The Differences We See: Tale of Two States

My husband and I were born and raised in California. Just three and a half years ago we moved to Iowa. For funzies, I'd like to share some of the differences between the two states.

NUMBER ONE. I hear it is because there are no professional teams in the area, but college pride is off the charts around here. The two colleges can be seen everywhere. Vanity plates and frames, sweatshirts, hats, and mugs. When I was teaching preschool, my little students wore one or the other and were being well-trained in their particular fandom.  Outside a hotel we stayed at, the two flags hung off opposite ends of the entrance. We have a neighbor with a special split flag and the words, "A House Divided." When we bought our own home, it took a load of paint to get that Hawkeye off our office wall. Iowans care about their alma maters, baby!

NUMBER TWO.  Iowan drivers vs. Californian drivers. I have heard the jokes about Californian drivers, and I think many are well-earned. Californians speed and the California stop is a real thing. But I will take California drivers every time over Iowan drivers.  Forgive the pun, but it's time to buckle up, because here comes my rant!  

Iowans tailgate. Like, they get right up on you and just stay there.  There is room to pass, but they are content to drive mere feet from the car in front of them.  And it isn't just private drivers.  Semis do it! It is horrifying to have one of those killers get so close that the grill fills your rearview mirrors.  I much prefer someone weaving through traffic at 90 mph over a road full of tailgaters at 55.

Speaking of truckers, they drive like they are cars.  Aside from tailgating, they change lanes on a whim and drive in the left lane for miles on end.  In California, most truckers were pretty awesome.  They stuck to the slow lanes unless something was up. Then they would coordinate to help protect drivers from hazards. In Iowa truckers vie for position, repeatedly passing one another while paying no attention to other motorists.  Drives me nuts!

NUMBER THREE. Coat racks are everywhere in Iowa. I think a combination of climate and a more trusting culture contribute to this phenomenon. Churches, schools, and businesses have huge coat racks in them.  Restaurants have these cool flippy ones at the end of each booth. Some buildings architecturally have designated space for them. Others have huge racks on wheels that come out every winter.  It is cool...and weird to me. In California, we lived both in the central valley where snow was rare and in the mountains with snow and below freezing temps for at least three months out of the year. But we were expected to hang on to our own coats wherever we went.

NUMBER FOUR. Accents. So, there isn't a massive difference between the way people speak between these two states. But the transplants to Iowa tend to be from directly north or south, so there are more 'y'alls' and 'donchaknows' than we encountered in California, which has a broader reach in their diversity.  Iowans are also more likely to say eye-talian instead of Italian and that makes me giggle.

While the pronunciations of words are similar, there are some distinctions to the words chosen. Californians drink soda while Iowans drink pop. Californians get splinters, but Iowans get slivers. Californians eat breakfast, lunch, then dinner. Iowans tend toward breakfast, lunch, and supper. (I know some places eat breakfast, dinner, and supper.) I used to keep track of the different terminology because I find it fascinating. Now I think I am acclimating because I notice it less.

NUMBER FIVE. The neighborly neighbors. When we were house hunting in Iowa, we still had one of our sweet Beagle babies and a fully fenced yard was a must--and nearly impossible to find.  Iowans don't do fences as a regular thing. Our realtor was vexed by our own vexation over the absence of fences.  We explained that a new build in California wouldn't have any landscaping, but that six-foot privacy fences were standard. I don't think she believed us.

We did manage to find a fully fenced yard, but it's a three-foot chain linked affair. The wind in Iowa is fierce and year-round, so I can see the unpractical side of fences here. But there is another aspect. Iowans are neighborly! Like, SUPER neighborly. We live in a wonderful old neighborhood where the residents have already raised their children together.  At the last block party, the former owners of our home attended because they are still rooted here. 

It's so weird to this Californian who thought she was neighborly because she smiled, said hello, AND even knew a few of the neighbors' names! This is a whole new level of neighborly, and I cognitively appreciate it. I have come to love the people on either side of us and the family behind us.  I love having kids my kids love playing with.  There is nothing so cool as seeing them climb that chain-link to play together. But I also feel like I don't have a back yard to call my own. It's just so public!

