Girl with the Turquoise Hair and the Woman at Peace

I will remember that night, about a decade and a half ago, in Cafe Europa especially, because of the girl with the turquoise hair. She strode confidently into the cafe with her boyfriend. She was about the same age as I was then, maybe a little older. She was dressed in full 90's grunge, in mostly dark colors, her favorite knee-high black Doc Martins partially unlaced on her slender legs. She wore a little makeup, but not much; though the thing I noticed most in her appearance was her hair. She had bravely dyed it black and bobbed right about ear length, and, in the front, one single lock of turquoise hair on either side framed her face. She stood there, waiting at the counter to order. She didn't look around. She didn't fidget. She didn't care what anyone thought of her clothes, her hair, her choice of hot chocolate instead of coffee, her skinny waif of a boyfriend. She stood in peace while the world whirled around her, and to me, she was beautiful.


On the same night the girl with the turquoise hair was ordering hot chocolate, in the same cafe, six or seven teenage girls pondered life together over dessert at a corner table, and I was one of them. My friends and I were trying to be grown up. We had gone to see some independent flick, maybe something like Cold Comfort Farm. I was a part of the good girl / intellectual crowd. I was the type that attempts to develop a taste for coffee, the one who evaluates her own paradigms thoughtfully, and dreams about her distant future before hurrying off to make curfew. I'm pretty sure I was drinking cafe' glace', which is a poser's drink any day, as "liking coffee" doesn't really count when it's poured over a mug packed with ice cream. I remember my friends and I talking about where we would each go to university, about which of our guy friends would ask each of us to the next school dance, about the teachers we had crushes on, and how to date them after graduation(--well, maybe that was just me--what was the school thinking in hiring so many cute 23-year old men?). We shared our theories about faith and marriage, and imagined where we would live in five or six years when we were officially "grown up". We were old enough to drive cars, but not very old. I count my high school years among my happiest growing-up-years. I had good, loyal friends, friends that still know me and love me, friends that were a really positive support group for me as I broke away from my parents and toward being my own person.


Like many in their late teen years, I was struggling toward what I wanted to be, living my life in contradictions. I was loud and opinionated, but still unsure of myself. I appreciated the kindness of others, but was not habitually kind, especially to those weaker than myself. I loved sports, but worried about my makeup as much as my skill on the court. My faith in the God was real but still shallow and untested, resting on the foundations of my parents' faith. I was consumed with what everyone else thought of me, though determined to blaze my own trails.

Since seeing the girl in the Cafe Europa, I have grown up. I have been to university. I'm married with kids, and I have even moved overseas from where "home" was. I have been busy with all the good little bits that make up life, but even as a grown up, I hadn't out grown the like of turquoise hair, or the fear of what people would think of me if I had it. I have always found good reasons to keep my hair in its natural state. I thought I needed to look more traditional at Texas A & M, the conservative state university I attended, if I was going to be a proper Christian, or if I was going to attract the right kind of "Mr. Right". After university and marriage, I needed turquoise-less hair if I was going to get a good job. After kids, I was sure that people with turquoise hair couldn't make "normal" friends like I wanted to make. And the list goes on, each "reason" lived out under the yoke of slavery to the opinions of others.

. . .until Australia. If you know me, or if you have read much of my blog, you will probably know that one of my favorite parts of living in Oz has been the growth. Living here is refining who I am on the inside, revealing what in me is false, what is culturally American, and what is conviction. Solitude, which I have heretofore avoided, has become my friend, and meditation and gratitude are very slowly growing into disciplines in my life. Though the inside of me is growing deeper, on the outside, I am perpetually an opinionated and uber-honest American who wears biking clothing and cycles around my suburb, sweating profusely while attempting to corral a herd of kids that bear my image. Oh, and I am unemployed--at least not employed at a job that pays cash. So, I guess if there was ever a time when I could gather the courage to dye my hair turquoise, it would be the time when I am starting my life over as an unemployed alien, without motorized transportation, living in a foreign country among people I have never known before--in a word--NOW.

