By Anna Mitchael

We’re out of dog food. Again. Lately, it seems every time I go to feed the dog, I call her and make a big show of yum, yum, it’s dinnertime, only to open the bag and find one or two very lonely cubes of kibble available for her consumption.

You’re thinking I should plan ahead better, maybe check the bag of dog food before I go to the store. I agree. I would be a much better person if I took time to alphabetize the grocery list aisle by aisle, cross-referencing by items that are room temperature, cold and frozen but, oh wait, I just opened my eyes, and those aren’t leprechauns dancing in my front yard! You’re not a white rabbit! I’m not in Wonderland!

Here in reality the store is 40 minutes from our home. On the occasions I make it there and back with milk still chilled and no crack-ups in the egg carton or the child seat, then I’m Olympus on the mountain, arms crossed in triumph, yodeling my song of victory.

But that harsh(ish) reality of our shopping situation does not help me feel better when faced with two pleading, round doggie eyes staring deep into my soul. At that moment I am racking my brain on how to scare up a Mad Hatter — or maybe a Frog Footman — to dash to the store and nab some Kibbles ‘n Bits.

Those doggie eyes threaten to uncover every insecurity I harbor of not doing enough in my everyday life. They know the days I take a minute — or five — to kick back on the couch. They have witnessed me wander for hours in fields of flowers with my toddler. Every pleasure I indulge in has been seen by that set of eyes, and now, up next to the empty dog bowl, they are glaring examples of how I am simply not multitasking enough to be a modern-day mom.

Oh, well, hello there, mothering guilt! Pull up a chair, old friend, and sit down for a while. Tell me what you’ve been up to since the last time we met. When was it … oh right, yesterday.

The guilt that comes with being a mother was a wholly unadvertised part of the job. It ranks right up there with the first few days of nursing a newborn baby and the “some assembly required” of any toy that comes with more than five parts.

If you’ve ever seen (or been) a mother reaching in the freezer for a bag of frozen broccoli in between feedings or found yourself plopped in a pile of unidentifiable plastic toy parts as the clock ticks for Kris Kringle to come down the chimney then you have witnessed (or experienced) that moment of scratching-the-head wonder: Funny that everyone forgot to mention this bump in the road.

Mother or not, guilt is an unfortunate part of human existence. I suffered plenty of it before I grew a person in my stomach. But that guilt was lighter, easier to handle. It was a few minutes stolen for shoe shopping online in the corner of my office cubicle or skipping the gym because happy hour was more tempting than the treadmill. That guilt was for actions that would only affect myself.

Guilt in motherhood takes on a new depth that, if left unchecked, can shake the core of who you are. Are you doing enough in the home? At the office? For your partner? For yourself? Is it normal to feel an overwhelming urge to throw in the towel and succumb to a weeklong streak of macaroni and cheese dinners? No, no, really, it’s different tonight. You see? Tonight I put peas in it.

To speak of motherhood guilt in terms of my dog might be offensive to some people. For that, I’m really not sorry. I’m one of those dog lovers who considered my dog as my first baby. Sadly for her, but proof positive sanity was always in my reach, I did bump her out of line for my first child.

One effective way to mark my son’s birth is to look back through photos and note when the pictures shifted from being all about my Rhodesian ridgeback, Isabella, to being about my child. Before, it was Isabella chasing a ball, Isabella chasing an armadillo. You can almost imagine my pregnant self, waddling around the ranch with my iPhone, snapping pictures of Isabella. Then, bam! The pictures of the baby start. Isabella was lucky if she was allowed in the house long enough to be caught in the back of one frame.

I have major mothering guilt for the months and months I pushed her to the side. The pictures are just physical evidence of what was also an emotional and mental shift. Standing above her food bowl, I’m forced to face the reality: On the totem pole of those I give to daily, poor Isabella now lives on the bottom rung.

But in a moment of inspiration accompanied by a totally uncommon urge to hit the highway, I think maybe this is a chance for her to recoup her past losses. Perhaps if she gets her food instead of people-food leftovers, she’ll know she is valued as part of the family.

Out the door I go, and an hour and a half later I’m home to triumphantly pour the freshly purchased dog food into her bowl. When I’m done, she hesitates for one split second, and in that moment of hesitation I see the truth. Deep down, Isabella’s most fervent life desire is to cap off her day not with kibble, but with a heaping bowl of macaroni and cheese.

