Divergent Paths

For the record, practicing guitar is easier than learning Kreb's Cycle. If you don't remember Kreb's cycle, it is probably because you didn't understand it in the first place. Asherel and I made a chart, filled in all the co enzymes, products, ATPs, NADs, Acetyl CoA as needed, and then sat down together to do the end of section test.
"Don't answer unless we both agree," I warned her.
"What answer is most common, b or c?"
"That doesn't matter, we are not going to guess. We are going to determine the correct answer."
She looked dubious, "I think it is B. They almost never have A or D as the answer in multiple choice."

I gathered our chart of Kreb's cycle and our notes that we had taken in front of us. Then I took a deep breath, which by the way, is part of how Kreb's cycle works...it needs oxygen and is the basis of cell respiration. As Asherel's video teacher keeps telling us, "How cool is that?"
"Ready? OK, question number one...how many ATPs are produced as the result of glycolosis and Kreb's cycle? We can do this! We know this! 2!"
"No, 4."
"Don't answer! We don't agree."
"Mom, it's 4."
"Should we just guess B? I think you are right that usually it is B or C."
"Mom, I know this one. It's 4."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Well then go for it. I think it is 2."
The little video quiz instantly pops up the correct answer. It was 4.
"Oh!" I said, "I misread the question. I just thought we were looking at glycolosis, not Kreb's cycle too!"
Asherel smirked at me, "Read the question carefully!"
I won't tell you our final score, but we didn't fail. At this point, that gives me hope.

"What are you going to do with that Kreb's cycle chart?" asked Asherel.
"Hang it in your room."
She looked horrified, obviously picturing John, Paul, George and Ringo having to give up one of their prime wall positions to let Krebs in.
"No!"
"Well I want it to go somewhere where you will see it everyday and learn it."
(I would like to take a moment to let you parents doing early Christmas shopping know that if you have a teenager, you can cross the Kreb's Cycle poster off the Christmas list.)
"Maybe in the bathroom, then, " I said, picking up our Kreb's poster.

Guitar lesson was a blessed respite. Lenny taught her how to play another Beatles song, and I drew on my iPod. My brain ached.

I think Kreb's cycle is one of the harder things we will have to figure out in Biology. I can't wait for the sections on anatomy. Even genetics is easier than Kreb's. But the strange this is, I felt proud. I haven't worked that hard to understand something in a long time. Most of schooling high school level courses is providing mentors and resources in the areas I am not skilled in....which is all of them. Well, except for art. I think I am actually a pretty good art teacher. However, I took a subject I had not remembered at all, looked at several hours of text and videos with Asherel, and managed to understand it, at least to a small degree. And I am remembering something about school I had forgotten. Learning something that you were certain you could never learn is satisfying. Deeply satisfying.

We moved on to Poetry.
"Oh, today we read my favorite poem!"
"What is it?" She looked worried.
"The Road not Taken," I told Asherel.
I began to read. As I read, my eyes began to fill with tears. I could see Asherel rolling her eyes. Whenever  I read her a magnificent poem, I start crying.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I tried to choke out the words, "Why do you think he tells this with a sigh?"
Asherel was still rolling her eyes, but paused, "Hmmm. He feels sorry for the road?"
"He doesn't personify the road so you shouldn't either. What do you think he's feeling if he retells this with a sigh?"
"Regret?"
"Yes!!!!! Why do you think he speaks with regret?"
(And please don't tell me because he had to learn Kreb's cycle before going on his walk in the woods.)
"Well, because he had to make a choice, and he wasn't certain it was the right one."
"You know," I told her, "Every choice means you must give up something else. So every choice involves loss. And sometimes, you will never know if the decisions you made were the right ones or not."
By now, I am really feeling like sobbing, because the poem touches the very core of my soul. So many decisions in life I look back on with regret, or with ambiguity. Was it the best choice?
"What does he mean in the lines-
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted I should ever come back."
"He won't pass that way again... the road leads him further and further away."
"Homeschooling is one of those divergent paths for me," I told her, "Every year I agonize whether taking that path is the best path. We give up alot as homeschoolers...but we also gain alot. I will never know if that choice was the best choice, but I can't go back, at least not to reclaim the years that have already passed."

I thought of all the choices, the really big choices in life that my beloved daughter will have to make. Later, without even knowing what sparked it, we were returning from guitar lesson and were discussing why I am so passionate, so strong in my opinion about certain things, mostly things of God.
"Of all the things I help you to choose, as a parent, what I desire more than anything is that you will choose God. It is the one path that I hope more than all others you will choose to follow. But all I can do is set forth the example, and my reasons while you are young. Ultimately, it will be your decision, not mine."
We were quiet for the rest of the ride home as I thought of the line from Frost's poem, "And that has made all the difference."

