Most everyone can point to an early friendship that forever shaped them. Besides my sisters, my earliest friends were Briony and Stacy. Briony had a treasure trove of Colorform sets (those vinyl cut-outs that were like stickers except that you could peel them up and place them on a different a background), and we would play with them for hours on end. Her collection included Barbie, Holly Hobby and Monchhichi, to name a few. Not that it seemed remarkable at the time, but she was my first non-white friend. Her father was African-American and her mother was from England. Her mother’s accent plus her toy selection plus the fact that their house had a bay window (I always wanted to live in a house with a bay window) made Briony an excellent playmate. My friend Stacy lived behind us until I was seven. Her mom had a water bed, and when I spent the night there we got to (sort of) sleep aloft the motion sickness-inducing waves of her bed. The summer my family left Louisville to move to Nashville, Stacy gave me a going-away gift. It was a belt made of wide, red elastic and a magnet latch on the front with a picture of the Louisville Cardinal’s mascot. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was probably her mom’s attempt at giving me something special to remember my first home. My son Ezra was born on the other side of the world in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have few details about his first year, but we can feel confident in saying that his first best friend was Max, a boy who’s nine months younger than Ezra. They lived in the same orphanage until they were 3-4 years old, followed by the same foster home for about 18 months, until they were able to come home to their adoptive families in the U.S. Max’s parents live in Kentucky, and we live in Tennessee, so we don’t cross paths very frequently. Still, I know that Max will always be a part of Ezra. A few months after Ezra arrived, if he looked sad and I asked him why he would say, “Me miss Max.” He would talk about Max and ask to watch videos with Max in them. He would pray for Max every night, asking God to help his friend to “sleep good and no cry.” When I watch Ezra interact with other children, I am so grateful for Max. I believe that Ezra’s ability to nurture and encourage those younger than him was developed as a result of their friendship. I also believe that his closeness to his big brother Knox can be traced back to the bond he had with his “Congo Brother” Max. In spite of difficult circumstances, God carved a path for Ezra and Max. While their American families were fretting over bringing them home, they had each other. Because when we’re lucky that’s what best friends become—family. #friendship

Somewhere around age 40 I started to read the texts on my cell phone or the small print in my Bible like a trombone player. I would slide it close to my face then back away again, attempting to find the perfect spot where I could read it. I’ve been wearing glasses or contacts since early high school, so blurry vision wasn’t unfamiliar to me, but my issues with close-up reading was a new experience, though I seem to be right on schedule (41 years old and still hitting my milestones!). In May I went in for my yearly appointment with the optometrist, and he suggested I try multifocal contact lenses. Now I was already familiar with the idea of bifocals. I mean, Benjamin Franklin supposedly invented them, so they’ve been around for a while. But these types of contact lenses are a more recent invention. Each lens is designed like a bullseye with several prescriptions: one for far away, one for in the middle, one for close up and gradually varying degrees between these three. I’ve been wearing this prescription for five months, and my brain has figured out which lens to use in each situation. It can switch and tell my eyes how to see the pine needles on the trees several yards outside my window or the computer screen just inches from my face. It’s these varying layers of strengths that have improved my vision. This same theory can be applied to other kinds of vision, too. In order to truly see a person—an explanation for his behavior, his relationships, his choices—you need the benefit of layers. Close up you get a different story than what is seen in the wider world. When someone takes a stand that you don’t understand, you can listen to his reasons. When someone reacts with an intensity you didn’t expect, you can hear what he says about his background. There’s almost always more to be seen than what first meets the eye. When we jump to unfair conclusions without listening to the other side, we are looking at the world through a blurry lens, the only clear objects are those as familiar to us as our own hands. Anything else is unknown and therefore seemingly unknowable, unless we make an effort—out of love and empathy and basic human kindness—to try to know it. Before you share an inflammatory article or post a pot-stirring tweet, consider what you know about those you intend to disparage. Take a breath and listen to the other side. Practice Habit #5 from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: “SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD.” Just as the layers in my fancy contact lenses have improved my vision, there is a strength in diversity, and this applies to humbly listening to diverse opinions and ideas. #empathy #understanding

