“We couldn’t now, that’s for sure.” Willow’s hand slid over her expanding belly. “I won’t have time for it next year.”
Chad’s hand followed hers, seeking the movement she’d found. “There it is. Man, this one’s a kicker.”
“Tell me about it. I keep expecting to see bruises.” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. “It’s good. Even the achy back, the swollen feet, and the possibility of a C-section. It’s still good.”
The children raced up to them, Kari flinging herself at Chad. “Daddy! I almost caught Lucas!”
“Good girl. Someday, you’ll have him protect you from boys chasing you.”
Kari wrinkled her nose in an uncanny imitation of Willow’s nose wrinkling skills. “I won’t need them for that. I’ll just chase them back!”
With that, Kari took off toward the house at full speed. “C’mon, Liam. C’mon Lucas. Let’s go find worms in the tomatoes!”
“She’s definitely your daughter. I bet she’ll be a great chicken butcher,” Chad muttered.
“She begs me to let her help every single time. She’s not too bad at the final feather plucking…”
“Ugh.” They walked for a dozen yards before Chad asked again, “Are you sure you want to keep things the way they are? You don’t want to cut back or change anything?”
“I’m good if you are.” She sighed and slipped her hand in his. “It’s just hard to believe it’s been the full five years—”
“Five and a quarter, really.”
“Fine,” she laughed. “Five and a quarter years.”
Sheep bleated their greetings and cows lowed as they passed. They rounded the corner of what they still called the “new barn” and she saw their home with its new roof and large addition to the kitchen. “They’ve been good years—rich ones. We definitely did learn from the past and we did move forward. Just as we said we would.”
“You wrote in your journal that night. I’ll never forget the line. ‘Embracing each day as a gift from God, as of today, I’m living my life Past Forward.’”
The End
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Diary of a De-cluttering Junkie
(excerpt)
Chapter One
June 29th—
As Kaye Harper waited, her nerves danced a jitterbug through her heart, stomach, and hands. “I’ll shake so bad I’ll drop my notes and then where will I be?” she muttered to the sloshing cup of water in her hand. “Get a grip!”
Kaye continued to fidget in the “speakers’ lounge” at the Christian Women’s Retreat in New Cheltenham. As the last speaker of the day, she had opted to spend the session before her workshop resting in the lounge—alone. “As if I could rest at a time like this. Whose brilliant idea was it for me to speak here anyway? I’m a fraud,” she whispered to the empty chair before her. “I don’t know anything about anything. I’m just a de-cluttering addict.”
When the chair didn’t laugh at her, Kaye’s spirits buoyed. “Maybe I should change my opening line to, ‘My name is Kaye Harper and I’m a de-cluttering junkie.’” She snickered at the chair before her. “At least I haven’t lost my sense of humor—yet.”
The sound system had been wired to the room, and the current speaker talked about her life as a farmer—not a farmer’s wife. A farmer in her own right. What kind of woman did that? “—embrace beauty. Margaret Wolfe Hungerford said, ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ and it’s true. My house isn’t attractive to modern sensibilities. My counters are outdated, my walls have hand-painted ‘wallpaper,’ and we won’t talk about the light fixtures that we never use.”
Kaye heard a ripple of laughter, making her wonder what else had happened. Her thoughts went to her own home with its plain walls and updated kitchen. Still, did she speak of her home with the same love and affection that oozed from the speaker—Willow’s—tone?
“…find my life too Spartan for their tastes. I’ve changed over the past few years. The first time I ever invited people into my home, I struggled to find enough glasses to offer tea to everyone. I had two tea cups—one that I broke that afternoon—and two tumblers. I’d just decided to break out mason jars when the officer—now my husband—assured me that no one expected me to make them something to drink.”
Willow Tesdall’s description of her two plates, two forks and two spoons seemed excessively minimalistic, but Kaye’s confusion compounded when she heard Willow say, “Of course, we had spares stored in the barn. If we broke a plate, we didn’t have to do without. We just chose not to keep them in the house, and that worked for our lives before Mother died. It wouldn’t work now. Now people visit—often on a daily basis. To offer the barest forms of hospitality, I need basic table and flatware available.”
She went on to describe the difference between her home and that of a friend. The man’s apartment sounded bare and empty, but Willow insisted that it suited its owner. “And that’s why I brought it up. I’m not here to encourage you to one style of living or another. I’m here to encourage you to live. Take charge of your life. Embrace it as the gift it is. Don’t let the cares of the world crowd out the joy of this gift from the Lord.”
The more she listened, the more Kaye began to understand what she’d missed in her drive to rid herself of excess clutter. She wanted that beauty that Willow spoke of—craved it. But had she become so obsessed with the “less is more” mentality that she’d let it redefine her personality? Surely that’s what she needed to learn most—that balance.
Applause erupted from the speakers. Kaye’s mouth went dry. The door opened and a volunteer peeked her head around the doorjamb. “Um, fifteen minute warning. Someone will come get you two minutes before you go on stage.”
“Thanks,” she croaked.
