Cheater?

By now, you should know I love to read. I bet you also understand reading was the second activity I enjoyed after playing outside. One of my favorite places to go was a bookstore that had a hide-away nook for children inside a wooden tree trunk. It was like a fairy land. I adored the area.

And it got me to thinking.....

If I ended up not playing second base for the Astros, opening a bookstore seemed like a perfect alternative. I mean, really, being around books all day? Sublime.

However, leave it to school to completely and totally ruin my love. They took glorious sentences, and beautiful words like "wither" and "harmony" and "sun-catcher" and turned them into multiple choice questions. It was excruciating. Agonizing.

I couldn't just read the text? I had to think about it? I couldn't just bask in the glorious images and feelings the author created?

Huh. Well, I wasn't gonna do it. Nope. Not me.

I pretended to work. I pretended to read the questions and circle my answers. And when I was done, I promptly followed directions and brought my paper to my teacher while she sat at her desk so she could grade it. Right then.

Luckily, as I patiently waited my turn, I discovered where her answer key was. A little slip of paper sat on her desk in front of her with the answers written on it. So I returned to my seat, fixed what was wrong, and took my work back to her. She never guessed I'd figured it out.

Do I feel bad about cheating? Um...yes. But I'm not completely sorry and for this reason:

I found it odd that I had to interpret what I read the same way everyone else did. What good does that do anyone if we're all thinking the same way?

Third Grade -- Let The Mind Numbing Pain Begin

First day of third grade. It's here.

While I have the story of my sister saving me from a nail I never felt enter my foot, I am not in the bragging mood because....

My third grade teacher was also my first grade teacher. The excruciating agony. The torturous memories. I have to go through it all over again.

And, not only that, "the bully" is in my class.

I see him. He sees me.

His eyes narrow.

I narrow mine right back.

This year is gonna be historic.

Red Light, Green Light

A great game. Loved it to the extreme.

And when we played it at dusk, Maria would actually participate as well. And one summer evening I was pretty lucky she decided to grace me with her involvement.

I sprinted whenever "green light" was hollered. While my sights were glued on the prize, my legs churned ninety to nothin'. Halfway there, I tripped. As I landed on my stomach in the grass, I felt like something was attached to me. I looked over my shoulder, and there was a piece of wood stuck to me somehow.

The sight frightened me, and I cried out.

Maria -- the sister who feared crowds, flying balls, and moths -- rushed to my side and pulled the object out of my foot without hesitation.

As I stared at her, amazed at what she had just done, my father scooped me up and carried me into the house.

Blood is dripping from my foot. Mother is running to save her carpet with a mound of paper towels. I am crying, still trying to figure out what happened. My foot is throbbing with pain.

Eventually I learn I stepped on a nail sticking out of a piece of wood in our neighbor's yard.

After this incident, I decide I must be pretty tough. (Before, I was just tough.) I never even felt the nail enter my foot.

However, that's not the reason for the telling of this story.

This is the moment when Maria became my hero. This is the moment when I knew, to the depths of my being, she would always be there. This is the moment when I learned to never believe a person is always as he or she seems. We all have moments of courage and fear, shyness and confidence. We are never as our first, second, or third impressions portray us.

And thank goodness for that. Because third grade loomed. And with it came people who knew me well. Or thought they did.

Big Idea #7

"Dear God, please stop my mother. She is now making me perform in a recital while wearing a dress. A pink dress, Lord. Can you see how devastating this is? I shall surely perish, and it won't even be a romantic or dramatic death. The piano will swallow me, Lord. Right when I'm on stage. So, please, please, please stop my mother."

After this prayer was when I realized that sometimes God answers with the word, "No."

I ended up learning a song. I can't remember what it was called. Who would? It sure wasn't Lookin' For Love or the theme song from The Dukes of Hazzard.

