Author: Tamara Belanger (Page 7 of 73)

I was wearing mint green “baby doll” pajamas, the kind that have the matching shorts and flowy, crepey short top that shows them off.  They were popular then, like the Brady Bunch and harvest gold kitchen appliances and shag carpet were popular.  I was 5 days into being 11, all gangly legs and cats eye glasses and still growing into my teeth.  Crystal Blue Persuasion by Tommy James was number one on the radio.  I knew that because my babysitter loved it and I always wondered what those words meant and thought they sounded very grown up and mysterious.  And love was the answer.

We were at my grandparents in Springfield, IL celebrating a family birthday trifecta; mine, my mother’s and my grandfather’s.  We did it most every year.  I was an only child so I loved the feeling of being more surrounded by family than usual.  My grandparents’ house was simple, earned from the hard, steady work of my 6th grade educated grandfather and his wife.  Every summer I’d walk behind my grandpa as he tended to the small garden beside his house.  I can still smell the tomatoes and the soil and see his gnarled up hands from arthritis reach out for the smallest of weeds.  It reminded him of his early days, a husband and a father, working on another man’s farm to make money.  These summer visits, I’d sit under the big tree in his yard on the cheerful colored metal lawn chairs that felt cold on my skin.  I’d listen to his stories and run my toes through the thick grass that felt like carpet and wonder how he got it that way.  And I’d imagine what he was telling me in pictures in my mind.  The screen door of the kitchen hissed open and shut as my grandma came out to join us, tucking her ever present kleenex in her house dress pocket.  These times felt like childhood and it filled me up full.

July 20th was on a Sunday.  We’d been to church that day and I sat next to grandpa and listened to his shakey voice belt out the hymns he loved.  We’d had relatives over in the afternoon.  I went to bed that evening content.  And only marginally aware of what else was going on in the world.  At 10:00 p.m.  my daddy burst into the room to wake me up.  The first man on the moon was about to step out of the lunar module and he wanted me to see it as it happened.  I went into the living room, chilly from crawling out from under the covers and curled up sleepy on the couch.  My dad was so jazzed, so excited, so present in the world.  He stood amazed at life.  I barely remember going back to bed or if I fell asleep and was carried back.  But I woke up the next morning and smelled sausage and coffee and looked forward to the day.  And the beat went on.

Yesterday, I took my daughter to see First Man; the movie telling the story of Neil Armstrong.  We gripped each others’ hands tight and thought we couldn’t breathe when things went wrong in the rocket.  We learned that Mr. Armstrong had lost a little girl a few years before, and he thought of her as he stood in the moon dust.  And as I sat in that dark movie theatre, a wave of emotion washed itself up onto my shore and I was surprised by my tears.  The memories flashed and disappeared into the next with that whooshing sound from the movies when things warp by in your mind too fast to hold onto.  My July 20th, 1969 collided with Neil Armstrong and a silent snapshot abruptly halted my mind.  It’s my dad, standing in front of the t.v., dressed in his black pants and white undershirt, turning from me to the t.v. screen and back again, excited to share the man on the moon with me.  And I suddenly realized what a treasure that night was for us all.

Thank you,  Mr. Armstrong.  Thank you, dad, for waking me up for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz01MkVczjY

I spent the better part of this afternoon with a friend; we ciphered out 21 years we’ve seen each other through now.  All kinds of turns unexpected; sometimes the road has gotten pretty pock marked and the wheels under us needed new shocks.  But we’ve made it this far.  I got back in the car after our visit and turned on the radio already  tuned to Guy Raz, Ted Radio Hour on NPR.  He was interviewing someone on the effects of shifting time.  “You reach a certain point in life,” said the radio lady , “where you don’t meet new old friends because there just isn’t enough time to make them that.”  I smile to myself and my heart agrees.  I’ve just been with an old friend and I whisper a thank you to my heavenly Father for the gift of enough days piled up like rich soil to see the strong roots.

“As we get older, it turns out through a study done, we get measurably happier,” she continued, her voice obviously counted as one “older”.  She talked about speaking on the topic at a conference . Age puts a certain spin on things that makes the golden light glint off of life more keenly, the edges of things more outlined, focused. The “tear in the eye moments” when a new good beginning requires the ending of something before it….  the new job that takes away the financial pressure and a look back over the shoulder as you step through the door of your future suddenly makes the lean days take on a special nostalgia?  The thing is, as birthdays add up, the tear makes the ripness of the life fruit sweeter than the harsh bitterness of the fear and effect of the bruises.  You can just let go easier.  You decide to be here because you realize the “theres” will rob you if you let them.  “Here” is where life is happening.

