Who They Really Were: A Journey

I never imagined I would make a serious attempt at writing historical fiction. When I was in early high school, I started a manuscript of a story set in the 1840s but that's because I was working at a living history museum and thought I knew everything. I think I still have it in a bright purple envelope, but I refuse to go looking. Reading it, I'm sure, would we incredibly cringe-worthy.

*shudder*

You see, despite the fact that I have a real love for history, and even minored in history in college, I'm really not much a historian. I get bored too easily by non-fiction to read much of it. It often seems like a lot of dry detail packaged with a nice cover. So I figured I would never write historical fiction because I would never know enough about any given period to write about it well. And when I started working on The Sayen Falls Series in 2014, I made a solemn commitment to myself that I would not write any story if I couldn't tell it well, tell it truthfully, tell it with the honor it deserves. That's why I made certain creative choices with my characters and not others.

But there's one story I've always wanted to tell. A true story. The story of two people I love very much and who loved me very much. My grandparents--Milford and Betty Buterbaugh. I mean, I've thought about this since I was probably seventeen years old. That's half my life at this moment in time. I was just never sure how to go about it. Screenplay? Novel? I don't write historical fiction. Guess this won't work.

Then last year it hit me to construct a story that's told largely through the paperwork of a life, the mementos and souvenirs, the scrapbooks and photo albums, the stuff and clutter. So I decided this was my vehicle. This is how I would finally be able to tell their story. And then I was hit with a new unexpected problem. 

I didn't really know them.

We were very close. They absolutely doted on me and I couldn't have adored them more. The thing

is--I knew them as my grandparents. Kind, generous, old people who told interesting stories about days gone by....but they weren't like the young people in the photos, the young woman who scribbled over the faces of his ex-girlfriends in the yearbook, the young couple who eloped and had to hide it. I've always known that they eloped. BOTH sets of my grandparents did, in fact. (And my dad's parents have an incredible story as well that I know even less about and will perhaps be another quest someday). But since I've always known it, it didn't really seem that surprising. Until I stopped and thought about it, and tried to figure out how my "never do a wrong thing" grandmother ran away to marry my grandfather. That made me scratch my head. That made me realize: my grandparents were real people. They were more than my grandparents. They were young once and in love. They took risks. They were newlyweds and first-time parents and struggled to make ends meet. They had a whole story and it must be fascinating. 

Yet, when I sat down to piece together the narrative there were huge cavernous gaps. A major reason for this is that by the time I was born in 1984, Grammy was 63 and PapPap was 71. I didn't really have grown-up question to ask them until she was in her late 80s and he was in his 90s. By then, my grandmother's memory had started to fade. Plus, I still didn't really know the right questions to ask. "What was life like during the depression?" is a stupidly open-ended question that always yielded vague answers. 

Thankfully, some of the gaps can be filled in partly by my mom (who had the smarts to ask them detailed questions AND write down answers), or my aunt and uncle. But some things...no one knows. My grandparents were deeply private people and had no problem telling us "that's none of your business" if we asked something a little too intimate. This is not my default setting--I'm an open book type--so I'm especially perplexed by this. So, even if I had asked some of the questions then that I have now, I might not have gotten answers. Although, maybe I'd be pushy enough now to really ask because I desperately would like to know what kinds of things they fought about when they were first married, was she scared the first time she was pregnant, how did she know mom things without the internet? 

Anyway...I digress a bit. As usual. 

Now, faced with this mystery, I feel challenged to discover them for who they really were. I want to know who the young Milford and Betty were. How did that sweet 18 year old fall in love and run away with the quiet 26 year old who drove his car too fast? So I'm researching. I have a stack of non-fiction books on my side table that's very high. I'm combing through the precious few documents I have that they wrote and saved, and I'm hoping to get more from those who have them so I can piece together the story.

Which brings me back to writing historical fiction. Yes, I do intend to make a book out of this. BUT for several reasons it will be fiction. The most important reason is that because my grandparents were private, I think it would be disrespectful to them to not fictionalize it in some ways, change their names, etc. And the second important reason is, I simply cannot know the whole and complete and true story. It's impossible. So I have to take some creative license, make educated guesses, and fill it in as I go. (Hence the mile high stack of books). Milford and Betty are the inspiration, but truly at this point in time, only God knows what's going to come of this. I'm just setting out to discover not only their story, but the story God wants me to tell. Basically, all I have so far are names and a very sketchy outline. (Van and Ivy, if you're wondering. Aren't those great names??)