So I did it. The first iteration of my being "the girl with the turquoise hair" was more like being the girl with sea foam green hair, and my streak has variated between that and royal blue. Greg kept chuckling and smirking and shaking his head--every single time my hair was pulled back. He called my turquoise streak my Avatar hair, and wondered both silently and out loud what I could have been thinking. My girls were delighted because they suspected I might be turning into a mermaid, and were pretty sure they could keep me like a pet in the bathtub, if ever my transformation became complete. After the dye job had been perfected, I smiled every time I looked in the mirror, for a while. I kept my turquoise for a few months and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially since I had waited so long to do it, but in the end, the hair itself was anti-climactic. I dyed it back to the midnight auburn it has always been. I guess it wasn't really the hair that I liked on the girl in the Cafe.

No, it wasn't her hair made her special, and I saw that clearly in my mind's eye after I had reproduced a part of the picture in my memory on myself in the present. It wasn't blue dye, but courage that mattered, and growing that sort of courage marks the beginning of an era in me--the era in which my life begins to be lived, not in slavery to the opinions of others, but at peace with myself and God, who made my intrinsic strengths and bents and is making the inside of me more beautiful as I let Him. So, on the far side of the world, on a good day, (though not every day,) I am learning to stand still, to cease fidgeting, to stop looking around to see what people think of my hair, my hot chocolate, my kids, my convictions. Let the world whirl and even storm around me. I have already been the girl with the turquoise hair, and bit by bit, slowly, in fits and starts, I am becoming the woman with the courage to stand at peace.

Fighting Terrorism at Home and Abroad--Toddlers

George Bush has become one of the most polarizing figures in the years since 911, but no matter what you think of his goals or methods in " the Global War on Terror," no one can deny he spent most of his time as the President of the United States, especially after 911, fighting terrorism at home and abroad. Although I enjoy considerably greater popularity abroad than old "W", as we call him in Texas, I do have a lot in common with the forty-third president of the USA. I too am from Texas, and I too have spent the last eight years fighting terrorism at home and abroad with what we Texans call "Texas Justice." I guess the main difference between W and I (besides my incredibly high popularity rating abroad) is that the opponents in my war are much fiercer than the jihadists that threaten western society. If my opponent went head to head with Osama Bin Ladin, I think the Global war on Terror could be ended in about fifteen minutes. Who is this fierce opponent, you ask? What could strike fear into a hate-hardened, fanatical, would-be martyr in a thousand-year religious war? Good question! Read on.

A few days ago I went to the grocery store. I had the car, so I took Micah Jade, my constant companion, with me to acquire the groceries that our family would need in the following week. Micah Jade wore in a cute, little, pink dress, her short, honey-colored curls framing her smiley impish face. She looked adorable; I should emphasize the word "looked". As I was checking out, Micah Jade began to play on the chrome grocery gate. I was busy trying to pay, so I did not notice her mischief until she began to bang the gate against its post again and again. Clank! Clank! Clank! I turned to correct her, calmly requiring that she cease and desist the loud banging. For a moment, she looked like she was going consent, but only for a moment.

As I turned back around to the credit card machine, I heard MJ say, abruptly, in a forceful voice, not unlike the voice of Cookie Monster, "NOOO, ya don't tell MEEEE what to DOOOOOO!" The challenge was thrown down, right there in the grocery store. MJ was confident that I was not going to make her mind with an audience of fifty people. Like the jihadists, her main weapon of choice is not force, but fear. At two and a half, she had weighed the shop and the people and had sized me up, in an instant determining that I was not brave enough to take her rebellious self down.


But what MJ didn't know was that I had been fighting terrorism at home for half a decade before she even came along. I had tamed two terrorists, even before she existed. She thought she could take the battle abroad to the grocery store and win it there, because she thought I would be afraid of what that store full of strangers would think of me and of her, but little MJ had made a serious miscalculation.


In an instant I snatched her naughtiness up and over my shoulder, and in the time that it took me to flip her over my shoulder, she commenced shrieking like a banshee. I frantically punched in my pin number in the credit card machine, flung the groceries into the cart, and hastily bid the cashier goodbye, as MJ, still screaming, began to kick the air in front of me. All 100 eyes were upon us, and the people within six meters of us began to put their fingers into their ears to protect their hearing. As we walked out of the store, the horror of the situation overcame me and I began to laugh out loud, my mad cackling adding to the audio-mayhem created by MJ's super-human lungs. All the way to the car, she continued to belt out high-pitched screams, the kind of screams that Jamie Lee Curtis screamed in those 80's Wes Craven films.


