Save Money: Eat Your Lawn

Yesterday, my Littlest was fidgety, walking in circles. Sometimes that drives me crazy. But I've been trying to think about her differently— as a person who is the best person for the job... any job that requires movement.

So I sent her out to the lawn to rescue the dandelion leaves before I mowed. A rescue mission captured her imagination.

I saved money by not buying more $5 organic baby greens (yeah, I live in New York where everything costs more, and yeah there are a few stray left-over baby greens in the salad above). We had a greater nutritious herbaceous offering alongside dinner. (As one friend of mine puts it, "Grocery store lettuce won't cure anything.")

A win, win, win situation. As long as you don't mind eating dandelion leaves :).

What to Do with a Few Good Aces (and Without)

We talked about trust. I used an example of playing-card hands. I said something like, "Let's pretend you and I are playing this game of TheHighCalling, and I deal you this hand." I showed my Team a poorly-dealt hand and asked if they trusted me— that I was really interested in having them succeed at the game.

Well, heck no.

Then I showed my Team a different hand, of high cards.

"Would you trust me now?" I asked.

Well, heck yeah.

We talked more about trust. I told a story about a company that literally saved millions of dollars in an acquisitions deal, because of high trust between the two merging companies. We did some role plays and then we were done.

Almost.

I handed each person an envelope and told them there was a promise and a challenge inside of it. The promise? I gave them each an ace, as a symbol of how I hope to work with them; I want to deal them good hands. The challenge? That they think about how they might deal aces to each other and the Network we serve.

Of course, to give this symbolic gift, I had to take aces from five packs of new playing cards. Which left them unusable. Or so I thought.

Sometimes... even if no one gives you an ace, you can still make things happen. I smile when I see what my Sonia did with a few good unwanted playing cards...





Card Shirt Design, by Sonia, 11.

95 Steps to Brooklyn

We left her behind.

She wanted to go. She really did. Ninety-five steps, with a nine-rung ladder at the very end. I tried to tell her it wouldn't work out, but my Little One wouldn't listen.

So we began the ascent, and half way up she couldn't make it. Knee swollen like a balloon (looks like it's Lyme's Disease), the steps were too daunting.

We left her behind.



My heart broke to see her sit down alone on that winding staircase in the oldest lighthouse in the U.S. She'd come so close, but now we would go on without her. "I'll be back," I said. "You'll be okay."

My Eldest and I continued our ascent. The group clambered up; when we were all at the pinnacle, the guide closed a "hatch." We looked out at Brooklyn, Long Island, the ocean ever churning. "It's awesome!" I said again and again.

She could hear me. That's what she said afterwards.

When the guide opened the hatch to begin our descent, there she was. My Little One had suffered her way to the top alone, past dust and cobwebs, through echoes and shadows. "Can I please come up?" she choked out quietly, tears rising. I looked at the guide and whispered, "Please." It would mean messing up the schedule. It would mean waiting for this Child.

"Sure," said the guide, eyes wide with recognition. My Little One dragged herself up the nine-rung ladder and reached the top. "I heard you," she said. "I wanted to see it too."






Sonia on the beach and in the Lighthouse, photos by L.L. Barkat.

What We Give

Since the time my girls were little, I tried to teach them how to give.

Not just stuff, not the cursory item picked up at the mall, but something from the soul.

It's not easy to do this, and we don't always have time. But there are these moments when it happens and I catch my breath. A little piece of soul translated into a picture, sculpture, poem, story, necklace, something or other.

My Littlest just had her birthday. For over a month, my twelve-year-old secretly prepared a gift. First she wrote, then illustrated, typed, photographed, learned basic desktop publishing skills, cut-folded-glued.

I smile at the title, of course. The Stone. But more than that, I smile, even weep, at the poetry of the story. So beautiful, I think, I must share a few snippets with you...

It was round and sort of ovalish and it was purple, most of the time. Sometimes it decided to be blue, or orange, but mostly it liked to be purple. And that's what color it was when someone found it. Someone... special. Only someone special could find it; that was the way it was made. But at first glance this person might not look so special... but it knew. It had been found, so this person was special, very special indeed...