One of the first lengthy English paragraphs that our African-born son (sort of) memorized was the Pledge of Allegiance. All last schoolyear, his preschool teacher (me) recited it with the class each time we met. Ezra’s rendition gets a little garbled in places. “And to the public, witches stand…” You get the idea. If you listen to the literal telling of it, a room full of 4-year olds may unintentionally pledge their allegiances to any number of things so don’t hold them to it. Saying the Pledge is one of those activities that’s easy to do without a lot of meaning behind it. I can guarantee that Ezra couldn’t define many of the 31 words but he somehow understands the gravity of them. Before he and his brother and his dad start a basement soccer game, Ezra pauses and—in lieu of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—he puts his hand on his heart and says, “I peg legions to the flag…” before they start the soccer match. This week Ezra took his Pledge skills to the next level. He was asked to lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the school board meeting. Since Ezra became an official U.S. citizen this summer, this was an especially poignant moment for us. As the day progressed, he grew more nervous about his role in the evening meeting. I told him that if he would just get it started by saying, “I pledge…” then everyone there would join in and he could say just about anything for the remaining 29 words. Ezra completed his assigned task, and we drove home to dive into an authentically American supper of Sloppy Joe sandwiches. Our participation in the event brought up a lot of questions for Ezra: What’s a school board? (Um, they make decisions for our schools.) Why are their meetings on TV? (So people can watch it at home and see what they decide.) Why did you draw a star on my hand? (So you would remember which was your right hand when it was time to cover your heart.) And so on. I’m guessing that when it comes to educating the kids in our city, there’s often more questions than answers: How do we improve the scores? How do we afford these programs? What’s best for these kids? I am so grateful there are people willing to meet on a Tuesday night to make plans for our schools. I’m also grateful that Ezra receives this education freely offered to him. He has loving teachers and administrators who make school a wonderful place to be. Most of all, with this education he has opportunities and endless possibilities. Education helps society live up to the promise of liberty and justice for all. #community #patriotism #teachers

There are some mornings when it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Take this morning, for instance. I killed a wasp in my bathroom. Getting to our master bathroom involves a series of turns—five turns from the front door, to be exact—so it was a bit of a surprise to see it buzzing around my mirror. I had a bad reaction to a sting this summer, so I have to admit I went a little Rambo on the poor creature. I ran to the garage to get wasp/hornet spray. I drenched the insect (and my mirror and everything on my side of the sink) with the horrible stuff until it fell, paralyzed, into the cup full of Q-tips. Then I dumped out the cup and beat the wasp to a pulp with a flip-flop. Not a very romantic way to go. My nostrils full of pesticide, my husband texted me from work to say he left his coffee on the kitchen table. I told him I was having a similar kind of day. Then I listened to a voicemail from my bank saying my debit card was suspended due to questionable charges. Seeing as how someone once stole my credit card to buy a subscription to Soap Opera Digest, I took the call seriously. I got it all sorted out and wheeled my bike out of the garage to go for a ride. I paused in the driveway, weighing the risks. With the way the morning had been going, would it be more prudent to stay indoors? Because that’s a lot of what my day boils down to: balancing the risks and the rewards. Should I drink the milk a day after the expiration date? Should I stop at the yellow light or keep going? Should I introduce myself to that person? Should I quit this job to take that one? Should we buy that house? Should I start an adoption? As I walked my son to school this morning (before the wasp episode and the call from the bank), we talked about his classmates and what the day might bring. He told me that he was worried no one would play with him or talk to him. He feels unsure of how to make friends, though we have seen him win over most anyone in a one-mile radius of him with a giant smile and a side-hug. I asked him if he thought he should go back with me and do school at home. He chewed on the thought for a few seconds, then he said he should go to school. “Me make friends,” he said, adjusting his backpack and squaring his shoulders resolutely. “School hard but good.” Risks and rewards. Totally worth it. #lifelessons #reward #adoption #risk #challenges #learning #appreciation

