people and situations in my life exactly when I needed them. It had to be God’s hand, because coincidence alone could never arrange things to play out as they did. This was particularly true with job opportunities, but perhaps more importantly, with special individuals who arrived to save me at the last moment.

One could argue it was my free will that made the final decisions, both good and bad. I do believe God has a “long leash” that allows me to screw up, like buying a new car six years ago at a ridiculously high price —something I’ve never done before, and like constantly returning to people who do not feed my soul or make me happy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made excellent choices and decisions along the way. I have a logical, rational brain that works 95% of the time. I analyze, consider and weigh my options. So how do we know when God takes over and tugs that leash, keeping us from making irreversible mistakes?

 I can share how it happens for me. It’s a feeling, not a thought — a rushing flood of feelings. It starts out as a slight discomfort in my gut and a little fogginess in my brain – sort of like the start of the flu. Often I ignore them; no matter how strong they become, no matter how painful, no matter how sick I may feel. They call this dis-ease.

Sometimes I march on into that bad decision convinced intellectually that my stand is correct. If I push on, with my head pulling my heart behind me, the symptoms worsen. A tension inside me tightens. I experience weakness, blurry thoughts, and nausea that if ignored can lead to complete and total melt-downs. God usually gives me a reprieve about the time I fall to my knees to pray. I hand the situation over to Him and then live with whatever consequences I’ve earned.

Sometimes, if I’m not grabbing that rope too early, I experience what has been described as déjà vu. The experience may not even relate to my current situation, but the episodes come often and with clarity, and they grab my attention. Many people, maybe most, don’t believe in déjà vu or explain it away scientifically. I understand that logically it can’t exist – but for me, it does, and when it happens I sharply halt whatever I’m doing and realize I’ve been give a sign that I’m heading in the right direction.

There have been times when I’ve prayed and been answered in an hour and times I’ve prayed with no response. Parents have died; people haven’t changed; bad things have happened. Perhaps God has his own plan for others that my short-sidedness can’t see.

Are there ways that you recognize God’s hand in your life? I wonder if they are similar to mine. Or perhaps you have suggestions I can look for in my own life. I hope to hear from a few of you, and in the meantime, I will continue to waffle between God’s Destiny and My Free Will.

  A week ago today I returned to the Valley of the Sun – or valley of hell as many of us so lovingly call it. That’s when my body began to rebel. I first noticed my feet, as the desert dryness leeched out all the moisture and left them cracked and painful, especially walking on tile floors.

       Then the plumpness of my northern Arizona cheeks fell back to their desert thinness, and I began to slather on more and more moisturizer. Every day my skin, from head to toe, cries out for water and lotions, and gels and oils — anything to quench its thirst. I’m drinking gallons of fluids again – trying to keep it 90% pure water. I bought another twenty–four bottle case of H2O mid-week.

 Everyone assures me that it will cool off in a couple of weeks, and I hope they’re right, but I’m not betting on it. Until then, I will cough my way through each day, hole up in my darkened, cool house and keep pouring water down my throat and lotion onto my feet. And next year I will extend my summer up north to three weeks instead of two — because in October, friends can actually be truthful when they say it will cool down by the end of the month.

For example:   The television is on, but there’s no picture.

                        My wireless mouse works but my touch pad doesn’t.

                        The screen on my computer is frozen.

                        The vacuum won’t turn on.

                        My cable isn’t working – again!

The answer is always the same – so why do I keep asking?

This morning my iPod was acting up. The green light on the start button glowed; the volume button was slid half-way which usually blasts me out of the room. The cord was attached to both the player and the wall though I jiggled that just in case and slid the volume to high. The screen on the iPod said charged; I pressed the play button in the center of the pad itself; pressed the forward arrow to go to the next song. The new title appeared. I pressed the center play control again – Nothing, Nada, Non!

And then I hard my son’s voice in my head. Turn it off and back on. You sometimes just have to start over!!

Ahhh – start over. Those two small words. Isn’t that true of everything in life?

 In the local post office they have a white board with a quote of the day. I was in yesterday picking up my weekly General Delivery. The quote said – “You have to let go of the past in order to grab hold of the future.” It had struck a chord at the time, and this morning as I turned off the iPod and waited for a full ten seconds, I became aware of the truth of that quote and the truth of my son’s advice. It works every single time.

Turn it off, completely off and wait. When you press the button again, everything will have shifted and the music blasts, the computer screen flashes, the television has a clear picture, the vacuum roars to life sucking up dirt and debris.

