story | reverse threading

September 15, 2015
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

be ecstatic.

the air is cooler. there are leaves on the ground, crunchy as you walk. the light is different – a golden, crisp hue. the flowers are starting to wane (well, at least ours are.) babycat isn’t sleeping in the window every night now; sometimes he can be found curled in the blankets on the bed.

it is fall. fall…my sweet momma’s favorite time of year. mine too.

fall. for so many it is a time to embark on new adventures. children in a new grade of school, teachers shaping goals with new students, parents packing up carloads of shower supplies, comforters, notebooks, pens, pencils, plastic bins and driving long distances to drop their babies off at college. i distinctly remember this….the first time with both of my children.

boys are different than girls. and so it was with the boy, my second to go to college. we drove a few hours and unpacked the car into his dorm room. he didn’t want me to arrange it or hang things on the wall with him. he was ready to just go. having been through this once, i knew i would live through it, but it was tough to walk away from my buddy, this once-little-boy who picked dandelions for me and who made me mac & cheese at 10pm the night of my 50^th birthday because i had played for a charity event and hadn’t been offered anything to eat. the one who told me that to move ahead i needed to stop going in circles and needed, instead, to be a ray…move out from the centrifugal force of the pain. the one who made me watch ‘family guy’ again and again with dinner on our laps. the one who shared the stage with me on his tenor, laughing at our hidden mistakes and the notes we made up on the spot. all those tennis matches i couldn’t breathe through. the same boy who slept in the bed of the huge rented pickup truck under the stars with me, just because. no, it’s not easy walking the other direction as he walks to have a smorgasbord of dinner i didn’t make for him. but it’s necessary and it’s right. and he was embracing it just as the girl did.

it was a few years before that, and now, many years ago, and inside the scion it was glowing pink with all the pink dorm supplies we had amassed for the girl’s first dorm room. you couldn’t have fit a snickers bar in the back if you wanted it, it was that loaded with stufffff. we drove the six hours to minneapolis to move her into her new life. on the way we stopped and etched our initials (and me, a peace sign) into the towering sandstone rock formations we passed each time driving that route. she was excited and i was, well, you know how i was.

after spending the night and then hours the next day (move-in day) unpacking and with her turning down my offer to organize her socks (thereby extending my time there) it was time to take a walk on campus. we got close to the student union and she turned to me and said that she was going to go. “go where?” i asked. “go meet some people,” she said. it dawned on me that she actually meant it was time for ME to go. to leave. wait. what? after eighteen years plus of being right here, right near her? all our times together. opening the sunroof of the car in the middle of a winter’s night, with our sunglasses on, with summer music pouring out the windows. shopping. talking in southern accents the whole day at a country music festival, convincing people we were from nashville. navigating the dye-ing of the tips of her beautiful blonde hair red. shopping for prom gowns. the honor of accompanying her (without breathing the entire time) while she played exquisite oboe solos. mommy and me swim class. holding her close for her forty-five minute long hissy fits. the zillion times she crept over to me with an armful of picture books saying, “read, momma.” the moments i memorized in the rocking chair as she fell asleep.

tears came to my eyes as i looked at her, this beautiful girl, wracking my brain for all the wise things i knew i needed to tell her at that moment. all i could say was, “go. be yourself. be amazing. i love you.” and then i tried hard not to weep. she hugged me and turned to go. she walked away with grace and confidence and exhilaration and anticipation. so much joy. and i watched. full of pride and joy and intense yearning to go back in time, just for a bit.

my phone buzzed in my pocket. i took it out and saw she had sent me a text message while she was walking. it read, “don’t be sad, mom. be ecstatic. i love you.”

and now the girl is high in the mountains living her life and the boy is in the city living his.

and me? i’m in the fall of remembering and the fall of anticipation. ecstatic.

September 2, 2015
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

frog.

we have a frog! this sweet green quiet sitting-on-one-of-the-small-boulders-on-the-edge-of-the-pond little creature makes us so happy.

i was summoned from the backyard, “k.dot, quick! hurry!” i ran outside to stand at the edge of the little pond. “we have a frog!” he said. i looked down and this beautiful creature was sunning himself on a rock.

now, having a frog in our pond is no small feat. although lake michigan is a block away, there aren’t frogs running amuck in the yards close by. two years ago one other frog visited here. but this frog, well, it couldn’t be better timed.

we stayed at my sweet momma’s house many times over the last two years. she was either in her assisted living facility or rehab, or even the hospital. there was little there in the way of furniture or accouterments. we loved the simplicity, the two bag-chairs and the TV trays we used for every meal and the times we spent with coffee or wine in the lanai, pondering life and searching for answers for my momma. when a frog literally jumped out of the toilet in her small bathroom, its pale color giving away that it had spent a long time in the plumbing pipes, we were shocked into looking up what it might mean to have a frog show up. the frog is indicative of “the transient nature of our lives. a symbol of transition and transformation, it supports us in times of change…it connects us with the world of emotions, the process of cleansing and rebirth, abundance and metamorphosis.”

helen, who is infinitely wise, told us over hot coffee and soup one cold day last year that having a frog show up in your life is even more meaningful. “it’s not just a frog”, she told us. “it’s a reminder.” a reminder of what, we asked? “frog is a reminder to ‘fully rely on God’,” she explained.

