The “great walled” fortress

Looking at home prospects in the desert, it was hard not to be put off by what we came to call, “the great walled fortress” gates. In a development that prizes uniformity, the opening area of this home was not only gated; the bars had spikes at the top.

While viewing the home over several months, I began to wonder about the inhabitants that would have felt a need for this type of security. Perhaps they had been robbed. Perhaps they were victims of random trauma. Perhaps, like so many, they had simply gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and were protecting themselves from “government take over”.

Friends who viewed the house online had similar thoughts, especially if, as one couple did, they drove by the home. No one…not one house, had anything similar. But we loved the inside and felt the gates could be removed after purchase.

Our local cat sitter who came one day to make acquaintance with the cats and our home remarked about it. When I told her that not one home in the development had anything similar, she said, “Honey, not one home in all of Green Valley has anything like that.” She, too, postulated that the owners must have been the victims of property crime to feel such a need for security.

A local iron works company would be coming to give us a quote for removing this “Great Wall,” so we stopped at their shop, as we were getting a new screen door as well. The lady behind the counter encouraged us to take a seat and look through books of previous works from which we might get ideas. About three pages in, I saw it. A picture of our house, complete with the spikes. We were in the business that had turned the previous owner’s vision into reality.

I showed the clerk. “Tomorrow, we are going to have to tell your owner that he now gets to remove those bars,” I joked.

“They are very forbidding,” she answered, and her response made me feel like she understood why we needed to have them removed.

We felt like such an intimidating entry might send the wrong message about our spirits and our hearts and could not wait to “un-identify” with the coldness of those bars.

In the morning hours before the iron works owner was to arrive, I took out some boxes to my car and was greeted by a lovely woman wearing a t-shirt celebrating the virtues of kindness. She asked if we were the new neighbors, and after chatting a few moments, I told her we were taking down the “Great Wall”.

“It’s so unfriendly, it seems. I wonder if the previous owners had been victims of some crime?”.

“Oh, no,” she said in her thick French Polynesian accent, “The wife had Alzheimer’s, and she would try and run away. Her husband petitioned the HOA to get special permission to put them up. He wanted to be with her in their home as long as he could. He took loving care of her for years. The next owners just left them up.”

And there it was…

Those bars were not to keep criminals out; they were to keep love in.

Yesterday, I couldn’t wait to get those bars removed. Yesterday, my perceptions of them were soaked in misassumptions. Yesterday, I misjudged motives and hearts, especially my own.

Now I look out the front window at those bars, and I feel a sense of sadness. Yes, there will be more light in the entry. Yes, future guests will not be greeted by iron spikes and bars. But there was and is a story there that will go untold now…a story of love and loss that is common to us all.

And I almost missed it.

Something for nothing

Some would call it bad luck that I am placed in her line every time I shop in the early morning at the large discount store, but I prefer to call it divine providence because it is always an opportunity to practice the skill of patience.

If she were to have a race with the sloth police clerk in Zootopia, she would lose. Her pace is deliberate and slow, not as a learned skill I believe. I think it is just how she has always done life.

She is plain and unassuming, and her speech cadence is slow and measured. For each item that she scans, her movements mimic that of the sloth, and I notice that every time I’m in her line and someone else comes up, they mostly turn and go to another line probably having experienced her careful deliberate way of checking out groceries before.

But though I feel a modicum of their impatience I deliberately keep myself in her line and engage in conversation, which slows the checkout process even more. Patience is a choice, and being there helps me remember to choose an attitude of abundant time.

There are wonderful things to be learned in the practice of patience and one is that things are not always as they appear. For this gentle,slow soul has a quiet passion for raising money for the Miracle Children’s Network, which is a donation choice when finalizing your grocery purchase.

She shares enthusiastically that when asked by her employer to man a table at the front door to increase donations, she asked, “Would you mind if I dressed up as a clown?” Apparently she has a wealth of clown costumes and proudly declared, “ I even have an Elvis costume. People give more for Elvis.”