You let go of the trapeze bar, breathe deeply, hang in the air for a few seconds, and grab for the next rung. Letting go is the only way to move forward no matter what life struggle you are faced with. I just need to remember it and make it my mantra.

p.s. yes, my iPod worked immediately……

Several nights this week, I heard the weatherman mention the Perseid Meteor showers and the times to best view them. Dusk and pre-dawn. For a quick second or two I thought I should do that. It passed.

Then last evening, with company gone and nothing on TV, I took a walk to the east of my condo. It certainly felt dark enough – I couldn’t see my feet, but the lights from the resort across the road interfered. I continued further, cricked my neck upward and kept hoping. Porch lights and trail lights diffused the night sky, so I headed back in frustration. Here I was in northern Arizona, far from city lights, in the boonies really. I went to bed disappointed.

At 4:30am something woke me, and I stretched and turned toward my open window, glanced at my cell phone for the time, and got up. I put drops in my blurry eyes, padded through the living room and opened the balcony door. It was cold and it felt great and my vision was focusing, so I stepped out and looked up at the black sky – all the lights below me were now off.

Forgive the cliché, but the stars were like crystals sewn on a midnight blue satin gown. Clear and vivid, and I felt like I could reach up and touch them. I told myself – five minutes – I have to sleep! The first flash was in my peripheral vision and I wasn’t absolutely certain, but I claimed it. I waited a few moments before the next streaked in front of me. They were tempting me, teasing me – I walked the length of the balcony and back, peering closely into the sky, then sat in the wicker chair for a wider view. Each time I gave up and headed back to bed, another burst streamed and quickly faded. I hate getting old – I knew I had to go back to bed soon or I’d be too awake to ever sleep. At 5:00am I made myself close the bedroom window and the blinds. But I wanted to lie there in the dark and watch for more. I had seen meteors, and they were glorious.

Meteors are like certain people who come into our lives. They shine brightly and light up the darkness. They are beautiful and fun to watch, and they are rare. We wait anxiously for them to appear, to make us ooh and aah, and then they dissipate before our eyes like fireworks and are gone. We are left questioning if we have convinced ourselves of their reality. Had we only imagined their beauty, their light that touched our soul for a moment? They stay in our memory and leave us somewhat bereft.

In my life time I’ve had a few human meteors streak across my path. Beautiful flashes of energy that left me longing for more – more time to feel those feelings, more time to be my better self, more time to experience happiness and lightness and love.

And at the tail end of those meteors I sat and cried and questioned why it flared and sparked so brightly and ended so quickly. Those few are seared into my memory, and I can “see” them when I close my eyes and bring them forth.

As much as I wish I could bring him back, I know the flare has vanished. I will try to wait for the next opportunity, the next person, who will make me feel again. In the meantime, I will relive the experience, feel the sadness of the ending, thank God he flashed through the darkest time of my life, and know that the last eight years were a gift to treasure.

Being a mom is hard work– not just the physical labors of love like feeding, clothing, nursing and chauffeuring, although that is a full-time job. What I’m referring to is the emotional investment we moms make in our children. I say “our” as I am a mother of two, myself. The emotional roller coaster of motherhood not only includes our own feelings of happiness and joy, anger and rage, sadness and grief – it also includes feeling the emotions of the children we raise. And from infancy through adulthood, that’s a lot of emotion to absorb, feel, and survive. This is not the place to debate a father’s investment – so I’ll speak for moms since that’s what I know.

            Nothing pains us more than the helpless feeling of walking the floor holding a crying infant with an ear ache – knowing that we can do nothing until the doctor’s office opens or our nerves fray and we head to the E.R. That piercing, shrill cry of pain goes right to the gut. Or the fear you feel as you fill the bathroom with steam to calm the croup in a toddler’s lungs. Your heart breaks with pride and sadness the first day she climbs aboard the school bus and heads off to Kindergarten. The tears flow as you snap that first-day-of school photo.

We moms feel it all — the skinned knees, the first boyfriend, the son’s broken heart when his date cancels prom, the orchestra director who says he can’t play flute, her first car accident, the angst over back-to-school clothes, the extreme joy when the college acceptance letter arrives, the harassment she gets at school, the frustration and anger at a math teacher your daughter can’t understand, and then sometimes there are the big things like surviving divorce, a grandparent’s death, or a move across country. All those feelings for a mom are doubled or tripled or quadrupled depending on the number of children.

            Last night, as I watched the moms of Olympian competitors, my heart went out to them. I, too, have sat through dance recitals, band auditions, soccer tournaments, spelling bees, piano competitions, theater performances – you name it and I’ve felt it at some level. I remember holding my breath, waiting for that next piano note and then the next and the next. I remember screaming at the top of my lungs – kick the goal, kick the goal – then, tears choking my throat at a loss of 10-9. I can still feel the pride when the theater lights came up on a perfect performance where all the sets and lighting worked and all his hard work paid off.

