Sunday Morning

I do find the best graffiti.  ♥

Love Actually

The cemetery I walked in today is three-hundred acres, but I only managed two and a half miles before declaring that part of my walk done.  It was twenty-something degrees here this afternoon but felt much colder, and even with my coat's hood up most of the walk, I returned home with my hair half-pulled out of its top bun by the wind.  Tomorrow and Sunday will be much warmer--we're supposed to hit a downright balmy fifty-six degrees this weekend--so I'll enjoy longer walks then. 

The headstone above that memorializes "happy hours, days, weeks. . . ." with a loved one reminded me of the opening lines of Love Actually:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport.   General opinion started to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that.  Seems to me that love is everywhere.  Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there.  Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.  When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate and revenge, they were all messages of love.  If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling, you'll find that love actually is all around." 

Yes, for final words in final phone calls and for remembrances in cemeteries, love is the word, as one is reminded while walking past monument-after-monument and stone-after-stone that pay tribute to the loving and the beloved.  We worry about so many petty things in this lifetime, we hold on to hurts too long, and we get so mired in the muck (and often a muck of our own making), it is good to remember what we will take with us--and leave behind us--when we go.  During my summer 2007 health scare, love was all I thought about while I thought I was dying.  I hoped my niece and nephew would somehow remember me enough when they were older to know that I had loved them, I wished my ex-boyfriend well and hoped he remembered that I loved him and that he held on to that and didn't beat himself up, I prayed that I'd been loving enough to my brothers and parents, I even thought of a couple people I hadn't even really liked all that much and I just wished them love.  Had I loved everyone enough, did they know how much I loved them, would the rest of their lives would be full of love?  I wanted so much love for everyone.  And if my own lifetime's worth of opportunities to give that love was over--no more conversations or cookies or letters or care packages--well, maybe I would still have ways to give love after I had passed?  I prayed so.  Love love, love.  I believed I was dying, and love was all I could think about.  That night's experiences have informed the way I've lived since, and I'm grateful. 

♥

As I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things. ~ Martin Scorsese

A day or so after my grandfather died in 2001, my dad and I were at home stumbling through the motions of making breakfast or something when he mentioned that upon stepping outside that morning, he'd found two homemade pies that his coworker Buddy had left on our front porch.  Immediately, and repeatedly over the next couple days, it wasn't Papa's death or Grandma's loss of her husband of almost sixty-two years or the knowledge of other family members' pain that made me cry, but instead those damned pies.  I cried over the pies even while agreeing with Dad how good it had been of his coworker to offer them.  The mental picture of those disposable foil pans left without fanfare on our porch made me cry awhile later as I dressed for the viewing.  A stretch of time would then pass in which I'd be calm, in that rubbed-raw weariness that grief brings on, and then the pies would return to mind and I would feel my face crumpling up again.  Soon enough, the full weight of Papa's death hit me, of course, but until the initial shock wore off, my tears were for the kindness that leads a person to buy the pans and the ingredients, to take the time out of one's own life to follow a recipe and to wait for pies to bake and then for them to cool, to wrap them up, and finally, to drive them across town--all to acknowledge and console another's hurting heart.  

Similarly, this past week, with our world news seemingly fuller than usual with stories of trauma and terror, it is a show of compassion, and not one of grief or gore, to which my mind keeps returning.  Soon after the Boston Marathon bombings last Monday, Boston.com created Google Documents to help locals who could offer housing reach those who had been displaced by the attacks.  In just a couple of days, almost 6,000 people posted to the spreadsheet offering everything from guest room beds and pull-out couches to hot showers, cupcakes, and snuggles with pets.  In honor of these Bostonians' kindness and goodwill, the list of housing offers has been kept online.  As with Papa's death and the front porch pies in 2001, it is this story this past week that has made me cry more than any other.  If you need to be reassured of human beings' capacity for compassion and goodness, this simple spreadsheet glows with both.  "I just made soup. . .and have a friendly cat," one offer reads.  Another:  "We have lots of coffee and floor space."  Yet another:  "Futon, showers, and two doggies ready to comfort you."  One more:  "We have lots of food, beer and cookies!  :)" (The smiley emoticon is the poster's, not mine, and even seeing THAT touches me.  People are amazing.)  "My wife might even spring for Chinese food tonight," reads another listing.  Some are from local college students who live in dorm rooms but are willing to give up their beds.  Some helpfully mention all foreign languages spoken in the households.  Many offer transportation.  At least one offers his YMCA guest-pass so someone can shower or sauna there and/or just get away for awhile.  Imagine:  Nearly 6,000 people reached out to help like this.  Constantly refreshing both Boston.com and the Boston Globe's Twitter feed last Monday, I read some of  these housing entries aloud to Mike as they began pouring in and exclaimed to him, "Honestly, can you even imagine!?  In a major city--And these people don't even KNOW who-all is reading this--And they're posting their phone numbers and email addresses and everything?!"  I was astounded by it.  It is one of the things I will remember most about the events of last week, all that kindness.  It is only now, eight days after the attacks, that I can even think about the housing offers list, let alone skim through it, without beginning to choke-up again.  ". . .Pullout couch.  Excellent brownies."  Well, honestly.  