And this is the most frustrating part of mothering guilt — most of the time it’s something we mothers put on our own shoulders. Everyone else in our lives seems to think we’re doing just fine. Actually, better than fine. They think we’re so great we deserve a victorious yodel now and again.

On that note, Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours.

This column appeared in the May 2012 issue of the Wacoan.

By Anna Mitchael

The Most Interested Man In The World is three feet tall and counting. Every extra inch turns the world into a brand new place. He can see over more countertops, explore more shelves. One day soon, he will open the silverware drawer on his own. Other people think silverware is a collection of utensils for mealtime but he knows better. The forks are shovels and, when positioned correctly, will wedge open his toy chest for unlimited play. Spoons double as drumsticks.

The Most Interested Man In The World wakes up with the sun. It confuses him when adults are slow to get out of bed. There’s so much to see, so much to do — shouldn’t we start now? No, forget now. Shouldn’t we have started five minutes ago?

It is important that The Most Interested Man In The World checks in with his favorite toys every morning. Did his stuffed lion sleep OK? Was his musical keyboard moved while he slumbered? Where has his train gone … oh, into a closet. Who on earth is so silly to think a train belongs in a closet? He knows trains need space to travel — not just on tracks, but across tabletops and through blades of grass in the front yard. The Most Interested Man In The World studies transportation carefully: trucks on the road, planes in the air, boats on the water. He hasn’t yet seen a boat that can fly or a truck that can float, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening somewhere in the world, possibly at this very minute.

The Most Interested Man In The World doesn’t dress himself yet. But he still takes great interest in the clothes he wears. Why can’t his arms go through any hole in the shirt? What happens if he puts pants on his head? Socks seem similar enough to mittens — why not wear them on his hands instead of his feet? His mother thinks he should be able to change clothes without these miniature investigations, and The Most Interested Man In The World is patient with her frustration. He knows she worries too much about how her clothes look. Perhaps if she left the house wearing pants on her head now and again, she would feel more free.

Occasionally, The Most Interested Man In The World catches sight of himself in the mirror, and the person who stares back at him is a surprise. What are those strips of hair over his eyes? Oh yes, eyebrows. He plucks to see if he can remove them. He does not see a reason apparent for eyebrows, but he’s open to the chance they’re serving a purpose he simply has not figured out yet. He will keep them under careful surveillance and see if there is more to learn.

When The Most Interested Man In The World sticks out his tongue, people laugh. This is a curious reaction, so he keeps testing it. He sticks it out when he is hungry, when he is in the car, when he is about to go down the slide at the playground. When his tongue wiggles around, it reminds him of the otters at the zoo. The otters are currently his favorite animal, but that’s only when he’s standing in front of them. The lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes all captivate him as well. He wants to know why some people can go into the giraffes’ cage but he can’t.

He taps on the glass to get the attention of the man cleaning the cage. The Most Interested Man In The World waves furiously. Can I come down there? Will you let me in? When he does this at home, it works. His father takes him outside or his mom opens the door to her study. How curious that everyone doesn’t respond to his tapping and grunting in the same way. Further investigation required, obviously.

The Most Interested Man In The World investigates life at two speeds. One is slow, the other is a hustle. He attempts to chase bunnies and people and cars. He is not dissuaded from his pursuits when he fails to catch these faster creatures. For him, the pursuit is the most important part of the fun.

The Most Interested Man In The World is amazed by colors. They are everywhere, in combinations that can’t be easily explained by crayons. In the box there are eight; they are fat and stubby and easy to hold. But did you know if you pick up a handful of mud and smear it on the car it makes a mark that is browngreenblack? When you rub a flower on the dog’s back it leaves redyelloworange behind. At night the sky is bluepurplepink.

Rather frequently, The Most Interested Man In The World goes shopping. At first this was a disturbing time of day when he was forced to sit still in the cart and wait until he could return home and roam free again. Lately, he’s been enjoying it more. The store is a very bright place, and there are lots of colors around. People who are sized like him, smaller than his gargantuan mom and dad, are riding in the other carts. These smaller people do not say hello, but when they pass by sometimes they stare. The Most Interested Man In The World stares back. Is that sort of like waving hello? Is it waving hello and saying goodbye combined? If he stares at someone long enough, will that person know what he is thinking? He has lots of questions, but for now he’s keeping them to himself.

When The Most Interested Man In The World talks, it is in a short, staccato clip. He discovers at least one new word every day. On some days, if his mood is right, he’ll stumble upon two. Horse, moon, on, bed, dog, off, diaper and ball seem basic, but they remind everyone in the room of the difference language can make.

