Sunday, April 25, 2010

In between the Blink of an Eye and a Month of Sundays

The older I get, the more I see that life is really about living "in between." Our lives will be marked by a beginning and an end but the living happens in between. I start work at 8 am and leave at 4 pm - if I get a lot of work done in the time between. The problem is that I sometimes I forget this incredibly simple thought.

At the moment, I am surrounded by the passages of time both beginnings and endings. My good friend, Wendy, just lost her father. My other good friend has been placed on bed rest so that the little boy growing inside her will wait until he is a little bigger to make his grand entrance. Beginnings and endings, and in betweens, my own father has been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson's disease. A diagnosis that places us in between being able to give a name to the symptoms but not knowing what lies ahead or how soon the the ending will come.

Life happens in the middle, like an Oreo cookie, the good stuff happens in the middle. Even things that turn out bad or cause a lot pain often had good "middles." I am reminded of my own failed marriage, while not a perfect union, had plenty of good things in the middle. And as Hannah graduates from high school, while I will remember the first day of kindergarten and the walk across the stage to receive her diploma, she is a wonderful young woman today because of all of the middle stuff.

The in betweens can seem to rush by us in a blink of an eye. It seems like only yesterday that I talked to Rachel about the hope of babies, now she awaits the birth of her third. Where did the time go? Only yesterday, Hannah dreamed of being a gypsy and spoke her own created form of Spanish. Now she aspires to be a neurologist and well, speaks some sort of teenage language that I seem to old to understand. In the blink of the eye, the in between has passed. The in between is our cherished friend.

Or the in betweens can seem to move slowly, the progression from beginning to end feels like a month of Sundays. I think about the things I want to change but don't change. The healing from a failed marriage seems to take a month of Sundays or the waiting for the meds to work and the seizures to stop can feel like forever. The in between is now the enemy.

In between the blink of an eye and a month of sundays is where our lives happen. It is where I find my most proud moments and my most embarrassing moments. The in between is where I learn and grow and love. And while I find myself looking ahead with worries or looking behind with regrets, the truth is the in between is where the real living takes place.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Fair to Midland

I like colorful language. Not the vulgar kind which is sometimes referred to as colorful, that is colorful in broad harsh strokes like spray paint on playground equipment. I like descriptive and colorful language of metaphors and similes, figure of speech and idioms. Language that uses imagery to convey a meaning. Language that needs to be unpacked.

My daughter Emily on the other hand dislikes idioms. She wonders why she should wait for the cows to come home or why she would want to knock on wood. And what difference it would make if she did. She says that all are useless except her favorite - Whatever floats your boat.

Recently, I decided it was time to start a new blog. It was time to have a title that reflected my life now and not my life previously. While I have never been much of a feminist, if in relation to my name, I was to peel away everything that connected me to a man. All that remains is Fara Linn. And so I wanted to incorporate that into the title of my new blog.

But Fara Linn is boring so how much better to add a little colorful imagery to the title. With the addition of two small words, I discovered I could create an idiom (albeit a bad play on words). And after thinking, I came to decide that in fact it was descriptive of what I would like the blog to be.

"Fair to midland" originates from weather reports in England. It referred to the weather being fair from the coast to the midlands. The idiom has evolved to mean that something is neither good nor bad. So when someone asks how you are if you are neither good nor bad, you can respond with "I am doing fair to midland." It has of course, been shortened and really sounds more like "fair to middlin'"

After several years of high stress, turmoil and change, I hope I can say "fair to midland." In fact, my happiest memories are the small things, the things that are neither great or terrible. It is having dinner with my kids at the table. It is laughing with Emily while we drive in the car. It is listening to my kids sing. It is sharing fries with a friend at Denny's (even better if that friend thinks I am nifty). And it is waking up to birds, having a job I enjoy, a church family who holds you close.

And so I hope to share my "fair to midland" moments here and maybe even some "it's the bee knees" moments or some "axes" I have to "grind." And all the while exploring language, writing, single motherhood, midlife and the small things that make my life my own.