Category: Memory Lane

Memory Lane, poetry

My “Almost” Romantic Comedy

by my13daychallenge

It was Monday morning. I sat people watching waiting for the professor to start the class. I noticed a handsome young man reading a book by Maya Angelou. He was really cute so I knew what to do. I left class and went immediately to the library. Wednesday morning came. I sat there dressed in my favorite outfit, wearing red lipstick and passionately reading Angelou’s poems. The handsome man smiled and sat down next to me.

“Hey, I was just reading that book yesterday,” he said.

“What a coincidence! Maybe we have more things in common.”

“You’re right. We could. Let’s find out.”

Handsome classmate then invited me to read poetry with him underneath the tree in front of the library. It was enough to make this bookworm’s heart glow with love. The first poem we read was Caged Bird by Maya Angelou.  The whole experience was cute, sweet and just like the movies. I wish I could tell you the story ended like the movies. Sorry, no wedding bells. We did become friends though. He introduced me to poets, authors and musicians that I still love today.

And that dear readers is the power of poetry.

Challenge 14: Gratitude, Grief, joyful moment, Memory Lane, Musings, Wonder Women

Sure Love Ya

by my13daychallenge

My Mom’s family has a traditional goodbye saying. Sure Love Ya. It means goodbye, see you soon and you might drive me crazy sometimes but we’re still family.  I have no idea how many times I’ve said that expression in my life. It’s probably been at least a million times. There is another tradition.  Before ending a family gathering, we all huddle in a circle like a sports team and shout the saying. “Sure love ya.” The circle keeps getting bigger as more and more people join the family. 

It’s confession time.  The teenage me thought it was an embarrassing tradition. I hated it!  I only did it because my mother said I had to do it.  I was confident that we were the only family in the entire universe that would do something like that. 

My Grandma died this year. She was my last remaining grandparent Earth-side. We couldn’t meet with Grandma as a large family group to celebrate her birthday like we’ve done in the past. This year we meet on Zoom. It was fun to see various relatives as little Zoom boxes on the screen. We ended our short party with “Sure Love Ya”.  It was both sad and beautiful at the same time. 

I think I finally understand why Grandma liked us to huddle up and express love. I think she was trying to ensure that we still loved each other even after she left us. 

That is what I will remember most about my grandmother Marjorie Hill Smith. She loved. 

I loved my Grandma very much. I will miss her. I know I’m not the only person on Earth who has lost someone they loved this year. There are many souls who are grieving right now. 2020. It’s been a crazy year. I haven’t really liked this year. It’s been hard. REALLY HARD! I’m ready for 2020 to be over and just a chapter in a history textbook.

I have learned something this year though. I’ve learned that love is one of the few constants in our crazy, ever-changing world.

Sure Love Ya to all my dear family and friends.

(My Grandma and I enjoyed baking bread together. )


Challenge 14: Gratitude, Childhood memories, joyful moment, Memory Lane

Joyful Moment #612

by my13daychallenge

I collect joyful moments like some people collect stamps. I put most joyful moments in a small book. Some of my joyful moments are also written on this blog. I had another joyful moment today. It was #612. It happened as I wrote in my journal.

I have been a journal writer since I was a child.  I’m not perfect at it, but I try to write once a month. As I was writing today, I felt joy on reflecting  why 7-year-old me set the goal to record the events of my life once a month.  I set the goal, because of a conversation I had with my father’s step-dad.

Grandpa Adams picture

Grandpa Adams was sick and his health was deteriorating.  This is how most visits to the grandparents worked at that age. I would say hi and then run as fast as I could past Grandma and Grandpa to play outside. This time was different though.  Grandpa asked me to sit by him for a minute. He shared that he kept a journal. He asked me if I kept a journal. I told him no. Grandpa looked at me and then solemnly gave me two promises. He told me that if I kept a journal I would remember my childhood. Grandpa also said that if I kept a journal that I would have a happy life even if sometimes I had bad experiences.

It was a deep conversation to have with a little kid. It made an impact on me. That night I asked my parents to get me a journal from the store. The brown book with the brown flowers is the journal my parents bought me.