I feel sick. The constant news cycle. The pictures and videos. The soundbites. The unequivocal, unapologetic, urgent call for hatred of people whose skin is a different color. I think I’ve always been bothered by the unfair treatment of people who aren’t white. I was raised on Sesame Street-style diversity and after-school specials that called out bullies and bigots. But now that I’m a mother to a beautiful, brown-skinned boy, I can’t just turn off the TV and stay in my white privilege bubble. Though you could argue I should’ve felt this strongly all along, for me, there’s a new reality to the recent violence. With the addition of our son to our family, I now replace every mistreated, overlooked, belittled black person with his face, his eyes, his tears, and I am undone. When I see a picture of a torch-bearing white supremacist, I can’t help but think of how this man hates my son, even though they’ve never met. How to keep him safe? How to teach him when to stand up and when to stand down? How to keep moving forward when there seems to be so much hate? I can’t think of what to do except to go out and love on people. Yesterday in the parking lot of Sam’s Club, I watched an older white man approach a black mother of four small kids. I held my breath. I braced myself. Then I heard him say that her children are beautiful and a blessing and can he get her a shopping cart? It was commonplace and magnificent, all at once. It was regular kindness, a step towards healing. Kindness promotes trust. Trust makes room for understanding. Understanding creates empathy. And once we get to empathy it’s a lot harder to hate complete strangers. In that same parking lot, I saw a different white man, feet planted widely apart with hands on his hips, stare down a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf. Maybe he had lost his car. Maybe he was elderly and confused. I’m still not sure, but my senses were on high alert. I picked up my pace to walk closer to the woman, wondering what I would do if he said something unkind. Nothing happened. It was probably a scene created mostly by my imagination, but I was ready because I’m tired of letting others do the talking for me. I’m tired of all this hate. There’s no shortage of opinions when it comes to the recent events in Charlottesville. Everyone seems to have lots to say. I’m not in any way certified to speak about race relations, but I can’t let that keep me from saying anything at all. We can fight against racism. We can stand up for what’s right. In the space of one generation, we went from whites-only water fountains to an African-American president. Anything is possible, right? I know it’s not enough progress for my black brothers and sisters, but I’m searching for traces of hope wherever I see a glimmer of light. As long as there are people willing to call out bullies and bigots, there’s hope. I will not be silent. Let’s see the glory that remains where there’s an absence of hate. #kindness #race

Sending your kindergartener to school for the first time can cause an overwhelming flood of emotions. Sad, because he’s growing up too fast. Happy, because he’s growing into a big kid. Worrying about how he’ll cope without you. Pride knowing he’s capable of so much more than you credit him for. When my oldest children, twin girls, started kindergarten I was nervous. Those first kids are your guinea pigs, trial-and-error in the truest sense. How many times should I walk them in to their classrooms? Should I send juice or water in their lunches? How cute should I dress them for school? When my older son went to kindergarten three years later, he had already been in the school building with me countless times. Those teachers who had been complete strangers when I had given my girls to them on their first day of school had now become my friends. Their elementary school was more familiar to me than just about any place in town. Dropping him off was much easier. Then I had a break from elementary school life. For a whole year I had only middle school and high school kids. It’s a different perspective and different expectations. No more birthday snacks or hallway volunteer time. Upper school administrators don’t expect the same level of involvement and that was okay. Older kids have more responsibility for their school assignments so less is expected of parents (Can I hear an Amen?!). But now I’m back. I took my youngest to kindergarten last week. And I survived. Fortunately, our youngest son now attends the same elementary school his older siblings attended. The familiarity is at least there for me, if not for him. I’ve had several people ask me how he’s doing in kindergarten. Since I’m not there and stalking isn’t encouraged, here’s the little I know: Other than the first day, he’s been walking in all by himself. (“Tell me how you get to your room,” I say outside the school door. “Left, left, left, right,” he answers.) On the first full day, he didn’t notice that he had forgotten his lunchbox in the classroom until he got to the cafeteria and had to run back to the room to get it. On the second full day, he banged his shin on a piece of playground equipment and got a big bump. Both his teacher and the school nurse called to let me know about it. Our tough, little fella is doing it. He’s learning and making friends. He’s becoming just a little more of who he’s meant to be. When he gets in the car in the afternoon, he’s all smiles. I know a giant part of the success of these first few days is due to the adults who are loving and caring and teaching him while he’s away from me. They are the ones putting ice on his hurt leg and guiding him back down the hall to retrieve his lunchbox. With this in mind, I have a favor to ask: Even if you don’t have a child in school, tell a teacher “thank you” today. These amazing educators leave a mark on their students that will stay with them forever. They give of themselves in a way most occupations would never dare ask of their employees. They invest in our nation’s greatest resources—our kids, our hope, our future. #teachers