“Do you need anything? Food, more water…”
“A barf bag?” The minute she heard herself, Kaye wanted to evaporate. Barf bag? Really, Kaye?
The woman laughed. “I like your sense of humor. They’re gonna love you.” With that, the door closed, leaving her alone once more.
Kaye slowly flipped through the stack of index cards. “Should’ve put these on a ring or something. I’m so gonna drop them all over the place.”
As minutes ticked past, her nerves switched from doing the samba to a frenetic hip-hop nightmare. If Money Dog, or whatever the big dude’s name was, could see her now, he’d have her arrested for impersonating a dancer. Why did I agree to do this again?
At the four-minute mark, the door opened. Kaye started to protest that she still had two minutes before she had to go, but three women entered, two carrying babies that were obviously twins. The third held a handful of index cards.
“Oh, are you Kaye…?”
“Harper, yes.”
“I’m looking forward to your workshop. Gotta feed the starving troops first,” the woman said as she reached for her baby. “I’m Willow.”
“Nice to meet you.” The words sounded so trite—so inane. Did they mean anything? Why hadn’t she considered learning to de-clutter her automatic responses as well? To change the subject, Kaye pointed to the cards. “Glad I’m not the only one with a stack.” She held up hers. “I rewrote these things three times before I got them right.”
“I did too! I kept trying to complicate things, I guess. I originally had every word written out on paper, but Chad said it didn’t sound like me.” Willow shifted the baby. “Is that just one word? I did that too. Chad thought I was nuts.”
The women swapped cards, Willow flipping through the one word memory prompts and Kaye dazed at the art she held in her hands. “Did you seriously color on—” She flipped through the stack at random places. “—every one of these?”
“It’s Willow. She can’t stand plain paper,” one of the women teased.
The door opened again. “Time to go, Kaye. You’re on in two.”
Her mind blanked. How she managed to say goodbye�
��did she say goodbye?—to the women, exit the room, and make it all the way to the side of the stage, she couldn’t say. Seats slowly filled as the women returned from bathroom and refreshment breaks. The conference coordinator had warned her that people tended to leave before the last session ended, so attendance might be spotty. Kaye hadn’t minded. Fewer people meant less of a chance for someone to record her doing something stupid.
The emcee stepped up to the mic and called those in the foyer and surrounding hallways back to the auditorium. A flood of women poured into the room. Kaye blanched.
“When we received the recommendation for our next speaker, I personally threw myself on the mercy of the committee and begged them to do anything they could to get her here. I mean, let’s face it. Most of us in America understand the trouble with clutter. There are entire TV shows devoted to the problem. This woman has, in the past year, overhauled her house and her life into a clutter-free world. I can’t wait to hear how she did it. Ladies, may I introduce, Kaye Harper of Hillsdale.”
Kaye stumbled up the steps and hugged the woman who greeted her. Was that supposed to be a handshake—oops. They’ll have to deal. I’ll have to deal. Lord, save me from myself!
A sea of women blurred in her vision as Kaye stood at the podium and choked, “Good afternoon.” The room echoed her—women staring up at Kaye with eager expressions, as if she could solve their clutter woes with a few words behind a podium.
“I know your program says that this is ‘Diary of a De-cluttering Junkie, but I really think it should be ‘Confessions of a De-cluttering Junkie.’ If this was my diary of my journey, I’d never share it. It’s embarrassing.”
The room tittered, telling her she’d managed not to mortify herself any further. Yet. Her mom and mother-in-law sat in the fourth row, beaming up at her as if she’d negotiated world peace. They’d be surprised at some of the things she said. She just hoped they wouldn’t disown her.
Kaye waved her stack of index card notes. “See, I came prepared with notes just like Willow Tesdall did, but mine aren’t nearly as attractive. See?” She held up the plain, white, lined card. In large block letters, the word Jacob stared at the audience. “This is my husband’s name. We’ll get back to him in a minute. But first, I just realized the irony of filling out five hundred—okay, not that many, but enough—index cards as notes on how I got rid of all my clutter. I created clutter to talk about reducing it. How crazy is that?”
A loud amen echoed by an “mmm hmmm” from the left side prompted her to point to the women and grin. “I like you two already.” She held up the card with Jacob’s name on it. “So, I said I’d get back to this. Now, why does my first ‘cue card’ say ‘Jacob’ on it? Well, because, you see, if you asked my husband, he’d say my obsession—addiction really, hence the title ‘Junkie’—began the day he was looking for this new little flashlight we’d bought—light on one side, laser on the other. We couldn’t find it, but we did find a lot of other junk. Frustrated, I went out and bought a bunch of books on how to simplify and de-junk my life.”
She leaned forward, gripping the narrow podium. “But, ladies, that’s not when this journey really began. Let me set the stage. The boys had already gone off to school, and my daughter Sophie was dressed and ready to go—to JC Penney’s. Huge sale…”
Diary of a De-cluttering Junkie. Coming FREE on Kindle September 2013.
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 6 Page 30
