Sometimes you see best in the dark...

I’m convinced adversity is where we learn our most valuable lessons in life. 

This storm sucked (or should I say it blew…har, har.) 

We are 5 days “without” power.  I say “without” because we have had a generator since Saturday.  My grandparents bought us a generator after one of the snow storms knocked our power out several years ago, so we have been extremely blessed to have it.  We had two fridges and freezers full of food and that would’ve been horrible to lose all of that food (I know many of you all did and I am SO very sorry for that.) 

Let’s see…I guess I should give the short version of how things went down in our world Friday night.  Kevin’s mom came in to visit (she couldn’t have picked a more rotten time, huh?) and we went down to the Cork & Pork Festival in Covington.  Around 8:30, people started racing around to pack up.  I thought they had lost it and thought they were acting irrational and prematurely since there was not a cloud in the sky at the time.  A vendor with his phone in hand said a storm had passed through Lewisburg and was coming our way and was U-shaped, producing dangerous wind, yadda, yadda.  I just shook my head because we have had these silly warnings so many times…snow, storms, etc.  We went ahead and left and as we got to the end of Monroe Street, the lights were flickering at the Kangaroo station…then Hardees.  As we came through Parrish Court, the lights we’re flickering on the church sign outside Grace Brethern Church.  As we approached Edgemont/JWIS, Kevin looked in the sky and said, “Oh crap.”  In the sky was...we don’t really know.  It was a vertical cloud and it was moving faster than anything we’ve ever seen before.  Kevin slammed the brakes on and turned around right in the middle of the road and went back the other way.  We pulled over and he watched it in an effort to avoid it's path, then it turned and went over Pitzer’s Ridge.  He whipped the van around and hit the gas and I’m pretty sure we pulled into the front yard on two wheels.  The kids were bawling.  We ran to the basement.  Not two minutes later, something was on fire across the street from the school and a tree had fallen across the bridge (that we had just crossed), destroying part of the side of the bridge and blocking traffic until it could be cut.  We ran downstairs in the dark, scrambling for flashlights and candles, the kids still crying and worried about everything, with the dogs at the top of the list.  The next door neighbors joined us in the basement as we sat in the dark.  It was a scary hour or so and in that time in the dark, what’s most important in life became extremely visible.

So here I sit at the church, 5 days later.  We still don’t have power at our house.   

The kids went home with the grandparents where they didn’t have to “rough it.”  I regret not making the first-born stay and de-tox from electronics, but time with family is good too.  Maybe I'll throw the breakers in a few weeks and make him endure it for a little while :) 

Sunday morning we had church at the picnic shelter.  Amazing Grace sounds beautiful under there.  It was humbling.

We have cooked every meal on the grill and I can’t remember when I have cooked so much.  I forgot how much I loved to cook. 

 I am certain I could go for the rest of my life without the tv.  I haven't missed it for a second.

We had our "elderly" (I use the term loosely because at 93. she gets around better than we do most of the time!) neighbor over for dinner and swimming and we talked to some other neighbors down the street whom we haven’t talked with in ages…well because we’re all just too busy, of course.

Kevin’s mom taught me how to heat water on the grill and pour it through the coffeemaker for coffee on Saturday morning.  I could've kissed the woman's feet.

We went to our neighbors’ house and sat on the back deck and talked each night.

I washed clothes in the bathtub and hung on the neighbor’s clothesline.  We’re installing a clothesline and I will be making the kids participate in hanging them out.  

I’ve loved the sense of community.  I’ve loved how the days seem to last so much longer.   

I know everybody wants the conveniences of power back…a dishwasher and a washing machine and a light in the bathroom.  Me too.  As much as I look forward to returning to the 21^st century way of life, I will grieve this simplicity when it’s gone.  I’m going to make an attempt to try to make simplicity a priority in the Griffith Family Way of Life.

Give Me The Simple Life

 

It all started today when I walked in the living room and saw the saxophone laying on the couch.  The kid was out the door and going down the road on the school bus, but the saxophone remained.  I knew I would have to take the saxophone to school for the kid because I am oftentimes just as irresponsible and flighty.  The problem wasn’t the saxophone per se.  The problem was my wet hair, my unpolished face, my 6 year old who hadn’t had breakfast and the sink full of dirty dishes that I left last night so I could join the family for a movie.  I was counting on having a good hour and a half to tie up some loose ends around the house before having to run into work this morning.  I was hoping to get dinner in the crock pot for once and maybe even knock out a workout on the elliptical.  I looked over and saw a nasty bowl of last night’s dried up baked beans.  I thought I was going to puke.  Don’t get me wrong…those baked beans were the bombdiggity last night.  But the undumped baked beans were the last straw in a myriad of things that I suddenly felt I had no control over.

My first child was born in Bluefield, VA.  

We lived in a trailer. 

A Single-Wide Trailer

    

on about an acre of land

 with pastures all around.

 I never appreciated that little modest trailer for what it was.

It truly was a time in my life of utter simplicity and beauty...at least that’s how I see it now.  I’m pretty sure at the time that I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.  To me, it was just a stepping stone until we bought a house of our own.  I was looking forward--not relishing the splendor that life had to offer at that very minute.  I know it wasn’t perfect then.  Life is never perfect. 