I have the fortunate distinction of being the middle of three daughters. I can find the fortune in it now that I am an adult with healthy relationships with both my sisters. I love going out with them; hearing people comment about how much we look alike. I am accustomed to the way we compensate for each other like a three-legged stool—balancing each other without enlisting Sister A to gang up on Sister B. Sisterhood can be a fragile ecosystem. Now that we are adults (40 is grown up, right?), we are comfortable with our roles, but growing up was a different story. If I had understood the predicament of the middle child better, I might not have been so upset upon finding a copy of Raising the Sensitive Middle Child—dog-eared and underlined—by my mother’s bedside. Now I appreciate the irony of the scene: “What does this mean?!” I moaned to her through clenched teeth. “Are you saying I’m sensitive or something?” To the casual observer, my sisters and I held equal places in our mother’s affection. She relied on the wisdom of humorist Erma Bombeck to explain her diverse feelings about us. Hanging in the upstairs hallway were three framed tributes to our respective birth order. Each began with “I’ve always loved you best…” Erma’s attempt to placate all the feelings of her children is admirable, but the words of those framed keepsakes mainly confused me. Each passage ends with a parting thought. To the oldest child: you were the beginning. To the baby: you were the culmination. But to the middle child: you were the continuance. In other words, you were the not-as-great sequel to a blockbuster, or you were just there to get us one step closer to the big finale. The part that particularly rubbed me the wrong way as soon as I could read was “you drew the dumb spot.” I never finished reading the thought. It said: “You drew the dumb spot and it made you stronger for it.” I just focused on the fact that it said dumb and assumed it was calling me names. Again: Am I sensitive or something? The greatest curse/blessing of being a middle child would have to be empathy. I experienced persecution from the maniacal brain of my older sister. (For example: “Abby, you can go first on our homemade zip-line. Just climb up this porch pole and grab on the rope. Come on, don’t be a baby.” After the failed zip-line… “It’s just skin. After your hands stopped bleeding, it’ll grow back. Stop crying, cry-baby.”) So when it came time for me to join in the initiation of our younger sister, I was robbed of the joy so evident in my older sister. To say that I experienced no enjoyment in seeing our younger sister scurry to do our bidding just because we said “If you don’t, the bug is gonna get you!” would be a lie, but it was an empty happiness I swallowed as I drank the juice she brought us as we watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Now that I have children of my own I understand how difficult it is to make every one of them feel special every day. No matter how carefully I craft my praise for one, the others feel slighted. If I say, “You’re really good at drawing pictures of butterflies” to one daughter the other daughter assumes I think her butterflies stink. My one consolation is that I don’t really have a middle child. My firstborn are twin girls. My older son Knox came three years later, and we adopted another son six years younger than Knox. You could argue that they all “drew the dumb spot” in the family in some way. Being compared to a twin sister in everything you do has been problematic for both of my girls and being the little brother to two strong-willed, older sisters has not been a picnic for my older son. (Knox used to shoot baskets in the driveway alone a lot. Maybe he really liked basketball or maybe he was trying to avoid playing “house” for the thousandth time.) Our youngest has his own set of unique challenges, although he does have the advantage of being our baby with three older siblings to spoil him. My prayer for my children is that they will receive the blessing I think I have finally learned to appreciate: being inconvenienced by your siblings and making compromises for your siblings and showing lifelong loyalty and devotion to your siblings will eventually create compassion for people who are not your family. In other words, it will make you stronger. Thanks, Erma! #empathy #family #sisters