I decided the other day--whilst sitting in my closet staring at my great-great-aunt and uncle's wedding registry from 1913--that I should chronicle this in my blog. Most posts will not be this long, I just wanted to lay out the back story before I jump in. The fact is every question leads to another one and another one. I've been rapid fire texting my mom and googling things and making lists out the wazoo to even make the semblance of a narrative right now. And I think this journey is in some ways just as interesting as anything I will write coming out of it.

It's not that I'm so interesting or that I think anyone on this planet (other than my mom) will be interested in me figuring out minutiae like how long my great-great grandparents were married before my great-great aunt and uncle got married (why is that interesting even to me? Because they were two sisters that married two brothers but there seems to be a big gap between the two weddings....). It's that I think there are lots of people out there like me who one day realized that those who went before us were real people and we want to know what they were really like. And by sharing my own journey to know my grandparents, maybe other people will be inspired to dig in and see what they can find too. There are things we can yet learn from those who came before us.

The Bible tells us that human life is fleeting. We're all here today and gone tomorrow. But we leave traces of ourselves behind and it tells a story. And those stories matter.

The Inheritance of Cathedral Work

As I write, it is one day since most of Notre Dame has burned. The reports are slightly conflicting as to how much was truly destroyed, "ravaged" by flames as the eye witnesses describe. But in any case, it's a breathtaking loss. It feels surreal. This magnificent, larger than life structure, full of grandeur, designed to lift the eye to the light and bend the knee to the holy has been standing for eight or nine hundred years.

I've been learning about cathedrals just as a matter of happenstance lately. Many of the podcasters and bloggers I follow have been writing and speaking about them. Most of the oldest, tallest, grandest cathedrals took generations to complete. One generation would begin the work, another would finish it. Perhaps three or four generations separated the beginning and the end, but the work was singular--to construct a beautiful gathering place to reflect on the majesty of God, to lift songs to the risen Savior, to quicken the imagination for the perfect city God is building for us. 

My modern American brain struggles with the idea of starting a work that I will never see completed. We build churches in a matter of months. We routinely tear down sanctuaries and start over to build bigger, better. We seem to make our churches ever darker--not lighter. Paint the walls black, use filtered lights, fog machines. Our ancestors would think we were nuts. In a time before man-made light, they craved light. Stained windows cast a holy glow over a place to open up the mind for contemplation. I wonder what our obsession with dark and fog says about our cravings. Maybe it's because we live in a world so full of stimulus, that we have to darken our worship areas in order to focus. I don't know. I digress.

So today I've been thinking about building cathedrals. It's a lost art. Communities just don't do it anymore. We don't quarry the rock and fell the forests and hire the artisans to labor for two-hundred years to build a place where our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will worship. We don't weep on the same altar where our parents and grandparents did. And that's okay really. The Holy Spirit is just as sacred and potent and strong in Saint Paul's Cathedral as in a hovel in Africa or a secret church in China. Some would argue, the earnest artistry has been overshadowed by pageantry and the Spirit has been hushed. Perhaps so in some of these grand once-sacred places.

Still, there seems to be a message in this. For me, anyway. A directive finally uncovered. I'm in a strange, quiet season where words don't flow and writing hurts. I've been reading and reading and reading. And listening to podcasts and soaking up whatever I can to wring meaning out of it. I'm hungry for answers to deep questions, questions that I've maybe carried with me my entire life but are finally bursting forth to be answered. As if someone had planted tiny little apple seeds in my soul when I was a baby, and now it's time for them to grow into a tree and bear fruit.

