Justly Story Ch. 5: The Baker's Windows

Chapter 5:  The Baker’s Windows

by Kristen S. Sandoz

 2013

Tonight our story returns to Copper and Justly.  After Justly saved Copper from an untimely death he had to find a new place to sleep at night. Before Copper Justly slept under the outdoor oven at the Baker’s complex.  It was such a warm and dry place to nestle into, even on the coldest and wettest nights.  This clay oven was stoked every day for the baking of the finest breads in the entire kingdom (so the Baker thought) and it would therefore emit warmth long into the night.  Justly received the privilege of sleeping under the oven by cleaning the windows of the Baker’s shop.  I know you think that I am making a mistake, but I am not!  Despite being blind Justly had an excellent reputation for window washing.  How did he do it, you ask?  Well, let me tell you his secret for it is one all of us would do well to know. 

 

Every month Justly preformed this duty for the baker. He had heard that a window could show you what you looked like.  As he washed the windows he would imagine what he might look like in the window’s reflection.    Did he have a cleft chin or big ears?  Was his hair the color of warm sunshine or of the cool forest?  Did he look like thin string beans or thick tree trunks?  He had a hunch that he looked like thin wiry string beans but it would be nice to know for certain.  Sometime he would take to imagining what he wanted to look like.  He wanted his arms to be like the branches of a strong walnut tree.  He wanted his face to be like the rays of the sun, warm and welcoming. 

 

Then his thoughts would drift away from what he looked like on the outside to what he looked like on the inside.   As he meditated on this while he washed the window’s spots a magical thing happened to both Justly and the Baker’s window.  Justly was actually washing away the things inside himself that were making him spotty and unclean.  He would wash away his own desire to tell little innocent fib, or he would wash away his fear of water, or he would wash away his hatred for the boys in town who bullied him.  As those dirty spots in Justly were wiped clean so were the window’s spots with them.  All that was left was crystal cleanness. Both inside and out!

 

It was in this way that the windows of the Baker’s shop were cleaned each month.  What a way to start a day with self-evaluation and meditation!  The Baker was so in awe of the boy’s ability to perform this duty with such a disability that he let the boy claim the warm spot under the oven as his own.  The Baker regularly left day old bread for Justly as well, but you did not hear that from me as the Baker prided himself on his firm hand with the beggars of the community.  With Justly he had a fondness and often couldn’t resist giving him these little gifts.  He felt, too, that it was better than letting the rats or pigs have his marvelous bread.

 

I have gone down a rabbit trail with the Baker and his windows.  Now I will have to save Justly’s search for a new bed until next time.  In the meantime, wash a window and meditate on what the Witch Hazel tells every young person who will listen, “Handsome on the inside is handsome on the outside.”

 

1…Now my story is done.

2…I love you!

3…Please kiss me.

Sleep Problems, a Book Review, & an Ah Ha Moment

Sleep is a problem in our house.  First, Thing 3, now a year old, wakes anywhere from four to six times a night to nurse.  Thing 1 will lay awake until 10 pm waiting for his Melatonin to kick in.   My dear sweet husband often doesn’t fall asleep until 2 am thanks to a crazy work schedule, restless leg issues, and the failure of his Melatonin to do its job.  Finally, Thing 2 wakes frequently with nightmares.  All of their sleep problems become my sleep problems.  Nice.

Out of sheer desperation I recently bought an Ebook titled Ready,Set, Sleep by Malia Jacobson.  It was only $10 so I thought I had nothing to lose buying a self-published book.  I was drawn to the book because of Jacobson’s statement “that parents are regularly given outdated sleep advice laden with value judgments instead of simple, fact-based tactics that work”.  That has certainly been my experience.  She went on to say that sleep science is an emerging field where new discoveries are constantly being made that help us to understand how sleep works. 

 

I ended up getting a lot from this book.  I loved that there was no let them “cry it out” suggestions or admonitions that my baby is simply trying to “manipulate” me.  Which I absolutely hate!  Instead Jacobson explained how you cannot force a child to sleep you can only create an environment which supports their natural inclination to sleep.  That made a lot of sense to me.  What person doesn’t want to sleep?  It is an essential part of our survival.  Without sleep we would die.  We all get to a point where we are willing to do anything to sleep.  Why wouldn’t this be true for a baby?  Also, I feel like I’ve tried just about everything to make my children sleep and it hasn’t worked.  It has only made me feel like a major parental failure. 