Every year or so I get that home renovation itch. Sometimes the itch gets scratched with a couple cans of paint, but there are other times when the projects get a little bit away from me. For example, take our recent home improvement scheme to replace 7 of our interior doors. The ones we had were 30 years old, hollow and banged up quite a bit. I had painted them once, a few years ago, but even that paint job was showing a lot of wear. It was time to replace them. My husband and I felt equipped for the project. We bought 7 doors—upgraded a bit to paneled doors—and I painted them a semi-glossy white. We planned to take the hinges and knobs from the old doors and put them on the new ones (never mind the adage about new wine in old wineskins), so we thought it would take a couple of days. Oh, how the exalted will be humbled! Then YouTube videos revealed the need for carving out the spot in the door where the hinge would snugly fit and the convenience of a router, a power tool we now own. Each door had its own challenges—the type of thing we’ve come to expect from an older home that has expanded after various additions and alterations over the years (something the house and I have in common). It took a week but we finally finished. If you come to our house, I beg you to NOT look closely at our carpentry skills, or the lack thereof. At about the same time, we had new windows installed by PROFESSIONALS. Our utility bills were whispering conspiracy theories about possible leaks and inefficiency, and a few of the windows were damaged, so we swallowed the price tag and spent our money the boring, adult way. All in all, both projects have turned out great and, hopefully, improved this home we love. You don’t realize what a difference replacing something mundane like windows and doors can make until you do it. But these components of most every house are actually very important. A door gives you privacy. A window gives you a view. A door shuts others out. A window lets sunlight in. A life with all unlocked doors would be easy but unchallenging. A life with doors and windows requires a person to decide when to walk away and when to weigh the risks and decide to jump. Or as Maria says in The Sound of Music, “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.” #challenges #lifelessons

One of my 15-year old daughters just passed her “knowledge test” (a.k.a. driver’s permit test). Now comes the hard work of teaching her to do the thing I do nearly every day without really considering how I do it. The first time I took her to a church parking lot to practice driving, she spent the first half of the 30-minute session just coasting. She didn’t use the accelerator much at all. When she did finally give the gas pedal a gentle tap to get the minivan up a slight incline, we reached the minimum speed to make the automatic locks click, giving her a bit of a surprise. While she was behind the wheel, most everything had the ability to surprise her—a leaf falling from a tree or a low flying bird. All her senses were on high alert. Code orange! There’s a lawnmower! Watch out! Don’t hit that curb that’s coming at you at 5 MPH! After a few more parking lot only lessons, she took a short drive on a real road. I don’t know who was more nervous, me or her. It consisted of driving from one church parking lot, down a back road, into a different church parking lot, and back the same way to the first place. (Thank goodness for so many church parking lots!) There are many skills we have to learn slowly, step-by-step: you have to walk before you can run, learn your ABC’s before you can read, tie your shoelaces with “bunny ears” before you can do it the grown-up way. We often want to skip all of those first steps. We’d like to think we can get where we want to go without learning the lessons along the way. We want to make the perfect pancake from that first pour of batter. Maybe that does work sometimes, but mostly we have to make several ugly, misshapen pancakes before we get a good one. We need someone to teach us which pedal is the brake and which is the gas. We need a teacher to sit next to us and tell us how to use the blinker (and how to turn off the windshield wipers when we move that lever accidentally instead). Research shows that it can take as little as 2 months and as much as 8 months for a new behavior to become a habit so don’t get discouraged if it takes a while for a new habit to stick. That’s a lot of little steps to complete a journey. That’s a lot of choosing carrot sticks over candy bars. That’s a lot of driving lessons before we hit the interstate. That’s a lot of weird-looking pancakes. #learning #lifelessons #patience

Being a parent can feel like déjà vu sometimes. You get to experience some of the same things again but from a different perspective. For instance, a few weeks ago I took one of our 15-year old daughters to get her driver’s permit. She had studied the handbook, made flashcards, and took online quizzes. She felt fully prepared the Friday afternoon I drove her to the DMV. There’s a reason the Department of Motor Vehicles has a certain reputation for being a place where joyfulness dies a miserable, hour-long death. They’ve improved the efficiency of the process with innovations such as automated kiosks to renew your drivers’ license, but there are steps that still require talking to a living, breathing human being, preferably a slightly irritated one, apparently. We arrived at the DMV at 3:30, later than I had planned. The employee at the entrance told us that they wouldn’t admit the people in line after