I held my naughty, air-kicking toddler over my shoulder and I pushed the trolley to my car in the parking lot with one hand, walking with ease through the channel through people and cars that we had cut with our sound waves. When we reached the car, MJ received a well-needed disciplining, and a short speech on obedience before I buckled her in her car seat and closed her in the car alone. Her rebellion lasted about a minute more, but she was only able to deafen herself, since the car could now contain her voice. After that, she found her thumb, and calmed herself down on the five minute ride home. By the time we arrived home, she was back to Dr. Jekyll, and her Mr. Hyde personality stowed away for another day. She was smiling and laughing like the cute little toddler she appears to be.

Toddlers are amazing creatures. They paint with poo and eat dog food, at least MJ does. They routinely bite and hit beloved family members and close friends, even while kissing and cuddling. They are unashamed to be naked in public, and occasionally refuse to brush their teeth, despite having dog-food-breath (again MJ). The average toddler will proudly proclaim his toilet habits and demand lollies for not making a mess in his own pants. I love to watch toddlers as they discover the world. Each one is as unique as a snowflake, flawlessly designed to hold within herself every bit of potential wrapped up in a single life. Toddlers are equal parts sweetness and raw ambition, both adorable and insufferable, simultaneously. Toddlers are so much more exciting to me than infants; but, in my experience with my children and the children of my family members and friends, I have continually found that toddlers are terrorists almost by definition. They are hell-bent on imposing their vision of reality on the world and will use fear to accomplish their sinister goal, (though a world where the loving rule of a parent is replaced by the anarchy of toddler is a scary place, especially for the toddler herself.)


The prevailing wind of popular parent psychology, the stuff you read in the magazines and most popular books, seems to declare that if you just wait out the toddler years and accommodate or ignore tantrums thrown in selfishness for a few years, that a sweet school-age child will emerge, magically reformed and reasonable, just by aging; but I don't believe it for a second. I guess I know too many people that have never outgrown selfishness, people who have never learned to care for the good of others or to submit to any authority outside themselves. No, character is not reformed by time, but by consistent and kind intervention, starting during the toddler years.


The cost of refusing to confront terrorism in someone I love is too great to postpone or ignore. A little child who pouts when she doesn't get her way can be funny and outrageously cute, but a pouting adult is intolerable. In life, we don't always get to drink from the pink cup. Sometimes we are lucky to have a cup at all, even a blue one or (horror of horrors!) an orange one. Often in life, we don't get another ice cream cup if we throw ours on the ground--on purpose. Sadly, in real life, throwing tantrums sometimes means the loss of a relationship, and as adults, we all experience the lasting consequences of our own poor choices, even when we are sorry afterwards. Though toddlers don't yet know it, a life, well-lived, is not about making the world conform to one's self, but in loving others, in living out honesty, thankfulness and kindness. For me, the most important parts of parenting (though also the most difficult parts) are teaching global truths in the mundane moments of everyday life.

It is such a huge task to be responsible for the developmental years of someone I love, and I guess that is why I think a lot about what I am working toward, while I am in the thick of grocery store tantrums and playground assaults on friends. I'm sure I'm not a perfect parent. Anyone who knows me could tell you that. I get frustrated sometimes, and often I am not as consistent as I should be, but I know what I am working toward and what is not important to me. I am not interested in having the best behaved children on the playground. I don't aim to make friends of my children; (Why would anyone want to have friends that are two or six or eight years old?) I may not always find agreement in parenting with my peers, with the current mags, or with my children's school; but if I am parenting for the good of my children, worrying about those things is not worth my time. No, I care most about my girls, about encouraging their inherent strengths, and about confronting and disciplining ugliness in their hearts every single time that I see it, so that they grow integrity and character instead of selfishness, pride, and deceit. I care about building their trust in my love and protection until the time when they can see clearly to make their own wise choices, until the time when they are ready to take from me, the responsibility for their lives.