One day The Most Interested Man In The World will actually be a man. Puddles will turn into nuisances. Rocks will not be entertainment — they’ll be gravel. Words will become so commonplace they will mean next to nothing. He will use them at random and without great thought, without the sense that their use might open the door to a new world.

Or maybe not, maybe he will manage to grow up with heart open and interests intact. Which in this day and age is so rare, it would certainly make him that much more interesting.

This column appeared in the April 2012 issue of the Wacoan.

By Anna Mitchael

Confession: When I drive by cemeteries, I still hold my breath. Feel free to judge the ridiculousness of this superstition. I’m a rational adult, and I’ll agree with every point you make, but when it comes time to put those theories into practice, I’m still an 11-year-old girl who prefers to play it safe.

When I first moved to the country, I also held my breath when I passed by toilets repurposed as yard art. Some might assume this left me gasping for air, but there actually aren’t as many abandoned appliances in this neck of the woods as Jeff Foxworthy would lead the country to believe. However, one does encounter the occasional open-air restroom. And when I’d pass the yards filled with items that are usually hidden within the four walls of a person’s home, I would take in a deep breath and hold it — as if that would keep the ghosts of bad decorating past from floating into my present.

Take a serving of the movie “Contagion” and an episode of A&E’s “Hoarders,” put them both into a Mason jar that sits in the sun for a few hours … what do you get? A cup of sweet iced crazy. Far from the manicured orderliness of suburban yards, the sprawl of space in the country left me feeling unsure of myself. I knew how I would behave in a neighborhood of people. I’d have shrubs. Some nice fruit-bearing trees. A regularly mowed yard and the occasional abandoned football for a hint of spontaneity.

But out in the sprawl, anything can happen. Here, there are no rules about what you can or can’t do with your property. There are no restrictions. No neighborhood associations. No assurance that if I woke up one day and decided we had one toilet too many inside our house and the front yard looked like a darn good resting place for the extra one, then a representative from a concerned group of residents on our cul-de-sac would come by with gently spoken directions to the junkyard.

If I let my guard down in the country — even for a second — it was possible I could end up with a miniature antique market sprouting on the side of the house, full of furniture I couldn’t resist and planned to find space in my house for “any day now.”

I was determined not to become one of those people who loses all sense of decorum, and I thought I’d done OK at keeping up with my imaginary Joneses until the day I was leisurely enjoying a cup of coffee, looking out our windows and realized we were one Big Wheel short of a used car lot in front of our house. There’s a blue Fisher Price vehicle, a small PlasmaCar that my son sits on but hasn’t quite figured out how to steer, an antique tricycle that was my favorite ride 30 years ago, a newfangled Smart-Trike, a red wagon and our family Baby Jogger that’s been around since my son’s birth (and incidentally, after 20 months of being pushed around on gravel roads, looks like it woke up on the wrong side of a BB gun).

Obviously, I had made a misstep. Clearly, I drove past a yard toilet without remembering to look the other way and suck in a breath. I looked down to check what I was wearing. Had I completely gone to the dark side? Was there a NASCAR logo anywhere on my person?

Decisions had to be made. Actions needed to be taken. A woman cannot teeter on the precipice of such self-realization indefinitely. Either I had to go out and remove the offending vehicles from the yard, possibly finding a barn or large tree I could park them behind so as to maintain my personal pledge to live a life well manicured. Or I could say, “To heck with it” and leave the vehicles where they were and let life unfold as it would.

Moving the vehicles would have required me to change out of my pajamas, and so the decision to leave them was easier than I first suspected it would be. As I neared the end of my coffee (maybe it was the caffeine, perhaps the adrenaline from my imaginary rebellion against my imaginary neighborhood association), I came up with an even better idea than leaving the used car lot open for business: I would add a chicken coop to the mix!

Everyone knows that organic farming is in. And though I gave up my Organic Mom of the Year award when I realized my son had a deep-seated devotion to Pop Tarts that I didn’t have the heart to discourage, maybe this was my chance to go local. Or natural. Or whatever the trendy lingo is for letting your grass go to the birds.

It occurred to me this was the perfect situation because it would kill two (metaphorical) birds with one stone. Lately, it seems as though everyone we encounter asks if we’re ready to have another baby. It is the accepted question du jour. At first I was aghast that it has become so commonplace to make conversation in the aisles of Target about family planning, but then I numbed to the sensation, whispering, “Not yet,” as though it was something to be ashamed of.

