Prince Albert tobacco and benadryl

One of my favorite chores as an adult on the farm is cutting grass. Somewhere in heaven my daddy is laughing. As a child at home, I hated cutting grass. It was boring... push the mower back and forth, up and down. When you ran over a fire ant hill, you ran for your life. It was always a dusty hot sweaty job. The only chore I hated more was washing the car. After my sister and I left home, daddy bought a riding lawn mower. It wasn’t until we moved to the farm with its acres of grass to cut that I used a riding lawn mower for the first time. My attitude about grass cutting did a complete about face.
Two or three times a week I crank up the mower, put on my big straw hat, sunglasses and shorts and hit the grass cutting circuit. As I cut the same sections week after week, there are surprises everywhere. The black snake pokes his head out of the bluebird house by the leaning barn. The quail run in front of me as I drive down the gravel road. A doe in my mother’s driveway leaps in front of me as she crosses into the woods. A box turtle is sunning by the old chicken house. Some surprises are better than others. Yesterday I bumped the toddler swing hanging in a tree at my mother’s house and hornets came swarming out of an unseen nest. I got stung three times on my left eyebrow and lid. I ran into mama’s house calling for the Prince Albert tobacco tin and an ice pack. Two benadryl and one ice pack later, I lay on mama’s sofa woozily contemplating "life its ownself". There is nothing like pain and a slight buzz from booze or meds to help one slip into the glorious contemplative stage where you can consider your life and life in general.
As I lay on the sofa, I began remembering all the other times I had been bitten or stung by some of the winged and crawling creatures on this earth. I remembered the spider bite on my six year old thumb that caused my whole hand to swell... the hornet stings at Grandma’s house, Cloverly, that she doctored with a paste of Prince Albert tobacco... the fire ants that climbed my leg and left little bites with big pain followed by infection... the mosquito bites... the chigger bites... the ticks who fasten themselves to my body when I go walking outside...and like Grady Nutt, I ask myself why God let those creatures make it onto the Ark. What good are they? What purpose do they serve? Guineas could learn to eat something besides ticks and purple martins could learn to eat Japanese beetles in place of mosquitoes.
One ice pack later, several purposes for those annoying little creatures floated to the top of my lazily circling mind. Those stings and bites from hornets and ants are like the stings and bites in my life... the high blood pressure that no matter how hard I exercise and eat right can only be controlled by medicine... the deaths of those I love that have come in war and suicide... the ever present companion of depression kept at bay with medicine and spiritual practices... the daily awareness of my ADD mind that bounces from place to place and is a source of joy/creation/frustration.
We each carry within us our own set of stings and hurt places. And yet, it is precisely those hurts that help us become who we are meant to be. Living with death early in my life gave me a certain knowledge, unsought and unwanted at the time, that helps me know what to say, how to be, what to do when death, especially awkward death, pays a visit. Living with depression, sometimes very well, sometimes not so well, helps me value my whole soul, the dark and the light in others as well as myself. Living with high blood pressure reminds me my body is indeed a temporary home, imperfect in its perfection. I am not just my body. I am still working on my ADD’ness. It is, like so much in life, both a gift and a curse. Want an idea? I’ve got bunches free of charge. Want someone to be in charge of those ideas? Don’t ask me... I can not do organization.
So last night, Michael and I rode to town with four of our best friends for a celebration dinner. We were celebrating birthdays, a new truck, time to be together, our friendship, taking time to savor the present joy. In the midst of arthritis, kidney stones, heart trouble, parent’s death, and children’s struggles, we bowed our heads in the restaurant and gave thanks... thanks for the gifts that life brings us... stings and all... Tonight we will go to the deck at sunset, cut a Crimson Sweet watermelon, remember daddy who loved Crimson Sweet watermelons while we spit seeds, watch the sun go down and the moon come up. The sweet flavor of grace and remembrance in our mouths will help us savor the moment and remind us of sweet times yet to come. We are never separated from the God who loves us more than we love ourselves. The One who knew loss and death and joy and friendship here on earth knows our sorrows and joys too. How can I keep from singing?