One Quarter Too Much

This previous Monday night was the first night of Nutcracker practice. In Ballet, we worked on “Waltz of the Flowers” for about one and a half hours. Then I went downstairs to the small back studio with three other girls and Mrs. V.

I put on my dead pointe shoes, worked on an impossible dance for an hour and 15 minutes and went back to the dressing room.

I forgot my water.

Parched, I went outside to the cool fall air, and immediately my mother shows up.

Good for her.

I hopped in the car, looked around for a drink. Anything at all that could solve this problem I had.

Nothing.

I asked her if she wouldn’t mind stopping at the next gas station, just really quickly, so I could get a drink.

We passed about 5 of them, before she pulled in at one. I got twelve quarters, and ran in as she pumped the gas.

It took me about 10 minutes, unable to decide whether I wanted a huge bottle of water or sweet tea.

I went for the tea. Which was One Dollar and Sixty Nine cents.

I got in line, with three people in front of me. It was the only cashier open.

The woman who was checking out finished up, and started walking away. She was probably about mid or late 20’s, and as she walked away this older man whispered something to her, giggled and continued to check her out. She completely ignored him.

Then the second person, a very short man who didn’t know an inch of English, went up to the counter. The man who had whispered something to the young girl went and stood next to the non-english speaker and began talking to him.

“Hello, how are you doing?”

“…uhh… good”

“Working hard?”

“Uhh, yes”

“Barely any jobs around lately… I was just laid off. They told me they didn’t need me anymore.. I was mad. Very mad. They told me I was too old. Which I am… I am too old. Around 64, or something… yeah, 64”

At this point, the young cashier (who… if I may say so, was very, very good looking) who I could tell was listening in on the conversation, looked up at the two men, smiled and then looked over at me… smile still on his face.

The older man went on as the short man started to walk away

“I’m Claude, by the way! Have a nice evening”

He was next… and handed over the 6 pack of beer to the cashier.

“Will that be it for you?” he said, smiling still.

“Well, I want ten dollars on pump… oh, damn… I’ve forgotten what pump! pump… 8, I think”

The cashier looked at him for a long while

“Oh, fine… I’ll go check. But, for now, I want a pack of Ultra Lites” he said, pointing back to the rack of cigarettes.

Claude turned to me and smiled “I’m really sorry about this” as he turned to go check what pump number he was

I smiled and said it was “fine, I really don’t mind”

At this, the cashier turned around with the cigarettes and a huge smile. I smiled back, naturally.

The old, workless man came back in.

“I told you… it was pump eight, see? Now… ten dollars please”

“Alright… is that it?” the cashier said, still smiling, and still glancing over at me with amusement on his face.

“Nope, that’ll be it.”

After paying, Claude began to walk out, turned back to me and said “Have a nice evening” and smiled.

I was next. I put my sweet tea down on the counter… the cashier asked me if that was it, still smiling.

“Nope, that’s all” I said, of course smiling back.

“One Seventy Four”

I fumbled around with my quarters… unable to count for some reason.

I grabbed a handful, slammed them down on the counter and slid them over.

“Uhh… that should be it.. maybe not. I’m not really sure”

He chuckled, counted them, and handed one back.

He then grabbed a penny, looked up at me again, smiling.

“You want the penny?”

“Oh… no, I don’t think so. You can have it”

I smiled and left.

After retelling the story to my mother, she decided we’ll be stopping at that particular gas station more often.

I agreed whole-heartedly.

Decisions

Two things happened to me on Sunday morning. Both of them happened directly after mass. One was very small, and really had nothing extraordinary about it at all. The second event was incredibly surprising; something that was entirely interconnected with the first. Neither of them would have happened if I hadn’t made those previous and very small decisions. Little decisions that I never looked back at or really even thought about at all when making them.

The decision-making started the night before, when I decided to watch a suspenseful movie with my parents. It wasn’t all that scary, but I had moved my bed around recently, therefore uncovering my OCD-ness, and I haven’t been sleeping well anyways. The movie didn’t help all that much. It was a great movie, but a little thing happened in it that had to do with a bed. Therefore I couldn’t sleep. I decided to read Sense and Sensibility, which made me crave the movie. My mom was awake, unable to sleep either, so we decided to watch it. Which made us stay up late.
The next morning was Sunday, and since we stayed up late, we woke up late – naturally.

So, it takes my mom a great while to get ready for church. My dad and I were ready in about 10 minutes, and she had just gotten out of the shower. She told us to go ahead, come back straight afterwords, and she’ll take the car to the later mass. After mass, I wanted to talk with friends, so I made another decision – to ride home with my grandma, instead of my dad, so I could chat a bit.

While chatting, we made these slight and last minute decisions to take these random turns around the church. That’s when I saw my grandma and uncle, talking with my friend’s mother (who could very well be my mother) and they were talking to these two people from my church.

This is where the little events took place.
-I was greeted in a way I have never been before.
-I was introduced to someone, and I had a feeling that they will change my life forever.
I just don’t know how.

I feel as if… if I hadn’t made the decision to watch the movies, my mother and I would have woken up in time, I wouldn’t have decided to ride with my grandmother, I wouldn’t have run up to her after church, and I wouldn’t have met these people.
Have you ever made a decision, just a simple one… but after it leading to an event that never could have happen without that decision- you realize that your life isn’t going to be the same…

Tip: Trust God – He works in the most amazing and unexpected ways imaginable.

Hope, Life and Growing Older

There are few places in this world that I really and truly love. Most of which are places I will probably never see again, because they’re thousands of miles away. Even so, I keep them in my heart, and I continually find myself dreaming of them, pretending I’m there.