I just this week drove the seven hours there and back to visit my daughter and her little family. My muscles draw up tighter than they used to  when the car holds me hostage for long hours and I have to walk slowly at first when I get out until my legs find their function again.   I look up and see my girl holding her girl waiting for me on their porch.   My granddaughter has reached the age where she knows who I am and what I am; her Nana.  I see her eyes light up with recognition.  Were my legs stiff?  I couldn’t remember anymore.  It didn’t matter.

The days spent with my girl, her man and little girl zoomed by slowly;  actual days on the calendar were faster than the moments I savored; my age affords me to move slower in my mind than the clock hands on the wall.  Leaving was hard.  It was the first time Little Bea registered that Nana had to leave.  Her whimper at the news threatened to take me down.  As I drove away, waving one last time at the faces in the window, I swallowed hard.

I didn’t want to leave.  It was the end of the sweet snuggles in person for awhile.  There was a tear in the corner of my eye as I looked away towards the road.  But, as I drove down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the miles between us mounting up, I warmed myself at what I took with me.  My 59 years had  wrapped up the simple times like little presents to put under my remembering tree.   I can  taste the seasoned squash slathered over my girls’ homemade sourdough bread and the treasure of shared food, all of us together, around their table.  I can hear the murmur of the voices between her and her man in the front seat as I sit in the back with Bea, comforted at the love being nurtured between them.  I can smell the heavenly scent of a just bathed toddler as she waddles from room to room, her naked little self wrapped up in a towel dragging behind her.   I can savor the memory of the setting sun over a corn field enjoying an evening drive to get ice cream.  I can sit on their back porch and listen to the crickets while I watched the day end drinking my iced tea and whispering a thank you to the God that loves them;  that He is watching over this little family.

I can let go of mistakes I made raising this girl of mine and know that all is well in spite of it; that we can forgive and love and seize the moment by the hand and walk on.  I realize I’ve stopped listening to the podcast on the radio until the last sentence.  The radio lady had finished her talk and a young man approached her afterwards.  “Is there anyway to get older quicker so I can be in that place you spoke about now ??”  I laughed out loud and nodded my head.  This getting older thing?  It’s no so bad after all, even with stiffer muscles.  I love the brighter outlines that light up the moments.

There’s no time to do anything but slow down.

The girl and I had planned for months to go back to Tennessee.  It hugged us close the last time we were there and we needed to feel it again.  I drove in the quiet of the morning and captured quick my view as it disappeared behind me.  The girl turned on The Great British Baking Show that she’d downloaded onto our tablet the night before and it lulled peaceful in our little car.  It was warm that morning but we’d brought a blanket and worn our sweat pants, each of us, because the cabin of our car filled with a cold, frosty wind pouring through the vents and neither of us wanted to turn it warmer.  We’d just been graced a new car the week before by people that loved us and people who didn’t even know us, a car with the luxury of air conditioning that we hadn’t had the past three summers before this and we just couldn’t quite get over it.  So we bundled up and looked at one another and laughed….being cold was a probem we didn’t want to fix just then.

Just past Louisville we felt hungry.  I saw the heralding signs on the highway.  “Denny’s ahead.  I used to work there when I was just about your age.”  The girl wanted to stop and it turned out, Denny’s had dressed itself up as a 50’s diner, all silver like a train car on the outside and black and white checkered floor.  She wanted a diner version of a cup of coffee, in a glass mug, no fancy syrups or talls that were smalls.  We shuffled in with our hair a mess, no make up on, still wearing what we’d slept in.  Didn’t matter; we were together writing adventures on our hearts.

With scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy devoured right off the plate clean, we tucked ourselves back in our ride and headed south.  “Check in any time!  The place is ready for you!”  My phone dinged the message and made me want to drive a little faster.  We’d stayed here before, this cabin on 92 acres of Tennessee heaven, and felt a kinship with the owners and a sense of finding a secret that belonged only to us.   When we pulled into the driveway two hours later my girl breathed in and looked at me.  “It feels like we’re home.”   Our hands and our hearts unpacked and we sat on the porch just to listen.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16530197

I breathed in thank yous and breathed out praise.  Just a few days ago, it looked like we wouldn’t be able to get here.  No car, not enough money to buy one.  I’d decided to cancel these plans long held to get our money back and into our hands, clutched with a panic.  “No, mama.  Wait to see what God does.”  The tears welled up humble.  He’d wanted us here.  My girl had taught me to sit still and watch Him.