I don't know how much progress George Bush made in the "Global War on Terror" during his eight years as president. I guess time will tell, but no matter what happens on a global scale, in my own little corner of the world, even after the eight years I have already served, I know that I will continue to fight my micro-war on terror both at home and abroad in the hopes that one day soon, I will make enough progress with MJ for the folks at the grocery store not to have to endure the ear-piercing shrieks of a terrible tantrum from my toddler. I'll keep on bringing "Texas Justice" to MJ, like I have to Jordan and Meryl before her, because it is in the best interest of building her character that I win my authority-war with her. Judging from my battles with other temporary terrorists in my family, I think I probably only have eight months or so left between now and the time when I can declare a tentative victory. In the time between now and victory, though, if any of you counter-terrorism-agent-types need help in breaking Osama, please shoot me a facebook message. My resolve is sure, my cause is just, and thus, MJ's days as a terrorist are numbered.

Surrendering to the Rain

The air was hot with sunshine and heavy with humidity, and biking to school on this particular day had felt a lot like riding through a warm sponge. The kids were safely in their classes after morning drop-off, and I had stopped to talk to my friend before tackling what I though would be another parching drive home. We were deep in conversation, talking about things that mattered, about the baby she is expecting soon and about our faraway families, about our kids and our hopes. It was the kind of conversation that I'll probably look back on as being important in our friendship, one that was honest and caring on both sides. It was the type of connection in friendship that makes time seem to slow for a few minutes.

Suddenly, without any consideration for our friendship moment, a cool wind blew in, and the clouds, which were approaching above the gentle, green mountains to the south, loomed large and charcoal gray. My friend and I were both car-less, and the storm was coming fast. We said our goodbyes and both took off. She hoofed it to the train station, harbouring the hope that she would be sitting under the shelter on the platform during the downpour, and I buckled little MJ into the trailer and started my 4k ride back to my house.

Since I have been biking, and outdoors so much more, I am noticing how I am much more affected by the weather than I used to be. I tend to dread biking on super-hot days, or rainy days because of how the heat or rain interferes with my plans to be comfortable. If I let my moods be determined by how I feel about the weather and how it affects my bike ride, (which usually consumes about an hour and a half or more each day), the weather could totally and completely predict my mood. But, I said, "If."

I peddled hard against the wind up the hill to the train station, and past the tracks down the big hill on Blaker street, towing Micah Jade behind me, but I couldn't outrun the rain. In my mind, I guess I'm Lance Armstrong, but my body? Well, my body is just me, no traces of Lance anywhere that I can find. I'm just not fast enough to outrun weather. The rain came down through the warm air and splashed in big cool drops on my hot skin. I had traveled about 1.5 k when I finally came to terms with the fact that there was just no way for me to make it home dry. So there I was, biking in the rain with a habitually ornery toddler in tow. I stopped to tell her that the rain was going to cool us off, and that we would be home soon. Surprisingly MJ, who has no qualms about screaming in the trailer all the way home, or really anywhere, seemed, after receiving my explanation, surprisingly willing to bounce along behind me in the rain without a single sound.

The explanation I had given to MJ soaked into me as well, and as I wrapped my mind around the fact that I would be riding in the rain, the expectation of comfort washed off of me with the heat. I rode the narrow streets with little, wooden postwar houses on stilts and the rain poured down on me. I crossed the big road, and then passed the other elementary school on my way to the greenbelt. Everywhere I looked, the rain drops were drop-drop-dropping on the hot, black bitumen (asphalt) of the road, and on the warm, gray sidewalk in front of me. The air that had been yellow with Sunshine and humidity was now cool blue-gray with rain.

While I continued my journey, the rain came down so hard and in such intensity that the water rushed through the vents on my helmet into my hair. By the time I reached what is my favorite part of my ride in any weather, I was completely drenched and totally refreshed. As I rode past the duck pond, I heard the memory of my children yelling, "sorry duckies, no bread right now. Maybe later." The ducks quacked noisily above the pitter-patter, and turtles poked their heads out of the water to see what the commotion was all about. The bull rushes swayed in the gentle breeze, bowing to the rain, and at the dam, cheerful muddy water peacefully trickled over into the creek, making its way from my house to the Pacific. The mountains that encircle my neighborhood rose protectively before me, the rain quenching the dry, green thirst of their gum trees. As I made the last turn toward my home, I listened to the wind; I listened to the trees dancing happily around me, to the ducks and the bull rushes, to the constant, rhythmic peddling of my bike, to the sound of the raindrops on my skin and on the road; and I cherished the memory of the morning when I surrendered to the rain.

