Short Story, Long

I got my wedding ring cut off my finger today. That's the short version. And here's the longer version.

About a year ago I went to an area jewelry store to look at their beautiful collection of "sparklies". Sparklies are their gemstones set in earrings, necklaces and especially rings. I never realized what a fan of rings I was until I could afford to buy one or two (or even have them given to me!). Now I peruse their jewelry cases and marvel at the gems set in all kinds of gold, platinum and other precious metals and think, "gee, can I afford that?" There was a ring which caught my eye then but I put off even thinking about it because it was very expensive--at least to my standards. I looked in other jewelry stores and chain stores for something similar, but could never find one that made my eyes sparkle the way that one did. And so when I sauntered in recently to that local store, I had decided to pay for the ring over time because, well, I could afford to do that. I felt somewhat guilty. You know, that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you could use the money for something pedestrian, like some new gadget for the kitchen or something philanthropic like sending a donation to the starving people of--well-wherever people are starving. But I overcame that sense of guilt and picked out my ring. Over the next few weeks I would stroll downtown and put money down on this marvelous piece of jewelry and anticipated when I would actually be able to size it and wear it. It was something to look forward to, like a vacation without the packing.

And so the day came when I put down the final amount. The owner came over to size the ring and lo and behold! it was the right size! It was fated to be mine, I thought. We chatted about this and that, jewelry and things when he noticed my engagement and wedding rings. Asking me where I purchased them, I relayed the info and he looked at the rings consideringly. Hmmm, I thought. What's he looking at? So, not one to be coy, especially with a person to whom I just paid a lot of money, I asked. He asked in return, how long had I been wearing the rings? Thirty-three years I replied proudly. He then informed me that the diamond of the engagement ring was still beautiful, but the prongs holding it were not going to last forever and probably needed to be tipped. Next time you're downtown, he suggested, I should come in, take the ring off and have him work on it for me. He could tip and re-size it all at once. I guess I never thought about my engagement ring that much. It occasionally slides around on my finger in cold weather or when I've spent too much time on the computer and my fingers lose their circulation (hey, it happens). But on the whole it doesn't really come off my finger much. But to tell the truth now that I was thinking about it, it was a little snug. He suggested I dip my finger in cold water and put dish-washing liquid on it make the removal easier. Okay, I thought, I can do that. But then he asked when the last time I took off my wedding band. My wedding band? I never take off my wedding band. Hmm, he said. I looked at it for a while and realized, if I wanted to take it off, I wouldn't be able to. My pudgy finger wouldn't allow it. No amount of dish detergent was gonna get that sucker off. I frowned. He looked at me.

"So what if I don't take it off? How bad could it be?" I told him in my best defensive manner. He indicated some ominous warning about how I'd be sorry if I wasn't able to get it off. I thanked him, took my new purchase and left the store thinking. At home later that night, I told hubby about the conversation. He thought the guy at the jewelry store had a point. "You'll probably have to get it cut off" he said. CUT OFF!
My ring?? But that is indeed what had to happen. I went back to the jewelry store, but they directed me to the firehouse. The EMT on duty wasn't surprised by my request. I guess he's seen a lot of stuff and this was pretty mundane to him. He took me into a resting ambulance, asked me to sit down and brought out the "ring cutter." The handy little device hooks under the band and the little screw cutter thingee essentially saws through the band. It took some prying and pulling to get it off, but eventually it was there in the palm of my hand instead of my third finger left hand where it had been placed 32 years, 9 months and change ago. I thanked the young man and left the firehouse.

On the way back to the car I began to get all teary. Which was ridiculous of course. I was still married to my marvelous hubby. The only thing different was the fact that the ring wasn't on my finger any more, it was in my pocket. But I began to think of all the things that that little piece of jewelry means to me: the years of little side jokes and remarks, the years of little children and grown up children, the laughter, the anger, the bad backs, bad hair and bad breath of all those years. All wrapped up in a little band of gold. And I realized, no amount of sparklies could replace that simple little band and all it has meant to me. What a revelation. Especially after spending all that money on the other ring!

So, am I taking the new ring back? Nope. I still love how it sparkles and shines. But I will be taking my wedding band and engagement ring to the jeweler who will re-size them for me. And then I will put them back on the finger they belong from the hubby I belong with as well.

She's Here With Me

The swish of the brown (reddish highlights?) curls
And the plop on the sofa
She announces herself
As if she needed to.
She is there always with me.

Her calls cap off the laughter
Or the drama we no longer have
At mealtimes or even between times
Until she enters calling for the cat
And perching on the radiator.

She culls the latest video
For the laugh of the week
The most bizarre download
The most dazzling spectacle
And brings us into her light
As she calls us from our computers
And books.

She is with me always,
In the mornings, in the evenings
in the long afternoon hours
No longer waiting for the crunch of
the car on the stones in the driveway
Heralding the swish of the brown hair (with reddish highlights?)
And the plop on the sofa.

Tulips on the Windowsill

There are two bunches of them
Tulips, I mean
Swaying in the afternoon breeze.
They came to let me know
He is thinking of me
Across the miles
Across the years.
They were tightly closed when they arrived.
Buffered against the elements by cardboard
And careful packing.
But today they are gradually opening
Letting in the light
Letting in the warm breeze.

They make me think of him,
The tulips, I mean.
As a baby he was tightly wrapped
And as he grew he opened
His thoughts, emotions, and yes, tantrums.
And then he began to close slightly,
Like the tulips at night
Closing their petals against the evening air
And the dark.
He would close those glimpses into
His emotions and thoughts,
Making his own night.
Protecting him from the elements
Toughening him to the outside.

But now, as the years pass
He opens slightly again.
In passing glimpses, in slow head nods
In small smiles.
It takes a week to see him again as he
Was before and
Then he is gone again
As the petals fall off the tulips
And lay on the windowsill.
Reminding me still of him.

Pets or Something Like Them

I don't know what it is about pets. Why do we have them? What Neanderthal thought up the idea of bringing the dog in the cave first? Or who thought of the idea first to bring the cat into the home or decided to have a bunny for a friend rather than Sunday dinner?

Pets get in the way almost always. They shed. They make pulls in your sweaters. They leave trails of water and food all over the place. You have to clean up after them in one way or another. Depending on the type, they either love you, tolerate you or cower from you except when you feed them. They almost always take up space, time and energy and when a person gets older none of these are things are easily given up. So why exactly do so many people have pets? When pets eventually get old, you have to decide their quality of life for them as they are unable to articulate this for themselves. And you end up feeling guilty and horrid if you have to put them to sleep because it's such a burden to take care of them anymore. They cost money, too. Veterinarian bills are not cheap. And if you don't register your pet, at least in our town, and the powers that be find out about it, you can be fined. And if their shots aren't up to date, you can be fined for that as well. I'm just not sure I understand why pets are so important.

Growing up in our house we always had a dog of some kind. I don't recall particularly caring for them much. I fed them once in a while. I played with them occasionally. But they were on the periphery of my life, not the center piece. We had cats, too. They were amusing, but again, not something I remember taking responsibility for very much.

When I grew up and married and moved away from home, my husband, a true lover of cats convinced me that having a cat was a good thing. And two cats would keep each other company. Until they got old. And someone had to take care of their messes and their bad health. And eventually someone (how did I get nominated?) had to take them to the vet to be put to sleep. I cried over them, but my husband was much more sad than I. And then, we got two more cats because we had kids and they needed to learn how to take care of pets, right? And now we are down to one cat. And she is old and making messes and you can see where this is going, can't you? Especially since the children are grown and living away from home. And it becomes hard to do this. And I don't really want to anymore.

And so, gazing out the window on the back yard at the old cat laying on the stone driveway, I wonder. Why do we have pets? And I still don't have an answer.

Spring is here

I always appreciate when Spring arrives. The problem in our "neck of the woods" with it is that Spring seems to blast through in a week or so and the hot furnace of summer blows in before you're ready. Here you are walking down the street marveling at the daffodils nodding their heads in greeting, smelling the heavy perfume of the hyacinths, appreciating the pink cherry blossoms when "BLAMO" the next day is eighty degrees and you haven't put away your sweaters and have no idea where your short sleeves shirts are hiding. I could ask for a few weeks just to appreciate the fact that the snow is finally gone and that I don't actually have to hunt up a pair of gloves just to go out to close the garage door. Just a little time to savor the light jacket wearing, the fresh breeze in your face, the pungent smell of the Bradford pears (okay, I'd be fine without that particular harbinger of Spring-but you get the idea).

So whom do you petition? I have no idea. But it's a lovely dream.

Birds of the air

I've been contemplating birds lately. When my hubby placed a bird feeder outside of our kitchen window where we eat, I at first thought it was a bad idea. Because there are a bank of windows, I thought our movements would keep the birds away. But apparently we aren't as frightening as I supposed and the brown sparrows, black-capped chick-a-dees and garden variety finches that frequent the columnar breakfast bar seem undeterred by our paper reading or breakfast eating. The startling red of the cardinal surprises me sometimes. And the raucous blue jays who really are too big for the feeder, but muscle their way in anyway, are the ones that start the precarious thing swaying in the breeze. A few weeks ago the feeder was suddenly empty and we wondered what happened. It was then we saw a hawk on the branches outside the other window. He was rather large, but beautiful in his plumage as he looked left and right for the feast that had been there not five minutes before. He flew off, looking I'm sure for easier prey, but it was astonishing to see him so close to the window as we observed him.

We had a visit from 3 wild turkeys the other Saturday. They strutted through the ivy in the back of our yard and flew over the fences which separate one domain from another. I was so excited I ran out the back door with a camera only to discover they were directly in the line of the sun and all my pictures showed lots of washed out something or others. I loved them as well, watching them pump their neck and heads as they grandly walked from place to place. They didn't gobble. At least I didn't hear them. The only sound was their feathers rustling and their feet shuffling through the underbrush. I really hadn't realized how big they were until one, trying to decide whether to fly over the fence or simply walk back where it came from came right towards me. I think my squeal startled him as much as me and he bustled off in a flurry of wings and ungainly feet.