The day I worked as a clown I made $100, but the day I dressed up as Elvis, I made $180, and every penny of it went to the Children’s Miracle Network.”

“Maybe I’ll stop by on Saturday,” I said, “and I can see you and your clown costume.”

“Eight a.m.,” she said, “I’ll be there! And it all goes to the Children’s Miracle Network.”

As I drive through the desert on my way home, I think about how often I misjudge the heart of others simply because of some outside appearance or action that doesn’t match my critical expectation.

I believe she does not live in a world of expectations. I think she is just who she is, regardless of circumstance. I think she just loves helping people, especially children, And so there she will be on Saturday, dressed as a clown, passing out free drinks and chips to increase donations, because, as she told me, “ People won’t give you something for nothing.”

But she is wrong.

She gives something for nothing every time I stand in her line. She shows me the insignificance of hurry. She shows me the simple joy of showing up to help others. She lets me soak in her generosity of spirit.

And maybe that’s why it is always worth the long wait in her line.

Finding miniature joy

My husband Tim tells the story of asking his father, David, and mother, Eloise, to join in a counseling session when he was a young man dealing with issues of depression. To David’s credit, he agreed to go, probably at great personal cost. Like so many men in his generation, Tim’s father was a product of depression era parenting, the early death of his father, and a stint in WWII. His nickname, given by his squadron mates during the war, was “Smiley”, an inside joke to highlight his disgruntled state most of the time.

In this environment, Tim only recalled this main thought from the age of three on: He wished he had never been born. His father was a “no machine” whose impatience in the smallest of normal father/son interactions caused him to shrink and disappear. When it became apparent in his twenties that he was losing a battle with his depression, he sought counseling.

That first session, David was introduced to the counselor, shook her hand politely and then announced, “I don’t like you and I think what you do is stupid. “ When Tim returned the next week and asked for the counselor’s impressions, the counselor simply said, “We won’t need to see them anymore. I have a much better understanding of why you might be here.”

Tim, if you know him, is much beloved for his quiet, gentle spirit. That is a wonderful thing. But he reserves his deepest self for himself, as he often says he learned early that to express eagerness, or joy, or any spontaneous idea, would quickly result in reactions of disgust, ridicule, or shame. Keeping his deepest self so close to the vest is a reality I accepted early on, not without some struggle and sadness.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when at our once yearly visits to the “animal” store with our grandkids on vacation in Leavenworth, he started purchasing miniature plastic animals, most less than an inch in size. At first he kept them close to his chair where he studied, but then as the collection grew, he began to display them in his room on an open shelf, each placed very carefully in specific arrangements.

When we recently sold our home and moved, all of his beloved animals went into odd containers or bags, and as we unpacked in our smaller home, I wondered how he would display his collection, as he no longer had a man cave.

Taking a shower one morning, I looked up at the window and noted a tiny penquin staring back at me. I turned to shut off the shower and saw above the soap dish, another creature had established its territory.

Soon, these miniature creatures began appearing throughout the house, like a Zootopia version of Elf on the Shelf. I went to wash my hands and a duck stared back at me. I turned the corner and there on the the ledge before the living room, a Meerkat stood guard. When I asked jokingly if this meerkat had a name, Tim didn’t miss a beat. “Juan”.

As I have wandered the house these last few days discovering more of the zoo, it has hit me: In this, his 70th year, Tim is learning to let miniature moments of joy escape from deep within. His little boy spirit is somehow receiving permission to take these tiny, tender steps towards spontaneity and freedom of expression. He has moved from the empty landscape of his childhood not just physically, but emotionally as well, and somehow I think there will be no going back from this journey. He gets to live a “yes” life here in this sparse Sonoran desert landscape.

This is not a “tippy, skippy” noisy joy that claps its hands and stomps its feet in loud declaration.

This is a quiet joy that has left the privacy of a closed off room and begun to explore the world.

This is a careful joy dipping its feet into the waters of life.

This is a miniature joy in its inception,but, like the drops of rain that fall in a monsoon, my prayer is that they become a mighty flood to drench the parched land of his childhood soul and set him free…