FullyRelyOnGod. FROG. frog.

ahhhh.

thank you, little frog, for the reminder. you are so welcome here.

August 28, 2015
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

brave.

heidi (also known as h) said, “all of life requires us to be brave.” such truth.

tonight, as i scrolled through facebook, i saw a friend of mine from high school who posted that it had been three weeks exactly since her mom had died and she couldn’t “stand it.” i so totally understand that. totally. so so hard. where is our ground? brave.

last night crunch called and we chatted for almost an hour. our friendship goes back forty years to a time of innocence and playfulness. we don’t get to see each other hardly at all, but the time inbetween calls or eye-to-eye contact drops away with our laughter and reminiscing on the phone, my long island accent rising to the surface as we talk. the first thing i thought of when i got off the phone was that i couldn’t wait to tell momma that crunch had called. brave.

scott wanted to bring his mom’s birdfeeders with him after emptying the sold-house and driving the uhaul truck away. but the birds in that yard needed them. he had to leave them behind. so he took the potted plant she last watered, the last living thing between them. brave.

stress – everyday stressors, big stressors, teenyweeny stressors – wields a big punch. even with huge reminders about perspective, we still trod down the road of worry. what will happen, we wonder. brave.

kim posted a picture of kennedi going to pre-kindergarten, dianne posted a picture of charlie going to preschool, jamie posted pictures of the children eating corn dogs after the first day of school. all. brave.

my little girl -25- lives high in the mountains. my little boy -22- lives in the city and is at the starting gate of life. i am so proud. i adore them and i miss them. brave.

beth posts this amazingly stunningly tough and gorgeous photo of herself each time she learns of someone else who has to walk the track of cancer survivor. this photograph is beautiful and gripping and breathtaking. she is life itself in this picture. brave.

we face down our fears, we risk our dreams, we forgive without being forgiven, we acknowledge our disappointments, we are given grace in our mistakes, we plod on, we face the sun, we scurry through the rain, we feel our way through the fog, we celebrate the moment without investing in the whole day, we love without ceasing.

we’re braver than we know. every single day.

August 24, 2015
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

i want what you have.

“i want what you have,” she said. in the wee hours of the night, my sweet almost-94 momma, in intense pain from falling, was talking to her emergency room nurse, a young woman who was clearly exhausted and who couldn’t reach the energy she needed to smile. the nurse looked intently at my momma. “what?” she countered. “your beautiful smile,” momma said, with light-transcending-pain in her eyes. “you have a beautiful smile.” and yes, in the moments that followed, that was so obvious as we witnessed a huge eye-sparkling smile come to the nurse’s tired face. tears came to my eyes (because i am a geeky mush like that) as i watched my mom gently and brilliantly gift this hardworking nurse with something she already had inside herself.

how did momma do it? every where she went she gifted people….with things they already had.

yesterday i was at a garden party. it was really lovely. the flowers were stunning and the community of people who gathered were from different walks of the hosts’ lives. i was wearing a pair of clunky dr scholl clogs that i bought on a bringing-my-daughter-to-college-in-minneapolis trip in the fall many years ago. i still have them because 1. they are super comfortable and 2. they remind me of this trip to minnesota with my daughter, my son and his best friend (because i am a geeky mush like that.) a woman complimented me on them at the party, asked where i got them. i was able to tell her that there is a boutique near here where she can still purchase them (and of course, there is always the internet.) the fact of the matter is – most of the people at the party had on newer shoes than i did, newer styles, cooler stuff. but -and this is simple- this woman complimented me on mine and that made me look at what i had.

how many times have you looked at someone’s outfit, shoes, car, house, garden, work, relationship, life and wanted it?

a couple days ago my dear friend and i were talking about resentment. he asked, “what do you do with resentment? how do you combat it?” i have no easy answer. geez, i barely have an answer at all. but i remember that i had to memorize a reading in high school and i chose ‘desiderata’ (because i am a geeky mush like that.) the (not-verbatim) line that stands out in my mind is – “do not compare yourself with others, or you will become vain and bitter. for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” my friend and i talked about that. at length. we cited examples and promised to hold hands -even virtually-through all the challenges ahead (because i am a geeky mush like that.)

it can become insidious – resentment. it eats away at people and families and workplaces and towns and nations. what if we all took a moment to look at someone and remind them – gently and brilliantly, with light in our eyes – of what they already had. maybe there would be a little less resentment going around. and maybe a little more momma.

August 20, 2015
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

leave the outbreak of baggage behind.

TODAY’S FEATURED THOUGHT FOR HUMANS

whoa. the outbreak of baggage.
one day it occurred to me that this outbreak of baggage precludes us from moving into Next.
it traps us in our own past, our own history – good and bad, our own unmet expectations and disappointments.
if we can leave all these pieces of baggage behind, instead of carrying -or wheeling- every last one,
then we can focus instead of what is truly ahead of us, the potential, the rise of the sun.

FOR TODAY’S FEATURED PRINT FOR HUMANS, PLEASE GO HERE

August 19, 2015
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

emerging humans emerging.

TODAY’S FEATURED THOUGHT FOR HUMANS

how could we ever think we are done?
every time we finish, we start new.
we are learning and growing and embracing change and trying on new things.
always emerging.