Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

            When I was little, the magic of Christmas did not happen until Christmas morning with a tree that was softly lit with ornaments dangling, stockings brimming full of round sugar candies, un-cracked nuts and an orange.  Beneath the Christmas stockings and the glorious fresh pine tree was heaven.  Though I was a little girl, I got my Tonka dump truck, a little red barn with a barnyard filled with animals with miniature fences to keep them in and oh, yes, a Barbie doll who would ride out the rest of the day tucked in the back of the little Tonka dump truck with an odd animal or two to keep her company.  I had my Huckleberry Hound Dog stuffed toy as well. 

            Well, now Christmas is not filled with many surprises under the tree which is taken out of its carton then put together with all of its lights attached.  My husband believes that since the tree came with lights that it has plenty but since I have a different view about the lighting of the Christmas tree, he laboriously adds the many other strands of colored lights to our little tree while I sit and read giving encouragement as needed.  After all, Peace to all is the idea of Christmas and peace in our house stems from the happiness of his little wife.

            My husband has found out that checking the lights before putting them on the tree has saved him the trouble of cursing mildly.  I have helped him with this epiphany of the past just in case it has disappeared from his mind by asking him, “Did you check the lights?” I offer to help without stirring from my post at the table with hot tea in my hand.

After he has the tree put together with the lights attached, the boxes that were filled to the brim and were taped shut are bought down from the attic and from the top shelf of the closet for me to begin the decorating of the tree and the top of small upright oak piano.  Choices, so many choices with so many ornaments that I have acquired from over thirty years of cohabitation with my angel of a husband.  Some are glass balls while other ornaments are wooden or twisted wires stars, ceramic angels, white cotton thread crocheted stars and beaded bells of blue, purple, red and as well silver.  I love the glimpses of these various symbols of the holiday peeking throughout the branches of this green plastic imitation pine tree.  No spiders will be coming out of hibernation in the warmth of the room, no bird nest will be found that was left from the summer, a nest with bits of soft down feathers mixed with the refuse of baby birds that have flown away to seek their own summer in whatever is left of the year.   

But the magic happens and when the tree is complete with its lights with the simple golden bead garland and many different ornaments, it is Christmas that glimmers in the corner where the tree rests upon the tan harpsichord that is covered with several yards of red fabrics that have patterns with Santa Clauses, a yard of cloth with golden angels, and still another red yard of fabric wrapped about the base of the tree with candy canes, toy drums and sleds imprinted on a sea of red. The Christmas tree skirt peeks out from beneath a blue, silvered mass of tinsel where a stuffed bear on a sled holds his book of Christmas carols, and gradually the presents join with some dignity to wait for the great day that is coming.  On the top of the little brown oak piano, it has acquired a new magic of its own with lights, angels, snowmen and Santa hiding in the tinsel and green lights reflecting back into the darken room.  It is magic, hope and miracles waiting to happen.

I hope that everyone has a bit of magic in their lives whether is it simply waking up in the morning without the usual aches or new ones.  Here is my gift to you, enjoy.  The following little story was written about 26 years ago when my son was young and yes, I do know how to spell his name but it is more of a period piece so I chose a different spelling for his name and he didn't want me to us his real name. 

Sleeping under the Stockings

Sometimes the amount of excitement was so strong, that no amount of coaxing could convince the children to crawl between the blankets.  It was after all, the magical night, the night before Christmas.  Tired parents placed cozy blankets around the three children as they sat close to the glory of the dazzling tinseled tree.   There was no fire in the fireplace tonight for the children had begged for the jolly old elf’s sake.  The house was warm for the fire had burned brightly all day.  In a second room, a black pot-bellied stove was banked and it would help to warm the house throughout the night. 

Stockings were hung on sturdy nails that were driven into the mantel place.  Each one had been carefully knitted by grandmother with loving hands.  A plate of tempting molasses popcorn balls were placed on a three-legged wooden stool which sat close to the slowly cooling fireplace.  Carrots and apples sat on the floor, ready for the magical spirit to take to his waiting reindeer.

The mother and father kissed their beloved little girl and two boys, wishing the nodding heads sweet dreams.  The gas lights on the walls were turned down.  The soft remaining light gave the silvery clad tree a mystical beauty.  It was a beauty that seemed to grow and fill the room. The sandman quickly took the children to the perfect dreamland. 

Emily was first to awaken in the stillness of the night.  She gazed at the beautiful tree and looked to see that the popcorn balls were safe on the wooden stool.  The room was glowing softly from the feebly burning gaslights on the walls.  The moonlight shone gently through the wooden paned windows to rest on the floor and rugs.  Emily stared at the moonlight coming in the windows and suddenly she sat up and rubbed her eyes with wonderment.  In the moonlight, sitting on the floor was a small angel.

Emily reached over to her right and pinched Ben awake. Then she turned over to her left and pinched Shawn to wake him.  When that did not work, she pulled on his arm to shake him.  Both boys were groggy.  Emily whispered to them to be quiet and she pointed to the angel who was still sitting on the floor.

The angel was glowing.  As the angel glowed the room became brighter and brighter until it was nearly as bright as the day.  The angel was humming, softly as a light breeze blowing through the tall lilacs that stood by the side of the house in the summertime.  Standing up, the angel started to pirouette about the room and in the soft moonlight.  The children were entranced by the lightness of the angel’s movements and without knowing it they began to dance by the side of the heavenly being.   Their hearts were so light and filled with happiness that without knowing it, the children started floating in mid-air.