NUMBER SIX. Cuisine, or lack thereof. You can find a Mexican restaurant on every other corner. Korean places don't stay in business long, which is lamentable to this invisible Korean girl. On the Fast-Food side of things, there is no Jack in the Box or In'n'Out Burger. No Habit Burger. And Carl's Jr is called Hardy's. 

There is a BeBops, which serves retro diner food. It is fast a cheap and has decent fish sandwiches. There is also a locally loved place called Culvers. I don't get it. Every time we have tried it, they get our order wrong, and the food is soggy and cold. I don't get Culvers.  There is also Ornery Chicken, a dine-out-only place that is delicious and pricey.

But the biggest disparity is the pizza. Oh, my word, the pizza. Iowan mouths don't tend toward spices. The overwhelmingly favorite is from Casey's, the gas station. Oh, my non-Iowan readers, I kid you not. Gas station pizza is everyone's favorite. I'm just gonna stop there.

Thanks for reading. These comparisons are fun. We love living in Iowa, though I might have chosen a littler Norther, had I known about the fake snow and too-common tornadoes. But we are so thankful to be right where we are, to adopt our girls, to love our neighbors and friends, and be thankful that we only have to shovel snow once a year.

March: 2022

We are scooting along through the years. Between 2021 and 2022, we fostered twins, quit all our jobs, and moved 2,000 miles away. I got a job working at a terrible day care with wonderful people. My students were precious, their families generous, and my co-workers exceedingly special. But the system stunk and the center eventually went under.

I had the wonderful pleasure of partnering with my son in the classroom for a while there. By March, we were actively job-hunting. My daughter was doing brave things working in service to people with special needs. My husband was enjoying retirement. We were learning how to ballroom dance!

We were on our third church by then. I was having a hard time finding my place. That was a new challenge for me. I've had struggles in many churches but never had a problem with just finding a church. I felt stiff-armed and unwelcome. I couldn't find an inroad as a working woman. On the other hand, my husband was veritably collecting men's Bible studies. He joined and continued in each group as we church-hopped.

It was difficult and wholly unfamiliar to not have a church family. It stood in stark contrast to the one we had just left. The members of our small group are people my new daughters know and pray for.  They are phenomenal and I am staggered by the lavish love of our Father to let us be in that group that is now scattered across the states. I love them all so much. And their love has sustained me through this weird church-drought we are experiencing.

During this March, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by taking a sleeper train to see Niagara Falls. It was dreamy. Life was dreamy. We were living our happily ever after. What a March!

My Friend

I was wondering what I could write about, and my friend was helping me brainstorm.  She facetiously suggested herself as the topic and did a little cheeky twirl. Since she knows me well, she quickly followed up with a deep-voiced, "Don't write about me." But she does know me well, so I'm gonna! 

It's a great idea because support is everything. We were made by a triune God Whose very essence is relational. It's no wonder that people are pivotal to our success through various seasons of life. We have been extravagantly blessed with friends. We are astonishingly and undeservedly RICH with people who walk through fire with us! I will tell you about one now.

When you go through the foster parent licensing process, you get asked endlessly about your support system. And for good reason. This oughtn't be done alone. We were blessed this time (our third licensing class) by sitting immediately behind strangers who are now seeing us through some of the most challenging and grace-filled moments of our lives.

This woman is the heart of her family, and what a heart she has! She brought dinner to us when the girls first arrived--then left, knowing we needed to cocoon ourselves to form a new family. She has listened to me for hours that add up to months as I vent, worry, gush, wrestle, and grieve regarding these girls and their stories--plus every other part of my life.

This woman is a whiz in the kitchen and lives to feed others.  She's excellent with kids, empowering them to be brave and try new things.  She is an amazing friend, who expends a tremendous amount of energy searching out ways to bless them. She is so proud of her husband, always bragging about him except when she's baiting him.

She listens. She prays. She is gentle with my failings and encourages me to stand up again. She is so very funny. She is extravagantly generous yet actively seeks how to be extravagantly generous as if she doesn't already live that way. She does things even when she is scared.

She gets grief. She doesn't try to fix what she cannot. She abides, sitting in the pain and brokenness, making it better by doing nothing. 

