Did I leave the iron on???

Do you ever have an interaction with someone, and the next day you are reviewing it, and suddenly you wonder if you said the right things, gave that person your undivided attention, really engaged with them?  I do, and I find myself reaching back to that conversation trying to remember nuances and body language, and I always hope that I was appropriate to the situation and let the person know how much I value them.  I wish I could have instant recall sometimes. 

Memory can be a really tricky thing.  Some memories I have are extremely vivid and familiar, probably because I have thought about them so often over the years.  My wedding, the births of my children, where I was and what I was doing when I received word that my beloved Grandpa had had a debilitating stroke, etc.  But others are murky and keep moving around on me.  I tend to remember feelings I had about the situation rather than clear, concrete conversations.

I do remember times of fear very clearly.  I recall being around 6 years old, haying with my Dad on our cattle ranch.  I was driving the tractor that was pulling two hay rakes behind it.  I was able to engage the clutch and slow my progress if I stood up, put both feet on that very firm clutch, and pulled up on the big steering wheel, adding enough heft to my weight to engage the clutch and then could reach over and quickly pull the gear shift into neutral. Then I would put both feet on the brake and use the steering wheel again to give me a bit more oomph to stop forward motion.  Believe it or not, this process worked, and I repeated it many times that summer.  We needed the help.  My Dad was always in the field, following me with the baler.  I remember one particular day, the gear that I was in was too slow to pull the hill.  My progress slowed and the tractor slowly chugged and coughed and sputtered and I knew I was in trouble.  I knew if I engaged the clutch to shift to a higher gear, I would roll backwards back down the hill.  I gave the engine more gas but it wasn't enough.  Soon, the big back tires were digging a massive hole in the Earth as I literally stood on that tractor, spinning my wheels.  I turned around to see my Dad leap from his tractor, climb up onto the hitch pulling the rakes, bolt over the seat of my tractor and in one swift motion he tucked me under his left arm while sitting in the seat, disengaged the engine, and turned it off.  He knew he had a very frightened little girl to calm before we were to accomplish any more haying that day. I relaxed into his strong arms and let the fear slowly dissipate out of the corners of my eyes.  Looking back on that experience, I had a few takeaways.

One - It's good to tackle a big task, but make sure you are geared up for it and able to handle any contingencies that pop up.

Two - You can always trust your Dad to come through in the clutch.  I am extremely blessed in this area and I know it.

Three - Fear has a taste, it's very cold and metallic and has colors of very cold steel.  It's hard and unyielding.

Another time I experienced true fear was on my first bonafide fire as a volunteer firefighter.  I was so brand new, anytime we were dispatched to a call, I still mentally ran through all the tasks that would be my responsibility when we arrived on scene. Muscle memory wasn't in place yet.  I knew that I wanted to make a career of Firefighting some day and I was committed to being the best I could be.

This particular call came in at the tender age of 0300.  It was a commercial structure fire, one of the big warehouses in the industrial section of town.  Looking back on that call after a few more years in the fire service, I see now that it truly wasn't that complex of a situation.  But throw a freshly minted firefighter into a huge warehouse that was belching smoke about 3 minutes after being in a dead sleep and you guessed it, fear was present.

I remember backing up the firefighter on the nozzle, feeling the ache of adrenaline flooding my heart, turning on my air tank and breathing in the precious, cold, canned oxygen as we started in to find the seat of the fire.  The whole place was filled with smoke and visibility was about nil. We crawled in and about halfway to the wall of flames ahead I sensed a presence beside me.  It was a passenger van.  Now at this point many things went through my mind and I HOPE all my seasoned firefighter buddies can relate to this moment as a fledgling.  I was just SURE that van was going to explode.  There was pretty good fire ahead of us, and I could see the flames rolling back at us, trying to make a break for the fresh air at the door.  I was absolutely certain that somehow that van would catch fire and blow up.  Again, fear has a very metallic taste, even when the threat of danger isn't quite as extreme as we believe at the time.

These two experiences I remember with vivid clarity.  I also remember many joyful moments in my life with the same clarity.  But not as many as I would like.

Last night I watched a movie that really touched my heart.  It was British, so of course there were different guidelines in regards to adult language and situations.  But the premise was about living each day while being fully present, and if you had the chance to do specific things over, would you? It was about taking a minute during a stressful situation to reframe it into a more realistic setting.  We get stressed and spun up and that one last hitch in our day can really set us sideways.  It's okay to mentally back off, look at things objectively, square our shoulders, and then dive back in with a better perspective.

The movie is called About Time.  I will watch it again sometime, it's a very good reminder about the beauty of life and connections.  Again, this is not a movie to watch with children who aren't close to college age, but most adults can relate to the situations that present themselves.

I'm traveling to my 30-year high school reunion next weekend.  Wow - even saying that seems surreal.  I remember attending my Mother's 20-year reunion at the same school and her classmates were OLD and BORING!!  ;) They were paunchy and had no hair, and all the women looked so much older and less fun than MY mom.  I was so glad that she was the prettiest of the bunch!

Thirty years.  I've been trying to remember back to those days.  Trying to pull back specific interactions with people I knew were hurting.  Was I mature enough to see it? Did I know the power of an encouraging gesture at that time?  Or was I so caught up in my grades, and trying to catch the eye of that cute boy in Geometry (you know who you were....), and all the other self-created drama of that age, that I totally missed an opportunity to let someone know they were seen, and that they mattered.  The wisdom of hindsight in these situations drives me crazy sometimes.  Man do I ever wish I would've done some things differently.  My biggest hope is that the patina of time and experience in the lives of all involved will yield a gentle grace.  We were all so young.  I would do so many things over if I had the chance.

I have the chance today.  Memory doesn't always serve us well.  But I can live my life today the way I want to.  I can acknowledge those who are hurting and take that extra minute to give that gesture of encouragement.  

Can I just throw this out there too?  If I did or said anything in the past that has caused any of you pain, I sincerely apologize.  I am choosing to live a simple, authentic life and part of that path means making things right.  I would love the chance to make good on that so please contact me.  And I know there will be times that I don't reflect how much I appreciate you all as my friends and family.  Kindly take me by the nose and let me know I've got some work to do?  I'd like to be able to reflect on my life and know I lived a good one, that I was present, that I was kind and took the opportunity to lift a brother or sister up who was in crisis.  I am STILL learning how to spot these situations and am so thankful for the grace of God to gently lead me to be better.

Can't wait to see some of you in a few short days!  And if my memory fails me and I forget your name, it isn't on purpose!  Just wear the dang name tag okay???! ;)

Oh - and make it a great day ya'll!! 

Photo credit: Sciencemag.org,  University of Kansas, and Shutterstock