Thoughts of a lanyard

On the second Sunday of every month, my sons, instead of having regular Sunday school, attend a presentation by missionary(ies) that our church sponsors. Every time they attend this "Second Sunday" they are supposed to bring their lanyard. I think this was instituted last year sometime, and prior to the change in the regular schedule I recieved a note in the mail explaining what this "Second Sunday" was all about and to make sure my children bring their lanyards with them on that Sunday. What the heck is a lanyard? I didn't bother to look it up, probably some minor crisis erupted in the house that I needed to attend to at that very moment I read the note. My children came home from their first second Sunday with a bright yellow lanyard hanging about their necks with some laminated tags dangling at their bellies, but really I didn't know that was what that thing was called, so for a few months, being still clueless I failed to send my children to church prepared.

Last week as I rounded the exit ramp on I-83 on our way to church, I realized, "We forgot our lanyards!" but we were running late already. Upon depositing the boys in their class I had a brief exchange with another mom who also had forgotten her child's lanyard, and I admitted that had it not been for Second Sunday, I wouldn't have known what a lanyard was.

On Friday night, I spent the evening in my sewing studio working and listening to the poems of Billy Collins on a cd that I had borrowed from the library. It had been quite a while since I had laughed so heartily, but it was his poem The Lanyard which really touched me. I could easily relate to the imagery of ricocheting through the room...I've often found myself lost in the dictionary after looking up one word and then just continuing to read like it was a novel. I couldn't decide if the tears I shed while listening to The Lanyard were because of my own feeble attempts at offering my mother tokens of my appreciation, or because now I am the recipient of such things. Perhaps it is equally both.

Wanna learn how to make one like Billy's? Here's how.