Sonlight Shining Through the Cracks

Last Friday, a blog reader I didn’t know I had reached out to check on me. I told him I’ve been writing a blog entry in my head for weeks, and I knew it was time to write it down and share it with you.

I wrote most of this entry on my lunch break that day, sitting at my cluttered kitchen table next to the window. The sky was a dull gray, and I felt too chilly to venture out for a much-needed walk in the park. Even so, I didn't feel as down as I might have felt a week or two before.

Over these last weeks of forced isolation, God has been working a transformation in me. Actually, it started before COVID-19 locked us all in our homes.

Ever since I started working again in early January, I’d gradually been feeling better in mind and body. The daily warm greetings from my friend Laura, and the repartee between her, myself, and our colleagues gave me a reason to get out of bed and pack up all my meals, drinks, and snacks each day.

One area of my recovery lagged behind, though. I missed my old closeness with Jesus dreadfully, and I often cried when I prayed about it. Because of all the struggles I’d been through over the preceding six months, I often found myself listening, if only for a moment, to my enemy’s constant refrain: “Maybe He really isn’t good. Maybe He can’t be trusted.” 

Come Walk With Me for a Mile or Two

I've been working on a longer blog entry but thought I’d share a few reminiscences that carried me to a happy place today.

In need of motivation for sweeping and mopping my kitchen, I searched YouTube for “80s cleaning music” and found a fabulous three-hour playlist. 

By the second song, I was feeling so sad over the contrast between those carefree days and the current Covid-19 worries and resulting isolation that I almost turned the music off. But then the third song inspired me to tell myself, “Relax… don’t do it.” I forbade myself from thinking unhappy thoughts and just enjoyed one song after another, letting the memories swirl through my head and even my body as I remembered….

• driving my old green bomb (a 13-year-old 1973 Dodge Coronet) as fast as I dared, with the windows down and an Alphaville ("Forever Young") cassette blasting, on the short commute to my summer job at Six Flags Over Texas amusement park. My driver’s license was practically still warm from the laminator. (I cried when my dad made me buy that back-firing monstrosity for $1000, but I soon realized I could carry five belted friends; mine was the car of choice for off-campus lunches.)

• Too many Girl Scout trip memories to tell. My two faves: (1) the time the most mischievous in our troop stuck menstrual pads covered in red marker to the side of our chartered bus. I was mortified because the prank wasn’t discovered until we’d been driving a few hours. The rest of us couldn’t figure out why people kept honking. Good times! (2) the tearful reunion of various configurations of feuding, hormonal adolescents in Washington state when someone played Michael W Smith’s “Friends Are Friends Forever” over and over on the bus. (I don’t know how our leaders managed up to 28 girls for up to 3 weeks at a time. Maybe a bit of wine after we’d all turned in for the night.)

• countless sleepovers with Dawn, a Girl Scout friend. Riding our bikes all through the neighborhood. Swimming in her pool. (I was jealous of how great she looked in her bikini.) Telling secrets in the dark.

• slow dancing with Kenny at a dance hosted by my Girl Scout troop. I was shocked when I discerned a spark of romance while we laughed uproariously at the Spandau Ballet song that was playing; I’d thought I hated Kenny due to his merciless teasing for years in English class.

• flirting with older boys in chemistry… and math… and economics. But never in German class. My memory of that class was discovering that someone had opened the second-story window and stuck licked gummy bears to the casement. They'd drawn speech bubbles with the words, “I’m gonna jump.” Also I remember my friend Dawn painting her fingernails and toenails in class. I had a picture I wanted to share but can't find it. Frau G was pretty cool, and a great teacher. (When I caught one of those older boys, I didn't know what to do with him, so I ran away.)

• first real kiss in my front yard. I think his name was Mark.

• sharing a better kiss under the stars on the high-jump mat at the local college with my first real boyfriend

• going to the Ranger game with another Girl Scout friend, fearless M. In the first inning, she convinced a young man to buy her a very tall beer, after which she: -decided the game was boring and we’d have more fun on our own -stole a Barry Manilow cassette from a random unlocked car on the way out just to drive some faceless person crazy -called our mutual crush Coach K on a pay phone(!), and then put the phone up to my mouth. I don’t remember what I said, only that I spluttered rather than spoke. Ah, Coach K. He was 23 years old and rather cute, very short but with the most delightful muscles. He responded to all my journal entries and made me feel like I had something meaningful to share. He is the only teacher I ever remember having a crush on. -enlisted my help looking under the couch cushions at her dad’s apartment for loose change for donuts at Winchell’s, where she sat down on a curb to pee. -somehow delivered me home safely before my 11 p.m. curfew. I'd never been so relieved to slip through the front door.

• sneaking out of choir with M to buy 9-inch chocolate chip cookies at the French bakery, and then getting caught and crying when Mr. M. expressed his bitter disappointment in me

That 80s playlist got me through sweeping, mopping twice, and folding a load of clothes, plus writing a blog entry. Thank you for walking a bit down memory lane with me. I hope you enjoyed it as much as my daughter Allyson did when I read her my list just now.

What are your favorite memories from your teen years?

Sisters Emily, Amy, Me - 1986 (age 16)

1984 (age 14)

Siblings Melody, Emily, Rick, Amy at my first wedding - 1989 (age 18)

Prom night with Byron (first husband) - 1988
Most vivid memory from that night:
a girl throwing up on the hem of my dress in the bathroom