But the birds that, for some reason have had the most impact for me were the pelicans. I really never analyzed why these birds get to me the way they do. They are ungainly on land, waddling about with their overlarge bills clacking. But in flight and on the water they are graceful and elegant. When I watched the movie, Jurassic Park, at the end as the helicopter swept away the survivors, Dr. Grant looks over the ocean and sees a flock of pelicans majestically flying over the water and John Williams music sweeps to a crescendo reminding us that birds are the dinosaurs of our time. They look almost reptilian when observed close up. But that beautiful music swept me away with their flight as I watched (and subsequent times thereafter). I saw pelicans for the first time in person when I was in California during a writer's conference. We went to a small place in Malibu for dinner one night and crossed the Pacific Coastal Highway to get to the ocean. As we stood there, watching the waves meander in, watching the light mellow over the Pacific, a flock flew low over the water. It was just breath-taking. They soared so effortlessly. They are large birds, but in flight they dance on the wind as if they weighed no more than one of their feathers.

Just recently I was in South Carolina. I was there on vacation, but initially it was hard to relax. My siblings and I went to the beach on the second day we were there. I am not a beach person and probably never will be. But the wind was blowing gently, it was warm and I was with people who love me no matter what (a comfort I don't always have). As we walked along the sand, two of us dressed for the warm weather, two of us looking as though we belonged in the cooler regions, I looked over to the horizon. I could see two pelicans bobbing gently along on the tide. Later we watched as they dove headlong into the waves to catch their lunch. I was so filled with the wonder of the place then, of the love for my family, of the good graces of the world around me, I cried. Not great sobbing gulps, but tears nonetheless. I think the tears were of the joy at being in the world, of being able to be away from the things that so often make me tired and sad, of being able to thank God for the amazing blessing I have in my life.

And all because of some birds.

The Spring Inside

Inside of me there is Spring.
The wind is howling and threatening
To wipe the new buds off the trees.
But inside, the daffodils are blooming
And the hyacinths are nodding their
Many bloomed bodies
And the dogwoods are unfurling
While soaking up the sun.

It's supposed to snow and rain tomorrow
In late March no less, snow.
But inside of me the sun is warming
My innards like a lizard n a rock
And the perennials are poking up
Through the moist soil for a peek at the world
They haven't seen since last Spring.

My family has brought Spring to me.
By being there and listening and laughing
And not judging or criticizing or berating.
But just being there to feed the soul like
The Spring sun, which is residing inside me
This day.

In Love

It's the first day of Spring today. Time when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of...baseball or March Madness. But it is during Spring that I most think of romantic love and all that it encompasses. I don't know why this is. Something about the sap running through the trees probably (and yes, I meant the pun). But always, always I think of love and it's permutations. What it is and what it can be. What the real and the imagined is like.

I have always thought that there must be something to the stuff of movies. How could that wonderful thing of love portrayed in endless movies, only exist there? It must be real, right? The Rosie O'Donnell movie line I most remember from Sleepless in Seattle is, when speaking to Meg Ryan about what love means to Meg she says: "you want to be in love in a movie." Which I thought a priceless line as that is exactly what was going on in the movie. But it's true, also. I've always wanted to be in love, like in the movies. And fortunately or unfortunately, I've wished this for my daughter as well. I want her to have fireworks and excitement, but I also want her to have something truer than a Saturday night, too. Something stable and lasting but romantic, too. The fairy tale. But with her responsible for her end of the bargain too. Not just something that falls into her lap and she has no input. But something to hold onto in the dark watches of the night.

And so love and Spring are on my mind today. And it's raining. I wonder what that means?

Hurry Up, I'm Waiting

I’m impatient
For the world to be going on
For the phone to ring when they say it should
For the clock to move, when it seems to stall

I’m impatient for the doctor in the waiting room
The dentist in the waiting room
And the little Asian lady
To be done with the nails in front of me
“How long could it possibly take?”

The computer is so slow
The laptop even slower
The cell phone takes forever
To dial and texting
Is as bad as mailing.

I’m impatient for the week to start
For the week to end
For the theater tickets to be made real
The nice dinner to be seated
The conversation to flow

And when those things don’t happen
According to plan
I’m impatient to be done with them
And moving on to the next thing on the calendar
Marked in red, sometimes underlined.

Hurry up, I’m waiting, used to be the refrain
For a children’s card game we played.
But now the reality of life intrudes
And it’s the refrain of a life spent rushing
And waiting, in toe tapping angst.

I’m impatient.

The Rythym of Life

I had the opportunity to walk around the burb today about the time the students got out of school. They were walking in lumps and clumps along the sidewalks, laughing, poking each other, and some were seriously considering some post or tweet or whatever was on one of their high-tech phones. I looked at my watch and realized that with my being away from my desk today, I had lost track of the time. And then I thought of something else. There was a time when I made sure I was home, in the house at this time of day. I did this for something like 12 years, give or take a day. I was home when the kids came home. The cycle of their days were the same every school day of the year. I thought, when I was in this cycle, that these days would never end. Some days it was tedious, when I knew I had other things to do and couldn't do them until someone got home. Some days I knew it would be interesting, I knew that one of the kids would tell me how their project was received, their report was graded or just the latest news of the school. But those days are a long way away now. And the end of the school day passes by with hardly a blink. I know school day is over when I have to pay more attention to the hordes of children trying to cross the same street I am trying to cross in my car. I notice suddenly, it seems there is more noise outside the window of my living room as they chatter and scream and yell on their travels back to the house.

And suddenly the silence of the house muffles all the outside noises. And the cat and I are alone again, contemplating the quiet.

The Everyday-ness of Everyday

There is a song by Sondheim which talks about all the people coming off a train and mingling with all the hundreds of other people so that they are indistinguishable from all the people that were there before them...and even after them. Sometimes the days are like that. Each day is the same as the day before that and the day that comes after is the same. The weather changes somewhat, sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy. But the days progress one after another in a straight line on into the future. When you have reached a level of some proficiency in your job and your job is essentially the same every day, then the sameness bleeds into the hours and the days and the weeks and oh-my-heavens the years before you even know it.

I went to pick up the hubby at the train station today and I realized that the previous days had seemed to be like a carbon copy of the previous week and the same of the week before.

The plants need to be watered, the cat needs to be fed, the dishes are fed dirtily into the dishwasher only to be revived again after they are cleaned to be put on the shelf to be made dirty again. Cycle after cycle after cycle. The sun unfolds sleepily in the morning and droops back into the horizon at evening. And it was morning and it was evening...that's from Genesis.

I'm not going to talk about the surprise of each new day in this post. Because I didn't feel it today. I do some days. Some days I am astonished at the variety of life and experiences all around me. But not today. Today I'm looking forward to falling into bed to be awakened by the grudging grayness of another morning. And another hundred people just got off of the train, and the plane and the bus.

Room at the top

I remember the slanted ceilings of the old house. The house wasn't a "dutch colonial", but it had those ceilings anyway. Why didn't I put more posters on them? Why didn't I decorate them more? I have no idea. I can't remember my thought processes from those times. Except, once in a while, I get a glimpse of what I was thinking. I'll see the light bend a certain way, or the leaves on a tree through a window and remember how it was to see that every morning when I woke up. To look out the narrow window out front and see the maple trees, see the way the light shone through the branches in the winter or the leaves in the summer. And the slanted ceilings, sliding away to the small walls where the beds reside. In the back bedroom, the beds were put so that the head was perpendicular to the slant, but in the front bedroom, they were parallel, so the ceiling gave you a sense of enclosing you. In the front bedroom you couldn't look out the windows, but the back bedroom you could. The front bedroom had the fan, that if you talked into while it was running, your voice would get all wavery. The air almost never circulated all the way to the back bedroom. No one ever heard of air conditioning back then. It was sleep and sweat all the way.

I don't know what made me think of that upstairs, but I did. Slanted ceilings, twin beds, four children, so long ago.

Feline Posting

For those that know about the animal I'm about to speak of, I'll let you know that she is fine. Probably better than fine. She is eating all her wet cat food, peeing and pooping in all the designated areas (more or less) and still sleeping at least 19 hours a day. What could be wrong? Life is good. If you are the cat.

I was wondering just today what it is about this animal that vexes me so. I hear her little collar bell tinkle, tinkle, tinkle and I grit my teeth. I hear the clicking of her nails on the floor (which tells me she needs them clipped again) and I find myself either counting to 10 before going into the next room or getting on the computer and playing 700 rounds of solitaire. So I decided to just stop being annoyed by her existence for a few minutes and become a rational human and think this through.

When we first brought her home, she was an affectionate thing. Always wanted to be in your lap, purring constantly, following you around from room to room. She began to glom onto my husband shortly thereafter. If he sat down on the couch to watch TV, she would jump up on his lap and settle herself there. My husband is a cat lover from way back, so he just let her. It's seventeen years later and she still jumps in his lap, but now she can't seem to get comfortable for at least 20 minutes, turning, stretching, readjusting her position, licking (oh, let's not forget the licking) and not just herself is she bathing, she bathes whatever is in proximity to her nose, my husband's shirt, his chin, the couch and occasionally herself. Twenty minutes! Someone, usually me, can't take it after five, and she is removed from the couch. She wanders around the house for a few minutes, forgets that someone removed her and jumps back up to start the cycle all over again. Now, because she is 17, I am assuming that she forgets. But in all the time we have had her, she has a habit of repeating behavior that is obviously annoying to me. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but really, she has been like this since we had her, so I'm not sure senility is the problem.

She used to jump up on the counters to see what was in the garbage bag. Nothing would deter her; balloons, aluminum foil, nothing. The only deterrent which seemed to work for a while was me losing my temper out of all proportion and screaming at her and smacking her tail end. She was sufficiently terrorized for a while to stop jumping up. But suddenly I would come home one afternoon from work and there she would be again--on the counter and looking like a deer in the headlights because--OH GOD that crazy lady caught me again. We solved the problem somewhat by putting the garbage bag in the microwave, but then that began to smell and well, anyway, I should be able to leave the bag out without having to protect it like some rare gem.