I believe that good outweighs evil.  I believe that most people are good and are actively trying every day to be good.  I believe, like Mr. Rogers believed, that "you will always find people who are helping."   Here we all are, stumbling around the planet together, sometimes the ones falling and being helped up and dusted off, and other times the ones with hands outstretched to lift or carry.  We share our stories, we sing songs, and we try to make both sense and something good--there's that word again--come from it all.  We offer what we can, and if we pay attention, we see how the love we pass back and forth saves the day every day, one pie on a porch-front and sofa-bed-offer at a time.  ♥

A Giveaway and Six Years of Pretty Little Rough Patches

Six-Year Blog Anniversary Giveaway  ~  Click to enlarge pic.

This month marks six years that I've been writing here.  It was only a mere six months ago, though, that I made the blog public and findable by online search engines.  I Struggle with Shyness:  A post for another day.  :)  It was especially fun and rewarding this past fall and early winter, then, to find comments from new readers in my email inbox--I have all comments emailed to me--and to notice each time another person had found the blog and hit the "Follow" button.  When I learned that big-hearted at Vicki over at 2 Bags Full would be hosting an online blog party today, right before my blogging anniversary, to express her thanks for what blogging has brought into her own life and to help other bloggers meet, I asked to be added to the virtual guest list.  Blogging, even if I've done it quietly and kind of under-the-radar for so many years, has been a sweet thing in my life too, and I share her appreciation of it.  Thank you to Vicki ♥  and welcome to everyone who's visiting here via her party.  :) 

You know how people joke about visiting someone only to have to sit through his/her slide shows of vacations, pets, and family outings?  I'm a person who is thrilled by such things.  Tell me about your best friend from elementary school, your best friend now, the first person who broke your heart, the work you do and the work you want to do, the language you'd love to learn and the lesson you need to learn, the last movie you loved and didn't want to end and the last book you hated too much to finish, the flowers that most remind you of your grandmother, the birthday cake you always bake or buy for your wife, your funniest memory of your grandfather, the dress you'll save forever because you once had a perfect day wearing it, those songs that take you back to high school, that one dog who was your Best Dog EVER, the craziest neighbors you've ever had, and the kindness a stranger showed you the day your child died.  Give me your tired, your poor, your fridges covered in magnet-held family pictures and your scrapbooks bursting open with saved mementos. . . . ♥  Where did you find the piece of driftwood shaped like a seal?!  I love it.  ♥  Is that photo you and your sister when you were kids?!  ♥  Oh!  Your dog by the fireplace Christmas morning!  Look at his FACE!  ♥  Is that sketch of the house that you told me about?  ♥  That has to be your mom's photo above your chair--You look just like her.  ♥  My seventh-grade English teacher always had us spend one class period a week writing journal entries that we would hand in to her to read.  She said that we could write about absolutely anything and that that there was really nothing she didn't think was interesting.  I remember thinking, when I heard her say that, "Well, yeah, I'm the same way."  I hadn't known it until she articulated it, so that realization stuck in my memory.  And now I live in the Age of the Internet and get to see your slide shows and hear your stories this way, and every day, I find someone--and something--else that interests me.  And I love that. 

