Big Girl Pants

The catastrophic events of climate change (like hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods) force you to abandon your sense of safety.

I remember writing a report in 3rd grade on the reason for Thanksgiving. Mine was a little different than Tommy Spencer's. But then, I didn't dress up in a headband with a rooster feather in it either.

No matter what is happening in the world of man, nature has her own rhythm. Something amazing is often right in front of us, but in our rush to "accomplish something" we miss it. Take a break to listen to this story about just such an almost-missed opportunity, and then take a break to walk in nature and see what she's up to. What you find is likely to delight and surprise you. And, who can't use a little delight and surprise these days?

Have we gotten to the point where our lives are for sale? 

It feels like time is running out to do what we came here to do. How are you spending your days these days?

When you sell your house, it's a lot of change all at once. I've been finding hidden messages at the back of the sock drawer, flipping through memories from childhood, teen times, and adulthood. Memory after memory flashes from every corner, from every found item. Some of our memories are like life preservers, they hold us up when we're in deep water. But other memories speak to all that went wrong. And those memories are an anchor that drags us down to the bottom and holds us there until we run out of either courage or breath. Our memories are our stories. And our stories remind us that each moment of our lives is a sacred place in time.

I like to think of myself as discriminating (in a good way) but not prejudiced. But in today's times, it's important to think about how we contribute to prejudicial attitudes about other people based on political opinion or childhood conditioning.  This is the story of how I first met racism and the way that impacts my life today.

This isn't the first time America has had a housing crisis. A recent encounter with a homeless camp brought back a story about my great-grandmother. Twice widowed, she solved a problem for herself and for others. Maybe it's time to let stories from the hard times of the past inspire how we address problems today.

I think most of us worry about money more than we'd like to admit. No matter how much we have, it seems like it's never enough. But have we entered a time like the one that made my Grandmom put her money in the mattress?  Listen to her story, and mine. Maybe it's time to give that idea some new consideration.

With all the political huffing and puffing in advance of the 2024 election cycle, the big issues we face as Americans are, again, off the table.  Affordable health care, homelessness, food insecurity, mass shootings and more.  Social media is slicing and dicing us like a red tomato into little voting segments. We're being fear-mongered into seeing each other as dangerous. Is that the America you want?  Let's come together and prevent a second Civil War. This Memorial Day, let's take back our freedom. People died to keep you free. Honor that.

God has a strange way of putting us exactly where he wants us to be. 

The formation of a human soul is complex business. As children we sift through ideas but also marinate in the stories of our family and the rituals that are passed down from one generation to the next. This is the story of one such formation.

When I was a kid, we didn't play organized sports. We roamed the neighborhood like feral cats. But we mostly behaved because, back then, any parent that caught you doing something wrong had permission to punish you any way they saw fit, whether they were your parents or not, so like I said, we mostly behaved. But there was this one time when things went very wrong. 

After hearing a Easter sermon about "taking up my cross" I saw a cat torture and kill a baby bird. And thus my ministry to save the birds of Elm street was born.

Sometimes you meet the right one and the right one takes you on the ride of your life. 

I feel all caged up by winter, until I look out my window. 

I picked the wrong year to start coloring my hair. Over twenty years ago I waited 9 months to have a baby. Now I'm waiting to have a knee replacement and feel like I'm 90. Getting old is NOT for sissies.

New Year's Eve festivities in my childhood were exquisitely boring, the ones in San Francisco so celebratory I can't remember them, and then my husband rolled one in by having a massive stroke, but we won't dwell on that. You never really know your relatives until you spend the holidays with them. Here's an introduction to some of mine!

I wrote this for Appalachian Voice magazine many years ago. It's a story about a boy I knew back in the hills of West Virginia. If you're in need of a feel-good story this holiday season, this might just fit the bill! Merry Christmas from my heart to yours.

I'll never forget what happened in the Zickafoose sisters cabin the Thanksgiving day the moonshiners arrived. You won't either. 

I never had a birthday party until I turned 25. Then gave myself one and never looked back!

I was always on the outskirts of high fashion. But when the fishnet hose and mini-skirts arrived in my school, I was determined to have them!

It was a dark and stormy Halloween eve when I ended up somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.

We've all had one:  a bad hair cut that just can't grow out fast enough! This is the story of a sheep-shearing beautician who gave me just such a haircut, and it scarred me for life. (Well, not really, but I do have an un-natural fear of scissors and clippers.)

Back when I was a kid in West Virginia, we didn't go to the pool, we went to the swimming hole, down at the bottom of Old Man Reynolds pasture.  This is a story about the time we almost drown there.  Best enjoyed wearing your Big Girl Pants.