They continued to dance for quite some time until the angel stopped with a sigh and sank into a graceful pile on the floor.  The children collapsed breathlessly next to the glowing creature of heaven.  Carefully, Emily reached out her hand to touch the cheek of the angel.  The blessed being, laughed and stood up, then bending over, the angel kissed each of the children on the tops of their heads.  Placing a finger on its lips and nodding its head, the angel beckoned to the children to follow across the room to where the nativity scene was displayed on a low table by the window.  The lovely presence pointed to the glowing display which sat in the moonlight.

Before the children’s eyes, the tiny figures became alive.  The figures started to grow until the room was filled with their presence and Emily, Ben and Shawn watched with joy as Mary held in her arms the holy child.  Joseph stood by her side and welcomed the three wise men with their gifts. In the stable, the soft lowing of the cows and the bleating of the goats and sheep echoed the joy of the angelic choir that was softly singing Hallelujah.  

It seemed to the children that the room had disappeared and that they were truly at the stable where the child slept peacefully in the manger where his mother Mary had placed him.  As they looked to the sky, the children saw the glory of the shining star of Bethlehem above the stable where the child was born.  They knelt in the straw with the angel by their side and gave the pure prayers of children in worship to God.  Their little hearts were filled with the holy love and joy of God.  The heavenly choir’s songs of joy grew louder and filled the children to the brim with peace.

The scene before the children grew dim, the holy figures grew small, and the nativity display sat once more upon the table in the soft moonlight.  The angel led sleepy children back to their beds on the floor and gently placed the blankets about them.  Quickly, the little ones fell back to sleep and the angel kissed each one upon their foreheads. 

The divine angel stood up, and after glowing into a brilliance that flooded the room began to fade away.  As the loving angelic being faded away, the angel turned to the fireplace and winked at the red clad gent who was leaving his wares beneath the tinseled tree and to those who were sleeping under the stockings.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

  

Sisters, Friends and Sisters Again

          

Sisters, Friends and Sisters Again

          They come into your life before you arrive, waiting to hold you, to bath you and coo back at your smiles.  Big sisters are a brilliant creation.  I applaud their appearance.  Mine made white divinity candy with fresh hen eggs, lots of sugar and walnuts, magic came in the gingerbread houses with lots of frosting, cookies squeezed in pinwheel flowers with green and red sugar sprinkles.

I am told that I embarrassed this older sister with my helpfulness, running out of a bedroom with her falsies for her bra in my hands in front of her date for the evening, calling out to her as I ran to her.”Sissy, you forgot these.”  She was my older sister by twelve years, I think. She has been gone for too many years but her love was left with us for an eternity.

          My younger sister came into the world so I would have a playmate who understood the world of playing with dollies, running for no reason and hiding in the big wooden box in the closet of the room that became our room after our older sister married and move away.

She was the sister that shared the bed in the cold of the winter with frost on the inside of the windows where our breaths which had been escaping from our lungs through twin air pockets in our blankets landed as moisture sweeping the window panes ending up as the exquisite beauty of frosty ice landscapes. We huddled tight together beneath the heavy quilts made by our mother, grandmother and aunts in an unheated room until morning broke with the darkness holding on. One by one we would streak from the warmth of our bed into the icy air of our breathing in the early morning in those years of living on river. Dad would have a fire burning in the big wood stove to warm our bodies as we dressed. It was a time of utter freedom and no cares in the world or so it seemed as we grew on the wild mountain filled with the icy cold, deep snow sleeping against our log cabin in long winters. Spring, summer would come while my sister and I grew.

I believe that I might have had the warmest tummy that cold feet could rest on. The proof lies from past experience with my younger sister’s feet to one of my favorite cousin who in her youth could twist and turn until her cold feet rested safely on my tummy.  I hope that my cousin wears nice fuzzy socks since I am miles and miles away from her.

Days, months, years passed until as sisters and family do we began to have separate lives, holding secrets that we never shared, losing touch with each other lives. We move out into the world.

          I found out that sisters appear without warning which makes you grab yourself with excitement as when I received an email saying, “I have information about your siblings.” I felt completely uncertain about meeting these siblings but finding common ground provided relief and joy in seeing someone who looked like me even though I was greatly loved in my adopted family.  Adoption is quirky you never know what you get but when a new sister finds you and loves you for the same blood that flows though you, you accept the newness, the learning about someone new who has always been there  just a world away.

          I became a friend with this new sister until I loved her with all my heart and cherish her each day. She is another older sister with much of her life behind her. I amazed and grateful that she is a very solid woman and it has become a joy to get to know her.  She turned out to be very protective and would only let some of her/my family know of me. 

A great gift is another younger sister whom I am still getting to know. I will always cherish one of my visits where my younger sister and I played dress up in our older sister’s black party beaded chiffon dresses with lots of costume jewelry adorning our bodies.  While on the back wooden porch that ringed my sister’s house among the pines, my younger sibling painted my toes and fingernails while birds trilled away in the soft whispering of the trees. The songs of birds accented the music of the swaying pines and the call of chipmunks racing in the forest.  Does it make any difference that this day of play was with sisters in their forties and sixties? 

I found you can never regain the childhood where this younger sister might have played with me but as young mature women we became those children as we played in the warm day. One comment by my other much older sister while we pawed through a box of jewelry was that we looked like a couple of eight year-olds. 

I have discovered that there are sisters who have followed you through eternity and lifetimes that have no claim to your blood but these women weep when you do, they pray for your loved ones, share the laughter, and the hopes of your world.  They are friends who are sisters in the heart.

          Interestingly enough, as years pass, sisters reclaim each other when trials of their life shutters into a time of disbelief, non harmony and pain. I find myself wishing for the times of playing without care.  But as I share and listen more closely to myself, I am joyful in finding sisters, friends and then sisters in the women that I meet.  I am being a friend and sister to myself by allowing this part of me to cry when necessary, hope when needed and to rejoice in the moment.  For after all, it is really all that we have.  