In her book Ready, Set, Sleep Malia gives 50 ways you can support your child’s sleep and she educates you about sleep science along the way.  I walked away with well over $10 worth of things I could try or change in order to help my kids, and even my husband, into better sleep patterns.  Jacobson ends her book by saying if you have tried all of these tips and you have created a great sleeping environment for your child and they are still waking in the middle of the night to eat, then sorry, but your baby needs to wake up and eat.  This one piece of advice gave me some serious peace of mind. 

I realized after reading this book that I’ve fostered a major fallacy in my thinking of my role as a mother.  I am not called as a mother to “make” my boys into three honest, kind, sensitive, God-loving, strong, men.  But rather my calling is to create an environment which supports their natural inclination to be those things.  Who my boys are and who they become is not entirely my responsibility.  They have a part to play as well.  I can only support them and encourage them in the right direction and the rest is up to them.  If this is my calling I cannot fail.  Ah ha!  Thank you Malia Jacobson.

Sweet Dreams!

Kristen

Book Review: May B. A Novel

Maybe she can?  Maybe she can’t?  That is the question that May B. has to answer for herself while stranded on the Kansas prairie alone and abandoned until Christmas.  Can she grow past her fears and insecurities and find it in herself to overcome?

May B. A Novel by Caroline Starr Rose is a true healing story.  Its raw, awkward, and uncomfortable rhythm mimics the main character. Yet the more I read it to my boys the more freely the words ebbed and flowed from me.   Just like the Kansas prairie in the 1870’s this story is sparse and simple requiring commitment to get past the first half of the book before the reward of hard work and a good story pulls you in.  The beauty of this book is the way Rose develops May B. throughout the story mirroring her internal struggle to read with her external struggle to survive.  Sometimes a bad situation often does make a person better. 

This story offered me and my boys plenty of opportunity for deeper conversation.  Its general feeling of depression disturbed me at first.  It was not the feel good story I was looking to read right after Christmas.  The author’s unusual use of prose made me worry that my boys would get frustrated trying to follow its lack luster story line.  Fortunately, by the middle of the book they were hooked!  Comments like, “those kids are being mean to her” and “I feel bad for May” showed that both of them could relate just fine to May and her struggles. 

The part I loved most about this story is that May B.’s struggle didn’t just go away at the end of the story.  What did go away was May’s lack of confidence in herself.  In the end my boys and I saw that maybe she can do some things and maybe she can’t do others but either way she was loved!   That is something I want my boys to know and understand about themselves. 

Justly Story Ch.4: The Poisoning of Ivy

The Poisoning of Ivy
by Kristen S. Sandoz
2012

By now I am sure you are wondering just what became of the babe that took Pearl’s place. It is easy to find ourselves drifting toward bitterness when speaking of this little one. After all, she had no right to take Pearl’s place, and we will come to love Pearl so very much. However, it is imperative that we remember that Ivy, as she was named by the King and Queen, did not have a choice in the matter. In a way her new station was forced upon her as it was with Pearl and we cannot harbor hate for an innocent person. I warn you now to guard your heart from that bitterness no matter what happens to this wee one.

With that said, I am sorry to pronounce that Ivy was truly the daughter of a Thief and Lying Beggar. As she grew her natural disposition was always slightly nasty, prone to lies, selfish and self-serving, keen on casting blame, and never satisfied. These behaviors continually perplexed the King and Queen. At first when she was still in her 3^rd and 4^th years of age they hoped it was a stage or phase that all children grew through at this time of life. Then as she moved into the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th years and it became evident that these behaviors were not passing trends the King and Queen were beside themselves with confusion. What an odd child. Beautiful, but odd. Secretly the Queen wondered how it was possible that this fair skinned and dark haired imp could come from her own body, but this secret she never uttered to anyone. No matter what the King and Queen tried, Ivy’s disposition stubbornly pointed in the wrong direction. The King often referred to her as his compass that refused to point north. Eventually the King and Queen felt utterly defeated in their parenting endeavors and left Ivy to herself. But even this was not comforting to the royal couple.

 

To the King and Queen’s credit I must add that they loved Ivy. They loved her dearly. She was, as far as they knew, their only child, for the Queen never did give birth to another baby after Pearl. After all, she had nurtured and nursed Ivy all the way through childhood with the adoring, doting, and hopeful eyes of a mother. To the royal couple, Ivy was their greatest blessing, and, despite her uncomplimentary disposition, they chose to love her no matter what. Now that is the sign of a real King and Queen! 

One of Ivy’s worst qualities was her insatiable wants. This spilled over into all areas of her life but the clearest example of this thief-like characteristic was seen on her 9^th birthday. One night a month or so before the birthday celebration she exclaimed to her Queen Mother, “I want a pony! For my birthday Daddy must get me a pony. It is what I want.” Despite the fact that this was plain rude (as the Queen had not yet asked her what she wanted for her birthday), she said it as if she was entitled to a pony and that her parents must comply. 

