Hold the Bridge

The last 48 hours have torn our social fabric into pieces.

Again.

It is such a human, natural reaction to take sides and dig in. To hold the line.

In my tiny little slice of the world, I have huddled like a turtle in my shell, watching my social media and the comments of news articles. My friends who are people of color are speaking a painful, challenging and sacred rage out into the holy space and demanding change. Our beloved Medford Police have gone almost silent in their presence, out of respect but also fear and care.

In my circle, because I know all my people, there are no pitchforks.

No pie forks either.

Folks are wary. Waiting for someone else to make the first move and dictate the mood.

This is not the way.

Philando Castile was a good man serving children. I can carry his loss in my hands at the same time I carry the horror of those officers in Dallas who came to a protest without body armor to show that they were not the bad guys—and were shot down in the street.

I do not have to take sides to fight for justice. I can carry both.

We can carry both.

And when we carry both as a people, we do the most important work of all—patiently and steadily holding the bridge. We’re going to need the bridge later, to repair and heal.

Others may hold the lines drawn on the battlefield. There is a season for that. We have all found ourselves holding the lines.

But if that is not where your heart is called, and if your hands are large and loving enough today to carry both, come hold the bridge.

My Instagram Project

We live in a fairly small, 1920s era home that has NOT a lot of room for a lot of furniture on which to proudly display a lot of pictures in a lot of frames. Besides, I’ve filled every inch of flat surface with pictures in frames for most of my life and frankly, I’m bored with them. But all those Instagram pictures… with all those awesome filters… and all those awesome artsy shots that I convince myself I’ve taken… what to do? And since I’m on a kick of printing out my pictures (remember this blog?)…

It was from this necessity that a project was born.

I won’t call it a craft. Jen and I don’t craft. Please.

I got to thinking that Instagram prints are 4×4. And there is a plank of wood called a 4×4. What if I cut a 4×4 at lengths of 1, 2, and 3 inches, decoupaged my Instagram pictures to the pieces, then arranged them on a wall? The different lengths would give the project some depth. Yes. That’s what I would do.

My uncle had a 4×4 that he cut for me. I stained the blocks, printed out my pictures, bought some Mod Podge and an applicator sponge, and sat down to work. Here’s the finished product:

It was super simple and it’s pretty stunning in person. Here are the step-by-step instructions if you’d like to do it yourself (or a link to the project in my Etsy store, if you don’t want to tackle it on your own.)

Step One: Decide how many Instagram pictures you want to use. I used 42. Not all of these were originally Instagram pictures, though. I created a separate Instagram account just for this project. I took pictures of some old pictures and used some from my existing library. I decided to do all black and white, but you certainly could do color prints, too. You need to make sure that you get them printed at a place that prints Instagram prints. Walgreens and Shutterfly both offer the 4×4 printing option.

I mean seriously, check out this super artsy picture:

Don’t die from the cuteness.

Step Two: Do some math. You will want to cut a variety of block thicknesses. I chose 1, 2, and 3 inches. You’ll need one block per photo. Then decide how many 1-inch blocks, 2-inch blocks, and 3-inch blocks, then add them all up. That’s how long of a 4×4 you’ll need.

Ugh. I hate the maths.

Step Three: Mark and saw your blocks. You can round the corners or leave them square. My uncle rounded and sanded mine. What a nice guy!

Get yourself a good uncle who will do yours, too.

Step Four: Choose a color of wood stain. I chose MiniWax Dark Walnut. I applied just one coat, but apply to your heart’s content. It’s important to get some on the front of the block too. I’ll tell you why later. Let the blocks dry overnight.

Step Five: Now. There’s something that I didn’t know. A 4×4 isn’t 4×4. It’s 3 5/8 x 3 5/8. Neat. So you’ll have to crop your pictures down. The blocks won’t be a perfect square, either. I traced the block on the back of the picture, then cut it out with an exacto knife. So crafty. But inevitably you won’t cut the picture perfectly. So the stain on the front of the block will cover up any cutting mistakes you make.

Step Six: Apply a LIGHT coat of Mod Podge, or other decoupage glue onto the block. Place your picture on the block and press down lightly. Apply a thin layer of Mod Podge over your picture to seal it. Make sure you apply this evenly, in strokes that are all the same direction. You can sort of see the stroke marks on the finished product.

Allow all your blocks to dry overnight. These pictures are so cute. That’s Mazie in the snow on the left, Violet at her 2nd birthday party, then an old picture of my dad and his mother taken in Germany. Right? Be still my heart.

Step Seven: Hanging them on the wall… I realized that 42 nail holes in my wall would be a super bummer, especially since I’m renting. So I used small Command Picture Strips to essentially Velcro them to the wall! Easy application, and easy removal, someday.