But now I don’t have to be ashamed. I can simply announce, “We’re not having a baby, we’re having a chicken coop!” and then give a polite wave as I head over to buy paper towels and stalk Gwen Stefani’s new kids’ collection.

My worst fear used to be that I would become one of those people who loses all decorum. Now it’s that I might be one of those people who goes back to only operating within the carefully defined decorum limits. Where does that leave me? I guess exactly where I am. In the country. With a used car lot, a chicken coop and who knows — by the time this goes to press — possibly a selection of porcelain yard art.

This column appeared in the March 2012 issue of the Wacoan.

Baylor Theatre was Reason #24 last year, and was submitted by Michael Garfield (who happened to win an iPad).

Last year, for the first time, we invited readers of the WACOAN to contribute their reasons they love Waco. We received a tremendous response and 20 reader submissions were published in our Best of Waco issue. So let’s do it again! Tell us what you think makes Waco great in the Facebook comments section below. If your reason is published, you will be automatically entered for a chance to win the new iPad (64 GB).

One bit of advice: The more specific and unique your reasons are, the better.

By Anna Mitchael

A couple of years ago, a trend emerged to do baby showers that were doubly-billed as “bookcase builders.” This does not mean the buffet table boasted a selection of hammer and nails with petits fours and cucumber sandwiches. Instead, the idea was that every guest brought along an extra book for the new baby.

Let me go on record as saying I do not begrudge extra gifts for babies. On the contrary, I think if we are going to shower anything with presents, people we are bringing defenseless and very wrinkly into this world are the most deserving. But if this idea of a present in addition to the present you were already planning to bring jumps genres into, say, bridal showers, then I will complain. If you’re entering marriage defenseless and very wrinkly, there’s nothing from Nordstrom or Barnes & Noble that’s going to help.

I put a lot — possibly too much — thought into which book I’d like to contribute to the bookcases of these brand-new babies. As a person who has found solace throughout her life in books, it was the sort of purchase I imagined could make a difference.

Enough people would give the Sandra Boynton board books — “must-haves” on mommy lists. Those adorable little squares of cardboard with overweight animals who dance and sing and accidentally put pants on their heads instead of their legs. They rarely say anything more than “oops” or grunt the occasional onomatopoeia, which is good. Most new moms and dads are so sleep-deprived when reading the Boynton books that their vocabularies are limited to about the same level.

After much thought and perusing of the bookstore, I settled on Shel Silverstein. I loved “The Giving Tree” when I was growing up and had fond memories of it being read to me and of the first time I was able to sound out the words that told the story of the boy and the tree that loved him. I bought a whole truckload of the books and slowly gave them away.

Eventually it came time to build the bookcase for my own son, and one of those copies made its way into his collection. Fast-forward 18 months, and he is finally old enough that he can sit through reading a longer book without squirming uncomfortably and crying out for distraction.

One day not so long ago, he pulled the green binding from his bookshelf and brought it to my lap. At first I was elated, then we began to read, and I found that I was the one squirming uncomfortably and searching desperately for distraction. Where did my beloved Boynton go, with her zany groups of zoo animals? What happened to the easy tales of alphabet soups and goodnight rituals?

“The Giving Tree,” which I had remembered as a cautionary tale of being sucked in by the superficial side of the world, was reading very differently to me now. The tree that gave so selflessly to the boy was the same. The boy who grew into an adolescent wanting money, then a man wanting a house, and finally an older man in need of a boat, were all exactly the same. I am the one who had changed.

One of the largest struggles I have found as a mother is knowing how much to give. Boundaries are no longer easy to enforce. Days that used to be carved into schedules and to-do lists are now explosions of activity that are not finite, with visible starts and hard stops. The things most important for me “to do” can’t be scheduled. If what you need most in life is to find two hours to close a door and work in silence, but those two hours intersect with when your child most needs you to be talking and interacting, how do you explain that sharing quality time is slotted for the next day? Is that something I can let Siri outline to my child by handing over my iPhone?

How do you put into terms understandable for a littler person that there are days you feel the apples have fallen off your tree, and you need just a few moments to collect yourself, rest and re-center so that you can get ready for another harvest?

