Like A New Pair Of House Shoes

One year my grandma told me she wanted a new pair of house shoes for Christmas. (For those of you unfamiliar with southern speak, house shoes are slippers.) Such a simple request, so I had no problem purchasing the house shoes for her, lovingly wrapping them in pretty paper, and placing them underneath her tree. I didn’t tell her what the gift was, though I was pretty sure she knew, and looked forward to seeing her open it on Christmas morning.

A few days later I visited her again. I was relaxing in her recliner when I happened to glance down at the gifts under the tree and noticed that mine appeared to have been tampered with.

I picked it up and examined it, and sure enough, the paper was wrinkled, and the tape had definitely been peeled off and replaced.

Grandma lived alone. There was only one explanation.

“Grandma!” I exclaimed. “You opened your present!”

Her eyebrows raised, but she didn’t even hesitate.

“Well, yeah,” she said casually. “I was just sitting here the other day, and I thought, ‘I’d sure like to put on my new house shoes’, so I did.”

I giggled in disbelief.

“So you just opened your present? You just…you just opened it up, put them on, wore them for a while, and then wrapped them back up?”

“Well, yeah...” she said. “They were too small.”

I rolled on the floor in a fit of laughter.

“Grandma! You’re not five. You’re nearly eighty years old – you should know better!”

She just grinned as I laughed at the absurdity of a grown woman not being able to wait until Christmas to open her present (and mostly at her attempt to cover it up).

But you know what? Her casual admission said it all – I think she did know better.

At her age she’d probably spent much of her life waiting for things to happen…waiting for the gifts to appear…waiting for the right moment to enjoy them…and perhaps she had simply decided there was no point in waiting.

I want to be like Grandma. What a tiny, simple, unimportant gift, and yet she literally could not wait to open it.

How great is it to have something to look forward to? To have something that you’re so excited about that you just can’t wait for it? To have a goal, a trip, an opportunity, an event, a moment…something that you long for and go after with your whole heart?

And how much better is it when it's something as simple as a pair of house shoes?

As I walk this path of mine, I want to stop and unwrap my simple gifts along the way with excitement. I don’t want to wait for them if I don’t have to. Life doesn’t last forever, so I’ve got to open as many gifts as I can, right?

So what are my ‘gifts’, those things that I should seek in this journey? What fascinates me? To which parts of life am I irresistibly drawn? What captivates me?

They are the moments that I feel compelled to write about or that prompt me to grab my camera. They are the tiny hands that hold mine, the embrace that calms my fears, and the desires in my heart. They are the things that make me laugh, the things that make me cry, and mostly, the things that open my eyes.

They are everything that is simple and pure and true, and so often overlooked.

Those are the things I find myself craving. Those are the simple gifts I want to enjoy each and every day, and I refuse to wait until Christmas.

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Google Overload: When Search Engines Take Over Your Brain

A while back I was trying to remember a story my grandmother once told me. It was a true story from her childhood about a time when she was walking in the woods in the dark. She heard an owl up in a tree, and as she continued down the road, it followed her. It was a sweet story because she had always felt as though the owl had been protecting her.

But I can’t recall much of the rest of the details. Where was she going? I think she was headed home from somewhere…why was she afraid? I know there is more to it, but my brain seems to have lost some of the pieces of the puzzle. I wanted to know more. So for a brief moment, the thought actually crossed my mind to google it.

Yes, for a split second I had my fingers poised over the keyboard, ready to type in something along the lines of, “grandma owl story” or “owl protection in the dark” (which sounds more like a forest animal birth control ad, now that I think about it). I don’t know what I would have typed in – luckily, I never got to that point. I’m so glad that my brain caught on to the ridiculousness of that act before it actually went through with it.

That close call with insanity made me realize how much I rely on the Internet, and especially Google, for my information fix. I google everything:

“What do you want to do this weekend? “Hold on…hmmm, looks like there’s a street festival on Saturday.”

“What’s the name of that song?” “Um, I don’t…wait, let me google the lyrics real quick!”

 “Liam Neeson looks really large in his movies. He must be really tall.” “Just a second…why, you’re right! He's six foot four!" (Yes, that really happened.)

I can’t remember what life was like before I literally had everything I ever wanted to know at my fingertips. I just remember wishing I had encyclopedias whenever I had a question about something. My kids aren’t even going to know what an encyclopedia is.

"Mom, is that like Wikipedia?”

“Ugh…no. Nevermind – go ride your bike!”
“Bike? Are you talking about my hovercraft?”

I realize this isn’t a new concept. I’m sure you recall those Bing commercials about ‘Search Overload Syndrome'. Yeah, I could totally relate. I can waste so much time clickety-clicking my way across the Internet. But you know it’s really bad when you almost attempt to google things that can’t be googled.

Of course, now that Facebook has ‘Timeline’, it might not be long before we can start googling our life events and actually come up with a few hits.

Too bad Facebook wasn’t around while my grandma was still here. I’m sure she would have tagged me in her owl story note, right?