Joshua 24: 15
¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

The Creative Spirit

I'd passed the sign for a month, and every time, Asherel would tell me I ought to bring my paintings to that new gallery opening soon.
"I should," I agreed, since my book is still in the hands of the agent and no action seems imminent on that creative venture.
So while on my way to errands, I almost plowed over an old lady as I did a sharp right turn into the parking lot on a sudden inspirational whim.
I didn't have my paintings with me, but it seemed I was being tugged to the art gallery.

I saw they had indeed opened. A lone woman sat behind her computer, but greeted me warmly as I walked in.
"So you have opened!" I said.
"Yes, last night we had our opening reception," she said, "I am dead on my feet today!"
"Well congratulations. I have been driving by for a month and keep meaning to drop by. I am an artist....and I do work that is similar in a way to these....."  Glancing around I saw some paintings that struck me as having a similar gestural quality as my work.
"Those are really beautiful, by the way, " I added, stopping to look more closely.
"Thank you," she said, "Those are mine."
I just love it when I unwittingly give encouragement to others!

"Well I have an attic full of work and wondered if you would be interested in looking at it?"
"Our artists are all award winning artists," she said, not snobbishly, just stating the obvious. The work in the gallery was stupendous. "Have you won awards of any kind?"
I laughed, "I won 'best highschool artist'.....does that count?"
I think I won best artist in my middle school too, and designed the winning yearbook cover. I suspect it wasn't that kind of award she was referring to.
"Truthfully," I said, "I have won honorable mention in a couple of shows, but I don't enter many. Haven't in years. However, I suspect I am the world's most prolific iPod artist."
She tilted her head, peering at me.
"I do a daily blog and I draw on my iPod every day to illustrate it."
She pulled my blog up on her computer, and told me I should do greeting cards. People have told me that for years. She offered to market them for me if I got some ready. I may just do that, but for now, I needed to clean my attic.

"I would be happy to look at your work next week, before we open here," she said. So we set up a time, and then she took me on a gallery tour, describing each artist's intent behind some of the main pieces. Her own work ranged from detailed realism to broad, gestural splashes of paint.
"You have so many styles," I said, "My professor in art school told me that I had too many styles. He told me that I had to settle on one distinctive style, so anyone looking at my work would know it was mine. I never could settle on one."
She nodded vigorously and pointed at me, "That is just what they told me! And I refused."
"There are so many styles, so much to explore," I said, "How could I limit myself?"
"Exactly!" she cried, "Though I really enjoy the broader more simplified approach like this one."
"Do you know the Matisse sculpture?" I asked her, "I think it is called 'Woman'. It is a series of bas relief sculptures of the back of a woman. The first one is very detailed, very realistic, and each successive one is of the same pose increasingly simplified. The last one is of only 2 or 3 lines that give the essence of Woman.That is what I think art should attempt to achieve."
We talked an hour. When I finally left to hurry home to take Asherel to her first guitar recital, I realized I had just had a soul encounter. I haven't connected in my art spirit with anyone in years like I had connected with that artist. And I hadn't realized til then how much I had missed it.

Asherel had been practicing her song for the recital in her room for a month behind closed doors. I was anxious to hear her. Arvo had rarely heard her play her guitar. She has only taken lessons for 9 months and  we always finish practice long before he is home. I set my camera on my lap as we settled in the center front row.
"What's that?" asked Asherel, looking apprehensively at my camera.
"I am videotaping you, and that is that," I said, heading off the argument I knew was to follow.
She opened her mouth to speak, but I was quicker than even her photophobic diatribe.
"I told Aunt Amy, poor Aunt Amy in the hospital who almost died that I would videotape you for her."
Asherel closed her mouth around her protests, and slouched back in her seat.
When they called her up, she went on stage, and removed her guitar from her case. The case was outlined in duct tape, and a lovely duct tape rose adorned the top of it. She settled calmly on the center stage, like she had done this a thousand times, and played "Blackbird", by her beloved Beatles. It was so beautiful I would have cried, had I not been so anxious to catch it all on videotape.
Later I sent the video to Matt, my gifted guitarist son in his own right, and he wrote back, "She is amazing! May I post this on my facebook page?"  He told me if she continues in this vein, she could have a career in music.