Discussions range far and wide on the internet and in homes, at playgroups and in offices, about how mothers can do more. I see women doing everything while letting their core selves whittle down into nothing, and on lots of days, I feel that happening to me. This time, when I read “The Giving Tree,” I saw that side of the tale. Instead of worrying about the self-centered man, my heart went out to the tree. I wondered why she was giving everything at the expense of herself. Shouldn’t she be making friends with the other trees? What would happen when the boy went away again, and she was left alone with no trunk? Why wasn’t she working harder to save herself?

But this is the dance of modern-day motherhood, I suppose. To fulfill ourselves, to keep relationships alive, and most importantly, to grow the defenseless and very wrinkly young babies into adults who will maneuver the world with kindness and strength. And for us to go out with one last dip and a flourish — to finish without feeling like stumps that have been worn to a quick.

If only the answer to this dilemma could be found in the pages of a book. But unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Not even a book that’s warmed hearts for a generation contains the compass. That can only be found by much different and more time-consuming means, a set of answers carved out by each and every family within the orchard they plant and grow together. Answers that one day, hopefully, will be celebrated over a table of petits fours and cucumber sandwiches, as we watch our little ones welcome the next new generation that will keep this dance of imperfection — also known as humanity — alive.

This month we celebrate Valentine’s Day, which is the official holiday of Hallmark sweethearts everywhere. May it also be a day to celebrate the people who love us, as well as themselves, in spite of shortcomings. Who branch into uncharted territory with hearts open and apples to give.

This column appeared in the February 2012 issue of the Wacoan.

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP.

Photo Courtesy of Baylor Photography

Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary looms large on the political horizon. In the midst of lively public debates over taxes, jobs, the national debt and similarly important questions related to the future vitality of our nation, a different kind of question continues to privately occupy the minds of some prospective voters: Can I vote for a Mormon?

This is an important question in our constitutional democracy. Without endorsing or even praising (much less criticizing) any candidate, I strongly encourage Americans who would ask this question of themselves to consider and weigh thoughtfully our nation’s constitutional traditions. At their best, those are traditions of welcoming religious forbearance.

To support this proposition, I return to the founding of our constitutional republic — boasting as we rightly do the oldest Constitution in the history of the planet. Only 27 amendments have been ratified to that basic document over our 222 years as a representative democracy. In fashioning this remarkably enduring document, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia made it absolutely clear that no religious test should ever be imposed to hold office. The Founders also made clear that religious dissenters (such as the Quakers) should not be compelled to take an oath if doing so would be a violation of conscience. Building on those twin pillars of tolerance, the Supreme Court at its finest moments has likewise vigorously defended the right of all persons to participate in the democratic process, including holding office, without the burden of religious tests or qualifications.

According to the American political tradition, there are essential questions by which all office seekers are qualified, regardless of their faith journey or history. The first is: Does the candidate subscribe completely to our constitutional structure, including freedom of conscience for persons of all faiths — or no faith? A second question for the thoughtful voter is related to and flows from the first: Will the candidate subscribe, without any “mental hesitation or purpose of evasion,” to the oath to protect and defend America’s Constitution? If the answers to those closely connected questions are yes, then voters should proceed to cast their ballot on the basis of the candidate’s qualifications, platform and policy positions — not the candidate’s membership (or lack thereof) in a particular faith community.

In fact, a number of great presidents have come to the White House without membership in any faith community. Thomas Jefferson was a Deist and was vigorously attacked for his religious views (or lack thereof). Abraham Lincoln, as a matter of conscience, refused to join any church. Yet our nation’s capital rightly dedicates two of its most stately monuments to those two men of unorthodox spiritual worldviews.

More recently, the great cultural chasm between Catholics and Protestants was politically overcome with the election of John F. Kennedy. Similarly, then-Vice President Al Gore’s choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman, a practicing Jew, as his running mate in 2000 signaled the welcoming openness of America’s democratic experience to individuals who did not share the Christian faith but were honorable statesmen of steely commitment to America’s constitutional principles.

In my own life, I have drawn great strength from my religious practices and, according to the teachings of my faith tradition, I intend to continue to keep in prayer those who are chosen to lead our nation. That said, the litmus for our elected leaders must not be the church they attend but the Constitution they defend.

Citizens as voters do well when they pause to reflect on our nation’s history and traditions. If an unbeliever such as Jefferson or non-churchman like Lincoln can serve brilliantly as president, then America should stand — in an intolerant world characterized all too frequently by religious persecution — as a stirring example of welcoming hospitality for highly qualified men and women of good will seeking the nation’s highest office. Life experience, personal qualities and policy views are the pivotal points to guide Americans as they go to the polls in 2012.