As I pondered cathedrals and generations laboring together, knowing one would start and another would finish, I felt some sort of deep truth blossom. Isn't this exactly what my grandmother did in her own quiet way? The woman never carried a chisel to carve a stone, she never worked with glass to reflect the light, but she labored in love for Christ. She served in her local church for decades, and at her funeral person after person after person after person stood to tell the story of how she loved like Jesus and their lives were changed through her. She loved us, her kin, her family with humble devotion. She taught her kids right from wrong and the promises of God. She loved my brother and me, her grandchildren, whole-heartedly but with wisdom. I just said to my husband last night that when I'm tempted to complain about my kitchen (I cook on a hot plate, y'all, because I don't have a stove actually in my kitchen) I ask myself what my grandmother would do and I know she would do her work cheerfully. I try. I try to carry on as she would. She started a cathedral work; I've inherited the labor and I want my contribution to be as lovely in the eyes of God as hers.

It will look different. I tried to be her for a while, but that doesn't work. We were created differently. I'm working with different spiritual gifts, different personality quirks, different talents. My generation is also remarkably different than hers--she grew up in The Great Depression and had her oldest children during World War 2. I'm in that displaced generation between Generation X and Millenials, where we remember library card catalogs but also had to be told Wikipedia isn't a legit source for research papers.

However, our striving is the same. My grandmother spent her life laboring for the Kingdom of Heaven. There's no cathedral I can point to and boast that she set this stone, she crafted that window, she hand-carved that gargoyle. But I am a living, breathing example of one who was changed by her work and her example. And I labor for the same Kingdom. The fruit will be in the people around me. My children, my someday grandchildren, my friends, my community....the people I may never meet who read the words I write. My words are like seeds blown into the wind. I don't know how far they may float or onto what kind of soil they may land, but God may bring fruition through them. I pray for this. I pray that my contribution to the cathedral pleases Him. And I pray that though I get tired and weary, I never give up.

I have to imagine that at least some of the workers in the cathedral had to wonder if spending their lives creating something they would never see finished really made sense. Certainly, in our modern world we would say it was stupendously inefficient and a waste of  life. We crave production, end results, and mass quantities of them if possible. Thankfully the laborers of the cathedrals didn't quit when they couldn't see the end. And thankfully those who have labored on invisible cathedrals of the heart and soul didn't give up when they couldn't see the end either. They kept the faith, they finished their work, and passed the mantle to us.

I was almost done with this post and my kids came in. The writing bubble has burst. The words are just gone. As suddenly as they came to me, they're now gone. So I can't really "finish" this the way I would like to. I like to wrap up with something neat and tidy, poignant if I can manage it, quotable if I'm really on a roll. But. After ten minutes or so I've trying to manufacture something that's good and it just feels like a tangent or like I'm changing the point or I'm just plain rambling, I've realized something: this whole post is about doing work that can't be finished. I'm a writer with two noisy kids. My labor in their lives is perhaps the greatest work I'll never do, so sometimes I have to set aside the writing. I don't truly know what my legacy of words will look like, but I know what I want my legacy of love to look like. So. I'm leaving this blog post more or less unfinished to go do the work that will last. And I'll leave you with this simple thought: What are you working on that will last? What will out-live you?

And since words escape me and I find myself lacking the poignant, I leave you with a poem that has given me much food for thought in the last six or nine months. Just read it slowly, line by line, and consider how you live today and the cathedrals you build for tomorrow.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

By: Wendell Berry 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion – put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Sparrows, Rams on the Mountain, and Me

When my daughter was born she screamed for the first forty-five minutes of her life. She wasn't crying. She was screaming. She was irate. Inconsolably angry at being brought into this cold, strange world. And she was hungry. I mean, she was eleven pounds, eight ounces at birth. The girl probably really wanted some chocolate chip cookies and a glass of cold milk. It was her favorite in utero and it's her favorite now at three years old. But it's not exactly protocol to give newborns cookies and milk, however much they scream. Instead, we tried to get my baby to nurse. By "we" I mean I had a whole team working with me and trouble-shooting and trotting out every trick they had up their sleeves. When the lactation consultant--who was so kind and cheerful and positive and wonderful--declared that my daughter was a "tough case" I knew I was in for trouble.

You see, I have two children (most of you already know this, but I will write for those of you who perhaps don't know me in real life). My daughter is my youngest. I have a son three and a half years older. And he never did get the hang of nursing. Oh, we tried. And the guilt I had when I stopped trying and started using formula instead was intense. Deeply intense. And very much exacerbated by my undiagnosed post-partum depression and the mommy wars. You know, those passive aggressive comments made on social media that cut to the quick and everyone bloody well knows it. Those mommy wars.

