were standing in front of the shelves like gate-keepers, determined not to let anyone past until they had found the perfect white sheet with a faint ribbon of blue running through it. I bent down to pull an interesting-looking bed-in-a-bag ensemble from the bottom shelf and nearly got my fingers crushed.
I’d been too optimistic about this run-in, grab-some-sheets and run-out thing. After twenty-five minutes I’d determined there were no sheets that fit my bed. The bottoms were all fitted kings except for a huge stack of twins. The flat sheets were all regulars but for two queens, one in some orange and yellow design and one in dirt blue and tonsil pink that could have scared the paint off walls. I backed out of my spot disconsolately, and a woman with a designer handbag leaped into my place with the grace of a jaguar. Amazing.
I drove home vowing to sleep on the mattress pad until that ripped, too, after which I would order something off the Internet.
I complained to my mother about my shopping misadventure but, as usual, she couldn’t relate. She doesn’t buy sheets—she sends Dad out for them. Mother’s version of shopping is sailing into what I call the itty-bitty section of the store. She picks out what she wants, slides it over her head to try it on, takes a twirl and pulls out her credit card. She’s done shopping and in a coffee shop waiting before I find any two matching pieces in my size, the most popular and picked-over in America—which shall remain unmentioned.
September 27
dep•ri•va•tion: Deficiency, lack, scarcity, withdrawal, need, hardship, distress.
“I thought you were doing something about those snug pants,” Mother said with her usual lack of diplomacy when I arrived at their door today.
“I am. Sort of.”
“Are you still sneaking around in rubber bands, Whitney?”
“Maybe I’ll join a class, something that meets every week and gives me encouragement.”
“There’s one at church,” Mom offered. “I’ll go with you if you don’t want to go alone the first night.”
My diversion hadn’t worked. “Mother, you’d be run out of the room. No woman on a diet wants so see an entire human being who’s the size of someone’s thigh.”
She sighed. “All right then, go alone. Here, let me read you the information.” She picked up the bulletin, which she’d no doubt kept handy just for this purpose. “‘Join us as we gather to support one another in our weight-loss goals, experience fun, fellowship and new recipes. For more information, call—’”
“What’s the name of this group?” I interrupted.
“It doesn’t say. Maybe they don’t have a name. If you went, you could suggest something.”
Mother thinks that I should be able to take over any meeting by receiving all the information I need about the entire group by osmosis as I wander through the room on my initial visit. She also believes the well of my creativity is artesian. Strangely enough, however, a name did pop into my mind. Ecclesiastical Eaters Anonymous Training. EEAT. If that wasn’t the name of this group, it should be. At least that way, when I told someone I was going to EEAT, they’d think I was going out for dinner.
“By the way, Whitney,” my mother continued, “your father came home from church council last night with some very exciting news. We’re hiring a new youth pastor.”
“What’s wrong with the other one? Did he outgrow his youth?”
“Don’t be flippant, dear. He’s staying. Our youth program is expanding so quickly that the council decided we needed a second pastor.”
“Super. That’s very exciting.” I’d chaperoned more than a few sleepovers at the church myself. It’s good news that interest is on the rise.
“But that isn’t all.”
The hairs on the back of my neck began to tingle. Mom had switched tones. She was no longer talking church business.
“He’s single.”
“Motherrrrrr!”
“And quite nice-looking. I think you’d make a lovely couple.”
“Have you discussed this with him yet? Or is the call committee using me as bait?”
“I’m serious, Whitney. This could be your big break.”
“Mom, you sound like this man is a job opportunity! Is he taking résumés?”
“Just consider it, dear. You are thirty, you know.”
“All too well, Mom. All too well.”
September 29
I’m already feeling guilty. EEAT met and I didn’t go. (No matter what the name of the group, it will always be EEAT to me.) Kim talked me out of it. “Are you kidding? Start a diet when you’re leaving for Las Vegas—buffet capital of the world?”
“Maybe it would keep me from falling on my face in a chocolate display and eating my way out,” I suggested timidly.
“Nonsense. Start trying to lose weight when you get back. I tried to diet on a cruise once, and my sister found me at the midnight buffet, clinging to a loaf of bread shaped like a swan and whimpering, ‘Give me butter and jelly.’”
Smiling, I succumbed to the wisdom of her experience. Still, I will be aware of what I eat at every moment. To do that, I’m leaving my rubber bands at home. There will be no way out.
September 30
Church was great today. I felt so energized and lifted by the music. The typos in the bulletin didn’t hurt, either.
There was an announcement about the upcoming Spiritual and Physical Health and Wellness Seminar.
Don’t let stress kill—let the church help.
You will hear a top-notch presenter and heave a delicious lunch.
The sermon, however, seemed written for me alone. It was based on the parable of the sower. The parables have always fascinated me. They are so childishly simple and yet so profound that once you understand them, they can rock your world. The sun that melts ice hardens clay. The parables are like that—they have different effects on people, depending on where their hearts are.
I’m blessed that my parents raised me off the path where the seed couldn’t root and grow. Nor was I grown in shallow soil that couldn’t support my faith. My family and my church offered me rich, dark earth in which to send the roots of my faith downward and grow a system that is firm and healthy. But there’s always the danger of weeds springing up to choke out healthy plants and make them die.
It’s so easy to be distracted by life—work, money, greed, busyness—that I’m in danger of forgetting that what I have is to be used for God’s causes, not my own. I imagine myself pulling up weeds in my life one by one—the weed of laziness, which prods me to sleep in on Sundays, the weed of ungratefulness, which reminds me of what I don’t have rather than what I do, the weed of jealousy, which makes me miserable and cranky—and the weed of greed. That one makes me put my energy into earning
