Memory Binding Smell

 

March: The month of my birth.  A time where I often contemplate my origin.  Who am I and where do I come from?  What has made me into who I am? Times, places, and many people have made me who I am.  This month is a time to look back, reminisce and explore those times, places and people.  

 Funny how a smell can take you back through time and to a different place. 

    I smell the grease as I pack the bearings of the front wheel of my 1961 Schwinn, but I am no longer in the bike shop now, but back in rural Wisconsin and in the spacious metal shed where my grandpa keeps all his tractors.  I am no longer forty-five, but am now five years old again.  Tools are scattered on the wooden workbench, and hung on the wall behind it.  Some earthly smell mixed with grease mists the large space radiating from inside the long silver grease gun, engines and engine parts dispersed around the packed dirt floor.  Without that grease, those tractors would no longer move and the operations of the farm would be cease.

    Life when I was younger and in that special place was more simple and the memories of grandpa fixing things and taking me on early morning rides as he chopped the green dew moistened grass for the cows are just as rich and thick as that grease.

    I miss my favorite farmer and I miss those simpler times.  I love the time traveling scent as I now work with my own hands.  Hands that now are dirty and slick, just like his thick hard-working calloused hands would be as he worked. We are forever family and memories keep those close to us alive. 

45 Trips around the sun: a tribute in 45 Nuggets of Learned Treasures.

 

March is "Who am I and Where Have I come From" month. I am a combination of millions of experiences, senses and genes.  I am my father's daughter, my grandfather's granddaughter.  My family is me and I am my family.  I am on this planet for a purpose; there are no mistakes.

Well, 45 feels the same as 44.  Rarely does a birthday come and go with much significance.  But there can be found beauty in that.  Normal isn't all that bad.  In fact, in a world that is often catapulted into chaos, we need things to keep us going and a sense of normalcy is often warranted. 

Here I offer a simple list of things that make my life easier in those times of chaos and ground me back into my normal, well, at least I can see glimpses of normalcy.  

So, as an ode to my 45 trips around the sun, here is a list of 45 things I have learned(in no particular order after the #1 most important):

1.  First, find deity.  Pray, it makes life easier.

2.  People are good...when you decide that they are.

3. My kids are growing up too fast. Take time to enjoy the beauty that is childhood.

4.  I am growing up too fast.  Take time to enjoy the moments.

5. Enjoy your parents.  They too grow up much too fast.

6. Take days off from work.  You deserve it.

7. Take a soon to buy car into the mechanic BEFORE purchasing.

8. Never have a car payment.

9. Start saving for retirement in your 20s.

10. It's okay to have vices.

11. Perfection isn't real...even for the people who you think are perfect.

12. It's okay to not be okay.

13. Your parents become cooler as they age. 

14. Parenthood is the scariest hood you'll ever go through.

15. If you go to Russia, don't worry about money! Do all the things.

16. Happiness is a choice you make daily.

17. Eat the donut...just not everyday all day.

18. Taking care of your mental health needs to be a bigger priority.

19. You feel better when you quit worrying about what other people think.

20. Marriage/love isn't always rainbows and butterflies.

21. Visit home often.

22. Politics are stupid, as well as most politicians.

23. Say yes more often.

24. Everybody loves getting a letter in the mail.

25. Reading is fun...you must first find the right books for you...see #19.

26. The book is always better than the movie.

27. You really shouldn't cry or yell over spilled milk(or spilled anything!).

28. Saying sorry is the best tool in relationships. Say sorry, you are wrong a lot.

29. Call your mom...grandma...grandpa...aunt...sister...brother...etc. even if one of you doesn't have anything to say or remember what is said!

30. Exercise is therapy.

31. Walks count as exercise.

32. Friends can be the family we choose.

33. Write more...your kids will thank you.  Tell your story.

34. Good times ALWAYS follow hard times.

35. Smile at strangers.  They either will think you are crazy...or they will smile back...or both.

36. Don't be too serious,  Silly is also therapy.

37. Music. Play it. Listen to it. Sing it loudly, even if off key.

38.  Calls are often better than texts, like MOST OFTEN.

39. Buy the tickets.  Plan the trip.

40. Always find things to look forward to.

41. Growing a garden is rewarding.

42. Hammocks are the furniture of nature.

43. You feel better when you eat less sugar.

44. A bike ride is also therapy. And the right number of bikes to have is the number you currently have plus one.

45.  Never say no to a catch with your kids.

I Love The Seasons of Life

Wise people have often said: "All things come to pass."  I truly love that seasons come and go in this life.  Not just seasons like summer and fall but seasons of grief, sadness, and all emotion.  We endure much, but there is always a season of rest from all trial.  

