Flashing Lights and Winter Woes

**Disclaimer: For the past few nights I have been up with a cough. I find myself sleepy and sentimental, so if this post is a little more emotional than usual, please bear with me.

On our way home from Ohio this Christmas, my three kids, husband and I were driving through the foothills of Kentucky on 75 when suddenly the check engine light started flashing like crazy. I grew up in a home where cars regularly had flashing check engine lights and we simply covered it with black electrical tape, but to Steve it was new and scary. We slowly and carefully prayed our way through the next three states, hoping that our 1997 Plymouth Voyager would give us one last trip home.

As we sat for six hours in van-related thought and conversation, I kept thinking about how although I had never been “proud” to drive a little white mini-van from the 90's, I had taken for granted the fact that it would be around to get us where we needed to go for at least a few more years. As much as I had kicked and screamed about having to drive a mini-van in the first place, I realized not only had our tiny Voyager made us mini-van fans (with its sticky sliding doors and low gas mileage), it had also found an endearing spot in our hearts.

Cynthia Ozick, one of my favorite essayists, said, “When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” How true is that? How often does it take a flashing “check engine light” to get our attention? I started thinking about all the things I take for granted daily, the endless list of things I fail to appreciate, the lack of gratefulness I show to everyone and everything around me, and I was completely overwhelmed.

The very fact that we made it to our home from the highway was something to be thankful for since 37,261 Americans are killed annually in crashes (U.S. Census Bureau). I am not the kind of person who is afraid to drive my car or fly in a plane, but the fact that we have the luxury of driving in cars and flying in planes and safely returning to our homes in the first place is really pretty remarkable if you stop and think about it.

One week after Christmas vacation we made the decision to cut our cable. Those who know me will sympathize with how much I have grown to love the convenience of cable TV and most of all, the undisputed best modern day invention: the DVR. It was painful to pack up the box to Dish Network and heartbreaking to lose hours of saved material on the DVR. I had more than begun to take advantage of the ability to pause, rewind and fast forward live television and I had forgotten how to sit and actually watch a commercial. I took for granted that my DVR box would always say, “Good morning! What do you want to watch today?” I miss my 140 channels and I hate the black pointed bunny ear antenna above my bookshelves. After a week though, I am honestly realizing I do not miss aimlessly lying in bed watching shows I don't really care about. I am already enjoying going to bed earlier and reading more. But I digress.

If there is one thing that never ceases to amaze me, if there is one thing we all take for granted daily it is the created universe. Just the ability to sit here typing this—I am held down by gravity, I am breathing oxygen in a perfect atmosphere as the perfectly sized Earth perfectly rotates around a Sun that would burn us if we were closer and freeze us if we were any further away. I could go on and on about this. Many more facts here.

In fact, the simple act of breathing is a work of art that leaves me speechless when I really think about it. When I take a breath, there are so many intricacies that go into making my heart and lungs work in perfect unison and it is really almost shocking that more things don't going wrong or that we aren't sick all the time. For those of us who are visual, here is a neat video: 

A few years ago I read Where is God when it hurts? by Philip Yancey and although it's not the kind of feel good book you want to just pass out randomly to your friends, I learned a lot by reading it. He talks repeatedly about working with leprosy patients in India. I never knew that leprosy is actually a disease of the nervous system; basically those with leprosy lose the ability to feel things and therefore hurt themselves routinely because they lack the ability to tell when they are in danger (i.e. touching a burning stove, wearing shoes that don't fit and ruining their feet, etc.) I had never looked at the ability to “feel” as a blessing before. I had never realized that even the ability to hurt is sometimes a good thing. We take for granted the fact that when we hurt, whether by slamming our fingers in the car door or when we are slighted by someone we love, if we lack the ability to feel intense pain, we would also lack the ability to know love or joy. We would be apathetic robots with an “I have it all together” status, but feeling nothing.

If you break your leg, you want to run when your crutches are gone. If you lose your job, you are much happier to get up and go to work after a year of unemployment. If you lose a child, you are much more thankful for the babies you have. When we hurt and when we lose, we cherish more. I can grumble about being up all night with a crying baby, but am I thankful when I get a full night of sleep, and what is the alternative to a crying baby? I can whine about my husband working late, but am I thankful that he has a good, steady job?

All this is nothing new and I write it mostly for myself. I am sarcastic and melancholy and I have the emotional capacity of a grape nut. I know it's impossible to skip around singing praises for every breath we take and every blessing we receive, and frankly I would be tempted to trip you if you skipped past me. However, if we stop daily to appreciate just a fraction of the amazing things happening in our lives, we might all be a little less crabby. If I pretend like the orange check engine light is flashing every time I enter the Voyager, I might savor the times when we reach our destination, instead of fussing and whining when we inevitably break down.