So when my sweet screaming girl came along, I had been determined that I would breastfeed her longer than my son. If memory serves (which it doesn't because I've been sleep-deprived for almost seven years), I made it about ten weeks with my son and my goal with my daughter was eleven. I wanted just one more week. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back to the hospital....Collectively, the experts and my husband and me agreed that we would try to get my daughter to latch for ten minutes and if she was still hopping angry, we'd stop and give her a bottle. We didn't want her to start associating feeding, or worse yet, me, with anger and frustration. The plan was to pump as much as possible but if girlfriend needed a little formula, that was okay too. Really hard for my pride in the mommy wars, but okay.

I so clearly remember sitting alone with her in my quiet little hospital room and feeling deeply worried. I had all this emotional baggage from "failing" with my son. I had hoped she would be easy. Nothing about this was going right and we hadn't even left the hospital. Then--all of a sudden, as they say--I felt in my spirit a message from the Lord. He assured me that he looks after birds and makes sure they get enough to eat each day, and that my dear sweet girl was worth more to him than any bird. He would make sure she'd thrive too. One way or another, I wasn't in this alone. I wasn't responsible for making sure she was okay. I mean, I wasn't free to neglect her, but the parts that were out of my control were in His control. He saw me. He saw my daughter. And we were going to be okay.

Naturally, I looked up the scripture passages about sparrows and the lyrics to the song "His Eye is on the Sparrow". I started singing it to her to soothe her. I found a rendition by The Newsboys that I think freaks my mother (Hi, Mom!) out a little bit, but it worked like magic to settle my fussy newborn. I learned all the words to that song. I memorized them in the first week or so of her little life. It became my anthem, even when it didn't work to calm her down.

There were some nights when she just wouldn't stop crying. It didn't matter how hard I tried, how much milk I offered, if I swaddled her or not, if I rocked her or not, if I sang or not. It didn't matter to her if I sang, but I kept singing because it mattered to me. I distinctly remember standing in her nursery, so bleary-eyed from no sleep, and teary-eyed because I was just so wrecked by the crying infant and singing over and over again...

"And I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free for His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

Singing about happiness with tears streaming down your face makes an indelible impression on your spirit. I was clinging to that promise. I grabbed hold of it hard and I didn't let go.

Eventually, my daughter got a grip on her emotions and settled into a pretty wonderful baby. I also eventually gave up nursing her (I believe I made it eleven weeks and one day.) About the same time she became rather pleasant, PPD hit me hard. Anxiety. Never had it before. Not like that anyway. Which I talked about in the post 'Kindness Carries the Light'. Fluctuating hormones, and weeks of high-stress and very little sleep did me in. Still, I had the promise that God was watching.

And not just watching, lest you think this God of mine is a passive one who merely observes from on high and occasionally remarks to other celestial beings about the tiny humans on that blue and green ball. That is not my God. My God is deeply personal and intentional and deliberate and kind. God moves. His plans are, in fact, set in motion before my need even arises. He knows what I need now and what I will need next week and what I'll need in three years or thirty or whatever. Being omniscient gives you that kind of high-level clearance. And being omnipotent gives Him the clearance to also do something.

You don't always see it. Or, I don't anyway. I probably shouldn't speak for you. Maybe you're more observant than I am. But I don't usually see the provision before it's smacked me in the face and announced it's arrived. I don't see the ram climbing up the hill as I trudge up with my sacrifice. When Abraham and Isaac went up the mountain so Abraham could sacrifice his beloved son, he didn't notice or know about the ram coming up that would take Isaac's place. But God did. God made sure that ram was coming. Lately, I like to trace the steps backwards in this biblical narratives that we know so well that we take the details for granted. God knew that ram was needed the day it was born. That ram had a purpose and God got it up the hill for Abraham on just the right day. The ram wasn't a week early and missed it, it wasn't a day late and a dollar short. The timing was perfect. The provision came in the moment of crisis.