I laid them out first on my dining room table in a random sort of pattern (there are two pictures of us as little kids and I positioned them so that he is looking up at me, Brady Bunch style… awwww…), then just transferred them to the wall. They don’t need to be measured and perfect. The perfection lies in the imperfection. (Note to self: apply that philosophy to all areas of my life.)

The great thing about this project is that it’s fluid. It can be added to or moved fairly easily. If you get mad at someone, just unvelcro their block and decoupage a different picture over top of it. Just kidding. Or not…

Tips:

The pictures I chose are very personal. There are two pictures of my dad, who passed away 3 years ago, with my girls. There are pictures of each of us with our children. There is a picture of me and my BFF, a picture of a family recipe written in his mom’s handwriting, my favorite one of my nephew holding Violet, me and my mom and Grandma on Christmas Day this year… each picture is so special and so sweet. They almost break my heart, in a good way, at every stinking meal.

I kept mine all matte finish. I didn’t want a super-glossy look. So I chose the matte Mod Podge and I didn’t do a gloss sealer over the stain. If you want gloss, that’s totally fine. Go with what your instinct tells you. It’s all about you.

There are SO MANY pictures that didn’t make the cut. It’s surprising how many pictures can actually fit in a space. Luckily I have more wall space…

Turning Your Wedding Dress Into Something Old and Forever

Kate makes her First Communion on Saturday. And she’s doing it in my dress.

This is kind of a thing in our family. Back when my brothers and I were getting married, my mom used her dress and my grandmother’s dress to make garters for the brides. They were our something old, and especially meaningful for me, since my grandmother passed in a horrible car accident only a few months before I met Shea. She should have been there on my wedding day and the garter made me feel like she was.

When the grandbabies started coming, my mom made a christening gown. Five grandsons later, she got to make a bonnet for Kate.

As soon as she found out Kate was going to wear my Communion dress, she sent me some lace from her dress to trim the veil and satin covered buttons from my grandmother’s dress.

My grandmother, Virginia (1944):

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My mom, Terri (1968):

photo_2 — Ted and Terri, August 17, 1968

Me (1979):

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Kate in her christening gown (2008):

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Kate in my dress with lace trimmed veil:

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My mom says all she has left of the two dresses is scraps. I think it makes her a little sad.

But the wedding dresses are a magical part of our family history. They could have hung in closets for the last 50 years, and for what? My grandma was tall for her generation, but still five inches shorter than my mom, so even though my mom wanted to wear her dress, it was too short.

I am the same height as my mom, but…how shall I say…more bosomous. I didn’t fit in her dress.

They would be hanging there still if my mom hadn’t had the courage to make them into something new, and lasting.

Now I have a garter to pass on to my girls when they marry. Or I will make them new ones from my dress and pass mine on to my granddaughters. Maybe eventually, there will be a collection from which to choose, our version of the Crown Jewels.

The christening gown is embroidered at the bottom with the name of each child who has been baptized in it—all three of mine and one of my nephews. It’s a living record of faith that I hope gets handed down for generations, until there’s no more room for names and a descendent of mine cuts up her wedding dress to make a new one for her grandchild.

In the meantime, Annie swears she will also wear my Communion dress when the time comes. And before anyone goes bridal dress shopping, I’ll pull my dress out of storage, just in case. If not I won’t be afraid to take scissors to that thing and make precious heirlooms for the grandkids that come along.

Just like a wedding is about a marriage and not a day, a wedding dress is about a family and not a bride.

The Power of Mothers

Grace

You know we have great moms. You know we aspire to be great like them. On Sunday we will celebrate them in love and thanksgiving.

We will also patiently endure the love offerings of our own chicken nuggets. At the dinner table this week, Kate asked me what I wanted for Mother’s Day. I said “No jewelry. No appliances. Nothing for the kitchen.” And she turned her face to me, sweet forehead all scrunched up and asked “Well, what’s left?”

Did you know that the original idea for Mother’s Day was never meant to be about mothers?

It was supposed to be for mothers, a day when mothers all over the world came together to use their collective voice for peace.

I learned this from Glennon at Momastery.

Julia Ward Howe issued “An Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World” in 1870. It reads:

Arise, then, Christian women of this day ! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears ! Say firmly : We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

— Julia Ward Howe

What happened next was that, because she was a woman and a suffragette and she spoke the family business of her repressive marriage outside the bedroom, she was generally ignored.

Almost 40 years later, on May 10, 1908, Anna Jarvis observed the first Mother’s Day at her church. It was in honor of her mother, and again an effort to put the role and voice of mothers in the forefront of society. Her version was more palatable, and Mother’s Day became an official observance in 1914.

Then Hallmark realized there was money to be made and the rest is ugly history.

I don’t know any mother who says “Yippee! Mother’s Day!” For me, that’s because the rewards of my motherhood seem to flow towards me more than from me on any given day, to the point that I honestly feel I should thank my children for the love and joy they bring to my life.

But this iteration of Mother’s Day, as a call to action and justice—that feels real to me. It feels important. It feels powerful.