As we returned home I got a text message from Jim, sister Amy's sainted husband.
"They discharged Amy. We are headed home!" Amy texted me a picture of her wearing the duct tape rose barrette Asherel had sent her.

I have often thought about what it means to mirror God, to become more like Him each day, which is my goal when all is said and done. We are, after all, made in His image. And I realized as I felt my soul sing in chorus with the gallery owner and then listen in delight to the skillful strumming of my daughter on her guitar that our God is a creative God, the author of Creation. Is it no wonder that our spirits sing when we yield to our own creative spirit?  I thought of the duct tape rose adorning the case of her beloved guitar, and the duct tape rose adorning the hair of her beloved Aunt and reveled in the beauty of praising God by using His gifts, like this daughter of my own heart.


Jeremiah 3:13
¹⁵ Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.

What is the wrench for?

I knew that as soon as she rode away I would forget the list of instructions if I didn't write them down. As the three horses traipsed happily off to the shady forest with my daughter bouncing merrily to her lesson, I looked at the wrench in my hand.
"I hope you were listening, Marie, because I don't remember why we have this wrench, do you?"
Marie was my accomplice in helping out at the farm while our daughters had their riding lesson.
"I wasn't really listening," said Maire.
"Well maybe when we head over there, we will figure it out."

Our job was to drain and clean the algae covered watering troughs. At least, that was the job as I remembered it. But then that wrench in my hand seemed to indicate there was something else we were supposed to do, but for the life of me, I could not remember how it involved the wrench. There was no water supply for the one trough, if I recalled Jill's instructions correctly, which as we have already established, I did not. We were given two buckets, scrub brushes, a large bottle of bleach, and 2 pairs of plastic gloves....and the wrench.

We had to empty the grungy green water first, so we used the buckets and bucket by bucket tossed out the water.
"I do remember we were to leave a little water in the bottom, pour bleach in around the rim so it dribbles down and cleans the sides, and then scrub."
So I began to pour the bleach down the sides. I wasted half a bottle of bleach missing the sides. I was already having a bad day having tried to play Eidelweiss from memory on my guitar. I have been practicing it for 2 months now. I can't even consistently remember the first 6 notes, and struggle to pluck the right string without looking at it. I had been reduced to tears of frustration, and Asherel, who is teaching me, told me that for now it was ok if I didn't do any other music at all except Eidelweiss.
"That would be a good idea," I sniffled.
And now, I was wasting Jill's bleach because I couldn't pour steadily on the trough rim. And there was still that wrench, menacingly gaping its open jaws at me from the lawn beside us.

Marie and I scrubbed the trough which was so full of noxious bleach fumes that I could feel my hair turning white (r) as I breathed in. We cleaned it til every last bit of algae was gone. Then together, we hefted the huge trough over to drain the last bit of water.
"How do we refill it?"
"Or rinse it?"
The water pump was a good distance back at the barn.
"Well how about if we just get a couple of buckets full to rinse it, and then Jill might be back."
"Yes, and we will have to admit we don't know what the wrench is for.And that I wasted half her bleach."
We trudged back with our sloshing buckets, rinsed the trough, and then dumped it again by together tipping it and laboriously tossing water into it from that awkward angle. Satisfied we rolled it back, and that is when I noticed the drain...with a nut the perfect size for a wrench to open. Oh.

And I realized that most of my life, I ignore or forget that I have a wrench always available to help me through the hard parts, but I struggle to the point of despair on my own, not using the one useful tool I have been provided. As I settled into bed last night, I felt waves of sorrow wash over me, and panic about the upcoming State Science Olympiad, teaching calculus to my homeschooled girl when I never took calculus myself and this week could not figure out partial factors using induction, all the little details of the wedding trip and reservations still to be made, the dental appointment coming up, the 9th grade curriculum to be ordered.... I thought of how when Marie asked how I was, I said, "I am weary." No wonder, wrestling every night with all these rusted pipes of life with my bare hands.

After stewing for an hour, I grabbed my iPod from beside my bed and saw a new message. It was my daily Bible reading that pops up every morning. Must be after midnight, I thought. And there was a verse which as soon as I read it, my heart slowed, my panic retreated, and I fell asleep. The verse could have been, "Jesus is the light, the way, and the wrench...." but it wasn't.  It was a simple verse from Jeremiah, reminding me that I was not alone, and there was a source of relief for my weary soul....the wrench I too often forget.

 Jeremiah 31:25
I will satisfy the weary, and all who are faint I will replenish.