Her favorite ploy is to sit or lay somewhere in the middle of things and when a person, almost always me, begins to move around, she either jumps up and tangles herself in my legs or I step on her, because I didn't see her. I really don't like hurting animals in any way, but that screech she gives out makes my blood run cold. I feel like I've just tortured her and am more careful until the next time. And there is always a next time.

Today I am home taking care of a few things and battling the sniffles. She has run back and forth from room to room several times, that damn tinkling bell accompanying her jaunts. It's driving me crazy!

So I'm trying to devise a reason to go out. Any reason. So I don't have to listen to that sound or the screech when she sits under my legs and I move. I'm developing bad nerves. And I think she knows it. Senility my eye!

I've Never Visited Tuscon

But I visited Arizona with my sister a few years ago. It was a breathtaking experience, not because of her driving...honest. But because Arizona is beautiful. It's purple mountains are indeed majestic and the numerous plains were inspiring as well, with waving fields of green and golden grasses and birds dipping down to sample some juicy bug buffet. It was a wonderful trip because of our being together and talking and laughing. But I remember the grand vistas of Sedona and Phoenix, begging her to stop so I could get out and take more pictures. My mind is filled with these pictures even now, scrolling through the blue expansive sky as it turned golden and honey-hued at sunset, the rolling hills, like waves of the ocean undulating into the horizon. I thought dessert was dry, dusty, arid, lifeless. It turns out that the Arizona countryside is alive and living and full of flower, prose and poetry in it's grandeur. And I didn't even get to the Grand Canyon!

Hi-Ho The Lyrical Life

I was taking part in a class the other week and we were doing one of those "getting to know you" exercises. The particular exercise was that you had to name two truths and one lie about yourself and others in the class had to guess which was the lie. After pondering what I could possibly say which would be interesting and enlightening about myself I picked the following, stating in my best voice that they were all true: I can juggle, I failed Phys Ed in college, and I can tell you the lyrics of at least 25 musicals--all of the songs in that musical--all the lyrics.

The last of course, for anyone who knows me even a little is the truest of all truths I could tell about myself. I am not going to tell you the lie above...it's not relevant, really. Okay, I can't juggle. Well, I can juggle several tasks at once, but not the 3 different balls in air kind of thing. Anyway, why is it that I know so many lyrics? Why do musicals fascinate me so much? I know more musical music than any other kind of music, including the kind I grew up with (either rock and roll or 40's--take your pick, I grew up with both). I cannot read music. My hearing is such that I'm never really sure what I'm listening to when I hear a melody. But put the words to the melody and I can pick it up and run with the rest of the song, the rest of the story-line, the rest of the entire musical until the dramatic-usually happy-but not always-ending. I think it's because my singer of choice from an early age was Barbra Streisand and she always sang quirky things from musicals. Or the first entire score I memorized was Oklahoma from my uncle's albums stashed at my grandmother's house. The lyrics for me speak what I cannot say. They tell universal human truths, sometimes while being witty, sometimes while being wise-ass, and sometimes so poetically you almost miss the point. I picked up a book about Sondheim lyrics the other day entitled, "Finishing The Hat." I felt so smug because I knew where that title came from and could, almost, but not quite finish the lyrics of that song. There are some musicals with which I cannot do my "magic finishing act" like Sunday in the Park With George. The lyrics are intense, scatter point and I haven't listened to them enough to commit to memory. But for the most part, I can do the lyrics and tell you a little of the back story. The problem with this "talent" if you will, is that nobody actually considers it a talent. And now that my children are grown, no one really cares that I can do this. There was a time when I had a captive, yet young audience in my children. This is definitely no longer the case.

And so I listen to my musicals on my iTunes, hum the songs when I catch a phrase someone throws out and even belt out a few verses when no one else is listening. I think I was meant to be on stage, or maybe I was in another life? Who know? Not me I'm sure. I'm just sitting here in my own little corner, all alone in my own little chair.

Santa and ?

I've had a song in my head for the last two days. It's an old Santa tune, something like this: Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane. It's a jaunty number and has a bunch of verses. But the part I remember for some reason (whatever those quirky synapses are doing in my head is beyond me)is the verse which has the following: Let's give thanks to the Lord above (pause) 'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight. Now before you think I'm going to rant and rave about the fact that Santa and the Lord are mentioned in the same song, think again. I see nothing wrong with them being in the same song. I see nothing wrong with them being linked in the same season if the truth be told. And since this is my blog, this is my truth. I'm all for Santa. I loved the story of him for years. When the movie came out which supposedly explained where all the myth and legends originated, I watched rapt as it was laid out for me. I loved all of that stuff because it was hopeful, fun, and exciting. But for me and my faith, I love the fact that we are giving thanks for such a wonder-filled time of year. It's full of joy and hope and excitement. Yes, the kids are excited for presents, too. I get that. But in most of the houses I have been to, there is a Nativity scene as well. And there is a sense of anticipation there as well, whether you accept that Jesus is coming again or that he came before and you're just excited about that (some people don't want to acknowledge the ramifications of the coming again). I can't fault people for their joy in whatever fashion. I just can't. At this time of year, to feel hope and happiness is the underlining to the Good News. And if that makes us give thanks to the Lord above for anything, then I say that is good news indeed.

The Door at the Top of The Stairs

The door is closed
An important point to make.
The rest of the year
The door is open,
Dad uses the desktop
Mom puts things on the bed.
But today the door is closed.

The alien head and menacing jaguar posters
Warn that there is someone behind the door.
It's not that you cannot disturb him.
It's that he is home
From a long way off.
Sleeping, dreaming, thinking
Staring at ancient wallpaper
Made for little children
Remembering days gone by.

The door is closed
And for only four or five days
It is a message to me
That a piece of my heart is in residence
Under the same roof again.

Soon the other door at the end
Of the hallway will be closed as well.
Bringing the other piece of my heart home
Under the same roof.
She visits more often,
She rarely stays over night,
Staring at the ancient wallpaper
Dreaming and thinking.

Their rooms are attached by a connecting door
And their lives attached by the
Beating heart of two people
Who wait for their doors to be closed
Just one more time.

They Hide in the Darkness

I am not afraid of bugs. If there is a bug, no matter how big or even small in my house, and it does not belong there I will either gush it or send it packing outside. Outside I look at them, watch their behaviors, marvel at their mechanics and try not to molest them in any way. I say bugs, not insects as I have been known to actually watch arachnids on occasion, if I'm sure they don't look too big nor too hungry.

But while having dinner with three friends the other night, we got, for some reason that I can't quite remember, on the topic of camel crickets. These bugs have bulbous brown bodies (think of the idea of Shelob in the Lord of the Rings), with long wavering antennae and huge-and I mean out of proportion-back legs with which to jump. They jump erratically, too. They don't seem to have that "scurry and flee" reaction that most bugs have. They jump willy-nilly, helter-skelter and many times right at you! A disturbing tendency to be sure. As the discussion of these strange creatures went on, several tidbits of information were shared as we have all observed them. One is the aforementioned ability--bordering on desire it seems to us--to jump at their impending doom as opposed to away. Another creepy side-light to their nature is their cannibalistic propensity to eat each other, especially when one is unable to defend itself. Having a cat who used to enjoy maiming these denizens of the basement without actually eating them, I have witnessed this phenomenon myself. It is not a pretty sight. We were all discussing their sudden appearance in our homes, particularly in the basement when one of our friends stated that her husband has an electronic fly swatter (which looks like a tennis racket with smaller holes) and she wondered if it would work on these? Her eldest never travels into the basement without this weapon of destruction, but she felt as though they could "feel" the vibes of it and stayed out of his way. My daughter used to go down to the basement armed with either a large cardboard tube (for whacking at a distance), or would use rolls of wrapping paper she would procure whilst down amongst them. Hmm, maybe they only attack the oldest of the family? Nah. They have jumped at me as I came down to get something from the freezer and I have developed a sort of St. Vitus dance trying to leap counterpoint to their hopping so that I land on them before they get a chance to propel again. I'm grateful the neighbors can't see this uncoordinated jig, as I'm sure it would be the topic of much across the fence hilarity.

We ended our discussion of these bugs with the idea--creepy as it was--that we hoped we never found ourselves falling down the basement steps at the mercy of these critters. They would show no mercy, we were sure and without the trusty electronic zapper, nothing would be left as they ate us and each other. Ewwww!

Function versus Fashion?

What made me use the above title has to do with how I begin my day getting ready for work. It starts with the "what to wear" problem. I am not, nor have I ever been a fashion maven. I know what I like and it probably isn't what Stacy and what's-his-name on "What Not To Wear" have envisioned for me. The problem, especially in the winter is that I get cold. A lot. And sometimes that cute little short-sleeved sweater that would go so well with my brown pants? Well, it's a little too cold for short sleeved sweaters unless you have a turtleneck underneath of them. And of course, these cute sweaters weren't made to be worn on top of other things. They make them rather form fitting, so stretching them to fit over another shirt is, well, not attractive, shall we say? Sort of akin to stuffing sausage skin. Not a good look. Especially for some one who is not svelte to begin with and probably never will be--given the amount of layers it would take to keep this person warm. So I"m stuck with the problem of having sweaters in my drawer, even hanging in my closet that I won't wear except for the brief two weeks in late spring or early fall when I would actually be comfortable wearing short sleeved anything to work.

I know women who are always fashionable. They don't seem to feel the cold as they walk around with their short sleeves and skirts. Maybe the pointy-toed shoes have caused them such discomfort that they no longer feel temperature change. Or maybe they're just from Mars. Or was it Venus? Whatever. The other problem of course with the layering of clothes is this does not take into account the hot flashes. When that happens then at least two layers come off before it passes and the layers have to be added on again. It's hard work getting dressed these days!

