If you're still reading, I'm still writing...

Come find me at:

Kathleen Jaeger dot com 

I look forward to catching up with you.

Hopefully it hasn't been this long since you've seen me.

 

Spring dared to return even when everything else was canceled

Many of the blossoms of the tree have blown off and settled just beneath it. The white petals lie on the green grass yet some still cling to the branches. The wind is blowing and pink and purple flowers wave to gray skies.

Even though there have been cancellations, isolations, and empty store shelves, Spring has returned.

Cancelled plans scattered on the lawn, making its own temporary beauty out of deep disappointments. Clinging to the branch of hope that lives will be spared due to the cancellations. While we hunker down and wait for the oncoming storm, there are flowers waving in the wind like Italians singing from their balconies with tambourines and accordions.

Unlike tornadoes that come quickly, this storm is taking a long time to arrive. We wait and wait. How can time seem slow and ever-changing at the same time?

The storm is coming. Another burst of wind, another batch of cancellations. Soon it will be people we know with the virus, maybe even us. In a time when nothing seems certain and everything is changing daily, Spring arrives.

A reminder that there are a few things that remain constant: the seasons, the sun’s rising and setting, and a God who never changes.

May we cling to the hope that doesn’t disappoint: In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade - kept in heaven for you. I Peter 1:3-4

Six Things I've Learned This Fall

Six Things I've Learned This Fall 

After a three and a half year hiatus, I'm dusting my blog off by joining Emily P. Freeman's Quarterly Link-up about 'Things I've Learned.' The encouragement is to reflect and observe one's life as to gain the most from our experiences. Perhaps these musings will prompt reflections and observations you've gained in your own life. 

1) Mushrooms are key.

Apparently mushrooms are what make the omelette for me. I'd forgotten mushrooms at the store for several weeks; I also had not been motivated to make my morning omelette for weeks. Then one day, I remembered the mushrooms, the next morning I made an omelette. 

Note to self: Keep mushrooms on hand to motivate me to make my high protein breakfast. For a long while I have loved my omelette and coffee with half & half breakfast, knowing I've started my day right. I've enjoyed the ritual of making it and eating it but it lost its luster. Now I know that I'd just lost my mushrooms. 

2) It's easier to cook for three than for six. 

It really cracks me up that this came as a surprise for me! I must admit that I like that the house stays more orderly, that we're staying on top of the laundry, and that we have leftovers in our fridge frequently now that there are only three of us that live here full time.

3) Six people go through more soap and shampoo; not just food.

In other transitional news, apparently six of us go through a lot more soap and shampoo than four or three of us do. This was more difficult for me to adjust to this past summer than the feeding more people part of the summer. Weird, I know. I have no idea why this bothered me so much.

4) Sometimes transitions and change are okay.

I am a pre-griever. As I spend time thinking about upcoming changes, I get sad. So for the two to three weeks before the older three went off to and back to college this fall, I was really sad. During the actual drop-offs, I hugged, prayed and waved. I don't typically cry at good-byes and this was no exception. I felt all the feels for a day or two when we got back. And then I was good. I've been peaceful. I haven't ached or longed for the hustle and bustle of a full house or for the individuals. 

5) A six of us camping trip did put the ache and longing into missing them. 

Missing us. It was so good to be just the six of us. Camping in the cold. We cut wood. Built a fire. Cooked over a camp stove. Hiked. Tossed a frisbee. We reminisced. We talked about current events in our own lives. We connected better than we would have if we'd stayed at home together. This is when I felt the ache and the longing, not during our new day-to-day normal of just three of us. It was so wonderful that I came home and started  planning a summer vacation for just the six of us.

6) Be open to learning. 

The idea for the camping trip came as a result of the parent session at the college drop-off for child number three. The one where the colleges help parents cut the umbilical cord. I had thought to myself, 'Do I really need to go to this?' The answer to that question is yes. Yes, I did. After years of college visits, I was pretty burnt on another academic speech (which are only moderately inspiring or informative at this stage). But it was at this session -- where I thought I had nothing to learn -- that I gained a vision for my role as a mom to college-aged kids: one of my roles is to help us -- the six of us -- stay connected as a family in our adult lives. Hence, the inspiration to make a two day camping trip happen for the two days that their fall breaks overlapped. Note to self: You always have things to learn; be open even when I think that 'I know it all' already. 

What observations and reflections do you have from your own life lately? Share in the comments.

Kindness matters

Last Friday night, our family participated in a contra dance -- or square dancing in a line. It's fun because it involves everyone: young and old, experienced and newbie.

When the dance is about to begin, the caller calls out to find a partner. My husband grabbed my hand for most of the night. Near the end of the evening, my husband noticed that there was a little girl crying because she had wanted to dance but didn't have a partner.

We'd already begun to dance and swung to the steps being called out, but he was distracted because he kept noticing the crying girl. He tried more than once to get the attention of the caller to help her find a partner. But the dance danced on without her.

However, at the end of this particular dance the caller put herself into the circle and begun to lead us all around the room. As we passed by the little girl who had dried her tears, my husband grabbed her hand to include her in this part of the dance that didn't require a partner.

After that song, the next dance was a waltz. One of my daughters wanted to dance with her daddy but I stood my claim as his partner. I wasn't going to miss out on dancing with my husband, but shortly into the dance, a little girl cut right in on our dance.

