Phrases like “tender mercies,” rub me the wrong way.
(Bare with me here…) I’m sure it’s used in religious/secular cultures other than mine (LDS) and I’m sure the colloquialism started back long before I was around, but I started to notice it used by General Authorities in General Conference talks about a decade ago and now every Relief Society President, Visiting Teacher, random church member uses it to describe a moment when life sucks and then God throws you a bone. Not a bad phrase, just totally overused…kind of like saying phrases like “knowing with every fiber of my being” and “beyond a shadow of a doubt,” along with expecting the Elder’s Quorum to organize and provide moving services for church members….(cough) Not exactly doctrine just weird things we do and say…I digress.
Unfortunately, “tender mercy” is the phrase that comes to mind when I think about what happened to me yesterday. So poo-poo on me, I guess. I can’t seem to come up with another phrase. (apparently my Mormon cultural heritage is too emblazoned on my psyche)
So here’s the thing…I’ve been having a rough go at it for a few weeks.
I think the whole nature of having a blog lends itself to being a bit of an emotional exhibitionist, which I’m cool with, but I have a very weak filter. So when things are rough, I tend to not blog quite as much so that I don’t spew forth too much negativity or emotionally charged drivel into cyberspace. But my deep-seated desire to keep it real is also pecking at me like an annoying wild chicken. (You know, those darn annoying wild chickens that are always showing up in strangest of places…)
Heh.
Anyway, today the sun came out. Literally. Its been a claustrophobic week of heavy fog and an unusually pungent dairy aroma in these parts. Good news, Visalia is cheap and pretty. Bad news, there are 20 dairies within 5 miles of my house. Along with the other things going on (that I can talk about in a few weeks) I was slipping into a fairly negative place.
Now for that “tender mercy:”
So as I was saying, the sun came out, which was part of it. It’s amazing what good sunshine will do for a person. And, when mom is under the weather, PML watches WAY too much TV. So I decided it was time for a trip to the library, Landon needed some new books before his brain rotted away from too much Dora the Explorer. We headed downtown to our local library. When we arrived, Landon was thrilled to see the wide hallways to sprint through and vaulted ceilings to hear his triumphant shrieking echo. After me shushing his belted yell of gibberish for the 20th time, one librarian was getting a little annoyed and I could tell that her subtle look of disdain she shot when I brought my drink into the library (followed by the nasally staccato command of “ma’am, you cant bring that in here”) had now turned into a bulldozer of judgement. Beep, beep. Clearly she has never had a two year-old (or she has, but has deleted that portion of memory from her mind as only the occasional cold, un-empathetic, post-menopausal woman does…). So I took that as my cue to rush him to the children’s section.
Once we were there, I was greeted by the warmest “Hello!” and chatty optimism of librarian number two. She had just set up a very thoughtful display of Christmas books intertwined with twinkly lights and garland and made sure to point out that there were also beautiful Hanukkah and Kwanzaa books as well because, as she said, ” I don’t want anyone to feel left out.”
Me being in an already fragile, emotionally heightened state was probably visibly touched by this. This is exactly the woman who should be in charge of the children’s books at the public library.
She was charmed by Landon’s tornado of enthusiasm for every book he grabbed off the shelf and yelled,”Oh mom! Firetruck!” “Oh wow PUPPY!” followed by the flippant toss of disregard for the book he loved seconds before. Two year old’s work fast. I could hardly keep up with him. After picking up 20 or so books, I took Landon down to the Christmas section.
The sweet librarian offered to set him up on a kiddie computer so he could play a coloring game while I picked out my favorite Christmas books for him. While I marveled at the beautiful Christmas books, I experienced the warm nostalgia of the excitement I felt when my mom used to take us to the library to pick out books. Staring at illustrations of “A Christmas Carol” and “The Polar Express,” I was in some warp zone between 1st grade girl and mom. I was excited to revisit these magical stories of my youth and even more excited to share them with my son.
“Mom! I colored the puppy!” Landon yelled followed by applause for himself (we believe in lots of visible encouragement in our house).
Now I just needed to get “The Great Gatsby” for book club and get out of there. I was not sophisticated enough to use the search function on the library computers, so I asked for a little help and the librarian quickly found the book and excitedly said, “Oh great! It’s here! You know what, why don’t you just stay here with him and I will go get it.”
Now, I am really choked up. (heightened emotional state) I had just had the thought of how disruptive it was going to be to drag Landon away from the computer to go to the adult section where everyone was quiet, and I think she realized what a pain that would be for me, too.
When she returned, smiling, she said, “Great news! It looks like you are the first person to get to read this particular book.” Strangely, I felt the way I imagine Landon feels when someone gives him a sticker. “I also found this other book that complements the time period that I thought you might enjoy, and since you can check out 30 books I thought you might want to take it.”
I think the combination of this woman’s kindness, mixed with her clear happiness with her job and excitement for books, mixed with my excitement for sharing books with Landon, mixed with all the crap I’d been going through this last week, came together like the Matrix; where time stops for a second and water droplets are just suspended in space, and Keanu Reeves is in a half back-bend with a contorted expression on his face, and then somewhere in my mind’s eye, God dribbled a basketball over to me and said, “Girl, I got you.”
Tender mercy alert.
And even though I’m still going through what I’m going through, I felt a little better. And that was enough.
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