“Well, dear, I will talk with your father about the pony,” was the Queen’s response. 

“Yes, you tell him about my pony.”

The next week when the Queen was reading Ivy her bedtime story the pseudo-princess declared to her mother, “I want two ponies mother! For my birthday I must have two ponies!”

“Don’t you think one pony is enough for any girl, darling?” replied the Queen.  

“Not for me mother. I must have two. Don’t you see? I am a princess. I need two,” answered Ivy.  

“I will talk with your father,” was the Queen’s diverting reply.

For the next week every night before bed Ivy would insist on two ponies for her birthday until her mother said, “Hush dear. You will get your ponies. Now please stop pestering me about them.” 

This was the wrong thing for the Queen Mother to say for it only gave Ivy what she wanted. This was bad because as soon as she got what she wanted her desire changed and the very next night at bedtime she declared to her mother, “I want ten ponies for my birthday mother. Daddy must get me ten ponies! I will not be happy with anything less than ten. Be sure to tell Daddy.”  

Sighing, the Queen replied, “I will tell your father what you wish.” The Queen was quite worn out by Ivy’s persistence and felt she could really say nothing else to her daughter. But for the next week she heard nothing but ten ponies this and ten ponies that, until finally it was the week before Ivy’s birthday.

“Mother, I want to see my ten ponies tonight. I need to see them. Please take me to the stable to see my ponies.”

“No dear, you can not see your ten ponies tonight,” answered the Queen.

“But I must see them. I need to make sure they are all there,” Ivy said with some anxiety.

The anxiousness of her daughter concerned the Queen, and in an effort to placate her she said, “Do not worry yourself so my darling. Your father goes to the stable every night and checks on your ten ponies himself. You can rest assured they are all there.”

This was all Ivy needed to hear to change her heart. No longer were ten ponies enough--she wanted more. The next night she asked for 50 ponies. “Where are we to get 50 ponies from my dear? Your birthday is only five days away. You must be satisfied with the ten ponies your father has procured for you.”

But Ivy was not happy. She sulked and moped about the castle till she worked herself into a fever and had to be put to bed early two days before her party.

That night her father came to her room to inquire after her.  “What is ailing you so my fair Ivy?” was her father’s question.

“Oh, father, I have dreams of 50 ponies that I can train to prance in a line and turn in circles with lovely riders on their backs. They will be the most spectacular performers the kingdom has ever seen. But ten ponies just won’t do. I need 50. It will only work with 50,” was Ivy’s very solemn and sickly answer.

The King’s heart melted. He could see her reasoning for he was fond of horses, too, and particularly liked to show them off in flamboyant parades. He leaned down to kiss his child and then whispered, "Do not despair, sweet one, your dreams are lovely ones.” He resolved in his heart to get his princess 50 ponies for her birthday.

By the day of her party Ivy was markedly improved. She sat perched on a platform in a dreamy lavender dress next to the King and Queen. From her place she had a grand view of the field of dreams below where her ponies were due to be presented. She waited with utter expectancy. As the music started and her ponies came prancing onto the field she began to look at each and every pony as they filled row after row. She did this as if she were inspecting each pony, making sure it met her standard of approval. The King watched her with great interest, pleased with his daughter’s eye for equine. After the last pony was presented her father stood and asked her to join him on the field for a closer look at her birthday gift. He was beaming with pride until he saw his daughter's face. It was down trodden and filled with complete disappointment.  

“Fair Ivy!” he exclaimed. “What ever is the matter? Did I not get you the 50 ponies your heart desired?”  

“Oh, Father!” she said with utter dejection. “These ponies are fine, but what I really and truly wanted for my birthday was a purple pony. Why couldn’t you have at least gotten me one purple pony?” To which neither the King nor Queen had any reply. They stared at each other completely dumbfounded, once again, by their unusual daughter. Ivy’s eyes filled with tears and she stormed from the party in a swill of lavender, disappointed to the depths of her being. 

Ivy didn’t get what she wanted for her birthday, but the truth of the matter was she would never get what she wanted because she always wanted more than what she had. Ivy was never satisfied. She was never content, and if there is one thing I know for sure it is that the only truly happy people in this world are those people who are content without. Ivy was, in a sense, poisoned by her own insatiable want of more. As she grew older, this one desire drove her forward and propelled her every step. She became Poisoned Ivy. Unfortunately, this is not the last we will hear of the poisoning of Ivy, for as the Witch Hazel has been known to say, “Only an antidote can stop poison before it has completely consumed its victim.”

1…Now my story is done.
2…I love you!
3…Please kiss me.