Source: washingtonpost.com   Posted: 7:34 p.m., January 8, 2012

By Anna Mitchael

When you live in the country, there is one question you get very used to being asked. At first, when the question came my way, I was blindsided — caught like an out-of-towner who stumbles into one of the gas stations in this neck of the woods. A poor soul who was under the misimpression that people no longer smoke in public but now finds herself forcing a smile as she buys a can of Big Red that will never quite shake the smell of menthol. She smiles, she goes with the flow, she pretends she knew what she was getting into when she pulled off the main interstate.

Now that I’ve lived here for a while I can see the question coming from a mile — or in more social situations, a hibachi table — away. The well meaning, yet totally clueless friend or family member (who is dangerously close to getting exed off our holiday card list for next year) leans across the table and asks, “Just what is it that you do out in the country?”

Asking a person what they do is one of the most passive aggressive ways of establishing that where you live is clearly a more exciting and engaging place to call home. I know this for a fact because I used to live in New York City, the world capital of people who feel smug about the place they call home. In my years there, I perfected a sympathetic smile while people from other places talked about their “fun” new restaurants in town, or how their cities were finally getting some “good” concerts. Obviously, I feel bad now about being such a snob then. But a girl has to find some kind of justification for why she works more hours of the day than most people are awake and then pays a ridiculous amount of her paycheck so she can walk up six flights of stairs to her shoebox apartment in SoHo.

Surely you’ve heard the saying that cow manure rolls downhill. It seems like the kind of saying that we might use at our home a lot, but we don’t, mostly because (to the surprise of city folks everywhere) country people do manage to make conversation about things other than cow manure. Yes, even though we live around loads of it.

But as the old adage goes, cow manure does roll downhill, and similarly the question of “what do you do” rolls down the proverbial hill of populations. People in New York feel sorry for people in Dallas who can’t help but cluck-cluck for the early restaurant closing times in Waco and then, well, my location is about four more rungs down that ladder. The population center of where we live is our own kitchen when the three of us are sitting down to dinner.

And so now when I see someone revving up for the inquiry as to how on Earth I keep myself interested in life when I live so far out in the middle of nowhere, I don’t get mad. I simply take a deep breath and realize that there is yet another person in the world who wants to ask me the same old question. And that the best thing I can do is answer truthfully, from the goodness of my country heart. I look to the sky — or in more social situations, to the succulent strips of steak frying in front of me — for strength.

What I need to communicate is that we do pretty much the same things they do. Perhaps without maitre d’s and traffic, but at the end of the day it’s all a variation on the same to-do list: a conglomeration of hassles interspersed with small joys that are the underpinnings of modern life for everyone. Of course ours are pinned with more saddles, fewer Starbucks lattes. But those are decorative details.

Ask me, “Just what do you do in the country?” and this is the answer I give.

I do a lot with my kid. Even when not engaged in an all-consuming game of catch, a search for bugs more intense than a pat-down by TSA, or a dual over a diaper change — even in those moments when I am working and engaged in my own pursuits, I am still thinking about my kid.

Sometimes I do this thinking while standing on top of a fencepost, precariously balanced, reaching my cell phone into the skies in the hope that I will catch a dependable enough signal to place a call. Last time I was in Houston, I had to sprint through the crowd in a shopping mall to reach a clearing where I could find phone reception. Both are bruise-inducing scenarios.

Out in the country, we often do things at the mercy of Murphy’s Law. Even when — or perhaps I should say, especially when — there is not a spare moment in the day, a tire will go flat, a cow will escape onto a highway, the customer service representative I desperately need to communicate with about the engine on a truck will speak a version of English suspiciously similar to the level at which my toddler talks. I used to think these problems were things that could be sorted if you had a personal assistant. But then I found out from a friend fancier than I that her personal assistant gets flat tires, too. I guess no one is immune.

Perhaps in the spirit of finding a way to wipe the slate clean in the new year and get along better with our fellow man, we should all remember that, country or city, we’re essentially running the same race. We do what we can to make each day just a little better than the last, to maximize the moments of joy we dig out from the rubble.

Maybe your rubble is an actual pile of limestone found on a Central Texas ranch, or maybe it’s the people you weave through to get your morning latte. It makes no difference. Those are just decoration — the flash that may or may not catch your unique eye as it flames from the pan.

This column appeared in the January 2012 issue of the Wacoan.