And I never quite got the hang of lipstick with the rest of the make up routine. I mean I put on make-up at like 6:30 in the morning and I don't do anything to it the rest of the day. But if you put on lipstick, you suddenly have to re-apply all day. I'm not interested in re-applying. And that stuff that stains your lips? It turns weird colors, so people think you've been out buying twin pops (in this weather??) and the color doesn't look the same when you get outside anyway, so it doesn't match.

I wasn't made to put up with this. I was made to get out of bed, walk to the computer downstairs and work from home. But alas my job doesn't offer this as an option. So there I am week after week, trying to figure out what to wear on my body and my face. Maybe I'll be come independently wealthy and it will become a moot point. But until then, It's bulky sweaters and turtlenecks for me!

What Do You Mean, "Take a Hike?"

Hubby and I have been pursuing our own avenues of personal fitness. He is an avid bike rider and will go for 25 miles on any given weekend through the wilds of South Jersey. I'm not very confident on a bike, especially on roads with cars on them, so I've been left to my own devices, so to speak. I joined a gym with the eldest was still living at home and have sporadically attended, but tried to keep up somewhat with the idea that if I at least move I won't eventually become immobile.

In the light of the fact that we go our separate ways in so many ways, it was interesting to note that a few weeks ago, Hubby suggested that we do something physical together (no not that, you cretin). He suggested we find ourselves on a hike.

I dived into the idea, looking up hiking clubs, finding out the local places where they would go, what kind of equipment would be needed and if it cost anything. I printed out pages and pages of information to "get us ready". I contacted a local hiking club for their "beginner's hike" and we were set.

One of the things I noticed about these hiking websites is that they will tell you what kind of hike it is, easy, hard, fast paced, rocky, hilly, all the required elements to let you figure out if this is the right place for you to go. They also have these little codes on their sites to let you know how many miles, how easy, etc. For example, the hike we were to try was labeled 2A/c/5-6, which roughly translated means this is an easy hike for about 5 or 6 miles if you're game. So I figured we were game.

We were to meet at a National Park for this walk in the woods, so we left a little early and got there in plenty of time. We were trying to figure out who was hiking along with us, making comments about the people walking around with their dogs, admiring the myriads of butterflies donning the butterfly bushes. An older guy walked past us wearing one of those well-worn fishing hats, tall dark socks and wispy white hair. My husband just knew he would be on the hike with us and sure enough he came and sat beside us on the bench.

As the group finally gathered together there were very few novices I noticed. Many had hiking boots (we had old sneakers), many were holding walking sticks (we had a camera), most had backpacks--and so did we! However, the contents of theirs was different from ours. But we didn't know that at first. The person who was to be our leader was apparently well known by most of the group. She told us the general direction and route we would take, asked for questions, let us know about how to join the hiking club they were all apparently members of, and then we were off.

We walked a small incline, a paved road no less, then branched off through the forest following the painted blobs (called blazes-as in "what the blazes is that?") on various trees. Now the problem of our hiking with a group soon became evident. For one thing, when I walk anywhere, woods or otherwise, I like to look at things. Flowers, trees, birds in flight or on branches, even interesting bugs. I can walk quite quickly if I don't want to observe all this, but in new environments especially, I like to see what's around. My husband doesn't walk fast. For any reason. The guy who saunters through the crosswalk after the light changes? That's him. He is not arrogant. Okay, he can be, but in most instances he just has one speed: slow. When we walk together, I have to slow down to keep up, he won't be speeding up for me, you can be sure. So there the two of us are in the new found wilderness with 15 or so people who are there to hike, goddammit, not to dawdle. We were soon at the back of the pack. Thankfully there were some who were even behind us. They were the woman who could not put down the cell phone no matter where she was-talking loudly and gesturing. And the older, portly guy who was obviously laboring to stay with the pack in some way, even if only from a distance.

The problem with not being as quick as the rest of the group, or should I say as directed, is that they get ahead of you and then find a place to stop and rest. So that by the time you reach them, they are all rested up and proceed to pull up stakes and continue, leaving you puffing and panting in their wake as you've not had a proper rest since this whole sorry episode began. By the time we reached the "halfway" point, my husband and I were tired, somewhat grumpy, and our idealized dream of tramping through the woods was ruined. Okay, not ruined, but bruised. We checked our pedometers to see how far along we were when we realized that the blurb on the web site misstated our total mileage and this hike would end up being 8 miles. For someone who hadn't exercised for a while, eight miles seemed like not just pushing the envelope, but carrying the missive by hand across country. This was not what I signed up for! But if we didn't continue, we'd never see our car again as it was parked at the place where we began. Oh, Lord, I thought, please deliver me! By the time the end of the trail was in sight, I was red in the face from the heat of the day, the exertion and the frustration of being lead out and brought back without a good "timeout".

We learned a lot that day about hiking and what to do and not to do. It was important to bring extra water (which we did). To bring along binoculars (which we didn't). To carry a walking stick to help take some of the weight off your knees. And if you're walking with a hiking club, keep up with the leader to get a proper rest every now and then. It was an interesting experience. However, now my husband and I walk on trails by ourselves. We go at our own pace, looking at the things we pass, admiring whatever views are there to admire, appreciating the nature and the silence of being away from the constant sound of phones and cars. I like this hiking better. And we are doing it together, which is really nice. And we can rest whenever we feel like it. But we still don't have walking sticks.

Why Was it Sad?

In conjunction with the previous post on music, of which I am not and never will be an expert, I had an experience the other day that I wanted to share. There is a new public television special out entitled, "LennoNYC". It was about John Lennon not the hero of the USSR. Anyway, hubby and I bought tickets to see a preview of it. We were supporting the local public television station and Hubby has always loved anything to do with the Beatles. Well maybe not everything, I don't think he likes bobble heads...but I digress. There was a young man who serenaded us before the screening. He played the guitar and piano and had a very nice voice. He sang selections from the Beatles eras, from some unknown (at least to me) stuff and well, a smattering of many of Lennon's compositions. We were surrounded at this mini-concert, as you might presume, by plenty of boomers and very few Gen-Xers. Many of the crowd had long, ponytail length gray hair, were wearing crocs, jeans and their most comfortable shirts. Almost everyone kept time with either their feet, tapping on the carpet or their fingertips, tapping their hands. Some of the more exuberant sang out loud with the young man. The songs made you re-live certain things, remember certain things, even sort of long for some long ago things. It was wistful, was what it was. When the young man moved to the piano and sang, Imagine, I gotta say, I was close to tears, thinking of that other young man who died just because some crazy person had a gun and some stupid idea.

After watching the movie, which chronicled Lennon's life pretty much with Yoko Ono after the Beatles when he lived in NYC and he became house dad with Sean--I began to appreciate that he had been writing again. He had worked on an album, was hoping to finish it and tour again. I didn't know that. I only minimally knew some of his newer songs. But the potential for more music was there. And I again I became sad and thought what a waste that this man who helped to create the music that my contemporaries and I grew up with, that he should be killed and never reached whatever new boundaries in music he set for himself. My hubby and I agreed that the movie was a tad too long, but interesting nonetheless. Although I could have done without the Yoko Ono influence, but that's just my opinion. And so I went home and listened to some Beatles music, just for old times sake. And mourned again the talent that is gone just because he was in the news.

Music Sublime

One of my more endearing characteristics, I'm sure someone would point out, is my quirky taste in music. I'm a fan of musicals from the 50's and 60's. I can recite the words to "Lydia The Tattooed Lady" or whatever that weird "Shaving Cream" song was that my husband found and recorded for the children eons ago. I like Beethoven, Bernstein and the Beatles. Music surrounds me in the car, sometimes at work and at home. But I don't own an ipod. I guess I'm not sure how the ear buds work with in- the-canal hearing aids and I'm not interested or concerned enough to figure it out.

If I know I'm going to be in the car for at least an hour, I'll figure out what I'm going to listen to at top decibel way before I figure out the route I'll be taking. I got to thinking about my music choices today for an odd reason. I was coming home from an appointment that I had not been looking forward to. The route I had selected was congested, bumper to bumper, cheek to jowl and grumpy, scowling faces behind the wheel the whole way. I had neglected to "select" my listening pleasure because I was preoccupied with the appointment and weary of the whole entire day. So I turned on the radio. I usually don't do that much, as invariably when I turn it on, the cycle has just finished for the 1/2 hour of commercial free music and I'm stuck listening to a 20 minute tirade of ads for everything from the radio station itself to local hardware stores to insurance companies whose Australian spokesperson is much better on the television. But today, amidst the anguish and angst suddenly the Beatles came on. They sang, "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Penny Lane". There were about four songs in rapid succession and you know, I just felt better after that. What's more, I was singing along with the songs before I knew it and saw several people doing the same thing! It was great! Not because it was the Beatles. But because for just a few minutes we weren't all mad at each other, we were enjoying the melody of the days gone by and savoring the harmonies of those four young men. Would I have felt the same if the Beach Boys came on? Maybe, maybe not. But it was grand on the street, swinging along with the Fab Four and about 100 or so of their fans as we crawled along in traffic on a Wednesday afternoon.

Two Parts of a Whole

I wrote this several weeks ago and after diddling with it, I just thought I'd like to post it as it would have been then. I could have tried to update it, but I really just didn't want to.

It all came down this morning to an envelope. The envelope was full of photos of my nephew. Yes, my nephew...mine and my husband. I have been trying for some reason to separate the two families: these are your relatives, these are mine. But life doesn't separate them, why should I compartmentalize? His funeral service is coming up soon. And the practice these days is to have something like a memory wall, full of pictures of the life of the deceased. I have been to viewings where there are even videos. I'm still not sure how I feel about that--the pictures and the videos I mean. Whose benefit are these things displayed? I know in my logical brain it serves a purpose, it helps to show the person in other circumstances--so the final thought you have of them won't be in the casket. Or it shows you what the person looked like if you are only an acquaintance of the immediate family, but a good friend of one of the lesser mourners.