My journals

As I was writing in my journal today, I felt joy that I can record my ordinary life. The act of writing it down somehow makes the ordinary turn into “extraordinary”. I get to be the hero (and sometimes the accidental villain) in the great story called my life.

Grandpa Adams’ words came true. I remember many things from my childhood. I also believe that I can have a happy life even if sometimes I have bad experiences.

 

Memory Lane, Musings, November Writing Challenge

The Intelligence Test

by my13daychallenge

Pizza Slice

The Intelligence Test

By Amee Lynne Shelley

The yellow flyer was posted outside my History of Western Civilization class.  Students who volunteered to take an intelligence test would get lunch and a $25 gift card.  It was the perfect incentive for a broke college student. I already knew I was a genius. This intelligence test was nothing to fear. I signed up for it.

I showed up at the designated place and time.  The Department Chair thanked us for volunteering and then introduced us to our examiners. Mine was a doctoral student named Steve. He was tall and wore a brown sweater. He had brown rimmed glasses that made him look very smart. I pushed my glasses up a bit on my nose. I was smart too. The intelligence test would prove it.  I followed Steve to a small table in the corner of  the room.  After a few hours, the test ended. I went back to the waiting area.

The pizza came while I was waiting for Steve. The other students and I quickly grabbed the hot slices and put them on our paper plates.  I chatted with a cute computer science major.

“It’s taking Steve a long time,” I thought.  “Why can’t he just hurry up?”

Finally, Steve walked into the room. I jumped up. “What did you find?  Did it prove I’m exceptional and one in a million? ”

Steve smiled.

My heart stopped. I knew that smile. It was the fake smile.  I gave that smile to the annoying neighbor kid that lived next to my parents.  He had talked for 20 minutes nonstop about his Lego blocks. I wanted him to just go away, but I couldn’t figure out how to exit the conversation. I had given Lego Kid a fake smile. Steve was now fake smiling me.

“Let’s go back to the testing room,” Steve said.

I walked behind Steve into the room. The walls were brown. We sat down at the table and Steve adjusted his rimmed glasses. I took mine off and nervously fiddled with them.

“The intelligence test was first developed in 1904 by two men named Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon. On this assessment, we look at your score and compare it to scores of other people who took this test. The mean is fixed at 100. Two-thirds of the people will get scores between 85 and 115. Your scores fell within the mean range of intelligence.”

I looked at Steve. He gave me another fake smile. I knew what it meant.  Steve thought I was average. I must have starred long enough for him to worry that I didn’t understand what he had said.

“Let me explain it a different way.” Steve got up and walked over to the whiteboard. He drew a bell curve. This is all the people who took the test. Steve put a little x in the middle of the curve. “This is you. Your score fell within the mean or average.”

I cut him off.  “I know the definition, ” I snapped.

I wanted to cry. Steve ,the future psychologist, thought I was dumb.  Those smart people who invented intelligence tests back in 1904 thought I was dumb. My little x was stuck right in the middle of average land on the Bell Curve. Was I even smart enough to be in college? What if Steve was right? What if I really was just average? Could average people grow up to be incredible? My plan for being famous and brilliant seemed to be farther away than when I first walked into the exam room.  Maybe I was fraud who had somehow tricked a college into letting her in?  I bit my lip and swallowed more tears. I may be average, but I wasn’t going to cry in front of smart Steve. His x was probably way up there at the top near the genius people like Albert Einstein.

“Was it an interesting experience,” the Department Chair asked as he handed me my gift card. “Worth a few hours of your time.”

I looked beyond him and saw the trash can spilling over with pizza boxes and greasy paper plates. I thought about Jacob and Esau from the Bible story. Esau had sold his birthright for some dinner. Had Jacob worn a brown sweater that day?

“Yeah,” I lied as I swallowed more tears. “It was educational.”

I starred at my $25 gift card on the way home. It wasn’t enough. If it had been a $10,000 gift card or a million-dollars, it still wouldn’t have been enough.  No sum was worth the discovery that I was just an average girl.

