The Deafening Silence, Pregnant With Chaos

This year has not been about resolutions, even though I made a few. So far, it has been a year of great things (Terrible, yes...but great).

There is a country song by Tracy Lawrence that talks about hitting the bumps in the road and what you learn from it. He starts by talking about the bad things that happen, and then he reminds us that we "Find out who your friends are". The bit of lyrics that has humbled me this year is "they just show on up with their big old heart". I have had some bad things knock me down this year. I have also been blessed to be shown who my friends are. They showed on up, with their big old hearts and their open wallets and their soft prayers.

Last year, I kept putting off the writing. I don't know why. Maybe I had some sort of knowledge that this was going to be a blank time for my mind, and that left me with a blank page. It has happened before. When I was young, I knew something was wrong with my world, but for the life of me I could not give you an answer as to what it was. I was just sensing it. Impending doom. Dread. My grades went from straight A's to mainly D's and F's. At the end of January 1989, my grandmother died from kidney failure and complications from her Diabetes. And the morning after she died (peacefully in her sleep), I told my mother that we needed to call and talk to family, because Grandmother was feeling better today. As she was moving toward the phone, it rang and an aunt gave us the news. Empathy is a crippling gift, sometimes. When I can actually, not just figuratively but literally, FEEL what someone else feels it can be scary. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with a business card telling me the name of the hurting person around me.

So since squishing grapes, and a little after that, I have not written anything more than grocery lists.

This time, it was a lot closer, and the odd feelings were not quite so debilitating. Age has refined the senses, or maybe dulled them. My mother passed away on January 20. From kidney failure and heart troubles due to her Diabetes. We had a Memorial Service on February 20.

I just stopped.

I no longer wrote, read, or socialized. It got lonely and boring, and old quite fast. So I posted a few thoughts on my Facebook page. And I discovered that Laura Speaker is right. Writing is cathartic for me. I must do it to heal.

I had changed my music in the Playlist, to honor Mom. I put up the only copy I could find of "Flee as a Bird", one of her favorite hymns. I found Acappella's version of "The Lighthouse", as she loved lighthouses and really lived as if Jesus were her personal lighthouse. Now, I believe she is playing on the beach in the sands of time, with the sister she never got to meet in this life.

I am continuing to read "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Piccoult. This was the January book for my online book club. I must say that moving on has hurt. And has been slow happening. And is the most difficult thing I have ever felt compelled to do. Riding an emotional roller coaster when I never wanted to purchase that ticket.

It has also been good. I have communicated more with my Bro and Dad. Rare for both of them to actually talk at all, unless there was a subject that they love to share about. I found out who my friends are. I have amazing friends.

Terrible didn't stop making plans for me, however.

Dad had made a doctor appointment to check on some things. He made the appointment before Mom passed, but the actual visit was about 1 week after she passed. A week after that, he was officially diagnosed with Kidney Cancer.

My Bro was devastated. More than me, I think ... but it is hard to console others while living so deeply IN the grief for oneself. Not only had Mom been stolen from us on our watch, but Fate was punching Dad in the kidney, too. From what Dad has said, he seemed to know there was something wrong for a while, but he wanted to focus on caring for Mom. Now that she is not needing his careful watch, he can focus on caring for himself.

And nine months after I stopped blogging, I am here to try to start again.

I can never be the same. The pain has given birth to a new understanding, and I am hoping to express that in a coherent manner.

I don't know how well I will do at keeping up the writing. I don't know if I have anything to say anymore, or whom would even want to hear it. But, for the few who have tried to spur me on, I am going to start again. I am going to try. We all may have to wade through a fair amount of tripe, but I think we can look forward to more happy subjects and good words coming from me. OK, I am just hoping I still have good words in here.

Death is but a doorway between this life and the next. I believe that Mom is whole and happy and waiting for me. I can't believe she would be happy knowing that I am content to wallow in the grief.

I am standing in a dark room, wondering who turned off the light. Maybe it is time to find the light switch.

The Grape Squishery Of 2009

When I signed up to harvest grapes at Tres Suenos Winery, in Luther Oklahoma, I was not expecting a spiritual revelation from God. But, in essence, that is what I got. The growing of grapes and the making of wine has been a part of the world's economy for centuries. God knew this exacting process would be around for a long time. I believe this is partly why He chose to use the "fruit of the vine" for His remembrance supper. It brings new understanding of Jesus saying "I am the Vine, and you are the branches."

A few years ago, a crowd of our friends attended a wedding at a winery. The bride wanted an outdoor wedding. It was very pretty. They have a small vineyard right on the property, and a small grove of trees on the other side of the main building, where the wedding took place. I fell in love with the beauty of it all. The wine was something new to me. I had never before found one that tasted good to me. This wedding had two flavors of wine that did taste quite good.

DH and I went back later, to an annual festival and wine tasting. We heard wonderful live music, tasted several varieties of wine, and had a grand time. We have been to the festival two years in a row, and are planning to attend our third this fall. The owners of the winery host a harvest in August every year, once the grapes are ready. This year, I signed up to be notified of the harvest. DH did not come, I was on my own this time.

I drove the almost hour from my home, and got there near 7:00 am. I met with the owner of the Winery and about 20 others. We then drove in a caravan to a contract vineyard about 8 miles away, to harvest a white variety of Sauvignon grapes. We snipped grapes off the vines from 8:00 until 11:00 am. Some of the grapes we harvested after the picture.