Birthdays, Turkeys and Thanks for Giving

Birthdays, Turkeys and Thanks for Giving

          I love the holidays, the celebrations, and the wonders that seem to be part of that time of the year.  As my husband’s birthday approaches (my younger than me husband), I love listening to the story of his birth at Thanksgiving, his mom in the hospital being asked by the doctor if she wanted to be home for the Thanksgiving holiday with the rest of her family, three children and a husband, her reply to the doctor, No.  I am sure that she was thinking of the joyous holiday with all of the food that Thanksgiving entails as well as the work involved in cooking, serving and cleaning up with three small children and a husband who was fairly helpless in the kitchen except for the carving of the perfectly baked bird, the great symbol of family, togetherness and thankfulness. It was easier to stay in the hospital with her new baby while her husband took everyone out for dinner. 

I will admit that I have lost my burning desire of preparing for the spread of a bountiful feast upon my table with family gathered all around. It stems from the lost of my husband’s father and our son who no longer comes home for this holiday as he is so far away and the added expense of traveling home for him.

However, I do gaze over the magazines with their tips for cooking the perfect bird.  Over the years, I have gained many tips which have proven quite useful in making the bird moist, the drippings flavorful, which in turn has helped the gravy to be quite tasty when it is resting on the mashed potatoes that my husband’s mother has prepared.

          Ah, for those days of plenty on the table.  Now, I don’t even bake a cake for my husband’s birthday.  It is per his request or maybe it is the memory of the one that I made so many years ago that keeps him from asking.  Our son was about three years old when I made the cake.  I had worked very carefully looking for just the right recipe, the prefect ingredients, borrowing the cake pans from my sweetheart’s mother.  I measured, sifted, stirred and mixed, pouring everything into the greased and floured round cake pans and wait for the minutes to tick away. I was confident as I was a baker of fine breads, cookies, etc. How hard could a layer cake be?

          I rehearsed my son in saying “Happy Birthday, Dad” while we waited for the chocolate cake to come out of the oven.  The frosting was waiting in the refrigerator.  All was well.  Well, almost perfect.  The chocolate cake rose in the pans and looked lovely when I took it out of the oven. After removing the cake from the pans and letting the two layers cool on the racks, I carefully placed one layer on a large pink plate and sliced the round top off and sampled the moist, tender chocolate cake.  It was yummy.  Success was just a couple of minutes away.

          Our son sat in his highchair so he could be part of the miracle of making a birthday cake for his daddy.  One layer on the plate, frosting was out of the refrigerator and with my spatula in hand I began to frost the first layer. I took the second cool layer and placed it on the bottom layer.  I turned to pick up the bowl with the frosting then moved back around to the cake and froze in place.

          My second layer had broken in two as it sat on the other layer.  “Oh, no,” I told my son. What was I to do?  I could not put toothpicks in the cake to hold it in place. It would never do for someone to bite into a wooden toothpick, ouch.  I used my hands to try and move the cake layer back into place and decrease the ever widening gap.  Nope, it was not working.  Okay, it was too late to bake another cake as I had to drop our son off at his grandmother’s with the cake until his dad came home.  So how much frosting does it take to fill in the Grand Canyon?  Apparently on a cake that is moving away from itself quite a bit.

          I decided to have our son practice saying something new. “It is a sad looking cake but it is the thought that counts.”

          The cake was taken to Grandma’s to wait for his dad to stop by to pick up our son.  Because I was working that day, my husband was to have dinner at his mom’s with my contribution being the cake. Our son did manage to tell his dad about the cake but as always with children it will come out differently, “Are you going to eat the sad looking cake”, our nearly three year old asked his father.  

          Now twenty-seven years later on this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for many things.  My life has had its ups and downs, primarily with the passing of loved ones, both the two legged and foot legged kind but isn’t that a part of the passing of our days. There is a comfort in believing that all is well with the cycle of the world. 

 As I work on this piece, there is a siren howling with the wind outside our house and as always I try and take a moment to pray for the safety of all those concerned.  May all find peace on this day of giving thanks for all that we have and let us hold peace for those who have no shelter, food or family in the storm of the world, give thanks for giving.

For myself, I am even thankful for cakes that did not quite turn out as it truly is the thought that counts.  That seems to go for everything that we do in our daily lives if we allow ourselves to breath.  I will have to remember that.   

         

         

November, Novel Writing and Guilt

November, Novel Writing and Guilt

          As I sit here and wait for inspiration to hit me as most writers do, I am reminded of the first time that I participated in the great National November Novel Writing Month event which is called NaNoWriMo for short.  Once again, I was roped into something new by the man in my life. He suggested that we try it and I asked if it was a way to get me back to writing, and he said yes.  So we were off and running trying to reach our goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month. The daily goal was to write 1667 words.  Easy for some days but often there was a lot of staring at the keyboard going on, or heading off for a cup of tea, chocolate or someone else’s good book to read.  The staring at the keyboard, the pen and the notebook continued for the month as we persevered in our new mission.

          We were hampered in our daily pursuit of writing by our working 40 hours a week (a writer friend told me once never quit your day job) as well as my husband being in a play that year but somehow we managed to keep on writing.  We met our goal for 50,000 words, met some people we didn’t know, shared more time with people we did know at the little write in get-together that was organized by our fabulous group leader who was and still is full of energy and had just the right amount of craziness to inspire, prod and show others that it could be done.