us. Phew! We showed him the letter from my daughter’s school, her birth certificate, a completed and notarized form, and my drivers’ license. (I know. That’s a lot of stuff, right? Just to be on the safe side, I also brought a utility bill, her passport, and a urine sample. Okay. I actually only brought 2 out of 3 of those items on the EXTRA list.) We were given a number and told to wait. As the minutes ticked by, my daughter Ella grew increasingly more nervous. She said, “I’ve taken tons of tests before. Why am I so worried?” A different employee sitting behind a part of the U-shaped community desk called us up to review our paperwork and take her picture, then the woman sent us back to sit down. After a few more minutes, Ella was told to go and take the test in an adjacent room. I sat in a new seat in the waiting area—one closer to the computer lab where she was taking the test so that she could look at my friendly, smiling face instead of throwing up all over the keyboard from nerves. This new seat just happened to be by a large and sweaty man, but this is the love I have for my child. Soon Ella emerged from the testing room victorious. She gave me two thumbs-up. She had been told by a friend that the 30-question test would end early once you had answered at least 24 questions correctly. (You cannot miss more than 6 questions and still pass.) She had made it through question number 26, so by her calculations she had only missed two before the test stopped. Hooray! She checked in with her DMV buddy from the U-desk who told her to sit back down and wait some more. She texted the good news to her dad. She asked my opinion about a question from the test involving a deer crossing. We held hands, sighing with relief. When her number was called again, the DMV employee asked Ella, “Do you have a handbook at home, sweetie?” (I remember the “sweetie” part because it was unusually humanizing.) Ella: Yes, ma’am. DMV Woman: Well, that’s good because you need to study some more. You failed the test. Ella: I failed? But I only missed two questions. DMV Woman: How do you know you only missed two? (As she said this the woman crossed her arms behind her head and leaned her neck into her interlocked fingers, real nonchalant like from a gangster movie.) Ella: The test stopped after question number 26. DMV Woman: Huh? Well, you are going to have to come back and take the test again. I had my hand on Ella’s back, and I could feel the heat rising off of her like the June sun bouncing off the asphalt parking lot outside. I tried to keep the conversation light while simultaneously considering how Ella was going to cry on the way home. I asked the woman if there could be a mistake. Maybe Ella’s score was mixed up with someone else’s? She had felt so sure she had passed. The DMV employee kept this line of dialogue going for a good five or ten minutes, then she smiled and said, “Oh, I’m just kidding. You passed.” Ella and I were in shock and not so sure what we were supposed to do next. Ha, ha, ha. We forced a few laughs out. “You really had us going,” I told her. “Like you REALLY made us think that she had FAILED her test.” The woman told us how she often got bored, so she and many of the others who work there like to prank people. One guy even made one girl cry and run out the door when he told her she had failed. Someone had to go to the parking lot and bring her back inside. What I wanted to say was: “I can see how that would be funny and completely kind, because the best people to prank are highly emotional 15-year old girls. That’s hilarious.” But instead I said, “So we’re good to go?” and we left with Ella’s temporary driver’s permit clutched tightly in her hand. As parents, we don’t really get to choose which things to live through again with our kids. Dentist appointments, booster shots, friend drama, romantic break-ups, failing tests. It’s no better the second (or third or fourth or fifth) time around—maybe even worse. But I was glad to add that day to the story we’re daily writing called “Ella and Mom.” And it inspired me to make the magnanimous decision to let my husband take the next kid to the DMV. I’m just nice like that. (Here’s where I cross my arms behind my head and lean my neck into my interlocked fingers, gangster style.) #parenthood

I’m always surprised at what plant life is capable of. After our week-long vacation at the end of June, we returned home to a veritable jungle of vegetation. The limbs on the Rose of Sharon bushes on either side of the front porch were so long and weighed down by blooms that a person had to hold them aside—like a rainforest explorer armed with a machete—just to walk down the porch steps. Weeds—purge, crabgrass, woodsorrel—had used our absence to invade our stone walkway and flower beds. Patches of dandelions and clover were brazenly scattered across our yard. When we came home from our trip, I walked around our yard looking at the ways it had changed in the past 7 days. One of the first things I saw was in a mostly ignored corner flower bed at the edge of our yard. Realizing this spot was far from the garden hose, we had planted low maintenance rose bushes there. We knew it wouldn’t get much attention. Last summer, I planted two plants just behind the roses. These were given to