 

 

Childhood memories, Memory Lane, Musings

Random Thoughts on the day before

by my13daychallenge

I’m turning 39 on February 27th. It’s kind of weird to be turning 39. I don’t know what to expect for my 39th year of life. When I was 15, I wrote my life history.  It wasn’t your normal life history. Instead of writing about my past, I wrote the life history for my future. It was 25 pages long and included a month by month analysis of my life from age 15 until my 20th year high school reunion at 38. I ended my life history at 38.  I had quite the epic life that included normal dreams like going to college, getting married, having twins and some not-so-ordinary plans like being an ambassador to Russia and fighting aliens in order to save the world. The last line on my life history was this. “She retired at 39 from her job at the space station. Amee’s little family, which included her handsome husband and their four kids, moved to a tropical beach paradise planet where they lived the rest of their lives in absolute happiness. The End”. It sounds delightful and I only have one more day to make it all happen.

When you are young, you know you will grow up but it’s a far-away fantasy thing. You believe anything is possible including intergalactic space battles and two sets of twins.  I am now twenty years removed from writing my life history. I still have a dreaming heart, but I’m old enough to realize that some things will probably never be. Unless there is a quick miracle in the next 24 hours, I won’t be fighting aliens above planet Earth or be the mother to four children.

I’m not really, really old yet but I’m not young anymore either. I’m standing in the middle land staring at my future that I never thought to imagine when I was 15. The future is really unwritten from this point on.

Amee on the path

I love this photo of me. My very talented Aunt Marla took it  when we were on a hike. I’m on the path but I can’t see behind the curve. I have to just keep going on and hoping that the view and journey will be marvelous.

Life is kind of like that sometimes. Here is my future. Unwritten. Unexplored and ready to be beautiful.  I hope to make it a good one.

 

 

Memory Lane, Musings

September 11th

by my13daychallenge

9-11

“Dad, I’m coming home. The world is falling apart and teacher college forgot to tell me what to do when that happens.”

I was crying when I called my parents. I had been driving to work when I heard that the Twin Towers had been hit by an airplane. The man on the radio announced the attack and my whole body started to shake.  I was no longer the confident, unstoppable graduate with a new car, a cell phone and my very first teaching contract. I was a frightened little girl who needed her parents.  My Dad answered the phone.

“You can’t come home yet, Amee. You’ve got a classroom full of kids and a job to do. Those kids need to know that their teacher  will do her best to take care of them. Once school is out, come home and Mom and I will give you a hug.”

I didn’t like that answer even though I knew my Dad was speaking the truth. I wanted to go home, and I knew I had a job to do.  I had to go to school.  I needed to acknowledge any fears the students brought up and then I had to follow our normal classroom routine for the day. It was what I could do to help. Dad offered to pray with me. He said a beautiful prayer. He prayed for the firefighters, for the people trapped in the building, for the people who were scared, he prayed for me, for my students, for our country, for the President, for every one who was impacted, for our family members who lived in New York City and that the world would have peace.

It’s been 15 years since that fateful day on September 11th. The world has experienced a few more fall apart moments.  The lesson I learned from my Dad during 9-11 has stuck with me. I’ve thought about it several times over the years.

There are times in life when things occur that you have no preparation for and no idea what to do. When you don’t know what to do, I try to remember my Dad’s words to me on 9-11. Say a prayer and then keep going on trying to do your best. At the end of the hard day, go home to get a hug.

 

Memory Lane, Musings

Joyful Moment #201

by my13daychallenge

It’s time for a joyful moment. I love those automatic doors that swing open and shut all on their own. The logical side of me knows there’s a mechanical,  scientific reason for how the doors detect your presence which triggers a switch to make them open. The magical side of me still loves the thrill of the doors opening for me. It all stems back to being four years old. I went to the store with my mother and Aunt Becky. The doors automatically opened at the entrance to the store. It was the first time I had ever realized that doors could open all by themselves without me pulling on them. It delighted me so much.  I knew as I walked through those magical doors that I was a princess. After all, why else would the doors open for me?

Today I went to the grocery store. The doors opened up for me and I smiled. I must still be a princess.