Tangles of Life

Our Science Olympiad Helicopter team devised a clever way to retrieve our helicopters when they got stuck in the gym rafters. They tied fishing line to a big fat rubberband. Then Asherel positioned me, with my arms outstretched above my head, one end of the rubber band under my finger nail. She then lay on the floor, pulling the other end of the rubber band as far as she could and carefully aiming.
"Move left Mom! Not that left! The other left! Now forward. Too far! Back. Now don't move."
Then the rubber band would shoot up, twanging past my ear with its line of fishing string trailing, like a harpoon. We found the fishing line critical since we were losing too many rubber bands in the rafters. When they would finally hit the helicopter, they would tug on the fishing line and haul in the catch.

The only difficulty with this ingenious helicopter retrieval system is that no matter how carefully we put away our rubberband harpoon, the line always tangled when we needed it next.We could waste half our practice session untangling the fishing line. Fishing line is one of the most impossible materials to untangle. The only thing more difficult to untangle is life.

I won't share the specifics, but yesterday was one of those tangled life days that looked impossible to untangle. Just when we thought we were beginning to ease the knots a little in some fairly important aspects of our sojourn here on earth,  new undesirable events tugged in just the wrong direction. When I stopped blowing my nose and dabbing at my eyes, all I could see were hopeless, insurmountable tangles.

Our helicopter team discovered there were only two ways to untangle fishing line. The easiest is to just cut away the knot. Sometimes you can lose as much as half the line or more. I usually opt for the 'cut away the knot' method, but the kids have more patience, and something inside them just won't let them snip the errant section off. Instead, while I cross my arms, and tap my toes, and twiddle my fingers against my elbows, they methodically and carefully start at one end, and untie every tangle until we have at least enough line to shoot our rubberband harpoon again.

In the tangles of life, most of the time I can't use method one. It means cutting away my heart, or the equivalent, since it usually involves a loved one. I am stuck with method two. Slowly, laboriously, patiently starting at the first knot and with bloodied fingers, working it free....then moving onto the next.

In the midst of life knot untying yesterday, Asherel asked me to practice guitar with her. I am a horrid guitar player, but I do love it. Asherel is a good teacher and told me to pick a favorite song that I would love to practice. She would help me learn it. I spent a couple of days thinking about it. And then I told her I would like to learn "Eidelweiss".  I really didn't feel like leaving the tangled knots of life I was working on, even to practice Eidelweiss, but Asherel begged me. So I settled next to my dear daughter who finger plucked the melody while I strummed the chords and sang. My voice cackles and cracks more than it used to when my dad and I would belt it out on our Sunday drives. I have to strain to reach the high notes.... but some of the sadness of the day did melt away as I sang and made music with my girl.

The song is a simple one. It has a sweet simple melody and easy chords. It is about a flower. The Eidelweiss plant originated on the harsh steppes of Asia. It was able to survive there because of deep, fibrous roots, and also a felt like covering on its leaves. The deep roots help it to cling to the soil through the harsh winds of the steppes, and the covering of the leaves prevents scorching from the often brutal sun. In the movie, The Sound of Music, the song Eidelweiss becomes the anthem of freedom, love of homeland and family, the strength to persevere in the face of impossible circumstances.

"Can we videotape this song of you and me singing?" I asked Asherel. The girl who hates to have her picture taken finally acquiesced when I grovelled at her feet.
"Please, it would mean so much to me...and to my mom. It's her favorite song. I'll send her the video."
So we sang and played Eidelweiss about a thousand times. Sometimes we would start and she would miss a note. Take 2. Sometimes I would play the wrong chord.Take 3. Sometimes I would be unable to suppress unexplained laughter and we would have to cut and begin again.Take 4, 5, 6, etc. After about 290 takes, we finally got one that didn't sound too awful. As we watched the playback, I cringed. Is that old, serious looking lady really me? Why did it sound so beautiful while I was singing it? The American Idol judges would not only call it "pitchy," but I am pretty sure they would threaten to resign unless someone cut out my vocal cords immediately and fed them to the sharks before they could inflict more pain and suffering.

I may not send it to my mom. I may wait til the science of vocal transplant has been perfected. The tangles I was working on were still there when we finished our guitar lesson. But of their own accord, some of the knots seemed a little less tight. I will try to be an Eidelweiss, I decided.

After all, my roots are deep and I am covered.

Jeremiah 17: 7-8
 ⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
   whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
   that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
   its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
   and never fails to bear fruit.”