“When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted, or take them with gratitude.” G.K. Chesterton

Searching new wrinkles for missing items: socks and brain cells.

I lost my keys in Ohio at Christmas; it took us over two weeks to finally find them securely zipped in the pocket of my husband's jacket. I recently ran out of diapers for the baby; I had no diapers in the house except the one he was wearing and we had to make an emergency pre-catastrophic trip to the store. Yesterday I attempted to take a running leap and show my son the proper way to sled down a small hill. I ended up ear down in the snow with a golf ball-sized purple bruise on my leg this morning. I am beginning to wonder; have my kids sucked the last bits of sharpness out of my brain with a twisty straw, or is this what happens while coasting across the proverbial post-thirty plateau?

On top of my recent brain lapses and new physical “developments,” I have completely lost the ability to tell the age of anyone older than ten. I think high school students look like they are about 7 and to me, people in the 18-24 range look barely old enough to take driver's ed. I am also slowly losing my ability to navigate quickly through the latest technology, but I am an expert at cleaning puke from of the tiniest carseat crevasses. If I ever had a sense of what hair or clothes are in style, I don't anymore, but I can lock and load the coffee pot with one hand while talking on the phone. Easily.

Not long ago I was organized. Not long ago I could blend in as a young student on any campus. I could instantly fold and put away laundry, and I could remember online passwords without looking. I have to question these new developments taking place in my life.

So far the 30's are not what I expected. It's not about matching polyester suits or SAS orthepedic shoes (yet), but it is about Oil of Olay and hair dye and irregular but much needed trips to the dentist for fillings.

Shortly after the new year I read this article about things babies born in 2011 will never know and it made me wonder whether anyone will really miss electrical wires or encyclopedias or watches or cursive (sorry mom!). What will this article look like 30 years from now? Will we be saying goodbye to musical instruments or classrooms with teachers or horses (I am always worried about horses since they are an expensive pet/hobby and serve no real purpose other than as animal actors in westerns and old pre-car movies.)

Then my mind naturally wandered and I started thinking about life expectancy. Did you know that in Medieval Britain if you lived past age 30 you were older than most of your neighbors? Even in the early 20^th century few people lived past age 45. I know that I'm young, this is mostly tongue in cheek, but at the same time can you imagine what most of those people had accomplished in their entire young lives vs. most thirty-somethings today? Excluding people like Mark Zuckerberg, of course. And Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, and the creator of one of the largest empires in history, died when he was only 32!

For you Mathemeticians (I am personally a math-hater), here is a helpful complex equation to help you figure out your own life expectancy:

All of this, as always, naturally turns my thoughts to the great women of the plains: the Pioneer Women. Maybe because I was born in South Dakota I always glamorized the idea of being a pioneer. I focused on the wild expanses of prairie and the fresh air and the outdoorsy-ness of it all. I always wanted to be like Alexandra Bergson in O Pioneers!, one of my favorite books by Willa Cather. The Pioneer woman was the female version of the cowboy. She represented a hero venturing into unexplored territory, searching for new life and amazing adventures. She was armed with a bonnet and a sod house and a fire stove and I never thought about the daily labor and filth and sleep depravity that must have been normal to her. It never occurred to me that there was probably a trail of dirty diapers following each poor Pioneer woman across the endless plains and infinitly bumpy roads. I didn't think about the lack of boxed macaroni and cheese, the absence of microwaves and dishwashers and deodorant. It wasn't very glamorous at all.

At the same time I have a feeling if Sarah Plain and Tall or Laura Ingalls Wilder had been faced with the daily task of running “quickly” to Wal-Mart (i.e. helping 3 kids eat, dress, wash, buckle carseats, find a place in the cart allowing for enough spots for each child and toilet paper, milk and fruit snacks then hurrying back home before meal or naptime) she might have needed a to-do list and a pumpkin spice latte, too.

Since brain cells don't regenerate (we are born with a certain amount and they steadily just die from doing daily activities—all of which is accelerated by lack of sleep, stress... sound familiar?) then what are we to do? As a thirty-something mom of three beautifully vigorous kids steadily sucking the brain cells out of me, I must choose to be thankful for diapers to change, noses to wipe and carts to fill at Wal-mart.

Will I lose my keys again? Will I almost forget which day is show n' tell at school? Will I be able to keep track of everyone's shoe size or the time between nail cuttings and ear cleanings? Probably not. Can I make small goals that are achievable on a daily and weekly basis? I hope so.

I may not conquer the world like Alexander the great, and I will never maintain my sodless home like the pioneering Alexandra Burgson, but I can keep my kids feeling secure and loved, and mostly I can try to get the pine needles swept away before next Christmas. Or at least attempt to get rid of our 2010 Christmas tree.

"Time and tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty." ~Robert Frost