Crown

 

Challenges, Memory Lane, Musings

The Christmas Candle

by my13daychallenge

DSCN4419

Each night for the 13 days before Christmas, my siblings and I would sit at the dinner table. In the middle of the table sat a burning candle. Mom would read us a few scriptures to teach us about Christ.  Then we’d sing a Christmas song. One-year Mom told us that when the candle was all the way burned down to the bottom with nothing but a little wax left that she would make us a special cake. We were all very motivated by the idea of cake so the next night we each came to the kitchen table with our own candles. As Mom would read, we’d take our candle’s flame and gently encourage the Christmas candle to burn faster. This went on for a couple of nights as my poor mother tried to read us the words of Christ and we tried various means to make the candle burn faster.

The Christmas candle was taking forever to burn all the way down to the bottom so we decided to meet before mom’s readings and burn it on our time. We felt guilty about just burning the candle though so one of us read the Bible while the others started burning little holes into the Christmas candle. Mom came in and saw what we were doing. We thought we might be in trouble but instead she just laughed and said, “Wonderful! I’m raising a bunch of pyromaniacs who read their scriptures”. Then she went and got a lighter and joined us in our quest to burn that candle all the way to the bottom.  (By the way, lighters can burn candles faster than other candles can burn candles. We got to eat cake that night!)

(This cute little Nativity set was a present from my awesome sister Jenny.)

My latest challenge is connected with Advent.  The 30 days before Christmas I’m remembering Jesus by reading some scripture verses and doing 30 days of kind deeds. The hope is that this will make Christ the focus of my Christmas celebrations.  So far, it’s been a good experience.

And no, I’m not going to tell you what I did for my good deeds because it’s suppose to be anonymous.  I’m also a little selfish because I want all those blessings in heaven.  Don’t have any idea what I’m talking about? That’s okay.  I will fill you in with the Bible story. When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount he said people who do good deeds get rewards in Heaven. There’s a catch though.  The angels don’t write it down on their heavenly Ipads if you blab all around town about it.  Oops. I just told the entire internet all about my good deeds challenge. Somewhere there is a little angel who is hitting the delete button.

This challenge really has made this Christmas special though. What are you doing to make Christmas a wonderful time for you?

Memory Lane, Musings

On Mother’s Day

by my13daychallenge1 Comment on On Mother’s Day

Beautiful

I love my Mom, and I hate Mother’s Day. I love my Mom, because she is a wonderful, fun, intelligent, woman who has taught me many good things. I love her very much, and like most kids I try to come with the perfect gift to convey my love. Yet, I hate Mother’s Day. Before you start throwing guilt at me, let me explain. I’ve seen too many strong, amazing women, use Mother’s Day as a weapon instead of a way to honor the women in their life. I’m included in that list. I’ve spent too many Mother’s Day feeling depressed about my infertility and too many years comparing myself to ‘perfect’ people with their ‘perfect’ lives.

I started this bad habit after a memorable Sunday School lesson where a well-meaning teacher made a list of “Good Mother behavior” and “Bad Mother behavior”. I was not brave enough to say that the bad list wasn’t really that bad. Instead, I just sat there and felt bad as I mentally compared myself with the good list. There were so many things on that bad mother list that I did or I wanted in my life. I wish I could go back and put my arm around the 12 year old me. I’d tell her the truth. That most of us are doing the best we can. I’d tell the younger me that your ability to be a good mother has nothing to do with how you decorate your home, feed your baby, the way you provide for your family or what you study at school. It has to do with how you treat the folks you interact with every day.

So in honor of Mother’s Day and all the other days in the year, I’ve written a new list. Bad mothers lock their kids in basements for years without food and water. The rest of us are more good than bad. Here’s a little poem.

Good Mothers try

And sometimes they just survive

And that is okay too, because

We are all good mothers.

Memory Lane, Uncategorized

Memory Lane

by my13daychallenge

Have you ever done something absolutely crazy, but it felt right and in the end you are glad you did?  Last summer, the Accountant and I went on a road trip to visit his awesome relatives in Vancouver.

Image

While we were driving through a beautiful forest, when  we saw two young people hiking  with large backpacks and a little hitchhiking sign.  We passed by them.  I tried to ignore the feeling, because I could just imagine the end of our tragic tale. Two bodies found  after picking up kids with backpacks. Nathan said exactly what I was thinking. “We have to go back and pick up those kids. I really don’t want to get murdered, but it feels right to give them a ride”. Continue reading “Memory Lane” →