          We had double the work as neither one of us had a laptop computer while we participated at the group write in. So among the tables filled with laptops and frantic writers, we would find a spot to sit, to join in, to be part of the event of others trying to achieve a similar goal of writing 50,000 words with our pens and tablets (the paper kind).  We would have lunch, tea and write with a curious hope in our hearts as we watched the ink flow onto our papers until we could go home and transcribe everything into the computer and onto the flash drive.

Fortunately for us, in the void (our son’s abandoned bedroom) was an old computer that my husband would enter his work fatefully from the day of writing out in the world.   I worked on our home computer, entering whatever I had written, adding more to this scene or plumping out characters that I had in the story.  The first year was filled with various characters on the pages that I would argue with, telling one or another, you can’t do that or say that to which they would blithely reply, “Oh, yes, I can.” Then they would go off to do whatever was most interesting to them.  

I will admit that my husband was more driven than I was after all, I was willing to quit even if I had not written all of my words for day.  Sometimes, your body just refuses to let you do things.  My eyes would grow tired, feeling as if all of the sand in the world was resting on them, I would stumble on the way to the bathroom to prepare for bed and fall exhausted into bed.  Often this was after a day at work depending on how busy the clinic had been.

I have an issue with my writing at times.  I feel guilty.  I feel guilty about not wanting to watch a movie or television show that my husband is interested in at the time.  I want to write, I need to write but still I feel that glimmer of guilt living on the edge of my mind. I feel the same way when I am tired and I just can’t stay awake long enough to finish watching some show that we have started.  Why? I think that it stems from a desire to please, keep others happy and enable someone else to achieve their goal.  Yet, in the case of my husband, he is always encouraging me to write.  You can laugh at the amount of work that he does to help our house to keep going, with the dish washing, vacuuming, putting away the laundry that I have started.  No guilt from me on that matter.  Do I think that he is doing too much? I would hope that he would let me know.

On Facebook the other day, I posted a Dear Abby letter which went something like this:

Dear Abby,

My husband has let the fire go out.  He was washing dishes at the time.

Should I forgive him?

One of my friends wrote, “Poor Cinderfella.”

          What was I doing at the time?  Well, besides being on Facebook, I was working on this particular blog, trying to read for five minutes and resting my body and mind from a full day at work.  Certainly, I did not feel guilty at that moment, with my husband slaving in the kitchen, washing our dishes, heating up left over chicken soup for us to eat.  It was no wonder that he forgot about the fire in our woodstove.  I am sure that we would have not frozen despite the extreme cold spell from the polar vortex that was affecting most of the US.  We have electric heat, both baseboard and a heat pump, plus we had electricity unlike so many.

          My guilt wanders but this year as we have both bypassed the Novel writing in November, I find that I have a peculiar lack of guilt around not participating with NaNoWriMo. Perhaps it is because I have now found myself writing more though I sometimes feel a thread of resentment towards the blog which drives me to do something each week. It is a self imposed, of course.    

          Writing is a gift. But it also is a curse, a stone hanging on a cord about your neck that continues to drag you out of bed in the middle of the night to fumble for your glasses, a pen and a notebook all the while trying to stay warm in the chilly air of your bedroom.  For me, it is right up there with a recipe for improving my roasted vegetables for pizza, or an idea for a Halloween costume for our son. These gifts of creativity all seem to flow into my mind in the wee hours of the morning when I should be sleeping.  In the end, you either get out of bed, grab the pen, paper, and your glasses turning on the light while you complain about how cold it is but not too loudly otherwise, it might drown out the ideas running into your mind which seemed to have no care for your comfort.

          Sometimes because it is November, and you have stopped caring about NaNoWriMo, you just accept the guilt, roll over and go to sleep telling yourself, I’ll remember that in the morning.  Believe me you are going to be wrong, so kiss that Novella award goodbye.

         

The Pink Purse and the Mystery Dimension

The Pink Purse and the Mystery Dimension

            Rule number one:  Never ask your husband to find whatever you need out of your purse.  It frightens, daunts him and frustrates this sweet soul and companion of your life.

            I have a favorite pink purse with leopard print on the inside. It has a long pink shoulder strap that helps the purse to hug my form, freeing my hands for picking up items of desire, delight and beauty when I am shopping.  It is a simple purse with two large zippered areas and a side zipper on the front of the purse.  It is the bane of my husband’s existence. However, true to his kind nature and great devotion to the happiness of his spouse, he has on occasion fought with the intricacy of the pink purse while seeking lost keys for the panicked wife who is in a rush to get out the door or even the cell phone that is ringing on and on somewhere in the depths of my purse.  So he searches with his very large hands holding this symbol of femininity looking like an elephant perched upon a nail head hoping that no one is around to see him least he fall off of the nail.  It is the same for my husband with the pink item, I can number the times that he has actually refused to hold my purse on one hand.  It is generally in a large department store but sometimes he just sits across from another man who has been dragged along with his significant person. He will have exchanged looks with the poor soul who is also holding a purse and possibly a number of womanly garments while sharing the look that all men seem to share while shopping. It is a look of deep resignation to the task of dutiful waiting as most pack mules do. Generally, what gets them out the door and driving in the rain, snow and sleet is the promise of food somewhere along the way. At least, that works with my husband.  Food has always been a great motivator.

            While I was walking and talking with one of the nurses on a break from work and the constant rain we had been having, she mentioned a friend with a baby who had a diaper bag in which she asked her husband to get something that she needed.  He was lost with no idea where to search despite her instructions.  The nurse friend that I was walking with said that she knew instantly where to find whatever had been needed.  We sighed and laughed about the helplessness of our mates and some men in general as we continued walking, gazing out at the horizon of the gray ocean while wandering back to the clinic.

          Perhaps the mystery dimension of the purse is akin to my mind as when I start midway in a paragraph in the conversation that I am often having with my man. He is at a completely lost in the conversation despite his loose attentiveness to what I might be saying.