Up the road is a tiny little ramshackle looking diner with a big God story.  A woman named Marcy Jo had always wanted to have a diner and her brother and his wife saw this little place for sale just down the road from their farm.  So they bought it and dusted it off with love and there’s no place on earth you can get cinnamon rolls or fried catfish dinners quite like them.

We walked in the door four months almost to the day that we’d been there last.  Rachel had waited on us then and she met us at the door this time with the look that recognizes old friends.  “Hey!  I remember ya’ll!”  She asked us what we wanted and I told her to surprise us.  Without hesitation, she wrote up the order and whisked herself off to the kitchen, and minutes later brought us plates of goodness that tasted like grandmother’s cooking.  It was close to closing time and she lingered at our table and we talked about life and what she wants out of it.  I left with two pieces of cake for my birthday, compliments of Rachel.  She’s a friend now and we’ll think of her and whisper her name to the Maker of stories.

https://www.marcyjos.com/

We went back that evening to the cabin and turned down the a/c and pulled up the covers and planned our next day’s adventures.  I slipped out quiet to the front porch while the girl read and let the cicadas in the trees sing to me as the last light disappeared.  “Thank you, Father, for this.  For all of this.”

The rest of the week was filled with unexpected finds like a scavenger hunt.  Franklin Theater was having an afternoon showing of American Graffitti on the big screen and we bought tickets right then and there and I introduced my girl to a memory from my high school days.  I felt a certain wispiness watching the familiar images.  We traced the back roads to Leiper’s Fork and sat in Puckett’s Grocery and ate fried bologna sandwiches, the meat cut thick and charred.  We bought little bags of herbs and essential oils and trinkets for those back home to let them know we took them with us in our hearts.

http://www.puckettsofleipersfork.com/

It came up quickly, the storm on Saturday late afternoon, a warm and heavy rain, and we ducked into Merridee’s Breadbasket and shook off the wetness in the cozy room with the wooden floors that creak under foot and baskets hanging over our heads.  We found a corner table and sat with our soup and sandwiches and read our books that we always carry with us, whichever one we are in the middle of, and the thunder serenaded us.  After it let up and the steam rose from the muggy, hot streets we grabbed our things and headed back to the cabin for a quiet night, our last night here.  I snapped a picture of the overall clad sign painter as we left.  It made me feel like a part of the fabric of this little town to watch him.  Signs being painted, bread being baked, families sitting around tables, life stories being lived out.

Sunday dawned foggy and thick.  We headed to Marcy Jo’s for a final meal before church and heading back home.   We’d worshipped at Crosscountry Cowboy Church last time we were in town and we drove into the parking lot and picked a spot; a man on horseback keeping watch over the cars.  That same feeling of finding home washed over us and we stepped inside.  We sat in the same seat we had before, like you do when you’ve been going to the same church for a long time.  Everyone knows where each other sits and our seats seem to have been waiting on us since last time.  The pastor’s wife had become my Facebook friend and she recognized me from my picture and greeted us with a hug, her soft southern drawl sounding like welcoming grace.  This church was more of a bigger picture than anyone had ever bargained for just two years ago.  A husband and wife had purchased the farm, the same ones who helped start Marcy Jo’s.  They wanted a place to raise their family and sing their songs and stay near home. They built a barn they could perform in and dreamed of growing old together and being buried out by the big trees in the field.    Along the way, the young wife got sick and and with a trembling heart and aching held out hands they looked up and gave it to God.  She went to heaven and her husband stayed here, still looking up.

Today?  The farm is still where he lives, he and his little girl.  And the barn has become a church.  And God has written a story there that no one saw coming.  It has been baptized with tears and the doors opened up for others to share in it.  My girl and I took in the songs being sung that morning that reminded us of the unexpected turns of our own story, of the goodness found in all of them.  “God writes good stories,” sang the author of the song that day, “and He always has.

https://www.facebook.com/CrossCountryChurch/videos/1548648395197965/

(begin at 8:40)

We stood out front on the church porch after the service and gathered around a simple, clean cow trough as people stepped in and dunked under the water to wash away a past and grab hold of the Truth.  My girl leaned in and whispered how much she liked it here.  I was glad that her faith had kept me from losing mine; that we had made the trip after all.  We got in our car and drove down the street and stopped one more time at the diner to grab a cold tea to take with us for the ride home.  Rachel poured it for us and saw us off at the door.  “Ya’ll drive safe and come back!”

God does indeed write good stories.  And He always has.