Friends. I'm going to be honest with you. 2019 has been a moment of crisis for my family. All three months of it. My husband has a heart condition; it's genetic and he's known about it for over twenty years. It's been well-managed and monitored for those two decades. This January he had an episode that landed him in the hospital for five days while they poked and prodded and scanned him, then hemmed and hawed and read results. The good news is after a minor surgery where he got a new internal defibrillator with some additional features and some new medicines, he's stable and good to go. He can live his normal life and he's fine! Except his employer won't let him come back to work for a year. We don't understand it. The doctors don't understand it. No one I have talked to understands it. And mountains of paperwork has been printed and faxed and copied and mailed and messed up by people not us....and hours and hours of phone calls have been made to fix what's messed up and find out what's needed and to determine what our immediate future holds. It's been stressful.

Yet. My God is watching. El-Roi. The God who sees me. This name was given to Yahweh by the Egyptian slave Hagar, a woman mistreated and hurt and desperate. She was sure she was alone in the wilderness and unable to provide for her son when God spoke to her. He gave her a promise and he provided for her and her son.

I've loved the story of Hagar ever since college when I first intimately understood that my God is one who sees me. Then today, oh, today was a hard day of listening to my husband's half of phone calls and feeling like I can't fix anything and trying to keep the kids and the dog quiet and no one was having it. I was so done. I was just so exhausted deep inside. I used up all my soul energy frowning and fretting and freaking out but swallowing it up whole so the kids wouldn't start to worry. Anyone else ever been there? Anyway. I finally got shoes and socks on the wild ones and we headed out the door to pick up some things we needed. As I stepped into the garage, it hit me--all of a sudden:

"His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

It was almost audible. I'm surprised my kids didn't' say, "who said that?" I dialed up the playlist I made for my daughter when she was a newborn, I haven't listened to it in two years at least. The first song on it is "His Eye is on the Sparrow" by The Newsboys. Ordinarily, my children have very strong opinions about what we listen to in the car. If it's not The Greatest Showman, Mary Poppins Returns, or Charlie Brown Christmas they're not having it. Today we listened to "His Eye is on the Sparrow", "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" (the Lily James version, so lovely), "Blackbird" (yes, by the Beatles. My son asked to turn it up), "Forever Young" (sung by Alfie Boe. Look. It. Up. Get tissues first), and "Your Grace Finds Me." They fussed a little with the last one but I had it cranked pretty loud at that point. *Shrug* I was worshiping the Lord.

I wish I could tell you that we got home from the store and my husband ran out to greet us shouting that all our problems are over and we struck oil in the backyard...or found gold under the shed....or someone just gave us a check that would cover the whole year....or some other bananas thing. He didn't. But he was smiling. And we had a nice dinner and then he played with my son while my daughter and I did the dishes. Okay, I did the dishes. She played in the sink but it makes her so ridiculously happy to do it that I no longer mind the water slopped on the floor or the fact that she's technically in my way. We were together. We've been together more in 2019 than we've ever been since the kids came along. And happier. We have our moments--all families and couples do. It can't always been sunshine.  But we're contented together. We play games and build with Legos and do puzzles and draw pictures and tell stories and read books and watch movies and play with the dog. There's so much to do just here in our home. The little home we complain about because the kitchen needs remodeled and we wish it sat on five acres. Yet this home is full of good things, and "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows." (James 1:17 NIV)

James wrote that in his contribution to the New Testament. James was a brother of Jesus. I wonder if he was among the brothers that first thought Jesus was mad and tried to bring him home to just be quiet and stop embarrassing the family. In their defense, maybe it was bad for business. Reputation is everything for a family business. But James came around. We don't know how exactly, but clearly he came to believe in his big brother. And I'm glad he did. James also wrote "consider if pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance....Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."

In my life, I have faced trials of many kind. The other evening I started thinking through the last several years of my life and the list of trials was staggering (I had a legitimate reason for pondering this, it wasn't self-pity, I promise! It may perhaps be another post sometime this year). I don't know that I've always persevered well. I'm not much for perseverance typically. I'm more of a sit in the dirt and whine type. And yet. I'm here. And I've learned so much about the Lord it is also staggering. I know I haven't considered it pure joy. At no point today did I start naming and claiming 'pure joy' about our circumstances. Yet, in the moment when I heard the Good Shepherd speak to me, I experienced peace and joy. I was able to worship Him with a lump in my throat and kids in the backseat because I know that His eye is on the sparrow and He also watches me. I don't know that have that 'crown of life' yet, but I know that if I get handed any crowns or treasures when I arrive in Paradise that I'm headed straight to throne room to set it at the feet of Jesus. I have much thanks to give for all the rams on the mountain, all the provision in the wilderness, and all the reassurances that my family and I are worth more than many sparrows. Really, I owe Him everything.