But I can truthfully say that he is a marvel to me as he sets about putting together the new television and its stand, the cables, the various cords that are involved.  Perhaps, I could do it, I know that I could, but really it just does not interest me very much beyond the extent of holding the flashlight, giving words of encouragement so he decides not to throw the new item out the door in somewhat frustration.  He swears at inanimate objects, he comes by it naturally, the swearing, it has been inherited from his father according to his mother.  My husband said all men do this, he said that our contractor was doing a great job of word usage while under my house working on the remodel of my small bathroom.  I am not able to say as the contractor was always very polite when talking to me and I never heard it.  It must come easier to men but I don’t know for I am a throw back and tend to use milder words when frustrated.

As for my husband, when it comes to dealing with the needs and wants of others, he is a saint though he tells me that,” He ain’t no saint.”  For example, I try and have a picture of something that relates to whatever I happen to be writing about at the time.  Hence the photo of the back of my husband with the pink purse, originally, I had thought to photograph the purse by itself, then possibly having it draped on my body but as the direction of what of I was writing continued, it became more apparent that my sweetheart should be included in the picture.  Mild protests came from him as I explained what I wanted handing the pink purse over to him.

 “But they will know that it is me,” he said, “by the T-shirt that I am wearing.”

“No, they won’t.” I replied. “I will be just taking a picture of the purse.”

After a big sigh, he flung the pink purse over his shoulders and turned his back to me.

“That is perfect, it is just what I want and I don’t even need another picture.” I voiced after clicking my shot.

So many things in our life comes to us by what seems to be an accident but as I look at my life, my husband with the pink purse resting on his broad back I am quite taken aback at the perfection of the world.  Perhaps, it would be easier if we could just look in the pink purse with the mystery dimension and find the answers?

         

Bittersweet Memories of Peanut M & M's

There is the pasting of another

Magnificent soul

Bittersweet Memories of Peanut M & M’s

            I have a confession.  I love Peanut M & M’s.  If there were dark chocolate ones, I would be a goner.  Even now as I type this, I can hear them calling me from the cupboard where they sit happily in their bag, waiting for the big occasion of Halloween night.  Patience, patience, tomorrow is your day.  Sigh, I need a cup of tea to help my mind wander back from the insistent voices of chocolate whispering, softly, quietly. I will be right back.

            Well, that was helpful.  Oh, yes chocolate, Peanut M & M’s.  Years ago when my son was quite young I was called home as my father David was in the last stage of his life.  My younger sister lived on the West coast at that time as I did so after many phone calls it was decided that we would met in a town halfway between us in order to continue the journey home together.  After bidding my husband and our young son farewell, I crawled into the cab of the small truck to head out with my sister to say good bye with my siblings to our dying father.

            It was a long journey filled with laughter, sorrow and the catching up regarding our lives, families but when I had crawled into the pickup there was the largest bag of Peanut M & M’s that I had ever seen.  In the back of my mind raised the evil, ugly head of desire and want. Its voice whispered all mine. Really, there is something called sharing, I whispered back.  Nope, all mine, replied the desire and want.   Only common sense kept me from stuffing myself with the nearly full bag of the chocolate. After all, my sister had bought the chocolate and she was sharing with me.

            I think of that trip back home now and then mostly at Halloween when we buy candy for the Trick or Treat hordes that show up at the doorways of candy enablers.  I always get the Peanut M & M’s. I keep some back for myself for after the night of sugary handouts.  The memories of going home seem always bittersweet when I think of the chocolate that my sister and I shared on the trip home.

We made it home in time to say farewell, our father knew who we were.  In his moments of wakefulness, we shared our love for him.  He smiled, told us that he loved us. He shared that his mom was in the room with his brother, Shane and one of his sisters, our Aunt Beaulah.  He said that they were waiting for him.  We believed him.  I wished that I could have seen them, too.

Death seems to bring everyone together as we waited in the hospital. My Aunt Joy our father’s sister asked if there was anything that she could bring us.  I asked for cucumber sandwiches just the way she used to make them for me when I was a child. I got them.

            It seems that this week is filled up of memories as I walk about in my life.  I ran into a gentle memory yesterday during my lunch.  We were doing a flu clinic in a small town and staggering our lunches.  I walked down Main Street and back looking for somewhere to eat.  There were several places that had closed up and I was beginning to despair of anything except what I had packed in my bag.  Finally, my luck found the only place to eat on my return trip to City Hall where our clinic was. I chose a cup of bean and bacon soup to eat as I sat at the counter upon a green stool. It did not occur to me until I had eaten half of my soup, which was delicious, that the little restaurant was similar to what I remembered in a small town that my father used to take me to for a special treat.  I would always order a grilled cheese sandwich.  I was allowed coffee to drink, which was a cup of hot milk that my father would put in a bit of his coffee.  It wasn’t really much coffee, but it was the color of a light brown and I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. I never did become a coffee drinker. Now as an adult, I drink one cup of coffee on Saturday only because I heard that a little bit of coffee is good for you.  I drink it black and I drink it fast as I have discovered that it is really nasty when it is not hot.  But back then, my father was everything to me and some of his coffee was wonderful because I knew after I drank it all down I could have pie.

            My father said that there were only two kinds of pie that he liked: hot and cold. I am in agreement though I don’t eat pie much anymore.  At my age, I am beginning to realize that I really can’t eat much of anything anymore unless I want to avoid mirrors at every turn and start investing in a whole new closet.  Currently, I restrict my buying to shoes and socks because they always fit.