Mothers are powerful. Yes, we are. Helicopter moms and grizzly bear moms and tree hugger moms and granola moms and stay at home moms and working moms—we have some power.

This year, let’s use it. After church and the brunch and the school crafts and the “gifts” have been attended, eaten and opened—find a way to use your power.

Donate to Glennon’s Compassion Collective, which is feeding 6000 families every day.

Adopt a child from World Vision and become a “mother” for a child stuck in grinding poverty.

Send an email to the presidential candidate you support and the one you dislike the most and tell them why. Ask them to advocate for kids and peace.

Decide that this is the year you will become a Sunday School teacher or choir director or troop leader or coach and be an important adult in the lives of someone else’s kids.

Commit to a month of rosaries, asking the Blessed Mother to bring peace and love to this world.

Mothers are powerful and the world needs us.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Living in the Digital Age

These past few weeks have been filled with nostalgia and dust. Lots of dust. At the age of 93, my Grandma Betty has moved into an assisted living home. Her health is touch and go, her eyesight is bad, and sometimes, she just can’t remember to eat. For us grandkids, this is devastating. Grandma Betty has lived in the same house since the 1950s. And it was last redecorated, I think, in 1979. Translate that into this: for my whole life, nearly, that place has not changed. No new carpet. No different sofa. The lamps? Same spot. The kitchen? Can we call it “vintage chic” or perhaps just waaaayyyyy outdated?

Walking into Grandma Betty’s house is a like walking into a time capsule. It looks the same as it has for my entire life. It smells the same. My handprint that we gave to Grandma and Grandpa when I was two months old is still on the original nail from 1975. So leaving it has shaken us to the core.

For my cousins Dawn and Sarah, and me, going to Grandma’s house was like going to a safe-haven. At Grandma’s house, we played ping-pong with Grandpa Art, we dug in the sand box (remember when we would find the toys we had buried the previous summer?), and we had Coke floats, and fires in the fireplace. We would eat breakfast on the patio, wrapped in Grandma’s fluffy pink robe. We would go for bike rides or walks in the evening. We tried on her clip-on earrings and her amazing shoes. Rummy Cube, Rack-O, Clue, Uno.

But no matter what we did, even just sitting together reading books, there was always an abundance of love. We were cherished, treasured, indulged. We were the smartest kids, or the funniest. She would say, “Why I never!” through her giggles. We were the most talented. “Where did you ever learn to do that?” And no matter what we did, it was cataloged in pictures.

The picture albums at Grandma’s house begin in the year 1969. Everywhere she went, her camera went too. There is evidence of our Halloween costumes (in 1980 I was Chewbacca), evidence of our school performances. There are snap shots from evenings spent climbing trees or afternoons painting her white picket fence. And going through these pictures has been a blast. Dawn and I have spend more than a few hours gasping (Do you remember how high my bangs were?), groaning (I can’t believe I wore that!), giggling (We look like a couple of sunburned lobsters!), and remembering (I felt so special when Grams and I went shopping together.).

In her closets, too, I have found some real treasures… more pictures of Grandma’s brother, Marvin who went down over the Pacific in WWII:

Pictures of her sister Mazie, who my older daughter is named after:

Pictures of her first (yes, first) fiancé, Warren:

And a real gem, a picture of her mother’s mother, dated 1871:

Finding all of these treasures has made me reflect on my own record keeping. It’s easier than ever, now, to take pictures. And don’t pretend that you’re not just like me and that you don’t whip out your camera for an especially good latte:

We snap pictures and videos like crazy, but how many of us still get them printed out? I know that I don’t. And right now, I’m a little sad about that.

What about when Mazie and Violet’s children are packing up my house? Will they sit in front of a computer and look at my iCloud? Will it even exist any more? Will they find their mamas’ baby pictures? See them in funny outfits?

girls

Will they find pictures of me and my dad, and see his nose or his smile in their own faces? And one more question… Does it really matter? Do these events, unimportant to everyone but us, have a place in our lives?

My answer is a resounding, “Yes!” Yes, they matter. Maybe not to the world. Maybe not to anyone but me. But they still matter. They provide a sense of belonging. In the pictures I can still feel the emotion of the moment, and I realized that Grandma and Grandpa were there, sharing them with me. Here’s the literal moment that I caught the final out for a CIF softball title:

Here’s where I laid my head on my dad’s shoulder on a Saturday:

Or when I signed my national letter of intent to go to University of Virginia, at 10:55pm, in Austin, Texas, she has written:

In the older pictures, pictures of my mother as a teenager, I see the hope and sparkle in her eyes and I realize that she was a girl before she was my mom:

I see Nana, Betty’s mother, standing with pride on the porch of her home that had just been painted, a home that she purchased, maintained, and lived in all on her own until she was 103:

This is where I am from. This is the very fiber of my being. These are the moments, big and small, that made up my life. And I am grateful to have seen them again.

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