You know those songs that you love so much, but you listen to them over and over and over again, and eventually you get so tired of them you never want to hear them again? I admit, I do that… except for two songs.

Viva la Vida by Coldplay and
Hope Vol. II by Apocalyptica.

I love those songs too much to constantly listen to them, because I never want to be tired of them.
I also have a place like that, only a few feet outside my house. I rarely go there, because I want it to remain special forever, just like those places in Ireland, Italy and so forth. I like for it to remain special, so that every time I sit there it’s like a whole new experience.

It’s my front porch swing.

Silly, I know. But it has so many memories. So many memories of when I was younger, where my brothers and I would try to flip each other on it, where my parents would swing me to sleep. But now I’m too old to sit on their laps, and my brothers are too busy with being Fire Fighters and Flying Planes… (sounds like they’re 4 or 5, but truth is… they’re 20 and 21)

My younger brother’s moving out sometime early next year, and these past few months, I feel like I’ve grown closer to him then I have ever been. Even closer than we were when he’d flip me on the swing.

That’s why I only visit my favorite place rarely, even if it is only a few feet away.

It’s too special to get tired of.

Tip: Never forget

Blowing With the Wind

...and her lithe form reached the summit of the hill but a moment after the sun was caught within the trap of twilight. Yet, the sky retained it's summer blue and the wind had no inclination of arresting. She stood there beneath the clouds in the midst of a lofty field of hay. All three objects together moved in synchronization. It was a symphony of quivering violins ordering their movement, not the wind....

The Day That Lied

The Day That Lied

I woke up at five for the sunrise. The house was silent, and peaceful - very rare. The sun rose at about 5:45, and brought with it the golden glorious light of morning. The birds were singing their heads off; the trees were that vivid shade of green that lasts for about a week before it subsides to the sober dark green of summer. It was the perfect temperature, slightly chilly with a tinge of the young sun’s new rays. I studied Theology joyfully thinking what a wonderful day it would be. The day promised so much with all its sweet crispness. Everything would be perfect.

By 2:00 I was inundated. There was so much to do, and so little time. The relentless radiant sun soared across the sky without a second thought about what little time it left in its stead. The Geometry Ch. 8 Test by 2:15 had to be done. As well as three chapters of fabulous Philosophy that I had managed to mindlessly put off. Oh, and that blasted Biology test due Tuesday, which I hadn’t even read the chapter for. Not to mention the 4 weeks of backed up Latin. How it lingered without my realization… I’ll never know. Did I mention the essay due Friday which I haven’t even commenced? Or the Geometry quiz and Algebra homework both due tomorrow? What abut all those sorry Humanities quizzes that keep slipping by?

The day didn’t listen when I told it. It was heartless, and ignored my pressing pleas. The birds still sang their contented song, lacking nothing in their perfect lives. The fair trees stayed green, they wouldn’t even fall a leaf for me. The sky remained cloudless, retaining its broken promise: The promise now smashed to glittering pieces, and flung far amid the heavens. The shards made it ever more splendid.

It ought have been, a grey, dismal, cloudy, day. Silent birds, brown trees, and a drizzly day. A furious tornado would have been fitting. Instead, it was the converse. How very strange and cruel of a day to break its steadfast promise.

Do not doubt me, I won’t forget it.

Tip: Don't trust days.

Tristia

Tristia
C.M. Esperanza

If there was a whisper, it could not be heard,
If there was a doubt, hoping was absurd....
If there was a raindrop, it fell not from the sky;
If it were a silent night, you just might hear a sigh.

Tip: You can make it... if you sacrifice enough.

The Master Plan

Plans are but figments of your imagination. Yes, they appear perfect and wholesome in the minds eye, but like all other figments, pink elephants per exemple, they can never take shape in reality. (Ty, Sarah! *g*) No matter how perfectly you plan a day, how impeccable your To Do list might be, something inevitably goes wrong. The lines of causualty are far to dense and intricate for one to account for in a plan. No matter if the plan is for an hour, a day, or the rest of one's life, there are variables for every possible decision. From experience, I know this. Each morning, I write a list. Perhaps it has five items, maybe fifteen. Once it had thirty. By the end of the day, I have crossed out two. What happened? I worked as hard as I could, yet it wasn't enough. What changed? Several people I know have their lives sublimely planned out. After highschool thus will happen, then such and such. It seems flawless, ja?

How many plans come to the ultimate end? But then again, how shall we define this "ultimate end"? Take the example of the long list. Is the ultimate end having all 30 items gleefully checked off? Or is it something more? Do we cross the item off for the sake of doing so, or for the sake of doing the the thing, per se? Obviously the latter. (Perhaps I may be a single exception: I ruefully admit to occasionally adding items to my list for only the pleasure of checking them off. It gets horribly discouraging when you work so hard and seem to have accomplished nothing.) We have concluded that it is for the sake of the act that we make plans. And so, if the plan is thwarted, and the act is not successfully done, do we call it a FAIL? No. The list can be crumpled and burned, but there is a second act in place of the one which was lost. This is the act which conflicted with the planned one. It is possible, though not always easy, to transform all these anomalous mistakes into worthwhile things. Things, as such, which could be counted among the planned items. Is this clear?

In short, we can plan our lives away, and lament our distress when we don't clear the hedge on the first jump, or we can make the best of the situtation no matter how drastic it is. It can be regarded as the Omnipotent Master Plan - we write down half of the items which we wish to accomplish, and God provides the other half for us, as He sees fit.

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

-Woody Allen

TIP: Climb the ladder to the sun! Keep writing lists, and making plans, but don't let them guide your life. They will never suffice.