I played well. No problems. And I managed to live through the embarrassment of being a redhead wearing pink. However, this torture was another strike against learning how to play. When would I ever need to know how? Never.

However, little did I know, it was the first time I would ever be on stage with a certain someone. I didn't know we'd been in the same recital until I was a senior in high school and starting to scrapbook. I came across a picture and was astounded when I saw this person standing next to me.

This person was very special to me when I was older. And my mom managed to get me close to him or her. How'd she know?

Of course.....this is Big Idea #7. So....I'm not surprised it would end up being important.

Now, if you can guess who this special person was, comment below, and I'll send you something in the mail. Happy thinking!

Piano Recital

I am still taking piano.

Hopefully, you are surprised. Hopefully, you are wondering why in the world I haven't been able to worm my way out of it. Hopefully, you are NOT assuming that I somehow managed to start liking it.

Well, there are more ways than one to skin that sucker. And, what I figured out was I could fake practicing. Yeah, that's what I did. I could play a bunch of chords, and my mom would come in and tell me how great I was doing.

I had discovered a new talent. And I embraced it like an Aggie embraces the word "Howdy" into their vocabulary.

This lovely solution cut my practice time to 15 minutes! Was I smart or what? YEEHAW!

It was all going so well. Until......

"Kara, we're putting a piano recital together. You're going to play in front of a bunch of people! On stage!"

I look at her excited face and think, "Oh, #@!?"

The Day After

I remember the sky the most the day after we sat in the hallway and sang our hearts out.

It was red....but the air wasn't hot. The sun was as bright as I've ever seen it, but it didn't hurt to look at it. I couldn't understand why that could be, but I didn't question it because so much had happened while we had fun inside.

The land was littered with branches, pine needles, wood, glass, and various other elements of debris. The trees had been picked clean. Some had fallen and were lying across our street. Some people didn't have roofs. Some families had water in their house.

We were one of those families. When you walked along the carpet, wetness squished between your toes, and your footprints were left behind. It made this sloshing sound that, if you stepped correctly, could tap out rhythm to your favorite song.

We had to pull our carpet up, which left us with cement flooring and carpet tack. We had to be careful around those strips of wood for they had tiny nails sticking up.

It was a new world. A sudden devastation I didn't understand. And it had a name. I thought that was odd, but at least when grown-ups spoke about the event, I knew what they were talking about.

Hurricane Alicia.

She came without consideration for us. She came without mercy. She came without slowing.

And she taught me a very valuable lesson....

Your life is not always in your control. Bad things do happen, and they can happen to you. And sometimes, the world needs a cleansing to remind us of that.

After that event, I told God I understood. That life was fleeting. That all that mattered was loving your fellow man. And I hoped he would never send another Alicia again.

Rowin' A Boat (In The Hallway)

I wasn't allowed to go outside one particular summer day in August of 1983. I about had a heart attack.

But my mother consoled me by inviting every neighborhood kid over to our house. Imagine my elation at having a big party instead of having to play school with Maria and Wendy.

Don't mistake me, I adore my sisters, but sometimes they picked the stupidest things to play.

Anyway, my mother organized us in the hallway for some strange reason, but I didn't argue because it was a funny thing to do, and my friends didn't seem to mind.

We have this really long hallway. No windows, carpeted. I imagine there was about 20 of us sitting side by side. We were stretched all the way down. I thought this was the coolest, oddest, best concession for not being allowed outside.

My mother decided we should sing songs. The one I remember singing was "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". We sang it loud. We sang it soft. We sang it fast. We sang it slow. We sang it in cannon formation.

This was enjoyable even though I didn't understand the point. Usually, if I don't understand the point of doing something, I have a difficult time following through. Since I am an "almost third grader", I usually didn't do tasks I found irrelevant. (Like Math.)

But that day, I didn't question her, or fight her, or be generally stubborn.

I'm sure she was thankful.

Because the next day, when I was finally allowed oustide, I discovered why I rowed that boat....