I realized that in the envelope I had neglected to add the picture on the fridge. The one of his wedding. The one with his dad,my brother-in-law, and his new bride. So I dutifully scanned the image and placed the picture in with the other pictures--the ones of his birthdays, the backyard barbecues, the graduations. All those events with him smiling, laughing out loud or looking like a typical teen, bored with the family gathering. How could these events be done without him I wondered. He actually lived quite a long way away from the rest of the family, so we didn't see him much anymore. But he was part of the fabric of the two clans, spun out in threads across the US: threads in California, Florida, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania. Interwoven, whether we see the threads on a daily basis or just on Christmas and Thanksgiving.

I had been talking with some people recently and they seemed to think that since it was my husband's nephew to die so suddenly that it was somehow less than a tragedy to me, because it was my husband's side of the family--at least I guess that was the reasoning. It's hard to know what people are thinking (or not thinking as the case may be) when people are trying to tell you they care. And that's when the thought of the envelope came to me. The memories I have of my nephew are of the times we spent with my husband's family, yes. But also I have been blessed to have been part of that family for more than 30 years. That's longer than I lived at home with my biological family. To say that these people are not related to me except by marriage is sort of insulting. I have been through many things with them and they are as much a part of my emotional sphere as any of my siblings or parents. The people who shrugged off the loss of this young man so suddenly didn't really know me that well. If they had, they would have realized how the envelope of pictures was just a symbol of the hole left in the family fabric of both my husband's and my heart.

Age Musing

I turned 56 the other day. When I say that out loud, I don’t cringe. Or shudder. I smile. I say I bought my red hat pin and intend to wear it proudly on my lapel. But in the inner self, I don’t think I’m so thrilled. Not that the alternative is better. Not that I want to go backwards, except sometimes. Sometimes I do want to go backwards. But with the knowledge I have now. I want to view the world as a twenty-something with the fifty-something mentality. Maybe the world or at least my choices would have made more sense then. Maybe I would have been wiser in some of my choices. Maybe not.

Anyway, 56 is my age. Within that time I have married, helped to raise two kids—successfully I might add. They are wonderful young people. I have worked inside and outside of the home, full and part time. I’ve kept a sort of clean home—the Board of Health hasn’t caught up with me yet at any rate. Is the fact that I have done those things, sometimes well and sometimes not the sum and total of who I am? No. They point to who I am. They are nuances of who I am. But they are not the “me” in my skin. The “me” who listens to Frank Sinatra because I like his voice and the songs. Who sings along with show tunes because I like them and know the words. Who taps her foot to the Who, the Stones and the Beatles as well. The me whose running commentary while driving is not always the nicest, Christian way of looking at things, which is what I claim to be. I was reading a book (of course I was reading a book, I’m almost always reading a book) that said I should observe the way I view my life. For some it’s a carousel, for some it’s a trial. But I thought of mine like a journey. And I’ve been on this journey for 50 plus years. A lot of people my age say they remember saying to their friends when they were much younger, that people in their fifties were old. But I don’t remember saying that kind of thing. My grandmothers were old, but I don’t remember thinking that that was necessarily a bad thing to be. I liked my grandmothers. I never thought of my mother as old. Or my father either. They were ageless entities. Always there. Until my dad wasn’t anymore. But my mother is there and still outside the bounds of age. I don’t know why this is. Age just wasn’t important to me. I didn’t pray to God to make me old enough to drink or vote. I just accepted age as what happened when you lived day to day and you didn’t die before you woke up. I supposed at one time I might have lamented not being old enough for something. But I honestly can’t remember wishing to be older. But I didn’t wish to be ancient either. Or crotchety. Or infirm. I’m not--yet. Will I be? I find myself wondering about “what’s around the bend”. Suddenly thinking of growing older. Its’ a new experience for me.

Non-healing wound

The scar that doesn't heal
The hurt that keeps on hurting
Cannot be dismissed by ibuprofen
Or Tums.
The heart can't be healed
With band aids or duct tape
Or explained away with
Self serving solicitations on TV.
Each day takes you one step away
From the fresh pain
The newer hurt, the unforgiving ache.
Each day steps more into the world of
Now instead of then
And the world seeps itself into
Your conscious mind, blurring the thoughts
Numbing the tracks, smearing the lines
Of thought.
Until time slowly slips a skin over the
raw mark. But it never goes away.
And it breaks afresh once in a while
In a tide of onrushing emotions that can't
Be held back with tissues, but is helped with hugs.
Until, once again, the steps of each new moment
Take you out of the past into the day with
A broken heart and a scar that can't be healed.

Dreaming About?

I read a post recently about dreaming and it was obviously on my mind today. I stayed home from work, feeling nauseous and blah. In the middle of the morning I succumbed to a nap and the dream I had was so intense in its reality, I had a hard time waking up and leaving it on the couch where I was slumped.

So this was the dream. I dreamt that I was asleep on the couch and I began to hear kids voices. They were the voices of my children calling to me. My children in reality are young adults and not living at home. But in this dream they were in the house again. I could feel the pull of them calling to me and then hear them pounding down the stairs. The feelings I had hearing them were the same feelings I used to have when they were home--exasperation on their needing me yet again, concern that they had somehow just done something to the house that was irreparable, tired of being "on call." In the dream, my son appeared to me at the door on the porch and said as plain as if I were awake, "Mommy? Come upstairs. We have to show you something." I swear I felt myself rising from the couch, my arms raising to take his hand and then I heard my dream voice saying, okay I'm coming. In this dream I got up and went upstairs to my son's room where it became more weird and dreamlike in the things that took place. But the "feeling" of having them in the house with me again, running up and down the stairs and yelling and calling me, well, I woke up somewhat startled to realize that it was a dream and the reality was that they aren't here anymore and haven't been for a while.

And the rest of the day I missed them and that time with an ache that had nothing to do with the bug I was trying to chase from my system and everything to do with the quiet house.

Being a Slave...to Fashion?

What is it about women and clothes? I mean, I watched, "The Devil Wears Prada" and understand why fashion mavens do what they do and why we buy into it, I guess. But sometimes I believe this stuff was pounded into us subliminally when we were in the womb and we just can't escape.

I offer as an example (this statement said in my best Rod Serling impersonation) this past Friday. My husband and I attended a late afternoon/early evening wedding. It was a lovely day, but very hot. The week previous to this happy occasion, we had attended a funeral and well, let's just say the contrasts between the one service and the other within a week was dizzying. Now as a woman who has spent the last 40 or so years trying desperately to figure out what to wear and when to wear it, the funeral was easy. Basic black is always the preferred. Even navy blue or brown or even gray are fine. But see, weddings elude me. Do you dress festively? Do you wear lighter colors? Since it's fall, aren't your lighter colors already packed away next to the beach towels? I originally decided on a black dress. But I had been in black so much lately with the funeral, I thought I should somehow be more light-hearted! I noted right away at the wedding that this was wrong thinking. Every single woman there had on something with black on it, in it or swirled through it. All of their shoes were black--all of them. I stood there with my cheery, shimmering bronze blouse with a floating bronze and off white skirt and thought, Oh, God, I've done it again. I tried to remain in the background next to the wall paper the rest of the evening. I even wore beige strappy high heels. Horrors! I couldn't even claim to have a darker color wrap to put over my glaring faux paux.

Now I need to point out that not one single person said anything to me, or even looked like they were sneering. Everyone we talked to was gracious and genial and we all thought the company was fine and fun. But, I knew deep down that every woman who saw me, thought, "thank God I wore black." And next time, for sure, I'll wear it too.

a Long Time Ago

It was a long, long time ago
When my hair was longer
And I was thinner, in a skirt set
That was so trendy, I thought it belonged
To my sister.

We went to someone's house
For a christening
Someones I didn't know but he did
And chatting and eating
He talked a lot that day
So unlike his usual self.

I stuck to the outskirts
in my Skirt set
Watching and waiting for what
I'm sure I don't know.
But trying not to put a
Well shod foot wrong
To break the image of belonging with him
In amongst the programmers and office staff.

It was then, trying to remain invisible
Someone gave me a baby to hold.
They --the baby that is--was not fussy or loud
Or uncomfortable
and it wasn't the child of honor.
But a baby nonetheless.

I don't remember holding a baby
Before this afternoon of
Grown ups and parties.
I supposed I must have.
But I was careful and nervous
And remembered that children
Will know your nervousness and react to it
Like a dog can smell fear.
And I didn't want to be afraid,
So I placed this little child on
My lap and gazed at its little face
And it's pumping fists.
As it gazed at me from it's almost
Non-existent lids.
I don't remember if a boy or girl
Was what occupied my lap
But I do remember thinking,
"I can do this"

A thought that never occurred to me before.

Autumn Thoughts

I sat at a red light recently and saw the season had changed. Just like that. With a snap of her saucy finger, Mother Nature had begun to change the leaves. It was hotter than blazes as my grandmother used to say. Sticky and humid and stale as only New Jersey can be. I sat at the light and saw a tree had already changed its color. It wasn't dried out. Its leaves weren’t shriveled as though diseased. They were gold and brown with a blush of red. It looked like fall. It reminded me of so many autumns of the past. When we were rushing to get school supplies. When we rushed down to see the class listings posted on the front doors of the school. When we rushed to a relative’s house for one last picnic before the schedules and responsibility filled all the upcoming weekends. And I thought to myself, I wish for just one more of those fall seasons. My youngest has gone off to live in the land of one season. My oldest will again be teaching. I'm sure she has a whole new set of feelings when she sees the trees change color. But for me, I remember the squeaky new shoes, the starched new dresses, the slicked back hair, the smell of the chalkboard dust, the garbled morning announcements. And for my children, I’ll remember the nervous laughter of the kids gathered at the front of the school on their first day back. And their quick glance in my direction before entering the doors, as if to verify that yes, indeed, summer is over and fall is really here. The tree informed me in a hundred and one different memories and smells that the fall is just a season, no longer an event.

Observations

One of the things that I like to point out to people in my exasperating way, is that I am an observant person. Observant of either physical or empathic things. I have been known to see caterpillars where others have missed them and sensed angst where others have insisted none existed.

