Happy September, My Friend!
Yahoo! It’s my favorite month! Septeoctonovemdecember!! Haul out the holly, baby! OK, maybe it’s too early for holly, but you can bet your sweet bippy I’ve got my pumpkin candle out! And the high is only going to be 89 today! It’s almost chilly!
Somehow, I thought about my first pair of snow skis the other day. You see, where I grew up, kids all snow skied, ice skated, and went tobogganing in the winter.
One Christmas, when I was probably about 9 or 10, I received a bountiful gift from old St. Nick. All the ski stuff! Poles, boots, gloves . . . and of course—skis.
These weren’t just any skis, mind you. These skis were orange. And I don’t mean just a little orange. I mean as orangy orange as you can get orange. I don’t recall explicitly asking for bright orange skis, but that’s what Santa deemed I needed. I didn’t complain. Santa knows things.
They were blaze orange and had a little “JCPenney” logo up near the tip of the skis. Yeah, that’s right, Mr. JCPenney himself endorsed my skis. Just say “no” to Nordica! Völkl? Stöckli? Uh-uh. JCPenney is the way to go, man. The other skiers would take one look at me with my orange skis and Get. Out. Of. My. Way.
Well, maybe not so much.
I think I had one lesson at the bottom of the hill. I remember paying close attention to how to “snowplow”—how to ski very slowly. I was not interested in going fast. I’d never broken a bone before and planned on keeping it that way. But before I could even try out my skills at snowplowing down the bunny hill, I had to master what I found to be the trickiest thing in all of skiing.
The tow rope.
For crying out loud, I can’t tell you how difficult it was for me to, quite literally, get a hold of that tow rope! Everyone else made it look so easy! You make your way to the start of the rope, you grab onto the rope, and up the hill you go! What could be so hard about that?
Every time I grabbed onto that rope, it just about jerked my arms out of their sockets and pulled me over into a heap in the snow. Mind you, there is a line of kids behind me trying to get up the hill too, but for the fact that there I was hogging up the space. I’d somehow or other drag my humiliated body over so the rest of them could go. I’d right myself and then wait for a nice big gap in the line to try again, only to, once again, get yanked over and end up clogging up the line again. I heard a chorus of “Her again?” and “Oh, come on” and “Uhhhh!” mixed with several tsk-tsks and a few “Oh, brother”s. So much for turning the world on its ear with my crazy orange skis!
Someone (possibly my older brother; I regarded him pretty much as Jean-Claude Killy to my Disaster-on-Skis) took pity on me and told me the key was not to grab the rope all at once but to let it slip through my gloves and slowly grab on.
Bingo!
Once I heard and heeded that one tidbit of advice, I never fell on the tow rope again. What seemed like an impossibility now was doable. All because someone was patient with a newby and gave some excellent advice. I could finally use my snowplowing skills to get those orange skis, my body attached, down the bunny hill! No going on any other hills, thank you. I’m hanging out with the bunnies.
Remembering that awful feeling of “not getting it” and “getting in other people’s way” made me wonder how often I might lose patience with slower folks around me. Oh, I can out-nice anyone—when I’m not in my car. But put me behind the wheel, and I can become Cruella de Vil in a heartbeat!
Maybe the person in front of me, clogging up the works, doesn’t live around here and “doesn’t know the ropes” yet. Good night, how often am I the one wondering if I missed my turn and need to slow down a bit to figure out where I am? Am I extending the same patience to others I wished for at the bottom of the tow rope? That was a very long time ago, but the feeling of frustration and embarrassment is as close as closing my eyes, and I’m there.
I’ve heard it said many times, perhaps in jest, perhaps not, to never pray for patience because God will give you something to help you work on that! So I’m choosing my words carefully! But I’m hoping that as I encounter others who are “in my way” or just not seeming to “catch on” quickly enough to whatever it is they are trying to “grab hold of,” I will not be one to say, “Come on!” or “You again?” But I would be one to be forbearing, tolerant, long-suffering, even-tempered, uncomplaining, imperturbable. (Can you see I looked up other words for “patient”!?)
Perhaps if you run across someone this week who seems to have stumbled and isn’t quite sure where to go, you could gently correct them, as the helper did for me at the bottom of the tow rope.
And if you find that you are the stumbler, I pray someone will show you kindness instead of being a grumbler. (Practically poetry.)
And if you ever see anyone wearing blaze orange JCPenney skis, it might be me!! Come join me on the bunny hill! Or better yet, in the chalet in front of a warm fire!
Have a wonderful week!
Written with love – – – Patti XOXO
“Patience is when you’re supposed to get mad,
but you choose to understand.”
Unknown