She embraces people, just as they are. She embraces differences with delight and curiosity. When I slip with one of my crazy quirks, she laughs and eagerly says, "Oh, tell me more about THAT!"

When she goes to the gym, she prays before entering that God put someone in her path who needs encouragement.  When she encounters a stranger or a dear friend, she lights up either way, because all she sees is someone she can love.

She lives life with us, and we are so thankful and humbled.  Her family is wonderful, and we will never be able to repay all they've given. I pray blessings for her as she continues to find ways to live generously.

We were made for relationships. She gets that, and we are so thankful to get to call her friend! 

It's My Sister's Birthday

It's our tenth birthday of hers without her. I am conditioned to look forward to it because she claimed the entire month for her celebration. Of course, now, there are more feelings surrounding the day. I'm just going to tell you about the best woman I've ever known--and I know many, many wonderful women. 

One of the most obvious descriptors of Diane Cherie Porter is that she is intelligent. That is the easy, low-hanging fruit attribute. She was tech-savvy, devoured books in a day, and could teach on any subject. She was so smart that her IQ was still higher than everyone at the office where she had it tested after some of her brain was removed. They fawned over her like she was an A-list celebrity when she was lamenting her diminished skills. 

--You'll have to excuse my verb tenses for this post.  I tend to speak about her in the present tense still because she is a Jesus-lover and thus has eternal life.  But sometimes the past tense slips out as I delve into specific memories.

While her cognitive intelligence defines her and informed everything she did, Diane is so much more than smart. Diane is kind in a tangible way. Her attentiveness, acute memory, and the time she made for people made us feel like we were the most important thing in her life. 

She was the glue in our family. She stayed in touch with all our grands, aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as all the members of her husband's family. She was the greatest aunt one could want. Those connections mattered to her; the individuals were valuable. I know she prayed for us all regularly and her heart overflowed with love.

Diane had the Spiritual gift of faith. We all have faith in something. And believers are given faith. But Diane had the gift of faith that passes all understanding. She didn't waiver. She was so firmly planted on the Rock that she took on the qualities of a rock. One story I love is that she was late to her own baptism because she was busy bringing a teen soldier to Christ.

Diane could be counted on to speak the truth with love in the face of anything and everything. I benefitted countless times from her talks exhorting me that despite all the evidence that I was drowning, God was bigger than the waves. She encouraged me when I felt like my kids would never overcome their challenges. Or when I thought I would never be good enough for my family.

She went through a lot, including fighting brain cancer for years. Only at the very end, thanks to institutional neglect, multiple brain surgeries, and mind-addling drugs did depression ever touch her. But for the rest of her life, she navigated the difficult things with this assurance that love wins. Sometimes she yelled it at us. "Love wins, you idiot!"

In fact, Diane epitomized joy. She was generous and playful. She celebrated others' triumphs. She infused heartache with the deep unshakable joy that comes with an eternal point of view. She knew what lasted and what was temporary. She made an event out of anything, celebrating everything.

She loved to sing. Every time we got together, she'd beg me to sing two-part songs with her. "This is the Day," "He Has Shown Thee," "Humble Thyself in the Sight of the Lord." There is an older one that goes, 'Brother, Sister, we are young/ And our lives have just begun/...Sons of God/ Hear His holy Word/ Gather 'round/ the Table of the Lord..." I wish I'd joined in more frequently and with more verve than I did.  Ah, hindsight. I've countless songs ranging from hymns to 80s ballads that make me think of her.

Diane used the moniker Mrs. Quiet. It was funny because she is a TALKER. But she was married to a soft-spoken shy introvert. It was her joke. It was also an expression of her undying love and devotion to her husband. Man, she loves him!  Her marriage was a beautiful thing to behold--they were both forever in love, giving favor to the other while happily bickering over everything. They were different in just about everything.  He was not a gamer, or a singer, or gregarious, or crazy-smart, or a voracious reader. I am not sure I ever saw him in front of the computer. But it didn't matter one whit. They were into each other, God, and their family.  That was enough.