Kindness Carries the Light

The last few days have been utterly exhausting but God has been in each moment, boldly revealing himself. In family. In friends. In quiet moments. And sometimes in banjos.

Yes, banjos. Let me explain.

Three years ago my childhood best friend, Holly, happened to be watching a morning news program when an Irish band came on to play a couple songs and promote their summer tour. Knowing me and my love for anything Irish, she texted me the name of the band and told me to look them up.

I. Fell. In. Love.

David Howley, Martin Howley, Enda Scahill, and Fergal Scahill

The band is We Banjo 3 and their genre is 'celtgrass' which is

an amazing marriage of American bluegrass with traditional Irish folk music. Two sets of brothers, Martin and David Howley, and Enda and Fergal Scahill, make up this incredible quartet of unparalleled talent and awesomeness.

Last year, in 2018, Holly and I went to see them in concert at the GAR Hall in Peninsula. The GAR Hall was constructed during the Civil War, and as it houses many artifacts from the era, it retains all of its historic charm. It's an intimate little hall that was packed with people--most of whom had seen the band before. Holly and I had no idea what we were in for. A Scottish band, Talisk, opened for them and blew the lid off the old hall. Then We Banjo 3 absolutely blew us away with their talent, passion, storytelling, and kindness. We left that night (in a snow storm) committed to We Banjo 3 for life.

At that concert, they played a couple new songs from the album they went on to release in the summer of 2018. Songs about depression and hope and family and love. Songs that stuck with me for a long time. And when that album dropped, I played it on a loop for weeks. My kids know the words to every song, and I'm good with that. The messages on the Haven album are everything I need to hear and want my kids to internalize. I don't think I've ever heard an album as honest and hopeful as this one. It's a curious blend in this modern age of cynicism and, well, ugly. But it's what we so desperately need. Honest words that life isn't always easy and mental health is a messy business sometimes, yet tempered with the insistent message of hope and light. I've talked before about my obsession with light. At least four songs on Haven talk about light. No wonder this is my jam.

Mental health is a hard thing to talk about. At the risk of this backfiring on me....I've wrestled with depression off and on for over a decade. Probably closer to two decades, though it it wasn't diagnosed until 2008. After my son was born in 2012, I experienced post partum depression which made me afraid that someone was going to take him away from me if I made a mistake, and that anyone but me would be better at raising him. It took about six or eight weeks for that to pass. When my daughter was born in 2016, PPD actually presented as anxiety. I'd never experienced anxiety like that before. I couldn't explain how I felt to anyone. I just knew I wasn't me, and I wasn't right. And talking about it felt impossibly hard at times. This took six to eight months before I got my feet under me again. Over the years, I've endured some dark days and nights that keep me ever yearning for the light. 

The hard things are the things we need to talk about. Or write music about. Or write novels about. My Sayen Falls Series features many characters wrestling with mental health issues for a wide variety of reasons. Most notably are my main characters; Blythe Elwood who is prone to depression and Gracen Hall who battles anxiety daily. As the story progresses into future books, I'll explore other facets of mental health like trauma and PTSD. But there will always be a thread of light and hope to follow. I want to be brave enough to write about the hard things--to write boldly about hard things as Hemingway instructed--and also brave enough to claw for the light.

The first time I listened to the Haven album in its entirety, I was almost in shock. My characters could've written these songs. 'War of Love' is Jesse Beckwith in a three-minute-and-twenty-nine-second song. I mean, it's eerie. And 'Pack It Up' could easily be played by Silas Elwood at an open-mic at The Yellow Bowl. The title song 'Haven' is so fitting for Blythe and for Gracen that I'm starting to wonder if the banjo boys hacked my laptop.

"Lay down your weapons, lay down with me. We will stare at the stars and think what life could be. Island of memories we'll leave them where they lie. Can we make the choice for love and joy? The moon lights a path we can travel down. River runs wild with what has gone before. Cast aside for new and more and more and more and more and more and more. Let me be your haven. Let me be your light. Sail with me across the ocean deep. And find a place for love and joy."