I'm not sure why this is. I like caterpillars as much as the next guy I guess. But I like seeing the anomalies that others can't or won't take the time to see. Of course I have friends who hate creepy, crawlies and so therefore, wouldn't look for these things if given a chance or even a reason to.

I think the reason I can sense feelings has to do with being able to feel so deeply when I was younger. I was a lonely kid, not many friends and some of them were rather a pathetic excuse for friends. So I would try and figure out why others acted the way they did and I could do this without attracting attention because, well, no one was paying attention. It was an atmosphere conducive to investigation. And I think I got rather adept at reading facial expressions and body language. Coupled with my lack of hearing, I think I've gotten more attuned to these ques.

Hasn't gotten me much more in the way of friends, but at least now I can understand why...sort of...

And Then There Are Days

Some days are filled with endless, um, stuff to do, I guess is the right phrase-ology. Go to the store, go to the bank, get gas for the car, water the plants, you know, stuff. And then there are the days when the stuff seems like nonsense and you stare for a very long time at the violets on your windowsill, the shape of the flowers, the fuzziness of the leaves, even the color of the blooms is amazing and you aren't even smoking pot! You get frozen in time sort of. Something catches your eye that you've seen lots of times before and maybe it's the way the light is hitting it or the way the breeze is moving it and suddenly it's like nothing you've ever seen before.

The thing that really catches you up though, are not the inanimate things. Mostly, the breath seizing moments are from those you love. You see them suddenly so clearly and so sharply in focus, you wonder how you didn't notice this before. Or maybe you did notice before, but it's been so long you don't remember the last time.

Our mother is 79 (sorry mom, don't read this if you can't "handle the truth" I say grinning). She has whitish, reddish, blondish short hair that either curls or bends its own way. She has a good sense of self most days. People think she is as close to a real-live saint as anyone could get. But I'm thinking of the morning a few weeks ago when I went out to breakfast with her and my step-dad. She and I both love a good breakfast out and we happen to serendipitously have a day when we could indulge ourselves. We went to a place with good pancakes, good coffee and the atmosphere wasn't as loud as a lot of other places. That last is important because we (my mother and I) both wear hearing aids and some places it just doesn't matter how high the volume is cranked on those helpful devices in ours ears, it's just too loud for conversation. Anyway, we got seated in a booth, made our selections and began to talk about this, that and the other thing. I remember thinking how lovely it was to sit and talk to mom, as I have almost always been able to do, about anything. And that her husband would throw in a comment, quip or joke now and then to punctuate our conversation.

It is usually during these talks with mom that my concerns about my children or husband or work come out. Depending on the severity or mood of either of us, we either talk about how to solve the problem, poke holes in everyone else's assumptions about how to work through this or laugh about how you can't choose your family, or employment is hell except for the paycheck. But this particular morning I had picked up that she was concerned about something, I could see it in her eyes. I asked her about it and after briefly dancing around the subject, it came out that she feared she was becoming too much like her mother and it worried her. Now my mother loved her mother fiercely--this I know. But Mom was always able, or at least as far back as I remember, to see my grandmother's flaws--not as a blunt instrument with which to pummel her, but a tool to show others how thinking can be different for different people. My grandmother was not a bad person, she was a person like all others. She had prejudices and feelings about the way things "ought to be" and she shared them relatively freely. Our mother taught us to take those granny-isms and sift through them. Not to take them as decrees from the Almighty, but take them as opinions from someone older and experienced in life. Mom saw a family home movie at our house recently and seeing my grandmother in it, projected the the ways they were alike onto herself--the fact that Mom walks with a limp now and so did our grandmother. The fact that our grandmother couldn't hear and Mom has to wear hearing aids. She saw herself as becoming her mother and she didn't want to be her.

I point out that I loved my grandmother fiercely as well. But saw her as an old woman who frequently did not wish to see the world as it was and by force of will would try to bend it back to the way it "ought to be." But our mother does not do that and I don't believe she ever will. I endeavored to help her see this by saying, "You're not your mother," I told her in my most convincing "Mommy-tone". "You cannot be. You have experienced things she never did, saw things she never saw, reacted to things she never even dreamed of having to deal with. You lived in a different era, you married a different man than your father (we both rolled our eyes at that one!) and you had four children. She only had two. You didn't experience life as she did. Although you shared a past, you had a different future. You are able to see things differently, more openly, more compassionately than she was able to in her lifetime. That isn't a bad thing, it is simply a different thing. As much as you and I are alike, we are not the same person. We can't be. And so neither can you be your mother."

She looked down then. I thought I had upset her and was mad at myself. I didn't know whether she agreed with my assessment or not, but felt it had to be said. After a moment she looked up and mouthed the words, "thank you." I was hit then with the love our mother has for us. The fact that she sees things in us we don't always see, loves us with an unconditional love that I know I feel I don't deserve at times. It was a breath catching moment between us that only lasted a moment, but will remain with me for a long time.

We don't get days of this kind of connection. Just moments. I hope I recognize them when they happen again, just for a moment.

Look it Up

I began to notice that when I want to look something up...no topic in particular, just general random stuff, I go to internet. And one of the things that almost always pops up is something from Wikipedia. Have you noticed that handy-dandy resource? Of course, you have! The problem is trusting Wikipedia for too much. You see anyone can add to it. No expertise required. This is not necessarily a good thing. It's especially bad if you feel too lazy to go somewhere else to look up whatever you are trying to find. Because Wikipedia is soooo easy. Quoting it however, is probably not a wise thing. I mean, once in a while for a quick piece of information its okay. But to trust this site with all your information needs is probably asking to get burned by "Wacked Out Bob in Minnesota."

It is good though for some background things. Some quick reference that you vaguely knew, and just need to have it verified. Or maybe not. See I want to trust the site and the people on it, I just can't. Every time I think it's okay to believe something on there, there's some little quirky piece of info that sort of sounds right, but maybe not.

The hubby is notorious for not believing anything he reads on internet. He's skeptical of everything. I'm not that bad yet. I still believe, well some of the time.

I found myself going to our World Book Encyclopedia on the shelf the other day to look something up. The books seemed reluctant to open in a way. Perhaps they were miffed at being used so seldom. Perhaps they are just old and it's harder to make the old binding work (kind of like me). Anyway it was sort of nostalgic to look something up the old fashioned way. I felt virtuous for having gone this route. But the information I wanted wasn't in there, the books are too old. I perused the pages anyway, looking at this and that. I remember how much I liked to do that as a kid. Just sit and browse the encyclopedia (I didn't get out much). And so I decided that I will try to not be so quick on the trigger (or keyboard as it were) next time I want to look something up. I'll just go to the books on the shelf first. And then consult Wacked Out Bob to see if he has the same info. This might just improve my detection skills. Or it might just remind me to use more than one resource--which is what the old librarian at my elementary school taught us in the Stone Age. Some things just need to be reinforced as we get older.

It had 8 legs and was moving fast!

I am not a fan of spiders. I don't think I ever was. My mother probably gave me the fear, but if not, I probably cultivated it by myself. I was never squeamish about other bugs. I used to lift rocks and sort through underbrush to see beetles, sow bugs, ants, any kind of creepy crawly. But if it had 8 legs, I was out of there. I didn't wait around to see what it would do as I did with other bugs. I was gone. This reticence about arachnids extends to scorpions, though I don't live in an area where they seem to live, so I'm lucky I guess. But spiders are everywhere, I'm told. Even Antarctica. I wonder what penguins think of them...

Anyway, I have cultivated a sort of calm demeanor about sightings as I age. I no longer scream when I see one. At least if it's small, say about a centimeter or so. If they politely scurry out of sight, I can pretend I didn't see it. The bigger ones still bother me, though. I couldn't live in a place where they grow to tarantula proportions. And don't help me out by saying, "any spider if it lives long enough can get that big." I don't want to know. And if it is that big, it had better not show up in my house. Which leads me to the next train of thought. If it's in my house and it isn't tiny, I do not believe it should be in my house, therefore I squish it. Do not tell me how helpful they are about eating other bugs. I will not listen to reason in this respect, so you might as well save your breath. If you're that fond of them, I'll put them in a jar and send them 'round to your place, shall I? A family member bought me a spray can of some noxious stuff that had an ugly gargantuan spider on the front of it. The can said it would kill a spider immediately. I unfortunately tested this out once while my children watched in fascination as I emptied the entire contents on a rather large specimen in our basement sink. It did not die quickly. It's legs folded up under it, while those multiple eyes sparkled at me malevolently, as it slowly collapsed. It was horrifying. Trust me. Even though the kids thought it entertaining. I keep going down the basement sure that it's relatives are waiting for me skulking along the duct work and pipes, waiting to catch me unawares. But I'm never unawares, I'm always armed and watching. It makes for interesting conversation for those around me as they see me prepare to descend the cellar steps. My family also bought me a robotic tarantula. It stays in the top of the closet in the family room. Where I can't see it. It's probably lurking with the real dead spider's kith and kin, waiting for the moment to leap and give me a heart attack.

I realize that I have given these creatures power over me, but I can't seem to help myself. It seems to me that they are more like the evil behemoths from the movie Arachnid than Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. And so yesterday, when I drove down the driveway to park the car outside of the garage and turned the car off, the fates favored the spider over the human. I saw an orange spot about the size of a quarter skitter down the windshield, tethered slightly by a sticky strand off it's rear end. It practically rolled down the glass and slid like a baseball player coming into home plate down under the wipers and then under the hood of the car. It happened so quickly I couldn't even turn the car on to make a token swipe at it with the wipers. And I sat there temporarily unsure what to do. Where would a spider go under the hood of the car? Was it just under the hood, waiting to spring out at me if I opened to look for it? Was it running down through the various wires, metal things and rubber hoses to drop down to the ground and take cover in the ivy next to the driveway? Was it biding it's time waiting for an opening to somehow crawl inside the car and leap on me, sucking the juices from me as I drove into a telephone pole? Where in the hell did it go? I was so unnerved, I slowly got out of the car and wouldn't get back in. My husband had to park the car for me. I told him I would drive him to the train station this morning, and I approached the car with trembling fingers. Fearing that a web would have been woven across the window, the steering wheel or the seat. But none of those things were there and there were no tell tale sticky strands in the car that I could see. But then I suppose, it's just biding it's time, with the fake tarantula and the deceased spider's relatives from the cellar. Waiting, waiting...

