My Personal Pan

I  spent the first half of kindergarten living with my grandparents. My parents lived there too, while they were looking for their next place of ministry, but for the most part I don’t remember them. I was too busy enjoying the perks of being (at the time) their only grandchild.

I went to Kindergarten for half a day, and got to do all the fun things in Ms. Ennis’ class like learn how to write my name and fall in love with Jason Stevenson because he wore a leather jacket and sometimes said bad words like "Dang". 

Mimi would pick me up at noon, and I would head back to the Farmhouse with her. Somewhere along the way, she started ordering me a Personal Pan cheese pizza from Pizza Hut. She’d call it in before she left the house, so that it would be ready by the time we came back through town. Some days, she would even park right outside the door and send me in with the money to pick it up myself, making me feel oh-so-grown-up. It was my first exposure to the yummy, greasy goodness and would certainly not be my last. 

My parents took a church 5 hours away in Evansville, IN and we moved in January of that year. So many changes for a little girl to absorb. A new home, a new church, and a new school that required full day kindergarten. I got really sick, and spent a lot of days home with chicken pox, fever, or an upset stomach. My parents thought the move was just a tough adjustment for my tender little heart, but I’m somewhat convinced I missed the pizzas from Mimi.

It got to the point that when I would go back to the Farmhouse during the summer time, she would almost always drive me into town for my own Personal Pan pizza. It got to the point where one wouldn’t fill me up, so she got me two. Two wouldn’t fill me up so she got me three. By the time I was in second grade, we were ordering 4 little cardboard boxes and I’d carry them on my lap the whole way home, letting the steam from the bottom of the boxes warm my legs. It’s a wonder I don’t way 400 pounds. 

I don’t know what it was about the Personal Pan. She could’ve saved quite a bit of money by just ordering a small pizza, I’m sure. But I was convinced that the way they cooked those little ones was so much better, just the perfect amount of love in each gooey slice. I liked the way the edges got crispy, and the first triangular bite out of each of the four pieces was pure bliss.

I’ve been very intentional about my diet for the last several months, watching the kinds of foods I eat, trying to view food as fuel instead of simply pleasure. I’ve even been mostly gluten free for almost 6 weeks. I love the results, and have felt better and more energetic than I have most of my adult life. That said, I had really been craving a Personal Pan pizza. 

There were several times I almost caved. Once I even went to the counter at a Target store and ordered one, only to be told that they were out and it would take 10 minutes, saving me from a complete binge.

I’ve been a bit homesick lately anyway. I’m fully content in Fort Worth and I love my friends and family here, but there’s something very tribal about being with your own kin...the family that “knew you when”. It’s been several months since I’ve seen the Mimi that spoiled me so many years ago, and so many of my summertime memories were painted by her poolside, jumping and swirling and running around--stopping only when she brought out my little cardboard boxes of heaven. Somehow it was all connected for me. The pizza. The pool. The innocence of an uncomplicated life.

So tonight, it happened. I caved.

After a rather tumultuous trip to the store, with both boys ranting in the back seat, I made a last minute and almost scary turn into the Pizza Hut drive through and got myself a cheesy Personal Pan.

I gave Jude a banana and some sweet potato chips and took Oliver out of his carseat so I could nurse him.  And I sat there in the parking lot, with the engine running and the  AC blowing in my face and ate my pizza, bite by deliciously sinful bite. 

I wasn’t going to share this time as Jude and I often do. He had his food. Oliver had his. And this time I had mine. 

I needed that pizza. I needed the indulgence. The take-me-back satisfaction that we so often subconsciously attach to foods, or scents, or sounds. 

I’m in a different season of life now. I wasn’t running around in a little swimsuit, sneaking in bites of pizza between canon balls of the diving board. I wasn’t lounging around on the farmhouse couch, pizza between my knees watching back-to-back reruns of Cosby on VHS (another way Mimi spoiled me). I wasn’t taking in my “Book It” button and redeeming it for a free pizza (does anyone else remember that program? Read a bunch of books and get a pizza? That was awesome) 

Instead, I was a worn out mom, who spends most of her days praying to make it graciously ‘til bedtime. I took a moment for myself and enjoyed every last bite.

The boxes have changed. Now on the front of it, it says “Make it Great”...and I did. Until all that was left was the circle of grease left in its wake. 

Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July...do something that makes you feel free!