When I was 12 I knew a woman who was bedfast with rheumatoid arthritis for 14 years. When her caregiver could no longer care for her she was sent to a home for invalids, where a difficult new thing called Physical Therapy was tried on her condition.  She earned her Badge of Courage when she survived it and learned how to transfer herself from a bed to a wheelchair, open a can, and go to the bathroom by herself.  We watched Star Trek together and drank Coca-Cola when got back home. She encouraged me to do the impossible when it was necessary.

Back when I was in middle school, we took a survivalism class. It was called home ec. All girls had to take it. The boys took shop. We learned to sew and cook; they learned to change their oil and hammer a nail.  We should never have dropped those mandatory classes. Now we have young parents who can't cook a potato or change the oil in their car.

I don't guess that there's s a way to prepare to see your mother fully naked. I know no one tried to prepare me. I was maybe thirteen, and it just happened, on a stormy afternoon in late summer, just as I was developing my own "woman's body." Seeing her changed everything.

I learned very confusing information about sex in our "health" class during PE. When I got my first period, I assumed I was dying, since "periods" were mentioned but no one said anything about blood.

When you don't get picked for volleyball or asked to the school dance, a horse may just end up as your best friend.

I was rescued during a difficult year in middle school by a cook named Tiny.  She taught me that the bullies torturing me were just as insecure as I was. After all the positive lessons she provided in self-esteem, I watched her give her own up to keep a man.

My pastor father was a white man involved in the Civil Rights movement. This is the story of how he stood up to the Three Kings, the power-brokers in a mountain town determined to keep things as they were. When trouble is looming, you need your Big Girl Pants.

Social intrigue begins early. There are always the popular ones, the bullies, and the things we don't want to do that others think are "good for us."  This is the story of how I "got to" go to Scout camp where the first thing I "got to" do was dig a latrine. Things went downhill from there.  

The most fun I've ever had was on the back of a horse. I was a clumsy child. I flunked out of ballet.  I fell on my teacher after trying to turn my feet out in fourth position one too many times. Atop a horse, I was regal and elegant. Wrapping my legs around their power has always been magical for me. I dreamed of having a dappled gray Arabian but that dream never came true.

Sometimes things happen to you that you can't forget. Sometimes those things stay with you when you're an adult. Experiences that influence you in ways you aren't always aware of, or sometimes you are aware of them, but you just can't do anything about it. This is the story of how that happened to me. 

I grew up in West Virginia. Everyone assumes that it's a poor state but some of the richest people I've ever known live in West Virginia. That's because it's a feudal state. You're either a baron or a serf, there's not much in between.  As the divides between the "haves" and the "have almost nothings" continues to grow, you might find this story of life in the 60's informative.

We live in a world on the move. There are secrets to knowing how to make a move and still keep a little peace in your life. Here's the story of how we did it.

Kindergarten forced me to leave my childhood dreams and start memorizing 26 letters in an arbitrary order. It was the beginning of my realization that often "education" is more about forcing young minds into compliant boxes than inspiring knowledge.

As the first born, I was a Princess with many welcoming arms and laps. Then my baby sister was born, and everything changed. I hadn't realized how protective I was of her until an e bully picked on her in elementary school. I almost killed him for it. 

My sister and I never watched cartoons in the morning like normal kids, because we never knew who was in the basement.

I was always moving somewhere. But my birth was a much anticipated event back in the hills of West Virginia!

The Urkanians celebrating Easter on Sunday reminded me of the Easter I experienced when I was six. I'll never forget that exploding egg.

What would you like to use again, pay more attention to, or see differently? Resurrection means doing exactly this.

Spring is here and nature is busy with procreation. The birds and the bees provide such an interesting mirror for human behavior. 

Sometimes it can be hard to see where you're going in life, especially when fear joins the party!

Sometimes things happen that you can't anticipate and response isn't optional. Sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do! But responding in a way that lets you honor the sacredness and fragility of your own emotional system is very important, especially when the crisis happens to someone close to you.

Spring is pushing hard against the cold earth. Winds of change are everywhere. Do you find yourself waiting for what's next, too? 

Life can get dark. Winter days drag on, political roulette between nations threatens war, people get sick, inflation soars.  Sunshine can be hard to find. That's why it's important to go looking for it.

The American retailer is hot on it to make cash off your expressions of love. Flowers, balloons, dinners out, cards, and jewelry with diamonds and hearts. But if you only had 30 days left on this earth, what would you do with that time? How would you express love during that tiny window? Never trade an interesting question for an answer!