Hospitals and Home

The bright, white lights overhead began to spin, and the room swirled pieces of Greg, real estate agent, and unfamiliar house as I lost consciousness. I was sitting on the kitchen counter of a rent house we were inspecting, when I blacked out. Greg caught me just in time to save me from a head-first collision with the hard, gray tiles underfoot. I came to, in a cold sweat, on the floor, feeling disoriented and wondering what in the world had happened. When I looked up, I saw Greg's kind eyes filled with worry, and I tried, for his sake, to answer his first aid questions coherently.

Greg sped the kids to our friends' house and rushed me to the big public hospital close to his work. I spent the next two days on painkillers, recovering from a mystery illness. Greg stayed with me as much as he could, but he had three little girls and work to balance with my hospital stay, so I mainly rested while he ran himself ragged taking care of both his responsibilities and mine. Doctors came and went from my curtain with puzzled faces until finally, a young female doctor and her supervisor pegged my diagnosis, and, after my sixth round of antibiotics, the pain and infection in my kidneys started to subside. After the mystery was solved, "Froggie" the nurse (yes, he did look like a big frog) wheeled me to the long-stay emergency unit. As the pain in my body abated, my mind cleared enough for me to hear the conversations around me in my new, shared room.

The nurse walked in and I heard him address the elderly Indian man in the bed next to me, "Good morning. It's time for a bath!" "No," the man calmly answered in a thick accent. Apparently, judging by the aroma of the man, he was not used to morning baths, or maybe regular baths at all. He was in pain, and being sent home anyway, but not before he scented his sheets and the room he shared with me and two other patients with the pungent smell of curry and body odor.

The Indian man was old and frail, and I liked him at once. He didn't speak much English, not enough to really describe his pains adequately, but certainly enough to evade a bath. When the social worker came to see about how to get him home, she discovered that he had no one to pick him up, so she offered him bus fare. He wasn't satisfied with the offer and began to bargain with her, third-world style. I think she was caught completely off-guard by eastern bartering techniques, so eventually, the little Indian man went home in just the cab that he wanted. ( I think his bargaining chip was the threat of staying long enough to scent not just the long-stay emergency ward, but the whole first floor.) I wondered why he had no one to pick him up, and what kind of home received him from his cab.

After the Indian man left, and after the linens were changed and disinfected, a woman came to stay for a few hours. The middle-aged, soft-spoken woman had been battered by her husband after she drank too much the night before. The kind staff at the hospital had bandaged her cuts, but nothing they could do in the emergency room could heal a heart damaged by 18 years of marriage to an abusive bully, or a mind distressed by the alcohol she used to escape from him. She laid in the bed, weighing, out-loud with the social worker on duty, her options upon leaving. She didn't want to go home to her husband, but the prospect of starting again at a women's shelter, without the help of the family who had disowned years before, frightened her. She was trapped between two terrible options, and she didn't know where to go when she went "home". I fell asleep before she left, so I don't know what option she chose, whether she decided that home would be the terror she knew, or the fright of the unfamiliar.

After the Indian man and the battered woman left, it was my turn. I didn't feel completely well, but I was going home anyway. I called Greg from the hospital phone and twenty minutes later, our white Prado bounced into the drive as and he and a carload of little girls excitedly awaited "mommy". I stiffly walked down the sterile, still, green halls to the fresh, windy air of the circle drive and slowly climbed into the car while the noise of elation and the smell of crackers and lip gloss enveloped me.

I sometimes I take for granted what I have in Greg and in my girls, but I shouldn't. I have a man who will catch me before I hit the floor, a man who can carry both his responsibilities and mine, a man with kind eyes who would never hurt me. I have a home filled with estrogen and drama, with costumes and crumbs, with three little glittery girls that missed me desperately while I was gone. I was still pretty sick when I left; I was still in a lot of pain; but unlike some of my roommates at the hospital, I had family to meet me in the windy circle drive and love to welcome me back to my life. Let me never forget the blessings of my home.

February Resolution Rebellion and Grace

I hate New Year's resolutions, and thus, in my February Resolution Rebellion, I hereby resolve no longer make them, mostly because I cannot keep any type of resolution for any length of time. I have quit exercise regimens, diets, organizational schemes, and all the other normal resolutions that everyone else makes and then fails to keep. Since I am a recovering perfectionist, though, not only do I fail at keeping my own unrealistic expectations for the year, but then, after I failing, I replay my failures and avoid attempting worthwhile projects and goals altogether for the rest of the year.