A Different World

When you exist in a place, going from day to day
Seeing, but not
Hearing, but not
It takes on the feeling of Musak
Just background without substance.

And so as I look out the window this evening,
In the distance I can see a glow of lights from something, maybe a town?
Six floors up is a unique perspective.

I am in a hospital bed this evening. I was admitted this day with discomfort in my chest. Can't call it pain, really. I wanted to ignore it and now some twelve hours later, I wish I had. The pain from the Nitro-patch is worse than the original experience. Eventually the nurse removes it and gives me pills to ease the headache.
I'm wearing a monitor hung from my neck, like an albatross, only not fuzzy. It doesn't hurt either. It just a reminder, beeping as it does.

The hospital is a strange place at night after the visitors have left. There are far away moans and coughs. Nearby rustlings of bed sheets, murmured questions, clicking of bottles, tubes and paraphernalia. Shoes squeak down the hall and the bing, bing, bing of the nurse's call button is heard in several places.

The blowing of the air conditioning, the grunting of the guy across the hall, backdrops all to the stream of recriminations in my mind. Why did you come here, it asks. You could have ignored it, it states. I'll never get to sleep, it nudges. Unfortunately, that last voice is right.

When I come home the next day, the sounds are there, the ones I hadn't been hearing lately. The birds at the bird feeder. The bubbling of the fish tank. Even the whine of the cat looking for dinner, all remind me I'm home. I like these noises better.

The 4th

What is it about patriotic holidays that makes me so sentimental? I really like all that flag-waving, fireworks shooting, family picnicing. And then they show those war movies on TV and I'll even watch one or two. My eyes well up when I hear the Marine Band play, or the radio plays the occasional all male choir from some military institution or another and "I fill with pride and deep within my breast, I thrill to see old glory paint the breeze."

My father was a WWII vet and I'm proud of that. But I'm filled with a sense of wonder about how this country came to be and continues to be. Yes, I know there are things that are wrong with this country. Yes, I know that there are things which need to be fixed. But what other country in the world has a democracy that works so gloriously. So allow me my flag waving, my filling with pride. I will go back to the grumbling about bad policies, bad decisions by law-makers and corporations alike after this weekend. But just for this weekend, Hooray for America!

The Chlorophyll Influence

My son sent an e-mail the other day informing me of his purchase of a plant for his new apartment. He included a picture. He knew I would be pleased with his new purchase because we always have plants in our houses. It was not always so with me. I didn't really pay much attention to plants at our childhood home within. I was always more interested in the flora outside the home, gazing at the "four-o-clocks" in the front yard, looking into the abyss of a hole in the giant maple tree out front. When I got married, one of the first presents was some kind of stalky green thing from the people my husband worked with--to keep me company when he had to work late on a special project. Now 30 something years later, it is that same kind of stalky green thing my son has purchased for his place. What goes around comes around I guess.

I like plants. Looking out the front window of our living room, the green dogwood is framed by the plants on the windowsill. The sun filters through the arrow-head shaped leaves and glances off the upright growth of the plant next to it. I'm not going to name all the kinds of plants I have in the house. I don't think I know all the names of them anymore. I mean their generic names, I never quite mastered the scientific ones of anything. And I don't name them either--Ethel, George. I do talk to them though and gently rub their leaves from time to time. The ones I currently have growing here are a amicable bunch. They don't demand too much.

I don't have a good relationship with certain plants, I've noticed. Boston ferns and I do not understand each other. Their idea of ideal growing environments and mine simply do not mesh. And Fushias are much too picky for me. Water me now, NO, too much, well now I"m bone dry. Nope, I just don't want to hear their whining. Of course, I received one for a present recently so I've placed her in a window and hope for the best. But she isn't with the rest of the plants in the living room. No one likes a whiner. I received an orchid recently, also as a present. Orchids and I do not have a good history either, but I was determined to figure out how to keep this one alive and so far I have--a breakthrough to be sure. Poinsettias and I get along famously. Every year I buy at least four of them, and they happily shed, bring little black bugs and endless watering accidents into the home. But by May, when they are still thinking they own the place, I plant them outside in one of the flower beds. They grow just fine until the cold winds of November. No, I do not dig them up and take them in. I let them die a natural death then buy four new ones to perpetuate the cycle in December. I like to think I'm doing my part in the floral economy with this cycle.

I have a palm tree, too. It was part of a planter that my father-in-law received when he moved into a nursing home. After he died, I took the planter home and re-potted all the individual plants. They all died of something or other except the palm. He has been dead for seven years now and the palm is waist high from the floor. I look at it and think of him, his laughter, his calm demeanor and I feel like I have a piece of him with me.

I add on to my collection from time to time. I have a pink-spotted plant on the porch which is a recent addition. It seems like it can't decide whether it is a close growing bush-kind-of-thing or a taller-more-majestic-kind-of-thing. I'm letting it work itself out on it's own. There are two tree-like stalky things growing on the plant stand above the pinky. They've been in residence for a while--they were the new kids on the block for some time. They grudgingly grow something like an inch every 5 years, so I really can't be certain whether they are okay or not. I think they like to confuse me, so I keep them on because of the challenge in their growth--attitude makes the difference.

My sister seems to think I am a plant guru. But really, I just water and let them go. I do feed every now and then. I pet them occasionally and promise I won't let the cat chew on them (she's getting too old for that challenge any more anyway). The african violets on the windowsill bloom for me in grateful appreciation for finding the right light in a house which has a lot of shade. So the plants and I get along. We've found peace in suburbia together. Watching the sun shift through their leaves day and day out with nary a whine in between.

He Would've Been 86

Dad, that is. Would have been 86 today. I find myself thinking of him between now and the anniversary of his death. He creeps into my consciousness in small sparks of recognition. A phrase here. A song there. A gesture from one of my siblings will remind me of him. The sparkle in my nephews eye makes me remember his. The missing him is not as intense as it used to be--that's to be expected. It was after all 22 years ago he died. But I'm introspective now. And not as easy to distract by the mundane. Will I always do this, I sometimes wonder? Stop what I'm doing and think of him. It's so intense sometimes, the memories. I made a vow to visit the grave this weekend. Because it's Memorial Day, there will be lots of people planting flags. Every year I remember that I promised to make sure there is a flag at his grave. I am supposed to make sure the cemetery knows he was a veteran, bu every year I forget. It's okay. Nobody is keeping score I know. I don't visit the place like I used to. But it's quiet there. And I feel like he knows I'm there when I go. Is that blasphemous? I mean I'm sure he's in heaven wherever that is, but it feels like he just might be there in the quiet and stillness, the small breeze that plays over the grass, the muted traffic whizzing by. So before the picnic and the family I'll go over and say hello just for a little while. Just to let him know I remember.

Naturally Wonderous

Sitting on the deck
Watching
The wind, its susurration through the backyards of suburbia
Bowing the majestic tree heads, rippling their secrets.
The birds, a profusion of robins
Drop down and lift off through the green, green grass
So green, it looks pretend
But you know it's real because of the dandelions.
The littler birds, the sparrows, I guess, are invisible
Brown and black hiding amongst the occasional bare branch,
They sing across the yards, calling to each other.
What are they talking about? I wonder.
The sun comes out in fits and starts behind the clouds roaring
Endlessly with the jet engines which pierce their foaming majesty.
And it warms me on the deck
Amidst the potted flowers of Mother's Day.

Old Time Poetry

I was thinking about the poetry I used to read when I was younger. It rhymed. All the time. There was no such thing as free verse in my younger universe. All of the poetry that I committed to memory rhymed. It had a certain cadence to it also. I can't quite remember the specific type of cadence (iambic pentameter?), but it all went to a certain beat and was predictable--unless you read Ogden Nash, in which case anything was possible. Do they still write poetry like that anymore? My daughter's friend wrote a book of poetry which won an award. I bought the book as I wanted to support friends of my daughter. But it was, well, not what I expected. It wasn't bad! But it was difficult to decipher for me. I suppose that means that I'm basically a simple person (you probably already guessed that).

Whatever happened to things like, "The House by The Side of Road," or "Abdul Abulbul Amir"? I have two giant volumes of old poetry and almost all of it is rhyming. I came across two of my old favorites the other day and I was amazed at the witticisms in the verse. "Strictly Germ Proof" was a poem I memorized early on because my mother hated the first line, "The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup, were playing in the garden when the bunny gamboled up." She always choked on the word, prophylactic. I didn't really know what it meant, but I loved it because it made her gasp. The other one I looked at was, "The Modern Baby"; a paean to the new way of raising children because the old way was bad for them, as the poem says, "The Washingtons and Jeffersons and Adamese you know." But in perusing the tome of poems I used to love to read, some papers fluttered out. It was a copy of the "Jackdaw of Rheims". I did not know what a jackdaw was when I first read this. So I went about looking the animal up and it's a bird. This was found on Wikipedia, "jackdaws are known to steal shiny objects such as jewelery to hoard in nests," which goes along nicely with the story of the poem. I re-read it and it's still a favorite. There is one poem, though, that is not a rhyming one that I've know about for a long time. In my emotional youth, it struck a chord because it reminded me that things are not always as they seem. I have reproduced, "Motherhood" by Eleanor Agnes Lee as follows:

Motherhood

Mary,the Christ long slain,passed silently,
Following the children joyous astir
Under the cedrus and the olive tree,
Pausing to let their laughter float to her--
Each voice an echo of a voice more dear,
She saw a little Christ in every face.

Then came another woman gliding near
To watch the tender life which filled the place.
And Mary sought the woman's hand and spoke:
' I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed
With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke
Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.

' I ,too, have rocked my Little One.
And He was fair !
Oh, fairer than the fairest sun
And , like its rays through amber spun,
His sun-bright hair.
Still I can see it shine and shine.'
Even so, the woman said, 'was mine.'

