In the Foot Hills of the Caucus Mountains

I am at work and I just spent and hour and 30 minutes stapling shoulder guards together. I caught a rhythm
fold fold fold fold tuck staple, fold fold fold fold tuch staple, fold fold fold fold tuck staple.  Amazingly I happened to be mid tuck and staple when the bosses wife came in.  She smiled at me. I must toss in that I was also watching Life on dvd amid the fold fold fold fold tuck staple. She smiled and I felt good.  I was being productive with my time. She picked up the same day clothes for Mr. Leiber. ( He is the coolest Savant EvEver).   She told me have a good day ane left.

I am taking a break from the folding tuck and stapling of the cardboard shoulder guards to spy into the life of people online. I am a voyuerist social extravert trapped in a job with not enough people to be extroverted with, so the spying into the lives of computer people helps me feel somewhat ... oh what is the word... alive I guess but that isn't quite right either.   Anyway I ramble from the point of poetic drunkenness of my poest.

One of my long time friends  is spending time in the Foot hills of the Caucus Mountains teaching English to a bunch of Georgian kids that don't really value the gift they are being given.  She talks about the beauty of the country she is in and the experience of stepping in dung in panty hosed bare feet and being drunk on wine and gazing at the dark blue black sky speckled with glitter that are stars so many millions of miles away . She speaks in a poetic language that brings me to the place where she is and was and will soon leave.  I see her lying in the yard in a hooded sweatshirt and the paws of a dog named Bobby resting on her arm as she is  thinking of the beauty that she has been gifted to see and experience even if it doesn't turn out quite right, the way she imagined it would be.
She gets to pass down to her son the passing of her time there with stories of walking 30 minutes to a school through the thick mud in slip on shoes that get stuck only to end up crying becuase no one cared enough to show up to class not even thinking of the sacrifice she makes being there to teach them a new language.
She spoke of the chicken soup that was really pepper soup and I can taste the peppery chicken broth in my mouth and feel the warm liquid slide down to my belly and make me warm as I am sitting in this very cold ( to me anyway) processing center of Master Cleaners.

I am brought to a place of hope and encouragement that I will get to enjoy the beauty and even the devistation of the world that we were placed on.  I'll one day get to lay at the base of some mountains and look up and say I got to do this here, where ever that Here is.   I can say I got paid to watch movies and learn the secrets of strangers while I worked at a Dry Cleaners.   I think in the last few days I have learned more about myself than I have in a long long time.  I learned that just because something is not the way I want it to be doesn't mean that I , N. Lea  have to run away from it.  I can take with me that every time my boss has yelled at me and let me know he is disappointed in my performance , that I took what he said and I worked to change those things in myself to become a better worker, I , N. Lea, did NOT give up .  I kept going.   When I think of it like that,  I can apply this to my life in all areas , the parts of motherhood that I struggle with and continue to try improving and the way I love my Husband and the way I continue to ask God to allow me a willing heart to be improved, always returning to him when I have turned away from him.

The other day I posted about how I feel defeated but I want to climb the bean stalk.  My wonderful mentor Carol reminded me of the giant that waits.   Today,  I am not afraid of that giant that stands ready at the top of the Caucus Mountains Bean Stalk.  I can look back and see that I have overcome so many things most people would have waived the white flag of surrender.  I am not waiving that flag, there will be no mark of the beast on my flesh that says in the end I gave up.

Amber Gruszeczka hasn't given up, She too has reminded herself that she can say I did that in the Foot Hills of the Caucus Mountains and take the beauty with her when she returns home from teaching English in the Republic of Georgia.