5. BLURSE

The car stereo was heavy on the bass.  I remember this because it was the last thought I had before the car hit me.  I was on my way to a Utah Songwriters meeting, and the song on the stereo was my own.

My van was older, with no airbags, so when the car pulled out in front of me on the corner of Shepherd and Main, it was the seatbelt that kept me from flying through the windshield.  In the process of saving me, it caused a broken collar bone, cracked rib, bruised sternum and a lovely bruise all the way from shoulder to hip, then across to the other hip, like an upside down 7.

I remember standing in the shower, days after the accident, letting the hot water run over my aching shoulder, looking down at the dark evidence of injury and thinking to myself that it was ironic that the thing that caused me so much pain was exactly the thing that saved me. 

That’s when I started noticing how many curses are also blessings.  It became so common to me that I gave it a name: 

Blurses are everywhere.  Just ask someone who has experienced serious illness.  If they are using healthy eyes they will have seen beautiful things that have happened in relationships, in self-discovery, in quietude and introspection that often come with the curse of disease.  When I was forced to sit in my paralyzed state after being struck with Guillain Barre Syndrome, our daughter Sarah had just given birth to her first child; my first grandbaby. I was in such bad condition I felt like I could be no help to her.  And yet this child was one who would be cuddled; who could sit for long stretches of time and be read to, or watch a show, or just nap, our hearts beating against each other as one, his warm baby breath pulsing in sweet audible puffs against the skin of my neck.  His name is Timo, short for Timothy, and we started calling the time we nurtured each other my Timo-therapy.  It was a blurse to have been sick forced to stay home an be still when Sarah, in her second year of medical school, needed my help.

It’s a blurse when you don’t make the specialty choir so your school schedule is freed up to take an art class, after which you win the Masters Award in the state art competition and go on to earn a college degree in Fine Art.  It’s a burse when you are called to Hong Kong on a mission, when the only thing you prayed for in your mission assignment was that is was somewhere cold. Breaking up with that girl who played violin ( and was, you have to admit, a little odd) was a blurse because during that time you began a platonic friendship with another beautiful girl who would eventually become your wife, so you knew her as a friend before a lover.  That move to Spokane was a blurse, with all that green pine beauty calling you on Saturday hikes with your little papooses strapped to your backs, even though it is thousands of miles from home.

My HOPE for today is that we examine our curses, or at least step away from them far enough to see them with clear vision. In so doing we might see the shimmer of a silver lining around them. A hint of a blessing woven into a curse.  A blurse.

LENT 2016 - HOPE CHEST

I always wanted a hope chest, but there never was money or space for one in my youth, and certainly I was not blessed with domestic talents that would fill a trousseau. Besides, there was no dowry. But the traditionalist in me dreamed of what it would be like when I left home and established a place of my own.   In my hope chest would be handmade quilts, and embroidered pillowcases.  A set of copper bottomed pots and pans, and some nice bone china.  Some books, and empty journals, and a fine tipped fountain pen.  Maybe a little money tucked into a sock, and a few little non-functional treasures from my childhood, for sentimental reasons. But alas, I never did have one.

So now, even though I am a legitimate senior citizen according to Ross discount stores (they will give me 5% off on Senior Tuesdays) I have decided to create a Hope Chest for myself.

Sort of. 

I am going to leave home, at some point, and when I do I want to be prepared.

For this particular season of Lent, wherein I discipline myself to write purposefully every day until Easter, I will be adding  “items” to my figurative HOPE CHEST.  Thoughts, feelings, concepts, philosophies, nuggets of inspiration and life lessons – these I will place in my life trousseau, hoping that one day my children and their children will know who I am and what matters to me. Little life lessons, so to speak. Tidbits of truth, according to my own conscience.

My biggest fear in doing this, besides the general anxiety of trying to wax poetic every day, is that the people I care about might think the topics I address are well thought-out and the distilled sum of all that matters to me.  Therefore, herewith is my disclaimer:

The posts which follow will address topics that matter to me; but they are not all that matter to me. Just a little peek into my brain…and my heart…and my hopes.