            I am not sure where the expression of “Pie in the sky” came from but I am sure that my father is enjoying his pie if heaven is in the sky. I hope that he is saving a slice for our Aunt Claire who left on the day before Halloween this year. I am sure that he is with a nice hot cup of coffee with lots of milk.          

            For the most part, I like memories because I was so lucky to have had wonderful moments in my life.  Sometimes, you have to have the bittersweet memories and Peanut M & M’s.

 

         

         

Four Crones with a Hat Looking for Shoes

Four Crones with a Hat Looking for Shoes

          It could have been a dark and stormy night because it was what most folks might imagine when talking about crones, ghosts, witches and the extraordinary creatures that were mucking about after a glorious multicolored sunset on a short fall day. But it wasn’t.  Instead it was quiet, a nice and better than average night with the temperature cool but not cold and just a hint of a mild breeze.  It was perfect. Until you started listening in on a conversation that had just started which went something like this, “All that I am saying is that I feel that if you are the oldest, you should get to wear it longer,” this was said by a thin and reedy voice.

          A slightly younger voice piped in, “If we did that, the rest of us would be waiting until next week for a turn.”

          “I think that it should be based on how long your season is lasting,“ ventured  a bright cheerful voice.

          A voice that flowed like a sweet fresh breeze answered back, “That would hardly be fair as it varies so much from year to year.”

          The conversation would be enough to draw out a curious passerby to see just who was talking except this was All Hallows Eve and most sensible individuals would be home in front of roaring fire with all the doors and windows locked after checking to make sure that there was a good quantity of salt, garlic, wolf bane, and of course a good book of prayers just in case you forgot yours when you were about to be eaten.

          But if you were a foolhardy soul, you would see four figures sitting in a circle in a small clearing of trees.  The oldest one was currently tugging on the brim of an old black hat that was still somewhat pointy.  The hat was working itself off of the old woman’s head as if it had somewhere else to go for a hot cup of tea and a fresh scone.

          Another woman not quite the age of the first sat on a fallen log with its rough bark still attached to the trunk, she was dressed in the brilliant hues of fall, warm golden yellows, deep reds, cheerful oranges with a hint of fading green. Her head was bare and streaks of white ran in her hair of red.

          The third was slightly plump lady with a rainbow of colors surrounding her body.  She chewed absentmindedly upon what seemed to be a tasty fruit of some kind that was only identifiable by taking a bite, rolling in your mouth and humming loudly to grab the flavor before it walked out pass your teeth.

          The last figure was that of a young woman dressed in various light hues of greens, she seemed to be younger than the group that she was with. She wiggled her bare toes in the fallen leaves making them rustle softly and then louder. She was getting quite bored, longing to go somewhere to take a very long, long nap say until Spring time.  

          “Well, back to business, there is the matter of the shoes.  I say that we skip the barefoot tradition that both Spring and Summer have been following and find them some shoes.” This comment came from the woman dressed in the warm, cheerful colors as she gazed down at her sharply colored boots of red.

          “We have only tonight to shop before we fade from each other’s view.” This was grumbled by the oldest of the group.  She had continued to fight with the hat until finally she took it off of her head ,wagged her finger at it, scowling at it with an evil intent and then putting the hat firmly back on her head.  Needless to say, the hat seemed to have an decided air of contrition at this small battle, it gave a little shudder, resigning itself to sitting on the old woman’s head at which it then started to squeeze carefully about her head to complete a snug fit.

          “That is fair enough,” the other two agreed.

          “Give back the hat to Fall,” stated the one called Summer to the old woman.

          Winter thought to herself, it was just starting to fit but she reluctantly handed over the hat to Fall but not before suggesting that since they were shoe shopping that perhaps hats for all would be a good idea.

         

          I am a firm believer that if you want new shoes that you should get them but when I was faced with buying some new boots that might be waterproof, I hesitated.  I balked at the idea of getting them because the ones that I found were not just quite right.  I did buy them, I took them home and then the very next day, I returned them.  They just were not what I was looking for.  

          When I was just waking up the next day as I enjoyed the warmth of my bed, the feel of the sheets against my skin, I thought about the rainy weather that had finally arrived back here on the Oregon coast and I was not without regrets that I had thrown away a pair of very comfortable shoes that I had loved to death.  I had worn them out as I discovered when one of my feet was still very damp after a day in the shoes.  Shoes that had run out into the flooded parking lots, navigated around large puddles of water while we were out doing a public flu clinic. When I had went for a short walk with one of the nurses on a break to see the ocean between storms, my little foot got very wet. It was worth it as the ocean was tossing and churning and hitting the shoreline with great force throwing up foam to rest on the sand. 

          After I had gotten home, had taken off the old dogs, I was able to inspect the bottoms to find out that I now had holes in the soles that had allowed the water to leak in. I handed them to my husband and told him to throw them away.  Really, in our weather here on the coast in winter, what good is a pair of shoes that won’t keep the water out and your feet from becoming damp and wet while wearing them. 

          The good news that in the dark of the night when restless spirits can’t sleep I remembered that I had some good rubber boots sitting in the laundry room that just might be the ticket for dry feet after I checked them for spiders.  Once I was sure that no one had taken up residence in the boots, I tugged then on and out the door I went.  It did not rain all day.  Well, so much for that idea.  I am quite sure that I will have a great need for the boots in the days to come.  I, already have a plastic bag for my other shoes in which to carry them in order to have some shoes to wear in the office besides the boots.  I have given up on my hats and have taken to wearing my hood in the very blustery days of wind and rain that we are having but if I run across four crones with a hat looking for shoes, I might just give them this advice.  No matter how short the time that you think you might have, it is best not to settle for second best.

