Why I cherish the Ugly Pants ...

Years ago, I happened upon a Reba McEntire video while home from work with a cold. I'm not generally a fan of Country Music ~ but I find their story lines quite moving.

This video was odd in that there was a huge segment of 'acting' between song verses. To this day, the power of the message still resonates within me. It's called Is There Life Out There and it beautifully captures the essence of an Interruption ~ the wake-up it provides, the attention it calls into play, the sacred space it creates for you to step out of your head-space and choose whether or not to make somebody else feel special or important or worthy of your time.

Reba was a working mom, going to college at night to earn her degree so that she could better provide for her family. She was feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and fearful that she wasn't as good as the other students because she was so much older.

After three weeks of toil and sweat, she finishes writing a term paper worth a good portion of her final mark.  While she's getting ready for her day, her young son is playing at Reba's desk. The daughter chastises him, saying that it's Mommy's desk and he shouldn't be playing there. As she tussles with her brother to get him out of the room, she accidentally knocks a cup of coffe over -- spilling it all over the paper that was typed and ready to hand in (no computer, it was a long time ago).

Reba explodes. The stress she's been carrying for months flows out of her in that one, horrible moment. All the hours she's dedicated to learning, studying, researching and writing ... now blurring under a coffee knocked over by mistake.

She goes to her daughter, who is pleading mercy at this point, stunned at what's just taken place. As Reba begins to reprimand her severely, her husband walks into the room and calls a time out.

While sympathetic to her stress ~ he wastes no time putting the situation in perspective ... leaving her feeling very ashamed of herself for dumping so much emotional stress on her poor daughter who only wanted to help her Mom.

The scene then moves to the college classroom - where the term papers are being returned to the students. Reba is the last to be called - and gets an 'A'.

As the college professor tells her what he specifically liked about the paper, he hands it to her ~ and says something to the effect of "Great work. But next time, try to avoid the coffee stains."

You see, while she read to her daughter and made amends for her outburst, her husband had carefully blotted and blow-dried each page so she wouldn't have to do it again. And Reba had handed it in as it was. Smiling at her 'A', she said, "I actually learned more from those coffee stains than I did from writing the paper."

 

For me, interruptions are like that. They're unexpected wake-ups when you're focused on one thing that remind you that 'there's life out there'.

There's a pair of pants I used to wear while working out that I only wore for things like working out because they have two giant white blotches on them ... one on each leg, just above the knees.
 

One day, as my oldest daughter was leaving for school - she said, "You're not actually going OUT in those pants, are you?" In the time it takes to blink - I immediately relived the 'splotching incident' ... the interruption that caused them and the lesson those splotches contain.

My oldest daughter and I had been sitting together on the back deck - she was only 6 then. She'd asked if I would repaint her nails before she went to someone's birthday party. This was just one more 'thing to do' in an already busy day. But I'm a Mom, it's my job, so - off we went to the back deck - nail polish remover, new nail polish colour and all.

While anyone looking in on the scene would see a Mother and Daughter happily engaged in a bonding moment, the reality was that I was not really there at all. I was somewhere in my head, restructuring my day, re-prioritizing To Dos to ensure everything would get done, thinking through dinner, etc.

My daughter was chattering away - and I was nodding at what seemed like appropriate intervals, probably even giving encouraging sounds too, like "really?" and "wow!".

When suddenly, BLAT!! A big, black squirrel landed within millimeters of me. I HATE squirrels! And there was one so close - it was shocking.

I'd had the nail polish remover bottle firmly between my knees as I was wiping the old polish from my daughter's nails. The sudden arrival of the dark interloper had me start so violently that nail polish remover launched out of the bottle like a volcano ... landing in two strangely shaped splotches on my pants.

And standing here in the kitchen, listening to this same daughter, 7 years later, ask me if I'm going to wear THOSE pants outside, with absolutely no recollection of how they got that way, makes me smile inside.

You see - those pants remind me of the importance of always being present when with your children. Do you know what my daughter was chattering about that day when I was going through the motions, too preoccupied to listen? She was telling me that there was a squirrel on the shed roof right above my head -- and it looked like it was going to jump on us.

What luck that it landed on the deck beside me and not on one of the two of us. Heaven knows what possessed that squirrel to launch itself at us on that day ... but the message I took from it has not been lost.

I look at those two white spots and I remember, BE here, now. Don't abandon the person who is with you by escaping somewhere into your own head with thoughts that take you out of the moment, detaching you from all that really matters with distractions of future thinking for things that may or may not ever take place.

So while the rest of the family may deride my 'ugly pants' ... to me - they couldn't be more sacred. And I wonder what life event will bring my daughter to this place of understanding that the sacred is created in the here and now - for those awake enough to notice interruptions for what they represent and honour them as such.

(Here's the Reba video I mentioned at the beginning. I just watched it again, and melted with the message.)