Since I have resolved no longer to make resolutions, and since I am a type-A kind of a girl, I think I will write out some of my flexible goals for the year, knowing that if I fail one day, I can just keep working toward something worthwhile. The goals, therefore, are about moving directionally, and less about finishing accomplishments.


Elissa's 2010 directional goals

1. to make this year the "year of the friend." I have always loved those charts with birth years at Chinese restaurants, mostly because I love the tiny pictures (I might not like it so well if I was a rat instead of a horse). The Chinese feel perfectly free to define each birth year by different sets of characteristics. If my last year had to be categorized, it have been "the year of constant and earthshaking change." As far as I can tell, this year, I will not live in four different houses (last year's record), and I will neither move across an ocean or across a continent; so, this year, I intend to make relationships my priority.

Having been in Oz for a year, and in Brisbane for six months, I am nearing mastery on most of the small tasks that consumed the majority of my time during my "year of change". I am over the initial loneliness and the culture shock ( though I still have my moments). I can now locate cocoa powder and Copha (a Crisco substitute for you Yanks), and I have very few problems driving on the left side of the road--Greg would beg to differ, but he makes me nervous and I drive poorly when he is in the car. Being mostly settled in culture and location, it is now time to focus on building lasting friendships, because having friends with whom to share life makes the good things better and the hard stuff easier.

I guess I have been thinking about investing more in my friendships here because Greg and I are planning a trip back to the states. In ten months I will again set foot on American soil to enjoy time with my family and my old friends. In my home-comimg fantasies, everyone I love is waiting outside of customs with signs and tears; they have all been waiting and pining outside the airport for years in my absence (w0uldn't it be nice to be missed that much?) But, in reality, all my friends stateside are normal and healthy enough not to let their lives stop just because I have moved away. The friendships that count stateside are lifetime friendships, whose love will weather the separation. If I were to spend this year pining for "home," family, and my dear old friends in a fantasy world that does not exist, many months would be wasted, and I would be very sorry to return Oz this time next year, having squandered time that could have been invested in relationships here. No, instead, I am determined to make this year count. I belong here, for the time being, in Australia, so making good friends here is really just another way of making Australia my home.

2. to refrain from being perpetually busy with good things--to be un-busy. I think women in general and Christian women in particular are powerfully afflicted with business. I, myself, have been busy for most of my adult life, trying to cram too much stuff into too little time, trying to do all the things that might go undone if I didn't attempt them. I suppose some women can maintain busy schedules without neglecting their families, but I am not one of those women. No, when I get too busy, I am not kind or attentive enough to the people that matter most to me, and that is just plain wrong.


I recognize that in some seasons, busyness is unavoidable, but generally, I have a choice about whether or not I am going to place stress on myself by trying to book too much in, even, or maybe especially "good" activities like volunteering at school or helping at church. I want this year to be about relationships, and that means leaving "blank" time to chat over a cuppa (cup of coffee or tea), or days where nothing is scheduled so that I can have friends over. Unbusyness means saying "No" even when I feel obligated to answer otherwise. Unbusyness clears my schedule and my mind so that I have time for people.


3. To keep reading through the Bible. I am a hard-core Christian, the kind that believes that God has a plan for the universe, the earth, and our individual lives in particular, the kind that believes in redemption and miracles and that God might actually care to know me personally(and everyone else too). I see the Bible, not as a rule book, but as a (very long) memo from God to me, and reading it as a way to know and experience all that God is.


About ten years ago, I started to read through the bible on one of those horrible "Through-the-Bible-in-a-Year" reading plans. I have quit the plan about six times in six of the last years feeling terribly defeated. I think it is intellectually dishonest to say I believe the Bible without having read all of it, but I honestly cannot keep up with a super-intense reading plan while changing diapers, cooking dinners, and generally trying to be a loving wife and mother. I know those plans work for some super-structured folks, but the "one-year-plan" has far too little grace in it for an artsy girl like me.



So, I am coming up with the "ten-ish-year-Bible-reading-plan." I'm about halfway through the Good Book, so maybe this year I will make it through the hard-to-understand books to the books I like most, the ones where Jesus does away with rule-keeping legalism (like trying to read a very deep two thousand page book in a year) and rewards those who come in faith. If I finish the Bible this year, I will be stoked, but I am calling my plan the "ten-ish-year-plan" just in case I need a little more grace, like I usually do.