Basketball season this year as a coach was definitely a season of many highs and lows.  If you were to measure our success by wins versus losses, then we failed.  We only won one game. We lost over ten games.  If you were to measure our success by attendance at practice, we also would be considered failures.  

But I don't consider this season a failure at all.  I first hand saw many successes.  From the fact that a most players couldn't do layups at the beginning but could at the end, to how they learned how to break a press, to how they became much better at shooting free throws, to how we were molded into a team instead of a dozen individuals, we were a success.  Oh how I did love basketball season, even if I am very grateful for a new season of leaving school before 4 everyday and of not having to drive long distances for games.  

I love successful seasons!

I Love a Good Project

 February is the month of love.  We often tag this love as romantic, but I think sometimes you just have to love stuff and that love can awake you and it is magical.  Happy love month!

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain."

                                -Shakespeare 

This post cannot be limited to one thing I love, it consists of a few things I love. 

I have always loved bikes. I remember being young and how having a bike gave me new found freedom. The wind in my hair, sunshine on my face and reflective revolutions of the tires and pedals added to that freedom to leave my house and be on my own. 

 My current ride is a Trek commuter style bike. It has thin tires for quicker riding and a comfortable seat. I installed pedals that are flat on one side for casual riding and clip-less on the other side so I can wear my fancy biking shoes and pretend to be all serious about speed. 

I have mentioned this before, but a wise woman said to me in the past few months that the right number of bikes one should own is the current number they own plus one. 

I have been looking for a cruiser type bike. The kind that would allow for me to just ride slowly especially on rides with my kiddos. While searching for one, I found these old bikes for sale and I went down a rabbit hole of looking at vintage bikes and came up with a crazy idea to buy one that I would have to work on before I could ever ride it. 

Well. I bought not one but two 1961 Schwinn Travelers to fix up. 

I have started the labor of love on the bike Reuben will ride along side me. It is dirty and tedious, and I love it. There is nothing like Schwinn chrome as it shines again with some elbow grease. It is as if those 60 years of rusting and dulling are just erased. I indeed do love a good project. 

I also love old classic things. I also love my Gramdma Huven, who is classy but never seemed old.  I feel a huge connection to her now just as I did before she died a few years back. 

Here she is at the age of 16 in 1941. I cannot completely guarantee that the bike she is on is a Schwinn but it does have similar fenders and I did a little research and that bike looks a lot like the 1940 Schwinns. So, even if that bike isn’t a Schwinn, I’m going to pretend it is just to further the connection to her and to generate smiles as I think of those simpler times and as I look forward to this spring and the first cruise I get to do on one my classic bikes. 

The time spent in repairing and polishing is well worth it as I am learning and finding purpose in these projects. 

I love bikes,

I love old things,

I love a good project, 

I love my grandma,

And I have a very new love for all things Schwinn.  

I Love...Groundhog Day.

February is the month of love.  We often tag this love as romantic, but I think sometimes you just have to love stuff and that love can awake you and it is magical.  Happy love month!

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain."

                                -Shakespeare 

"Watch out for that first step........it's a Doozie!"

I am not sure you and I can be friends if you do not know where that quote is from.  If you haven't watched Groundhog Day with Andie McDowell and Bill Murray, stop what you are doing right now and go watch it.  I mean it.  Right now.

Groundhog day to me isn't just about some rodent that is trying to be a weatherman.  I do love Punxsutawney Phil, don't get me wrong.  In fact, I would love to be in Punxsutawney some day on Groundhog Day to cheer him on, but there is more to just hearing the fabricated prediction of a late or early spring.  I think there is a bit of hope that comes from that prediction and from the whole tradition surrounding it.

I love spring and February 2nd comes around just in time to remind us that winter won't be here forever and that spring will come, it always does!  Sometimes in the dark of January and February we forget that and Phil reminds us!

I always need that reminder.  So thanks Phil!