me for free by a master gardener at the farmers’ market. (How do I know she was a master gardener? I think she had a nametag.) Seeing that I am not a master gardener, I don’t even know what these plants are. The woman told me that they grow well in full sun and were easy to keep alive. As long as it wasn’t marijuana I was satisfied with her information. To my untrained eye, I think they look like hostas now, but when I got them they were little dirt balls with a bit of green leaves stuffed in a Kroger bag. I planted them and totally forgot about them. In spite of my ignorance and negligence, during our vacation they bloomed into a radiant yellow and fire-orange flower. The sight of it took my breath away, like an astonishing magic trick. I nearly expected that the flower appeared in a puff of smoke at the end of a wand. There is something magical and admirable and astonishing and honorable when something (or someone) beats the odds to succeed. When the expected failure is an unexpected triumph. When a dirt ball grows into a stunning flower. When a tiny seed sprouts to crack a concrete sidewalk. Growth isn’t always inevitable. It requires a strength that is sometimes hard to find. When I watch our son Ezra play with his toys, his imagination soaring to heights beyond what he’s ever seen, I consider how this wasn’t inevitable. Born in an impoverished nation. Parentless as an infant. His first five years spent without a family. Ezra has every reason not to bloom. And yet he grows stronger every day. He finds joy in simple activities. When he plays alone with his toys (or in place of toys, anything else he can find—scraps of paper or sticks or coins), he uses this high-pitched voice that signals to us he’s in a new place. He’s entered his imagination zone where someone needs saving and there are bad guys and it’s more fun if the toys are arranged in a straight line. He’s our stunning yellow-orange flower, because the most impressive growth is often found in unexpected places. #adoption #beauty

Beach vacation objectives can vary greatly, person to person. For some, the highlight is a sunset stroll along the shore. For some, the highlight is eating lots of fresh seafood and key lime pie. For some, the highlight is relaxing by crashing waves while you catch up on your leisure reading. And then there are those people who go to the beach with the full intention of picking up beach trash, ocean rejects, discarded debris, used mobile homes—a.k.a. seashells. I’ve seen these people at every beach I’ve visited along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. This is how you’ll recognize them: Their eyes will be trained downward, and they’ll be awkwardly grasping a handful of a sandy objects. They will dig in the sand with their bare toes or the tips of their shoes until they unearth what they hope will be the largest, most beautiful find the sea can offer. They will gasp slightly when they raise a big, smooth seashell—its underbelly pink and shiny with Mother-of-Pearl iridescence—to their eye level only to sadly sigh when they see its imperfections, the holes and the sharp edge on one side where it broke apart. They will look wistfully out at the ocean, past the relentless waves, and wonder where its other parts lie buried in the dark and sandy depths. But they will determine that some of these marine discoveries are worth keeping, and the next stop for their treasure trove may be a plastic sand bucket or a Styrofoam cooler. But these collectors won’t be satisfied if the final resting place for their beach beauties is such a commonplace container. No. They have big dreams. Dreams of making seashell jewelry—earrings and pendants. Dreams of filling glass jars with seashells and hot gluing them on picture frames. Dreams that most likely won’t actually come true once the daily grind of not being on vacation sets in but dreams nonetheless. How do I know so much about these beachcombers? Because I used to be one, that’s why. I once collected a bucket full of sand dollars to bring home and make into Christmas ornaments. They stank so bad that my mom made me keep them outside. I bleached them and dried them out until they were brittle and unusable. All that fishy smell and Clorox bleach for nothing. Even though I discourage my own children from bringing seashells on the 8-hour car ride home with us, I still find myself looking for that perfect shell as I walk with them along the beach each day we are on vacation. I will often pick up those fan-shaped scallop shells or the conch shell masterpieces or the bowl-shaped clam shells or the architecturally-mesmerizing nautilus shells and carry them on our stroll. I don’t keep them. Their existence holds no purpose for me in landlocked Murfreesboro. But there’s something magical about their weight my hand. For me, the beach means standing on the edge of something, one foot on the sand and one foot in the ocean. It means a horizon that goes on and on to reveal the most glorious sunsets. It means not hurrying. It means holding hands and not because you’re crossing the street. And it means a bucket full of seashells that have no value apart from their commonplace remarkability. Beauty in the eye of the beholder. Loveliness often where you search it out. #beach #beauty #vacation