At the end of the year, I hope I will have spent my time wisely, investing in the people that live their lives around me. I hope I will have friends in Australia that I will miss and that will miss me when I go to the states for the holidays. I hope I live the year set free from busyness, leaving most of the busywork around Mitchelton for people that get can manage busyness and family commitments. I hope I will know the character of God better because I have finished his memo by the end of the year, but, these are my "directional goals" not resolutions. Maybe this year, unlike years past, when I fail, I can just keep on plugging without giving up. Maybe this year will finally be the year when I get a firm handle on handing out grace to the person I know who needs it most--myself.

Jordan the Strong, My First Heart-Doubling

Jordan had just finished a 7 km ride and was getting off her bike at school when two big boys approached her ominously. Each of them was a head taller than she was, and they smirked at each other knowingly as they walked toward Jordan. I watched from a distance, ready to intervene in if needed, but I hung back for the time to see how Jordan would go, flying solo. As they neared, one of the big boys said something short and pointed to my little girl. She was thirsty and tired from a long ride, but you wouldn't have known by her reaction to him. Jordan sized them both up quickly, looked at them doubtfully through a furrowed brow, then said something even shorter. After that, she quickly cut her eyes away from them, as if they were not worth looking at, turned her back to them, flipped her honey-colored hair, and strutted away with her little sweaty head held high. They looked at each other, shrugged, and walked the other direction. I called Jordan over to me and asked what had transpired. She didn't look shaken in the least, but I was curious.

"What did they say to you, Jojo?" I inquired.

"They said, 'Why do YOU ride a BOY's bike?'" recalled Jordan.

"And what did you tell them?" I asked.

"I told them, 'Because I DO!'" Jordan answered, laughing like it was a stupid question, as she recalled her answer.

Not only does Jordan not back down when challenged, but she occasionally partakes in administering justice. During a parent-teacher conference recently, I heard this very interesting story about Jordan. During one of her class's weekly garden visits, there was a boy in her class who acquired a prickly stick and then visited several "friends" in the class, prickling and poking them mercilessly, evading the teacher and classroom helper cleverly. Jordan watched for a minute, taking in the injustice, then chased the perpetrator down, took the stick from him, and beat him with it, while yelling down at him, "How do you like that? Do you want me to poke you with this stick like you're doing to everyone else? You stop that!" He was dumbfounded and scared straight during the rest of the time in the garden that day. After hearing the story, I enquired of the teacher as to whether I should correct Jordan for being aggressive. Sandy laughed and told me that she and the rest of the class watched in amazement and nearly broke into applause--Jordan wasn't the bully, she restrained the bully. Listening to Sandy, I found myself cherishing the moment, enjoying the retelling of just but aggressive wonders performed by this fierce girl-child who now inhabits my house.

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Jordan's confidence is astounding during the sort of confrontations that would have sent me running for the hills or at least for a teacher when I was a little girl. That's just Jordan. She is unfazed and unafraid, even in the face of larger, stronger boys and class bullies. She is bold and strong like I never was as a child, like I still struggle to be as an adult. She has the focus and determination that I carry within my genes (those that love me would label these traits "OCD tendencies"), combined with the easy confidence and athleticism that I fell in love with in Greg. She has my mother-in-law's cheerfulness and my father's eyes, and I think everything about her emanates beauty.

I love the competitive look Jordan gets at her swim races, the tendency to paint herself like a native if left alone with markers or chalk, the silly monkey dance she shamelessly performs on command, the way she paints carefully with watercolors so that the seahorses don't smudge. I enjoy the out-of-tune violin practices we endure every morning at 6:29 and her brave BMX bike racing with her friend Zach, most recently accomplished while wearing her pearl earrings underneath her helmet. I love so many things about my little girl, but most of all, I love Jordan because she is mine.

