On What it Means to be Truly Free
I really love Memorial Day. Yes, it’s the start of a long overdue summer, but it’s the flags & the grave markers that really get me. My life…your life…the freedom we have and take for granted…
Just take a quick look at the rest of the world. We could be living in a war-torn country. We could be emigrating by the thousands. We could be raising our right hands to a despot but we’re not.
Not yet, anyway.
Keep praying.
On a lighter note…
My toddler is loving his freedom these days. So many cupboards to peruse; so many chairs and tables to scale. He is especially fond of the drawers & doors in my bathroom, and I’ll tell ya, it’s hard to keep one eye on the toddler when you’re holding a mascara wand to that same eye.
On Memorial Day, as we were getting ready to go to our friends’ house for supper, I turned away from Francis to spritz on some Giorgio. As I did so, I heard a loud glub! glub! glub!
“What the heck?!” That was not a sound that spritzing on perfume should make.
I spun around to find Francis taking a shower in mouthwash.
And about that dad in the check-out line? This, too, was on Memorial Day–and what I saw make me think about freedom.
Have you read the book Harriet the Spy? I am like Harriet in that I get caught up in drama–the human drama that goes on around me–to the point where I’m completely engaged in complete strangers’ lives. The man at the grocery store was a youngish dad. He had a small golden hoop in his left ear; he had a two-inch goatee; he was with his two sons.
The boys were clamoring for a pack of Double Mint. “You want some gum?” the dad asked. “Okay, calm down. We can get some.”
His cell phone rang and he held it up to his ear. “Hey,” he said, sounding guarded. “Yeah, I got it,” he said, “I got the corn.”
I duly noted the bulging bag of sweet corn.“That’s his wife, I bet,” I thought, smiling inwardly. “She’s calling to make sure that he doesn’t forget!”
“I know,” he continued, his voice on edge. “It’s fine. Yeah, I get it. I don’t know; I just got twelve ’cause I didn’t know how many people were coming. Yeah. Okay. It’s fine. Okay, bye.”
It must have been a five-minute conversation and by the time he had finished, I felt bad for him. He seemed…I don’t know…somehow less of a man than when he’d answered the phone. He scowled; he frowned; his shoulders sagged.
In short, the guy looked deeply unhappy.
The moral of this story–for me, anyway–was the damage I do when I’m controlling. There have been times when my husband’s come home and I’d be like, “You got white bread?! You know I buy wheat!” I don’t want to be that kind of wife–the kind that peck-peck-pecks at her husband’s judgement, and chips away at his freedom with her lack of trust.
It’s just bread. It’s just corn. It’s just…a lifetime together, for better or for worse.
Beautiful.
It's interesting how these little peeks at other people's lives allow for such clarity and insight and like, wham, are worth more reading than a stack of books on marriage. What does it take to be the wife who leaves her husband smiling after a phone call? Thank you for the food for thought in always working on the 'for better'. (And it reminds me of the time I saw a mother in a store savagely belittling her teenage son because he wanted to buy what she thought was an unreasonably expensive brand of deodorant. It was probably a few years ago by now, but oh how vividly I remember the unpleasantness of that exchange.)
Your home is so picturesque. Your heart too!
So, so true. I wish that I had learned this lesson 20 years ago.
A vision of "what not to be" is often the best way to learn a lesson. I had several of my own this evening as a backstage mom at dance dress rehearsal. It is so difficult to watch the damage one human being can do to another, usually those we love the most.
Thanks for sharing.
PS flags waving in the breeze at the cemetery is one of my favorite Memorial Day images also.
OH, I love how you ended this with the man in the store….because you were listening and just "being"…LOVE this.
Wow, thank you for sharing about the man in the store. I know we all do that once in a while, but I really don't want to be that wife!
Giorgio? I have Red. I was looking at it the other day wondering if the scent wasn't too 90's.
Thank you for the reminder about "peck, peck, peck". So easy to do without thinking.