the best laid plans of mice and men.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as bathing suits, best laid plans of mice and men, correct measurements, home, life without god, mice and men, ocean, thunder, today, way
Plans change.
It’s one of the few things that I know. That, and how peanut butter makes almost any situation better. Also, there’s the matter of the ocean and how to this day, scientists are discovering new creatures in its depths all the time. So I also know that we don’t know everything.
And all that makes me think of God.
For some reason, the way that the more we know actually reveals how much more we have to learn, makes me believe in him more. I like the weight that meaning gives to my every day and I cannot attribute meaning to life without God.
It’s like the difference between a robot building a structure and a man in love building a home. The robot constructs it with the correct measurements, sure, but there is no soul in the work. No emotion attached to the project, no kind of love that would cause a seven year project to feel only like seven days, he is so greatly anticipating the end result and what that means.
Because, meaning; it’s so weighty.
But the man in love–now, he builds a home. He draws it and dreams it. He falls asleep thinking of the way he can make the windows just so with a view of the ocean through the two in the front. He puts his heart into the project and the time he spends on it is nothing compared to the meaning he takes from it; a home for the one he loves.
And I think of God like that man in love. I’ve never loved robot stories so much, though I have heard very good things about Wall-E, but a love story? Now, that gets inside me. It goes deep and eventually yields the kind of garden that I can live off of for a very long time.
But what I meant to talk about was how plans change.
Like today, for instance. When we were all set to go swim in the 7,000 acres near my house. But then we hear a roll of thunder spread across the sky like dominoes are falling, but judging from the volume, these must be very big dominoes, indeed. And then the rain starts to fall and we already have our bathing suits on, so I tell the brave souls who will listen that it is time to go outside and march in the rain.
We are in our bathing suits anyway, I reason. But there is thunder! exclaims my mom. Shouldn’t you stay safe and inside? But thunder is just noise and I will not stay inside because of noise, though I did mollify her somewhat by promising to stay close to the house, at least.
So we ran outside. Eli, Emmy, Josh, and myself saw the trampoline and it seemed downright lovely to jump about in the storm.
And it was.
If it had been a movie, and had I been with people to who I was not directly related, it would have been a scene in which I fell in love. But I have learned that there is lots of magic left to the world, even when it does not include the business of falling in love, per se.
That isn’t to say that I didn’t exactly not fall in love. There was still the storm and the great leaps we were engaging in; I was definitely in love with all that business.
And my point is that we never did get to go to the 7,000 acres today. But what we did do was quite fetching anyway. And I don’t think I’ve ever written the word fetching before. Perhaps I should also tell Scarlett O’Hara that frankly, my dear, I don’t give a d**n. I mean, since I am saying antiquated things, and all.
But right, plans. They change. And since God is like a man building a home for the one he loves, I think he does something to help make sure it still turns out a masterpiece.
Life, I mean.
when you dig.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as bathing suits, beach, building sand castles, castle, dig, everything, finger nails, God, hermit, hermit crabs, Mariah Carey, ocean, sand, scratch and dent, waves crash
When you’re on the beach you build sand castles. And then your parents, they buy hermit crabs, and you let them wander the world you just created. The, uh, hermit crabs, that is. Not your parents. Though, they are certainly free to wander the sand castle too. But if you’re anything like my family, the hermit crabs are the wanderers. They’re ugly little sentries that crawl back and forth in the tunnels you just dug out of the sand.
And the ocean is nearby and you get that. You understand that the waves crash on the shore, that this happens regularly, in fact. But what you don’t quite understand is that sometimes one wave can destroy everything you’ve created. Everything you’re proud of. Everything you are.
And then the wave recedes back into the ocean and the beach keeps happening like it’s normal business. The women are applying sunscreen to their men so they don’t get burnt and babies are wearing the kind of swim diapers that are stuffed under their bathing suits in a way that makes you grateful that you are, at the very least, potty trained.
But there you are.
Looking at the devastation that was your beautiful sand castle. And the hermit crabs are gone now too. And you’ve learned to fear the ocean and you’re tempted to stop building sand castles because now you know the price with which they come. You know how long they take to make and how quickly they are leveled and how none of that is fair. And you’re not even sure you can build one again; that all that you are didn’t get poured into that life project and then irretrievably swept into the sea with your castle.
And you aren’t entirely sure where you can go to get more of yourself anyway. It’s not like they sell the stuff of you at Walmart. And besides, they don’t have a Scratch and Dent section and you’re pretty sure that’s the only place where you’d be for sale now. And when people tell you that the best of you is still here, a part of you inside thinks they’re cute when they lie.
Because you don’t feel resilient or hopeful or even very interesting anymore.
You feel leveled and the sand has gotten under your finger nails and behind your knees in such a way that you itch. But you don’t even care enough to scratch anymore; that would be admitting that you think you can feel better someday, even if it just means not itching so much anymore.
Because, again, what you feel is leveled. And the sun is too hot and the shade too far away and the beach is just full of people whose lives are in stark contrast to yours. You’re feeling that unreachable spot on your back getting burned by the relentless sun and you’re looking around for another pair of hands to help, but you realize anew that not only do you feel alone, soon you’re gonna feel alone and burned.
Great.
But then you see a shovel and the handle is broken but there is the part that scoops and it works just fine. So you pick it up and you start to dig and you don’t feel like it and the last thing you want to do is dig alone, but it’s either dig or die and God has made it clear that the latter is not an option.
So you dig but you’re not happy and you look a little crazy while you do it and no, you’re not whistling while you work because you never learned how to whistle anyway. Not even with a pop who can whistle the way that Mariah Carey can sing.
But yes, you dig.
Because what else can you do?