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Before I had children, I had always thought of birthdays in terms of my own birthday, an end in itself, a special celebration of my life on the most important day of the year--a little narcissistic, I know. But, with the birth of Jordan, eight years ago, suddenly, my birthday was no longer the most important day of the year. Each of the birthdays of my daughters is cause for celebration, not only for them, but for me as their mother. I have begun to see their birthdays not only the marker of their age or the annual call to furious baking, but as the anniversaries of the day of their entrance into my life. Each time another daughter was born to me, I am quite sure that the size of my heart, and it's capacity to love at least doubled. Jordan was the first in this process for me, and so each year, the anniversary of her birth marks not just the first doubling of my heart, but the beginning of the era of parenthood, an era that is marked not by fulfilling my own dreams, but facilitating those of my children.

So, this January, as I have thought about the eight years that have passed since my heart first doubled in order to hold more love for Jordan, I celebrate the unique person that is Jordan Kira Mizell, the one whose name means "descender from the throne of God", the child that came charging into my life, dividing forever the time into before and after her birth day. I am absolutely in awe of the strength in the fierce child, and it is my privilege and honor to love and protect, to guide and discipline and prepare the woman that is growing a little more every day, replacing the beautiful little girl I now know.

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Happy Eighth Birthday, Jordan. Your Mama thinks you are a wonder.

"Caterpillars" in the Kitchen and the Grossest Day Ever.

One morning we awoke to a plethora of caterpillars crawling on the kitchen floor in all directions. They were white like milk and very energetic, like they had some where to go, some secret mission that motivated them to move quickly. Meryl accidentally stepped on one, rendering him a greasy spot on the timber floor, and she would have been appalled about having caused such a dreadful death if not for the number of "extra" ones. Micah Jade immediately picked up one and commenced cradling him lovingly, calling him, "little guy" in affectionate tones. She stroked him tenderly with her little finger as she wandered about, unable to turn her eyes away from such a rare treasure. My big girls, still missing their dog, found the caterpillars delightful, and began plans to round them all up to take to the "nature table," where they would be the subject of observation and experiments, and the food of their beloved lizards. Since, earlier in spring, the silk worms had not fared very well, perhaps these worms would be a new chance to watch something develop. Wouldn't it be nice to see a set of moths emerge in a few weeks? We were all so enthralled for about two minutes.


I have noticed that in summer in Australia, there are a lot of commercials for different types of sprays that kill flying insects. In every commercial, flies, along with roaches and mossies (mosquitoes) are portrayed as nasty and sloppy bugs that have evil intentions toward families. Flies also seem to have New York accents in the commercials here-which I find curious. (I have never seen a commercial that portrayed flies as evil in the USA). I haven't bought any spray because it didn't seem necessary. Why would I want to spray a substance into the air which kills everything it touches? Would I want my family to breathe something like that in? Would I want that sort of toxicity falling on my benchtops in my kitchen (countertops for Americans) where I prepare food for people I love? Wouldn't it be better to just live with a few flies?


In fact, considering the level of environmental consciousness and general mindfulness about conservation, I was quite surprised that there was even a market for such a product--that was before I found the caterpillars in my kitchen. As they crawled, we observed where the concentration of critters was highest--near the trash can! All at once realization dropped into my mind like a ton of manure--MAGGOTS! Micah Jade is carrying a maggot around, talking tenderly to a nasty fly larva while she strokes his squirmy germiness! AHHHHHHH!


Greg, our resident brave one, was called in as reinforcement and together we swept up the aggressive little nasties. He took out the crawly trash bag and removed the can to the patio outside where it could be washed. I had to pry the maggot from the loving fingers of two-year-old Micah Jade, which was terrible for both of us, especially because he was squished in the skirmish. I think the big girls acquired a few to feed the lizards with a dustpan, but I was to traumatized to bother correcting them.

As a mom, I handle gross stuff pretty well. After all, when engineers and architects breed, they produce kids that are both mechanical and creative, and that makes for some terrible household catastrophes. I've cleaned completely disassembled (again) toys, "special" cornflakes stored in the sock drawer, mud body paint and mud sculptures, dead, dried lizards, oatmeal sculptures, spaghetti throw-up, poo paintings, pretend toilet soup, and the list goes on, but nothing could compare to the "caterpillars" on the floor. This may well be the most disgusting mess ever to occur in my family (although I hear Australia has leeches, so there is hope for a story even worse than this one at some point). So, until the unfortunate day when we encounter something worse, this day will live in infamy as the grossest day ever in my household. . .and I think I am finally ready to buy toxic fly spray!