I was supposed to attend the We Banjo 3 concert in Peninsula this past weekend. Then we had a medical emergency. Everything planned was immediately canceled and I shifted all my attention to my husband.

Holly still went to the concert. She sent me some pictures, and told me that Martin compared Peninsula to Narnia or Hogwarts because no one has ever heard of it and you can't find it unless you know about it. I mean, he's not wrong. In fact, I think he's spot-on. 

Then, after the show she sought out David. She told him how our plans were derailed and my husband was in the hospital. The next thing I knew I was on the phone with him. It wasn't riveting conversation on my end because I was rather astonished. (I gave the play by play to my husband and he said it sounded like when he'd call girls in 7th grade. Again, he's not wrong. Pretty spot-on). 

And yet that brief conversation carried the light. Kindness always carries the light, and often small actions can carry more than we'd ever expect. This perhaps is the underlying message in Haven, and it is without a doubt an underlying message of Sayen Falls.

My family has been blessed with so many acts of kindness over the last few days. Our family and friends have been invaluable. I told my mom that I can tell so many people are praying because I can practically see it dripping down the walls. We are saturated in love right now. Even a wee bit of banjo love. And we're all back home under one roof! As I write this, everyone is sleeping soundly except me. As usual and as it should be. I'm heading off to dreamland soon myself. I will likely dream of kindness because I'm just so in awe of the Lord's mercies and the actions of kind souls. 

If We Banjo 3 plays a show anywhere even remotely near you--go. Even if you think celtgrass is not your thing. It will become your thing. It will be fun and entertaining, and it will be hopeful. And if you get to talk to the boys, they will be friendly and kind. And if you can manage to not be tongue-tied like me, they'll even listen to your stories.

And if you can't get to a show, download the album, grab a couple friends, and share your stories. Build community, find your tribe, make connections. As the boys in the band say, "we all need more kindness in this world....we all need more banjos in this world." And trust me, when something comes up and knocks your feet out from under you, having a real community to catch your fall is priceless.

Joy, Wonder, and Lessons from Mary Poppins

"Once upon a time, I knew a man with a leg named...oh, wait, that's not the right story....This is a story about a little boy named Michael. He wanted to give his tuppence to a bird lady...."-- Mr. Dawes, Jr. Mary Poppins Returns

"I was just about your age when I met Mary Poppins for the first time myself. I was working with a chimney sweep named Bert."--Jack the Lamplighter, Mary Poppins Returns

"I didn't think I'd ever feel this much joy and wonder again. I thought that door was closed to me forever."-- Michael Banks, Mary Poppins Returns

(Full disclosure: I'm quoting from memory. Don't sue me if it's not word-for-word. 😉)

I took my little boy to see Mary Poppins Returns tonight. It was his second time seeing it since he's about as obsessed as I am and was heartbroken at the thought of having to wait until March for the DVD. I made him earn it by doing some extra reading, though I certainly don't feel bad for indulging him in this treat. I want to fill him up on good, hearty stories. Those are the things we carry with us all our lives, although we aren't always aware of it. The stories we experience and internalize as children shape us and guide us into adulthood. The fairy tales help us believe in believing, the adventure stories help us be adventurous, and the hero stories teach us heroism is in us all. We learn about friendship, hard work, love, and family through stories. And stories stay with us forever.

I've seen Mary Poppins Returns *cough* four *cough* times now. I tear up every single time in the same darn spot. And while I've avoided spoilers in my previous posts.....I'm throwing up the SPOILER ALERT warning and plunging full speed ahead (Admiral Boom would approve).

There are two major hurdles the Banks family are trying to clear in this sequel. The first is that Michael's wife, Kate, has died in the past year. He's left heartbroken and lost, and the children grow up much too quickly to cope. The second is that Michael had to take a loan out against the value of their home to stay afloat, but he's defaulted on the loan and may lose the house. Mary Poppins comes back into Michael and sister Jane's lives just in time to bring some magic and direction to set them back on course. All of this is explained in the first ten minutes or so.

