COLOR MY SOUL: I’ll Take Two Pauses, Please

At some point in my life I learned to type with two spaces after each period. Modern typesetting only requires one space after each punctuation mark. I've published a few pieces here and there but have never been told to stop entering two spaces after a period. Now that I've written half a book – the other half written by my brother- I earned the privilege to delete my extra spaces. It can be fixed with a magic Word.doc tool, but I still have to check each punctuation mark to be certain two spaces aren't proper here and there.

Tedious work that I don't want to do again, so I’m retraining myself in the mechanics of writing. It's rather beastly! I write more Face book statuses just to catch myself hitting the space bar too often. It’s humorous too, dredging up old memories of my sisters tattling on me when I took two rests between each job. I've always worked best with pauses. I find pausing useful for daydreaming, percolating ideas, resting. I pause to notice what I've accomplished and to marvel over what I see around me.

I brake for ducks. And more.

I brake to savor what I've done or catch my breath. Or journal my reflections. I slow down for a body scan now and then, to see what is tight and holding too much. And then there is pausing to name emotions and give them expression. Sometimes, inertia does plague me and I stay paused too long. A good reminder helps me then. Thank God for sisters who speak truth. I confess my mother-in-law, at eighty plus, can still stay on her feet for longer periods of work than me. This brings me back to sentence periods. (I had to go back at correct five sentences- gah!) Any good practice requires diligence as well as pauses.

The fun part is sharing. so, as I write and work to enter the correct number of spaces I’ll share a few favorite "pauses" with you....

I Pause For Children

here's a story as I heard it told to me. Two sisters, my grandies, are riding in the backseat of the car. The first is six; the second is newly turned four. They have the following conversation.

Ave: God made the trees and the swings and the birds.

Rae: No God didn’t.

Ave: Yes, God did. God is bigger and stronger than everything.

Rae: No God isn’t!

Ave: Nothing is stronger than God.

Rae: I’m stronger than God!!

Ave: No, you're NOT.

Rae: YES, I am, Avery. I AM stronger than God.

Knowing how insipid, shy and fearful I was as a child, I just have to love a girl with such spunk! Railynn is the toddler girl who turned on the overhead bedroom light in the middle of the night with no chair pushed against the wall for climbing. When asked how on earth she reached the switch, she showed her dad how she took the lid off her diaper pail, shoved it up against the wall while standing on tippy toes, and flipped the switch on with the rim. Being stronger than God is debatable, but she is quite clever!

Speaking of Rae, I might have traumatized her a little last week. She pulled a stool up to our kitchen counter and saw a bag of chicken feet thawing there.

“What is that, Nana?”

“Chicken feet for the dogs.”

“Dogs wike chicken feets?”

“Yes, they do. Dogs like all parts of chickens.”

“They are not feets, Nana. They wook wike hands.” And then she exclaimed, “You have a bag of hands on your stove!”

It’s amazing what children notice. When I read to Jude, my 2yr old grandson, he assigns almost every object in the book to the people he loves. Every tractor is driven by Papaw. Every telephone conversation includes MomMom and every horse and wagon belongs to Pop. I've wondered what reminds Jude of me when others read to him. Last week, my son said Jude stared at a handful of flowers at the bottom of a page, and then said, “Nana’s flowers.”

Sophie (Sassy) in her new home

I Pause for Dogs

Wren with her adoring adopter

As you know, Sophie Sassafras has been adopted. And as of a few weeks, so has Wren. As hard as it was to give Wren up, I must confess I’m really enjoying a quieter house. I wrote about my goodbye to Sassy; Wren’s goodbye is another story, for another time.

It's a writing day today, and the dogs are thrilled. Writing days mean treats are hidden all over the house. Their dinner is in a kibble dispensing puzzle. Nylabones are spread with peanut butter and tucked in corners. Empty yogurt containers wait to be licked out and biscuits hide in toys. I love the happy noises Turnip and Burren make while I write. The bangs, grunts and patter of feet make fixing writing mistakes tolerable.

Whoa! Turnip just unscrewed a toy that I didn't know could be unscrewed! He might be as clever as Railynn.

I Pause for Spiritual Direction

Last month, after sharing a poignant moment of finding my voice, finding my powerful side and combining it with being open and soft, my spiritual director said this to me... You found your strength and power. And, you know your softness. So, the trick is to hold them in balance always, to be strong and soft at the same time.” That was powerful enough for me to jot down and ponder. Can I truly be softly strong? Or strongly soft? Can I be open and pliable, while being powerful? I asked her how I can remember what this felt like, the combining of the two energies so I can repeat this. She reassured me that I've carved out a new groove so I’ll know how to be this way again: strong, creative, flowing - not expecting perfection and not fearful.

Perhaps I’ll pass this on to Railynn: being strongly soft is enough – no need to aim for stronger than God status. Though, come to think of it, she’s already not fearful and not perfect, so she’s carving out her own good groove!