---

She put the stone in her pocket, stepped towards the door... and fell through. Oh!, thought Tina. For she was nowhere she knew. She was on a cliff, above a sea, with a fog around her, and it was snowing in little gusts but the wind was pulling it off the edge of the cliff. This seems lonely, she thought, sat down and hung her feet over the edge. I do believe I'm dreaming.

---

Tina was feeling lonely. And tired. And scared. And tired. And alone. And— her thoughts were going around and around and not going anywhere.

---

The color was Dragons. Every inch of it filled with dragons. Dragons all sizes and colors, some as small as your hand, others bigger than mountains. There was no describing it. Maybe, maybe a painter could capture it, but even a photo would look pale and dirty beside the real thing. It was so beautiful none of them remembered to be scared.

---

Tina was not eaten. She was not killed, and she had not spontaneously combusted, which is supposed to be impossible, but impossible things were not being that reliably impossible right then.

---

The dragon was about the size of a yardstick and very purple. It walked forwards. It stared at Tina majestically for a moment with its deep purple eyes, cocked its head and blew smoke into her face. Tina started to cough. The older dragons looked disapprovingly at the little dragon. The little dragon looked at the ground. But its expression showed it was not sorry at all.

---

The sky was dark and grey and ominous looking. Suddenly it started to pour. Everyone rushed inside as the rain beat down on the house and the grass and the island. It washed away all the dust and the dirt and the still air and brought with it a coolness that only happens in a rain.

---

"Shhhh, I'm thinking," said Tina quietly. Aaron drew some pictures in his notebook the man had given him. A mountain with a castle on top, a misty woods, the sea. He decided to go to the beach on this side, the only place the island didn't end in sheer cliffs, to do something and get away from all this arguing. Alice saw him get up and followed him. He didn't mind her. She would just start walking next to him, looking at something, occasionally leaning down to pick up a shell or an interesting piece of driftwood. As they walked along, a fragment of the conversation drifted down on the breeze. "The heir..."

Excerpts from "The Stone," by Sara, 12. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

Baby, You Made My Decade

She stopped eating. Just like that. The childcare workers were frantic. Babies don't go without food for ten hours straight. But my girl did.

The doctor told us, "Some babies will go on a hunger strike if they're unhappy. Then the doctor asked, 'Has something changed in Sara's life?'" Well, yes. I'd gone back to work, and now, in her baby way my girl was saying, "Mommy, come home." Seven months old and she forced me to stand at the crossroads and choose: let her suffer, or quit my job.

How could I explain what she was asking me to forfeit? Could her infant heart understand the concept of identity and passion, needs and wants? I was a teacher. I loved my job. I went back to work, because I couldn't imagine life without this career I'd prepared for, prayed for, struggled to obtain.

For two weeks I faced the awful truth: my baby wanted me by her side and I could not be there if I kept my job. It was one of the hardest decisions I'd ever faced. But in the end, I couldn't ignore her plea.

I wish I could say that I quit my job and everything was joy from that day on. But no. I missed work. I missed my friends. I missed the social respect that came with having a "real" career. For three years I faced a new kind of loneliness that was only partly balanced by my love for my little girl.

Now the years have gone by, and today I am a home educator. Yes that's my refrigerator (above), cluttered with Greek and Hebrew letters. The feathered dress sculpture and the greenhouse are the work of my Sara's hands. The forsythia placed on my mug and photographed lovingly is the artistry of my second daughter Sonia.

It's been twelve years since I left my job as a teacher; but no, I didn't leave teaching at all. Still, I didn't know this when I stood at the crossroads and chose. I didn't know that encouragement was on the way and that sometimes it takes years to unfold. But I can say to my girl today, "Baby, you made my decade. Thank you so much for calling me home."

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This story is offered to welcome the new site InCourage. Check it out; maybe you have a story to share too. The story is also told (albeit in a different form) in Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places.

More dress sculpture photos here.

Photos by L.L. Barkat. Dress sculpture and Greenhouse made by Sara B. Forsythia on Cup by Sonia B.

OTHER LL POSTS TO WELCOME InCourage:
Coming into Wild Roses, at Love Notes to Yahweh
Nothing in Return, at Seedlings in Stone