          Meanwhile, the four women in the woods were gazing at each other as they were now wearing the exact same black shade of clothing on their figures. Spring looked at the others and asked, “Now, can you tell me just why we are wearing these drab outfits and why my hair is stringy and black?”

          “It is called blending, dear,” answered Fall who was straightening her gown when attempting to balance the black hat on her head. “Everyone is dressing up and it just would not do to draw attention to ourselves not if you plan on getting a good bargain on the shoes and it is always about good shopping.”

          “Well, I don’t know why Spring is even included in our group,” complained Winter.  “She doesn’t really qualify as a crone at all, always giving birth, allowing new life to grow.  Summer is barely a crone with her fruiting, her ripening of the fields. Fall is barely a crone of sorts and well, that leaves me nearly all alone and hatless.” Winter glared at Fall as she worked on getting the black hat settled on her head with less difficulty than Winter had had.  

          “LADIES, ladies, “The woman called Summer raised her voice to gain attention. “Let’s go shopping.”

          Here is to shopping with friends who might disagree with some of the things we do but are still willing to shop especially for shoes.  Happy All Hallows Eve.

 

         

         

          

Sometimes a Fly on the Wall

Sometimes a Fly on the Wall

My eyes wander

My ears do not hear

Though the thundering

Of piano keys ring

in this sanctuary of no fear.

            You know how someone will come up to you while you are musing about deep philosophical questions, saying, “I wish I was a fly on the wall.” Always referring to a meeting, a room of potential zombies, or a coffee house filled with devotees clutching their steaming cups of lattes gossiping about just about anything. The meaning behind the saying is a crazy desire to share in the drama of someone’s joy, tragedies, or circumstances that probably has no real meaning to them. 

            I believe that we all have the ability or aptitude to be sometimes a fly on the wall in spirit but really why? As I sit here in this church sanctuary I am a fly on the wall as I sit quietly in a fairly comfortable folding chair listening to someone playing the grand piano just around the corner hidden from my view.  Earlier, I peeked to see a woman with long grey hair intent on her music, I remained hidden content to listen and watch the light play in concert through the stained glass windows as the rain storms come and go allowing a brief blending of light and music in the sanctuary.  I hold my breath and exhale softly as the notes gather strength in my spinal cord expanding my heart and soul. The hidden artist stops and goes on the piano keys seeking perfection in the phrases, the crescendos and various runs of her music. She stops, turning a page and I remain quiet unwilling to break the trance of the music, I am an unknown listener who chanced to stop by a door to enter a haven of notes floating on air that break on the walls, seeping out under the doors, and vibrating the windows while another rain storm beats on the same windows creating a accent to the music being played.

            She stops again, whistling, adjusting her sheets of music before resting her fingers upon the keyboard to begin playing again.  Crescendos, soft notes intermingle with strength despite the turning of a page. Once again when it is quiet I am here, sitting afraid to rustle my paper as I write attempting to remain the fly on the wall.  Silent, out of sight while my mind breaths with the music.  

            Perhaps that is why we seek to be a fly on the wall, to find our perfect music or what we imagine it to be.  I know that I am being more attentive to the vibrations of what keeps me happy sometimes it is simply being quiet.

            When I was in the bathtub this morning, I had a funny thought as I yelled for my husband for what I imagined to be a spider in the water.  Without my glasses, I really could not tell what it might be so I was yelling for my husband to come and dip the spider out of the tub for me.  It was a fuzzy, a toe fuzzy.  But here is the thought as I was thinking about being a fly on the wall. As the fly, I envisioned myself dashing into the water to get the spider out of the tub.  Okay, stop right there and think about just why this scenario would not work.  Fly in water? Fly can’t swim.  Fly will drown.  Plus, generally spiders kill and eat flies.  Unless, the fly is a mutant which leads us to a soon to be released show called Night and Day of the Fly.  

But as I was waiting for my husband to come and rescue me from the imagined spider, I realize how silly I was being for here I was a grown woman sitting in a tub of hot water waiting for her man to come fish the spider out of the tub.  I could have simply gotten out of the tub to fetch something to get the supposed spider out of the tub which incidentally was not moving but rather drifting aimlessly close to my anxious feet and toes.   It was definitely not a real threat here, right? So why, did I cry out to my husband to come and check out whatever was in the tub? Laziness, I suppose, after most of my body was still covered by the warm water and getting out and drying off to enable me to wander about the chilly house without clothes just did not seem to be worthwhile when a husband is at hand.  We are after all a partnership which includes the small things as well as the big things. 

I really don’t have a wish to be a fly on any wall.  I am afraid that I just might miss out what is really happening in my own life but just sometimes being a fly on the wall is just what we need to do to make ourselves stop and listen to the beating of our own heart.

         

In the Warm Suds with Aches and Pains

In the Warm Suds with Aches and Pains

            I like the feeling of the nothingness that water has when you are in it.  A gentle pressure in a large swimming pool or pond when you move your arms and legs about but there is not anything that matches the feeling of a hot tub with bubbles surrounding you as you play with the mountains of knees reaching out from the water, toes seeking air for no reason at all while you soak in the total bliss of comfort.  It is my reward for waking up in the morning and having the following conversation.

            “Why, do you hurt?” This is me asking whatever body part seems to be complaining at the moment.  

            “Come on, answer me.” Once again I am asking the offending part of my body a very simple question. 

            As always, there is dead silence except for an occasional creak or pop from another portion of my body which might possibly be a knee or finger or ankle.  Anymore I really can’t tell though my hearing is still excellent.  I am able to hear the birds outside trilling and chattering in the trees. I notice each separate raindrop as it hits the windows and the wooden shake roof of my house.  But when it comes to being able to pin-point the noise of the various cracks and creaks of my body, I will admit that perhaps my mind and hearing drift away without acknowledging the obvious.