This is me, among the vines. The first picture of the day. A nice lady came by and said she wanted to take pictures, but her camera was at the house. I handed her mine, and asked that she take a picture of me (so she would know whom to bring the camera back to).



We were each given a white 5 gallon bucket. This is my bucket, mostly full of white grapes.



When those were filled, we put the grapes into bigger crates that could hold 3-4 buckets of grapes. This is one of those crates.



The crates were then picked up, and workers transferred the grapes to huge white containers, and brought back the crates to be filled again. This is one container being loaded on a forklift.



The owner had the load weighed, but he didn't know his empty weight, so there was no exact number for the weight of the grapes we harvested. He estimated that we picked around 3 tons of grapes.

This is one of the owners. His name is Richard.



We got to watch the grapes be moved from the small crates and big white containers through a machine that took off the stems, crushed the grapes, and sent them through a tube to large blue drums. This machine was quite noisy.



For our work the owners provided lunch. (The owner's wife had bought Red Table Grapes at the grocer for us.... and got picked on about it.) After lunch, we had the opportunity to personally stomp on a small batch of grapes. The owner had pulled many stems out of about one crate of grapes, and put them in the bottom of a 55 gallon steel barrel. We got to wash off our feet, and step into the barrel to mash the grapes. There was a baby about 1 year old, and he was having a stomping good time, and then he realized that he was not able to get himself out of the barrel. He cried, and continued to stomp all the way up the side of the barrel. Poor baby. His older brother was also having a great time squishing grapes, ending up in the barrel at least 3 times, with others and by himself. I was the second to last person to step on the grapes. Have you ever stepped on one grape accidentally in your kitchen? This was messy and fun, and totally squishy. These are my toes in the grapes.



The owner will further press those grapes and keep them separate from the rest of the harvest. He will bottle that wine, and put our names on it. He said there would be about 20 bottles from this barrel. White wine should spend about 6 months fermenting before they put it in the bottles, where it will spend another 6 months before it will be drinkable. A year from now, I will have a bottle of wine from the harvest I helped to pick. I plan to refer to it as Baby Toes. This was the baby.



The grapes at the winery property are purple grapes, but I don't know what variety.



The white grapes we harvested.



God truly is an artist. He created such lovely plants, people and processes. I plan to do this again and again. DH hopefully can come next time, and several of my friends have also volunteered. I have to go back there to collect this year's wine: 2009 Sauvignon Baby Toes. If you get a chance to taste wine from Tres Suenos Winery, do it. The name means Three Dreams, and the dreams of the owners have come to be a tasty reality.

New Adventures Of The Traveling Bloggers Or The Chelf Life Of Flea Bytes

I enjoy travel. I love meeting new people. I adore getting to combine the two.

Back in July, on a Thursday, DH and I made a trip to Bricktown (downtown OKC). We met Jayme for dinner, with her immediate family, and some extended family, too. They were in town for the big annual family reunion, that was being held in a church building (less than a mile from my house). We had a really good Italian dinner at Zio's. We enjoyed walking around Bricktown and along the canal.

I had (conveniently for Jayme) left my camera in the car. Apparently, Jayme was nervous that I would chronicle our visit here. I don't like pictures of me, but I am happy to share pictures of others! No pictures this time. Good for Jayme, bad for the rest of us. Ha! I didn't want her to think that I had left her out of the journal, simply because there were no pictures. I loved visiting with them, and I wanted you all to know it!

We had a great time. Neal and DH are friends from many years ago, and it was nice for them to catch up, too. Ellie told DH he was "Ca-RAY-zy!" for not liking Strawberries. That was cute.

A month later, DH has this week off. He took a week of vacation to hang out with me, in honor of our 10th Anniversary (this Friday). We are doing much like we did when we took our honeymoon. Then, he was still in College, and I was working full time. I took one week, and we spent that week taking small trips. We spent our first two nights in a Bed and Breakfast in Guthrie, OK. We also took day trips to Wichita and Tulsa.

Monday this week we went to Tulsa. We met Flea. I don't remember precisely when I found Flea's blog, but we have been enjoying each other's blogs for around two years, I suppose. I knew when I started reading that we were kindred spirits.

She brought the "loquacious" Red Rocks with her. We met at DH's favorite place to eat that we don't have here in OKC, Fuddrucker's. We refer to it simply as Fudd's, as to not say terrible words accidentally. They make burgers to order... you can get a one pound burger that covers a plate! We ate, took pictures and visited for most of two hours!

This is Red Rocks... talking. He is quite into Classic Rock, and was a pleasure to talk to. He had to go home to make an original dessert for a Scout thing that night. Good looking, prepared, and smart. What more could you need from a kid?



Fred and Bessie also came, and enjoyed the picnic. This is Fred, making sure he got the last of the Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese sauce. (A must for the french fries.)



Here is Bessie, worrying about Fred and his balancing act to reach something.



Mr. Monkeysuit came, too. He is a ladies' man. Flea got some good pictures of him giving me a kiss.



Here is DH giving Mr. Monkeysuit the contemplative stare... and probably a warning about getting too fresh with me.



This is the Good Flea and Chelf, photo on my camera, courtesy of DH.



Thank you for coming along on the driving adventures of Chelf and DH. More entries to come, as the Anniversary Week progresses!