I was lonely back then —no family or friends nearby and my husband was working 10-hour shifts.  He worked two hours away which meant baby and I spent 14 hours a day together.  I’m pretty sure I had some post-partum depression, too.  So amidst my beautiful, perfect recollections of the past, I know them to be less than the perfect way I am recalling them. 

The amazing 20^th century English author Virginia Woolf said,

"I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past. ”

 What a totally amazing and brilliantly true statement!

We had a covered front porch in that trailer. 

I asked my grandparents if they would part with their old green wooden porch swing that had provided so many memories throughout my life.  I remember being at Momaw & Papaw's one time as a little girl.  It was summertime and we got a terrible thunderstorm.  The power went out.  I remember going out on the front porch after the danger was gone and swinging on the porch swing as it continued to rain.  It's one of those memories that I hold so very close to my heart.  When I close my eyes, I can almost smell the rain.

Kevin and Riley swinging at Momaw & Papaw's (Mossy, WV)

Kevin installed in on our front porch.  Riley and I spent lots of mornings and lots of evenings swinging in that old green porch swing. 

Riley, cousin Alex & Momaw Griffy enjoying the swing

Spring 1999

Just like Virginia Woolf said though, I didn’t realize the emotion at the time though—I guess I really couldn’t.  Looking back, I can see it like it was yesterday. 

It makes me smile and get teary-eyed all in the same instant.  I was young…I was so very young.  Everything was so new and fresh. 

I can see Riley’s chubby little cheeks and those big blue eyes staring back at me as he stood on the porch and held onto the swing.  Finally the days came that I would have to put the little wooden gate up at the edge of the porch so he wouldn’t tumble down the steps. 

                               

 (here's the gate)

                                          

I can see his little chubby legs in his rompers. 

I can see my hand holding his—

hands not stained with age spots and signs of wear and tear—

but young, beautiful hands eager to experience what the world had to offer.

I remember when we bought Riley his first little swing all of his own.  It was a little red one and we tied it onto the clothesline pole in the backyard. 

I pushed and pushed and pushed him on that swing.  Kevin raised a garden when we lived in that trailer and I remember him working in the garden and taking breaks to talk to the man who lived behind us, Mr. Stowers. 

Right in here is where Kevin had his garden and you can see The Stowers house in the distance, as well as the white fence posts where Kevin

and Mr. Stowers would chat.

Mr. & Mrs. Stowers didn’t have any children, but they treated us like their own when we lived there.  Mrs. Stowers came to visit me often and brought us apples from her trees and potatoes from her garden.  She invited us to her church and we began attending and made many friends and many memories.   

We moved from that trailer the following year.  We bought a little house in a sweet little neighborhood in June of 2000.  Mr. Stowers passed away not too long after we moved out of the trailer.

My dad and my step mom and my sister-in-law came down before we moved in and we painted almost every room of the house.  That was the first time I had ever painted in my life.  I was terrible.  So bad.  They were good though, so the walls looked fantastic!  It was fun rehabbing the house, but I didn’t really appreciate our modest 1000 square foot house for the little gem it was until after we left.  I was always trying to change it…make it bigger…make it better. 

So many memories…

I had a Halloween party the fall that we moved into our new house.  I didn’t realize when I invited our new neighbors over for a silly Halloween party that they would come to be some of our best friends.  I didn’t know that it would hurt so much leaving a town that I didn’t grow up in, but I had come to call “home.” 

We moved from Bluefield in March of 2003--nine years ago. 

I’m different now. 

Life doesn't feel so simple anymore.  I have three kids, husband with crazy shift-working hours.  I work.  I go to school.  I organize things and I head things up.  Sometimes I stand back and ask myself who is this woman??  And then sometimes I look in the mirror, expecting to find the 18 year old that I feel like I should be, and I wonder who the heck is looking back at me. 

Sometimes I think to myself...who let me do this???  Who let me get married and then gave me the responsibility of being in charge of three other human beings???  Sometimes it honestly blows my mind. 

I miss that simple girl—that young rookie with absolutely nothing on her life resume.  I miss the way her eyes glowed with energy and optimism. 

Parts of that girl will always be with me, but I have a lot more chalked up on that life resume now.  My days do not go by at turtle speed anymore, but rather, at the speed of light. 

My days aren’t spent picking dandelions or admiring hundreds of different blades of grass.  The simplicity of those first years of marriage and motherhood are long behind me and in their place are practices, games, matches, meetings, services, parties, rallies, fund raisers, projects, homework, orthodontics, video gaming and relationship complexities.   

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be." ~Marcel Pagnol

Me soaking up newborn lovin'

Fall of 1998

It’s a different world.  It’s a fast-paced, complex world. 

With three children come a lot of duties and a lot of different schedules. 

But a lot of laughs and fun too! 

I love my life, despite its pace and it’s difficulties, and if Virginia Woolf is correct, (and I’m willing to bet she is), in 15 years, I will look back on 2012 and remember my “glory days”—when I had so much energy and life was so simple :) 

Cheers to the present and the hope that we will try to relish (at least a little) before it’s the past.

"We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time. "~Art Buchwald