Diane was an excellent cook. She threw together feasts and treats while carrying out a bunch of other tasks plus three conversations. She was skilled in savory and sweet dishes alike. I strive to cook as she does, but I am more hit-and-miss and can be quite a disaster in the kitchen.

There is so much more. 

• She played an integral role in Protestant Women of the Chapel in both California and Texas while her husband served in the army. She loved the women she taught and fellowshipped with. 
• She homeschooled her kids. She homeschooled other kids. 
• She worked as the secretary at various churches--and was the unofficial confidant to several priests and pastors. 
• She would sit on speakerphone with me while I schooled my kids.  We would just spend hours on speakerphone, both of us going about our day with our families.  
• She loved Jesus. Her love for him drew her into depths ever richer. You couldn't know her without hearing about her Friend. She was a prayer warrior, persevering and persisting in praying for the people she loved.
• She asked hard questions. We wrestled together with doctrinal beliefs, politics, and any hot topic for years, always seeking truth over merely winning an argument. She loved to think.
• She loved movies and TV shows. She invested in characters like they were real, applying biblical truths to the worldliest programming, extracting beautiful parables that would shine light for those who would never crack a Bible.
• She was funny.  She came up with all sorts of silly phrases.  I still use them today, like okeydokey smokeybutt.
• She was wise and had all sorts of maxims. One was, 'Cry when it hurts to not cry. When the crying starts to hurt, stop.'

Thank you for reading about this lovely woman. I am deeply honored to call her my big sister. You can't know me without knowing at least a bit about her. She prayed my husband into my life. She kept us married for the first decade. I homeschool because of her. She made me brave. She made me love Jesus. So much of who I am is because of her.

Time—Rich and Poor.

I was talking with a precious friend the other day.  She was struggling with time.  She is in the proverbial sandwich stage of life—caring for an aging parent, parenting her children, and providing care for her youngest grandchild.  You don’t have to add that she has a flourishing home business to imagine why she would struggle with time.  There is never enough.

As I listened, I felt like she’d been peeking into my home and brain. She kept saying the same things I’d been thinking for weeks. We both felt drained and in desperate need of a break that we couldn’t see coming. We needed more hours in the day…and the night. At the same time, she (and I) confessed in frustration over frittered time.  We would realize only after the fact that we had wasted a whole uninterrupted 30 minutes on garbage.

Then, like a flash of lightning illuminating the landscape (that’s a line from a play I did in Junior High that I can’t forget), this allegorical vision came to me. Rich people and poor people spend money differently. There are things one group would not likely purchase that the other would.  Poor people won’t buy a top-of-the-line vehicle. Rich people are not going to buy lottery tickets. Rich people invest in things that would grow their wealth. And the kicker is that the junk poor people purchase wastes what little money they have, actually perpetuating their deficits.

In the same way, a time-rich person might commit to large blocks of time to accomplish a task. They are also free to luxuriate in lengthy leisure activities.  Time-poor people can’t imagine pampering themselves or lingering over coffee with a friend. 

I am in a time-poor season.  I stay up late to talk with that precious friend once a week.  She is important to me.  But I cannot talk with her during the day. I am constantly interrupted and can’t finish a thought during the day. I get so frustrated because I don’t have time to sit, to think, or to finish anything!

But!  Here’s the rub.  I spend my time the way a poor person might spend money.  On those gumball machine toys and lottery tickets.  I buy trash with my time.  I get on social media.  When I realize that I just scrolled for 45 minutes, I am astonished and chagrinned. How did that happen?  I know I get on because there is no commitment.  I can spend 2 minutes checking notifications.  I can stop in an instant when a new demand comes collecting. It feels ‘safer’ than trying to read a book or start a project. But what a waste!

This realization was profound for me.  I told anyone who would listen. I didn’t know quite what to do with it, but I was convinced that the way I spent my time was robbing myself.  I needed to think like a rich person and make wiser purchases that focused on quality even when I can’t have quantity. I needed to invest rather than indulge in trash.

I haven't figured out how to do this exactly, but I am working diligently to cut waste and to treat my time as something I have control over and must steward wisely.

Are you time-rich or time-poor right now? Does the season affect how you spend time? Does this analogy ring true for you?