            I met a woman the other day and somehow we got on the subject of our various aches and pains.  She told me that she knew someone that each morning did an inventory of just what part of their body was working. They checked each organ and everything else. I don’t know whether or not it was helping them, keeping them sane or simply just a ideal way of figuring out whether they were still alive or not.  It seems a very good reason for taking inventory if you are in doubt of getting up, getting dressed after standing in front of your closet with the impossible decisions of what to wear for the day and heading out to greet the day because one never knows with the coming possible zombie apocalypse. You just might want to roll back over and go back to sleep that is if you are able. 

            I have found that once I have discovered the pain or discomfort of a part of my body, I will toss and turn in my bed as I begin wondering not only what I might have done the day before, or weeks long past or years beyond memory or is it simply a matter of age?  Yes, I said it.  Age. Could it be that I am getting older?  Well, thank heavens for that.  Really, when you think about it, the chances of reaching any age beyond yesterday is a miracle.

            When I was younger, I had numerous falls out of several wonderful tall cottonwood trees that I had climbed just because I could. Trees that you could hide in among the branches covered with leaves reaching out to the blue sky of summer. There were large branches on which to perch myself enabling me to view the world below as well as the world in the tree I was in. I like the life on the tree, little black ants scurrying along the wooden ash toned bark of the branches, the leaves rustling and moving in the wind.  I never thought that my way of life would have consequences later in life.  To tell the truth, I really did not even think about the next moment or next day.  I was simply there, in the tree after all, where else did I need to be?

            But now, I am older. I am discovering the errors of my youth.  Just perhaps, I should not have had attempted to place the little yellow chick back up into the loft with its mother hen. It earned me a nice backward fall off the ladder onto the dirt below.  I did manage to fling the chick into loft with the straw, the little brown hen and the rest of her brood of cute yellow fuzzy chicks.

            Perhaps, riding double on the horse with a friend was a bad idea since there had been some people hunting pheasants nearby. The guns they fired close to us spooked the horse causing it to buck. My friend ended taking me with her as she flew off the back of the horse. We tumbled to the hard dusty ground complete with cactus scattered here and there.  We missed the cactus but not the hospital. 

            There were a lot of choices that earned me many a serious fall, mostly from the trees that I just could not seem to avoid climbing.  I don’t climb a tree anymore but I do admit that I will go up to share its space, asking the guardian if I can hug it.  Meanwhile, I will hang out in the tub in the suds with my aches and pains.  I will worry about what will be aching on me on another day, leaving me to wonder if my knee, finger or ankle will be talking back.

     

  

"Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys"

“Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys”

          A friend, RM shared this on Facebook, “Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys”. It helped me a great deal as I found that I had been sharing too many circuses as well as way too many monkeys while most of them were definitely not mine.

          When we lived in the world, partake in the living, we often end up with much more than we think that we can handle and I for one was despairing from it, the constant influx of various woes, real or imagined from others and from myself kept hitting on my senses and mind until I had reached a limit and finally starting picking myself up from among the rubble, dusting the reminiscences from the outside  and inside of my soul and began unraveling the threads that had entwined themselves around my heart and had burrowed into the very core of my being.  Enough is enough.  Get over it, past it and walk back to the happy, optimist soul who believed in the divineness of everything and everyone.  That soul was interested in sharing, helping, relishing the days that unfolded in the miracles of the universe.

          But how, how to find the complete faith in miracles that had slipped through cracks that had eroded my being of divine energy. I started in the middle, in the heart, with uncertain steps while I sweep the webs of unquiet, disorderly pieces of chaos out the door, hopefully to never be seen, felt or heard from again.  Optimistic, I hoped so.

          But though it may not always be my circus, sometimes it is still my monkey.  At least that is what my husband and I discovered while our son was working on getting a new apartment with his girlfriend.  Having no job to speak of, he needed information from his parents to show that he was a good risk with his parents’ credit reports, etc to be faxed to the property management. Hence, not my circus but it was definitely my monkey.  Fortunately for both our son and his girlfriend they were able to move into the apartment they wanted without us signing our lives away which we were not willing to do.  Sending dollars his way on occasion was a commitment we were willing and able to do.  Who was it anyway that didn’t mention the lifetime contract between a child and their parents? It is not mentioned anywhere of the numerous circuses that one’s monkey might be in traveling in while winding through the growing process of  being an adult, an independent being who will somehow survive the walk of  life while living on this planet.

          Back to my particular thoughts of the circuses that I feel are revolving about me, how do you get rid of the ache from watching a young friend struggling to keep a happy face through the long days of waiting before facing another ordeal.  You don’t. You can’t if you have a heart with any compassion so you try to remember that their particular painful circus is not yours though in some way it seems that you have acquired another monkey.

          I guess it becomes a matter of stopping before walking out the door, taking a deep breath and setting our intention for the day.  We do have choices.  I am choosing to be happy. I am choosing to allow myself to love me. I am relishing the knowledge that I am a divine expression of God, my divine creator, the goddess or whatever name you might want to place in your mind while creating a healthy space for growing in peace.

          I am back to reading those things that help my frame of mind with positive gifts that anchored my heart, mind and soul in just the right spot for me. By turning off the fears that seems to be everywhere I am achieving high ground where I can sit watching the green blades of grass escaping the earth to carpet the world in my mind.  I can sit back, close my eyes and worship the fragrances of fresh blooming roses of protection that I have seen in visions. By allowing the beauty to flow into my mind and body, I find that I am once again becoming myself of years past.  I liked that woman, her smiles were radiant, her heart was purer and her belief was complete.  I think that I will stay here.  Wish me luck.