To My Mom on Mother's Day

Sure do wish I could pick up the phone and hear your “trying-go-get-ready-for-church” voice: giving me all the remaining attention as you effortlessly printed out the song list, typed Dad’s sermon notes, ironed his shirt, pulled on your black skirt, and struggled one more time to make your curly hair straight. 

I wish we could laugh for a bit about how anticlimactic Mother’s Day is, “such an ordeal its become, you’d say”, or that we could lament over the fact that we didn’t live closer so you could see my kiddos when they pitter patter around in their jammies.  

The New Year

February is the new January.

I have always boasted of my love for a fresh start. New year, new goals. Crisp, unfaded blue lines in a blank notebook. When most people dread Mondays, I look forward to them because somewhere in my subconscious I’ve taught myself to believe that the beginning of every week is a chance to make myself a better person. You can’t start a diet on a Wednesday.

I Grew You

Because I have found that most of my days are spent laboring unnecessarily, this is what I have been "working" on today....

Focusing my attention AND intentions.

Talking to the baby in my belly. He hasn't had near as much time with me as Jude did.

"Doing" less and "Being" more.

Creating...even though there are toys on the floor and dishes in the sink.

Reminding myself...when Jude is screaming as his molars barrel through..."I am a carrier of peace."

The Leaving and the Left

Gina had orange hair, and it was scratchy, like a doll that I once singed when I left it by the fireplace too long. Her thick glasses perched perfectly on a freckled face, and she always smelled faintly of clothes that had been left in the dryer too long. She wasn’t one of the popular girls with perfectly coifed bangs and Guess jeans, but I liked her because she liked to read and write and ride bikes. I liked her because she let me boss her around and because she didn’t make fun of me for bringing cloth napkins in my lunchbox. I liked her because she laughed really hard at my jokes, and she clapped after I spelled neither ‘kneether’ in the all school spelling bee, making others think just for a second that I had spelled it correctly.

Gina and I tried out for a talent show once in fifth grade. We wore matching outfits, skirts with suspenders and we twirled batons to a Sharon, Lois, and Bram song. While the other kids perfected their New Kids on the Block lip-syncing routine, we boasted that we had real talent, and spent several days honing that talent in her basement.

I’m not entirely sure which one of us came up with the miserable idea, as neither of us had an ounce of athletic ability, and the size of our teeth alone was enough to position us against gravity in our twirling endeavors. But we had a good run at it, and I don’t remember either of us being overly devastated when our name wasn’t on the call back list. 

She told me at recess one day toward the end of the school year that she was moving to Kentucky, and I spent the rest of the afternoon ignoring her. The next day I told her that I was mad because she should have told me sooner, but that if she would apologize I would be her friend again and write her letters once a week.

She did, and I didn’t, and that’s how that went.

It’s always seems easier to be the one leaving instead of the one that’s left.

Valentine's Schmalentine's

I was in third grade before they made the rule that if you are going to bring Valentines to school, you have to bring them for everyone in your class.

And so, in second grade, I was devastated when my redheaded friend, Gina, had a valentine from Cory Measel and I didn’t. He was the quiet boy in the class, but he liked basketball, and so I had glued a basketball on the corner of my otherwise Lisa Frank covered shoebox as bait.

When my methods had failed me, I was nearly as heart broken as when a boy named Patrick made fun of my crowned cavities in first grade…but not quite.

I had grown up quite a bit by fifth grade when I let my friend, Randy, kiss my cheek for Valentine’s Day. He hadn’t ever kissed anyone but his mom, and he thought that maybe if he kissed my cheek, then we might find out we were meant to be more than friends.

We weren’t, we decided, and ended up jumping on his trampoline for a few hours that afternoon until my mom came to pick me up in our wood-paneled mini van.

I watched out the window as we drove away from his house and he waved real big with a goofy smile on his face. He was so relieved to know we wouldn’t have to mess things up with all that yucky love stuff.

Don't Tiptoe

Cotton candy skies overlooking the farm might as well have been the sapphire horizon of the Tuscan coast. The pond, thick and overpopulated with catfish, a substitute for the rolling, Baltic Sea. I was perched in a tree on a 2x4, 8 feet off the ground at best. But in the snapshot of my memory, I’m looking out the dormer of a castle with hundreds of acres of lush green countryside slithering into the sunset.