            If you’ve been a mom, you’ve been there – once or twice, but most likely hundreds of times. Last night I watched the faces of the mothers closely. One mom mouthed step by step each move of a performance she knew as well as her daughter – a routine she could probably perform herself. I watched moms cover their faces, peek through fingers, stare at the floor, stand and yell encouragement, jump for joy tears streaming, tightly shutting their eyes at a heart stopping failure. Smiles of joy – tears of sorrow and each time the camera caught them in its lens, I felt it with them.

            Sure, I nearly cried for the kids when the gymnasts were reduced to two winners, when Michael Phelps barely qualified and then came in fourth. But the moms were the ones who broke my heart. Because I know so well that those feelings for your kids have intensity over and beyond the actual event, the actual outcome – it’s the Mother Bear syndrome of protection and safety and “don’t mess with my kid.”

            I found it interesting and refreshing that the press left the national champion gymnast alone for a long period of time to let her cry and grieve and process the pain, and I admired them for not showing the mother’s reaction, as tempting as that must have been. Perhaps the NBC producer who gave that directive was a “mom” or at least a guy with a big heart! 

Birds call me to the window. Not the heavy morning coos of the doves outside my home in Gilbert, or the raucous pigeon calls from my daughter’s entryway rafters— these are gentle, staccato chirps and an occasional warble.

I listen to the rustle of trees and the splatter of a brook as it falls over rocks, and laps and burbles its way intently along the boulder- lined stream. Four huge Cottonwood trees tower above my second floor balcony. Their light gray trunks spread roots that stretch in all directions at the surface of the ground. They will wind their way under the walk-ways at some point and pop the cement upward with ease. Even the green grass seems to speak, especially in the rain we’ve had today.

These are sounds I do not hear on my brick patio beside my yard of granite and stone. My Sissoo trees are six years old and have grown well over the roofline, but they stand silent and dull most every day. The winds through the Cottonwoods lull me to sleep at night and soothe my inner stress and ever ruminating mind throughout the day.

This place will grow silent in the cold snowy winter I suppose, once the leaves drop and the birds nestle in somewhere and the brook freezes. But for now, it is designed for my enjoyment—to take the place of idol thoughts and problems.

There is always a small kernel of longing wedged in my soul, but when I experience what I’ve been missing, that memory muscle flexes, and it feels like home, childhood, days of summer, a missing piece of my soul. And God said, “It is good.”

Retreat: Definition –  OxfordDictionary

Verb – to move back or withdraw; to change one’s mind or plans; to withdraw to a quiet or secluded place; decline in value of stock.

Noun – an act of moving back or withdrawing; a quiet or secluded place in which one can rest and relax; a decline in the value of shares; a signal for a military force to withdraw; to provide someone with food, drink or entertainment at one’s own expense; to give medical care or attention.

Re-treat – to treat again.

And so, I guess that’s what I am doing now. Retreating, going on a retreat, re-treating myself. For the first summer in thirty years I have withdrawn from the 105-115 degree temps in the valley of the sun. (Phoenix, AZ for those of you who have never lived here). I drove north two- and a half hours from Gilbert on Sunday and began to settle into my new abode, a nice two-bedroom condo in Bison Ranch, just east of Heber-Overgaard, AZ. A true quiet and secluded place in which one can rest and relax.

It is the 4^th of July and fifty degrees. I can’t even begin to think back to a time where I didn’t sweat for hours waiting for fire-works to begin or sit in my air conditioned living room watching them burst over the White House in D.C. In fact July 4^thhas become a non-holiday that I rarely celebrate.

I needed this retreat. Thirty years in the six- month heat of the desert has grown too long and too invasive. I blame it on my age but who knows? It’s a dry hell I read recently – yes, but it’s still hell. Even my daughter’s swimming pool is already tepid bath water – unwelcoming and un-refreshing. How many movie theaters can you go to in a week to stay in cool? Each year I count “how many weeks? how many days?” until October 30 when over night it drops thirty degrees and becomes livable again.

Yesterday I found the community library and got a library card: the first thing I do wherever I go. I located the IGA, the Ace Hardware, the Dollar Store, and oh yes, the Dairy Queen. Two months – those are all I need. There’s a Redbox at a Circle K and a few antique stores and boutiques. I’ll survive two months of no shopping malls, fancy restaurants or

I’m going to write every day and walk and sit on the deck, play games on my Kindle, and read. I have retreated to heaven if only for sixty days!