Let's jump ahead to the climax of the movie. It's crunch time. Michael and Jane must deliver a crucial piece of paper to the bank by midnight, but there's only seven minutes to go. Mary Poppins and the children decide to "turn back time". Without hesitation, Jack the Lamplighter not only naturally assumes he's part of the rescue team, but also tells his buddies to gather all the lamplighters at Big Ben. The race against time begins, and hundreds of shadowy figures rush through the night to join Mary Poppins, the children, and Jack at the most famous clock tower in the world. This is community in motion. This teaches my son that when someone needs help, you jump in. And if it's a big problem, you bring all your buddies with you. We don't do hard things alone. We don't do impossible things alone. And life without community is an impossible thing.

At last they're at the bank, and the issue of time has been resolved (I won't spoil HOW because it's one of my very favorite parts and I hold my breath every time), but it still seems that Michael will lose the house after all. Villainy and all that, you know. And then--big spoiler--Dick Van Dyke as Mr. Dawes, Jr. appears. I have to stop myself from clapping and cheering like it's live theater every time. Of course, he saves the day because it's just the best cameo ever. And he tells Michael's children about the time their father wanted to give his tuppence to a bird lady. Michael and Jane listen in rapt attention, remembering themselves, and their eyes become glassy with tears. That's when I notice mine are too. And in this moment, I have to remember that I'm not Michael. This story isn't real. It just feels so real because I internalized that story as a child.

Like Jack the Lamplighter, I was just a little kid when I first met Mary Poppins. And in the way Disney designed the film, it felt like Bert was my friend and he introduced me to her. And so, just like Jack, I've remembered all the magic and possibility over all the years. I haven't forgotten her.

But like Jane and Michael, I've also suffered hardship and loss and worries, I've lost some of the magic and wonder. I've start disbelieving all the imaginative adventures could be true,

So, when Mr. Dawes starts down memory lane, in that moment, I am Michael and the investment I made as a child has been guarded well and invested wisely. Mr. Dawes reveals that the tuppence Michael eventually gave to the bank has been kept safe and sound, and in fact, has grown into a tidy sum. And in the tenderness of this moment, as Mr. Dawes remembers how his daddy, Mr. Dawes, Sr (previously played by Dick Van Dyke) died laughing at a joke Mr. Banks told him that he learned from Michael, it all sort of comes full circle. The real investment here is joy and wonder. And that is a most worthy investment. That's why I've taken my son to see this film twice and he listens to the soundtrack until we're all crazy. That's why we read and read and read all manner of wonderful stories. That's why we talk about silly things and scary things and all the things we can. It's an investment in his heart and his character. Guarded well and invested wisely, it will grow and carry with him into his grown-up years. Just like it has for me. Stories and wonder yield high dividends in the long run.

There are so many little lessons to be learned from Mary Poppins. We first learned that 'in every job that must be done there is an element of fun' and that 'enough is as good as a feast' and that there's a word for every occasion. And now we're learning that 'some stuff and nonsense could be fun' and 'nothing's gone forever, only out of place', and that we can't 'think so much about where we've been that we don't pay attention to where we're going'. We can learn about good friends like Bert and the chimney sweeps, and Jack and the lamplighters, and Ellen the Maid, and Admiral Boom, and Miss Lark and her spoiled pups (first Andrew and then Willoughby). We can learn about doing the right thing even when you're surrounded by the wrong people, like the nice lawyer Mr. Fry. And we can learn that there's magic inside balloons when we don't lose that spark of joy and wonder.

I keep using that phrase because Michael says it himself and I think it's the best description of what Mary Poppins really offers us. Yes, there's inexplicable magic in jumping into chalk drawings and laughing on the ceiling. But the lesson contained within those magical moments is how to cultivate joy and wonder. You find it with friends, in laughter, in sharing hard things, and in cherishing those you love and those who love you. Love, family, friendship. Yes, that's where joy and wonder is found, sown, tended, and harvested.

I think this probably does it for my Mary Poppins Returns posts. At least until March, I can't say for certain the inspiration bug won't bite in the viewing party my son and I are planning. It's funny--I was so adamantly against this film; I didn't want something magical and beautiful from my childhood tampered with. I think we all jealousy guard our most cherished stories from childhood that way. But I'm glad Disney tampered and I've taken in this story. It's not like the original, but then again, neither am I being a grown-up now.