It was the girl who had been crying because she'd been left out. She began to dance with my husband.
I let her cut in.

I understood. She had been drawn to his kindness.

He had seen her need and reached out in a small, seemingly insignificant way. But it touched her.

Kindness drew her.

Kindness matters even in the smallest ways.

When memories stir the deep places

On Tuesday night, I walked the halls of an ICU for the first time in a couple of years. It was a different hospital, but the sights, the sounds, the smells and the somberness of the situation were the same. In the beeps and the attentiveness of one-on-one nursing, hope clung tight in spite of the raw thin battle line between life and death.

It stirred the deep places in me. My youngest daughter could sense it as my husband and I headed off to visit a friend this time, instead of my father-in-law. As we dashed off with no real dinner plans for anyone,  the children asked, "How long do you think you will be gone?" We replied, "We don't know."  My youngest daughter said, "Mommy...your emotions..." I didn't let her finish.

There were so many unknowns. We didn't know what we were eating for dinner; we didn't know if we'd be able to see her; we didn't know how she was doing, we didn't know when we'd be home, and I didn't know what my emotions were doing. It was the familiar, but uncomfortable dance of the unknown. Familiar. Accepted. But still uncomfortable.

And so we waited in the halls of the hospital for news, for change, for an update, for good news. Medical crisis teach the good lesson of living with the 'I-don't-knows'. They are also good for bringing friends and family together. Even while life hovers between suffering, hope, and breathing machines, there is laughter, hugs, stories, and reminiscing. The waiting room camaraderie is good for the soul. It is good not to be alone.  

On Tuesday night, not only were we reminded of the somberness of ICU journey from a couple of years ago, we were also reminded of the goodness of the Lord, particularly in the waiting room vigil that was filled with hugs, reunions, laughter, catching-up, and waiting for an opportunity to see our friend. I remembered how God touched us many times by sweet friends showing up at just the right time being His hands and feet.

I remembered how He is good even when it's hard.

Twenty three years ago today

Twenty-three years ago today I arrived in Tennessee in my shiny, bright, blue Toyota Tercel, loaded with most of my worldly goods.

I drove up a big hill and unpacked my belongings into Jill & Jane's place, where I lived for my first month in Tennessee. I secured an apartment for Tammy & I; we had mutual friends and had spoken on the phone. Our mutual friends said we had met at a retreat during college, but on that July summer day when Tammy opened the door to our apartment, we both agreed that we had never seen each other before that moment. A month later, Suzanne would join our apartment, making it a trio.

A year after I arrived in Tennessee, both Tammy & Suzanne had moved back to the Upper Midwest and I would be married to 'my friend, Kip.'  When I think of those early days of Tennessee, many, if not most, of those friends have moved away.

Growing up in Minnesota, I had always wanted to move South, where it was warmer. I had wanted adventures, to see places, to live overseas. After college I began my quest for adventure by applying for jobs outside of my home state. I interviewed in California and Michigan. I landed the Michigan job, where I spent my first year out of college. It was a trying, difficult year, but it honed my desires, specifically I realized that I didn't care as much what I would do for a career or what kind of adventures that I would have or where I would live but I definitely knew who I wanted to be with: Kip.

So I swallowed my feminine pride that wanted him to chase me, took a risk, and moved across the country to see if this friendship with Kip Jaeger might work out. And work out it did! We'll be celebrating our 22nd anniversary next month.

I needed to fly away from the home and family that I love dearly to find my own wings and to become my own person. I had no idea all that the journey would entail. Of course, none of us know that when we begin any journey or adventure. The unknown is part of the thrill & the excitement.

During these twenty three years, I have grown roots here in Tennessee and call it home. I have two homes now: Minnesota and Tennessee. Although the picture book Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say depicts a man torn between his two homes of Japan and the U.S.A, it accurately describes the emotional part of my story: both places are home, yet neither place is fully home.

Yet, perhaps that is as it should be. I am an alien and stranger on this earth waiting for my heavenly home, my true home. Although I have never been there, it is more home than any place I have ever been.

Twenty-three years ago today, this Minnesota lake girl landed in Music City to be near the love of my life. My journey here has been so much more but that's how it began and I'm celebrating that beginning today. 
 

The words I think

A million words run through my brain
Some of them I think
Will make it to the blog
But mostly they stay in my brain.
It  seems the thinking is stronger than the writing

The words do not come to the blog.
Instead they run havoc inside my thinker ,
rarely shutting down.
I may not write them, but I surely do think them:

I think about writing these things:
* teaching math to children
* the year that I was glad to leave and how it showed that I made no worthwhile connections,
* how we can be certain whether or not we are going to heaven
* my heart as a mom with one child home catching a snapping turtle in my backyard while one was on a college exploration trip
* the lesson I am learning about the gift of now due to two dear people that are now engaged in battle against cancer, and
* how our lives are significant whether or not we ever write a book, or a musical, or give a speech but that there is great value in being faithful in the everyday ordinary things,
* how I have three homes: my hometown, my current town and my future town in heaven,
* how God transformed the most difficult thing in my life into a love letter,
* how He sees me. Really sees me. 

Oh, how many thoughts I think.
Oh, how often I think of writing them.
But writing and thinking them are not the same thing.

*** Joining the Grace & Truth link-up ***