' His ways were ever darling ways'-
And Mary smiled -
So soft, so clinging ! Glad relays
Of love were all His precious days.
My Little Child !
My vanished star ! My music fled ! '
' Even so was mine,' the woman said.

And Mary whispered : Tell me, thou
Of thine.' And she :
' Oh, mine was rosy as a bough
Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,
To bloom for me !
His balmy fingers left a thrill
Deep in my breast that warms me still. '

Then she gazed down some wilder,darker hour,
And said -when Mary questioned, knowing not :
Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?'--
' I am the mother of Iscariot.'



I'm not a scholar of poetry by any means. And I do a little free verse from time to time here. But I love those old poems. Does anybody still write them like that?

Down Home Diner

Cooking is not something I like to do normally. On any given day, if you say take out, I'm right there with the money in my hand and the car warming up. But once in a while I like to make things. Especially things that just taste better home made. Sometimes its a hassle getting the ingredients; if the fuss is too much bother, I come home, play a few games of solitaire until the feeling passes and then take out a frozen-something-or-other from the freezer. Because it is now just the hubby and I, it doesn't feel like I'm hurting anyone much. Hubby doesn't cook, not interested in it at all and is usually content as long as something is hot on the table some time after he comes home. Does this sound sexist? It isn't really. He does so many other things around here I'm getting downright lazy! But I digress.

I decided to make stuffing tonight. I didn't have turkey, but I had pork chops. So I made the stuffing and browned the chops and put them on top of the stuffing to cook in the oven. It's almost a one dish meal, only you have to make the vegetables on the side. Well, I have to make them on the side. I don't like the way veggies come out when they are cooked with stuffing. It's just a personal prejudice--deal with it. And while I was making the dinner, I thought to myself, "I remember our daughter saying one time that one of the smells she liked best at our house was when mom made stuffing." She said it felt like home.

Some food is just does that. Mac and cheese. Meatloaf. They cook and the house smells like home. I sometimes wonder about having a personal cook who would make those things in the house, and I could come home and it would smell like that. Would I regress to my childhood? Probably not. And I probably wouldn't like what the cook put in the dishes. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of spices. Just plain. That's what I like. Not too spicy and not too fancy--forget morrel mushrooms. Or truffle oil. Sometimes even garlic seems like too much. Just the down home smell of something simple and easy. But it has to taste good, or what's the purpose? So come on down to the Down Home Diner. You might want to bring your own spices, 'cause Mom doesn't like things too spicy. And don't forget your manners. We'll set the table for you.

And another one gone, and another one gone...

Another one bites the dust.
A week that is, not a person.
Another week gone. Poof.
Up at 6:00, down at 10:00.
Breakfast at 7:00, break at 10:00, lunch at 1:00,
Off by 4:00.
Then walking, then talking, then eating,
Cleaning--dishes, floors, cats, myself, then
Blessed slumber for another round in another six.
The days go on rumbling
The weeks tumbling
Like the rock tumbling machine.
But nothing much glistens like jewels
Except an occasional laugh or wry grin.
Where is the time of reflection
Wonder, gazing in rapture at the clouds?
Gone with the dust and the dishwasher clatter.
Gone with the silence and no-longer-matters.
And the week ends as the next one
Lines up to take it's place.
Sunday evening, just a breath away.
Another one bites the dust.

Easter Finery

I have a remembrance of this time of year scrambling to Sears or the "nice" store in the local town to find white gloves and frilly socks (and don't forget the hat--had to have a hat) to wear for Easter Sunday. My grandmother more often times than not, made our dresses or skirt sets for my sister and I. She was an incredible seamstress--although I was not always appreciative of her efforts until much, much later. Easter was a time to dress up and look spiffy. Lent was finally almost behind us, with its dreary long days and bare trees. Easter meant that the world began to look green again (and pink and purple and yellow). And we could celebrate and look festive.

Have you noticed the earth in this hemisphere does that too, looks festive, I mean? I was outside cutting some daffodils to put in a vase on the table and thought, "Oh, look, the forsythia are blooming, too" so I cut a few sprigs of those as well. The bright yellow on the kitchen table reflects what I see out the window. The earth is waking up. The lacy white flowers on the Bradford pear trees are out now (and smelling particularly pungent I might add). The bushes around the house are greening up again. The giant trees in the backyard are still bare but the tops are fuzzy with new growth that can't be distinguished from the ground. It gives the mini-forest out back a softer look than the harsh lines of winter. The grass is even getting green again with the dandelions pushing their brash agendas into every nook and cranny, not just in the yard but the driveway as well. And people who have those lovely cherry trees in the yard down the street can wake up the delicate pink cascade every morning--surely a more welcome sight than the previous brown sticks poking from the main trunk.

I really do love this time of year. I have friends who hate it because of their allergies. But since I haven't suffered from that, I get to enjoy the weather even though the pollen count is climbing rapidly. The box elder beetles are making themselves known against the garage doors again, their black and red armor a stark contrast to the ivory color on the doors. They try to blend with the bricks, but they are just too brightly colored. Moths and butterflies are beginning to show as well, although their appearances are shadowy and sporadic as the birds are making a big comeback right about now. Their morning chirps and squawks can nudge even the most sleepy awake unless you happen to have a hearing deficiency. They then become a muted symphony with which to become aware, slowly.

"The earth laughs in flowers," quoth Emerson. And her joyful presence is spectacular at Easter. Go outside and enjoy the world's finery on display at this time of year. Me? I'm still looking for the right hat.

Palm Sunday

It is Palm Sunday today. There are a few observations I have about this day from the sublime to the well, you can decide if they are ridiculous or not.

The church I am a member of uses the observation of this particular Sunday to process. We gather someplace other than the sanctuary, grasp and grapple with our palm fronds, hear the story of Palm Sunday and then begin the trek to the worship area singing a capella "All Glory Laud and Honor, to Thee Redeemer King." Most of us are usually off key and a stanza slow when we finally arrive up the steps wheezing, holding our palms aloft and straggling to a pew. We muffle our voices somewhat to find out what stanza the rest of the well-rested congregation is singing (these are the people who didn't want to process because they are: a)too old, b)too young (and are being held by their tired looking mommies and daddies) or c)too smart to want to climb those steps and be all out of breath by the time they get to the pew). The service continues after we all get up there as though we started from the same place.

I am reminded that years and years ago, the Sunday School, when it was still a robust and lively program used to encourage bringing in Spring flowers for a Styrofoam shaped cross. Some older ladies would arrange the beautiful daffodils and tulips onto the cross form and it would precede us up the steps to the sanctuary. The tradition began to fall off though, as attendance began to lag and as children didn't bring in real flowers, they brought in plastic ones and the cross began to look, well, fake--which of course it was by then. In the gathering area this year before the actual reading of the lesson began, the palms were just sort of plopped on an old piano bench. I noticed that they were not individual fronds necessarily, they were sort of clumped together and I began to separate them. Maybe I was thinking that there would be a run on them or something and we wouldn't have enough (that never happens). So I began to separate them. Soon we had several people doing this chore and I began to think about when we were kids going to the Palm Sunday Service at our old church. The leaves/fronds whatever they're called seemed stiffer then. Better for jabbing out eyes or tormenting smaller children in the pew in front of you. I decided that I wouldn't separate any more, why should today's children not be subjected to the same torments as I as a child? Several people in our congregation know how to make those beautiful crosses by criss-crossing the stems into braided works of art. I don't how to do that. I always put mine on the top of a picture frame in the dining room and forget they are there until the middle of the summer. They're wickedly sharp by then, but my siblings live too far away to torture and they would probably look at me strangely if I tried (well, okay, they look at me strangely anyway--but not because of that).

We do a kind of re-enactment of the entire Passion during the service. It was pointed out that we began doing this to remind us of the week ahead, so we won't forget it was just a triumphal entry, but an ending as well. I read a devotional that said the person was kind of annoyed with this practice. I had to agree. Palm Sunday was always cheerful amidst the cool breezes heralding Easter and Spring. As a child we celebrated it with a nice dinner and fond thoughts of that little donkey with that big guy (yeah, you know, Jesus) sitting on him. I liked the warm fuzzy of that without the reminder that this week was not a picnic to be him (yeah, Jesus--stay with me here). But I know we need to be reminded what this Sunday and the rest of the week is about.

So Happy Palm Sunday, everyone. Only one more week of giving up whatever you gave up for Lent. Only one more week and then it's Easter! The time for a big dinner and warm thoughts about the big guy, yeah, you know Jesus.

The Insidious Pocketbook

It began, innocently enough with a simple patterned cloth. Even the design was simple. Designed to draw the eye and weigh next to nothing. The strap could be used over the shoulder and it could be washed as well. Yes, it was a ingeniously hatched plot. The only obstacle, if you could call it that, was the price. Some would not be able to afford it...not that it should have been expensive, mind you. It was only a small handbag, made of cloth. But you didn't think of it, did you? Therefore, they could charge whatever they wished--they thought of it first. And so the empire grew from that one small purse. Soon women everywhere began to notice them. And want them. Money began to not be a problem. It was habit-forming, owning these precious bags. And new patterns of cloth became available four times a year--I think it was four times. But who was counting? The people who came up with the idea, thats who. They were counting all right. Counting the dollars rolling in. Soon the little bags became bigger bags, then overnight bags, then diaper bags, then backpacks, then suitcase-like things. Ah, but they became smaller as well, clutch bags, wallets, smaller wallets, change purses. And let us not forget the glasses holders, the cell phone holders and the pocket savers! And then the true genius took hold. Why not take the design of the cloth and imprint things with it, like pens, clipboards, frames for glasses and picture frames! Why not indeed? Shops began to spring up like weeds, touting the products. Women were drooling for the next pattern, the next shape, the next gee gaw and doo dad. Catalogs were produced with family members as the models--what could be more natural? But of course, the families were beautiful and stylish in their patterned finery.

It has been hinted that the tsunami of lust for the bags has crested and things are beginning to settle down now. But summer is coming and there are new patterns to display.