To celebrate six years here and to thank you for following along, I'm hosting my first-ever giveaway.  Everything (but my beloved old green check tablecloth) in this post's photos will be packed-up and shipped to the winner after I draw his/her name February 1st.  I had fun shopping for all the prizes and love putting care packages together, so this has already added some fun to my own week.  ♥   

The winner will receive: 

• Real Simple magazine's hardcover book Celebrations:  Easy Entertaining for Every Occasion, a big book that's full of ideas for gifts, meals, parties, invitations, and just thoughtful ways to make "everydays" into holidays and "special" occasions even more special
• one of my favorite books, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  ~  If you've read it, you know what a treasure it is, and if you haven't, I envy you the fact that you still have your first reading of it ahead of you.  Follow Francie as she grows from an eleven-year-old girl to a post-high school young woman.  I love this girl and her story.  
• the "love issue" of Sandra Lee's magazine, filled with recipes, tablescape and party ideas, Valentine-ey thoughts, and the most beautiful photos  ~  Her magazine is always a feast for the eyes and heart.
• a little book of 23 friendship-related stickers 
• 20 paper napkins covered in cupcakes-decorated-with-hearts
• 8 heart paper plates, also perfect for either Valentine's Day or any day
• 48 pink and red floral die-cut cupcake wrappers
• 4 packets of hot chocolate, each a different flavor
• 3 thinking-of-you-type cards with envelopes 
• 3 Valentine cards with envelopes 
• and 2 red-ink pens because, as some of you guys already know, I add red hearts to almost every piece of personal mail I send.  It's not just a "blog-thing."  ♥  :)

To see larger versions of the photos here, just click on them.  A reader mentioned the other day that it would be helpful if my blog's photos were bigger, but when I post extra-large versions of photos with this blog design/layout, their sides get cut off a little bit--and I really love this design/layout.  (I tried, Jenny!)

To enter, just leave a comment on this post--and please make sure that either your comment or profile gives me a way to contact you if you should win.  Any comment with a date of January19th-January 31st will count, and I'll randomly choose a name and announce the winner here on February 1st.  You don't need to "follow" to enter.  I hope you'll follow if you want to, though, of course.  :)

Good luck!  And a truly warm welcome to you new readers and an equally-heartfelt thank you to those who have been with me either from my very first post in 2007 or since earlier this week.  I've loved sharing the past six years here.  Keep telling your own stories.  Make time for your friends.  Finish and mail the letter you keep meaning to write.  Offer a piece of gum to the person sharing the elevator with you.  Keep putting yourself out there.  Say thank you.  And remember that even when it's rough, life is good and beautiful and worth the effort.  Ride it out.  Find the silver lining.  Go hug your cat.  ♥

xox♥, Val

A Pink Christmas (and Rose-Colored Glasses)

Between Mike's and my sidewalk run-in with a thug who seemed to be looking for a fight December 22nd, a hacker's theft from my checking account Christmas Eve and the ongoing hassle that that's caused, a round of food poisoning for me beginning December 29th, and a stomach bug for Mike that started New Year's night, the past two weeks with their combination of anxiety, illness, and lack of money have made our humble little apartment seem even more of a safe haven than usual.  "Nothing can bring a real sense of security into the home except true love," Billy Graham believes, and I nod my head in agreement as I type his words here.  I believe that true love, in whatever form it takes, blesses everyone and everything in its path.  It bettered our holidays, and it brightens our "everydays," and it is always bigger than our troubles and troublemakers.  "What are we gonna live on this coming week?" Olivia Walton anxiously asks her husband in The Homecoming (one of my all-time favorite movies, ♥ any time of year) after he's spent his final paycheck on Christmas presents.  "Love, Woman," he replies, cradling her face with his work-worn hands, making my spirit soar every time.  John Walton is wise.  And after a holiday season that's tested peace-on-earth-and-goodwill-toward-men for so many around the world, it is a blessing to start this second week of January still believing in the power of goodness and love. 

This Christmas, our second together, Mike and I shared our now-traditional Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls and egg casserole and took special refuge in all the simple joys of home.  The pink and white church was a gift from Aunt Laurie this year.  The miniature pink tree was from my friend Madai last Christmas, and the snowflake tablecloth is a treasure from my younger brother.  The vintage pink house, cream tree candles, small cream bottlebrush tree, and pink reindeer were all from my mom.  

Mike and I opened our presents from family then ate breakfast before opening our gifts from each other.  I made the cinnamon rolls and Mike made the egg casserole this year. 

The tiny pink cupcake ornaments came in a surprise package from my aunt Heidi this year, and the gorgeous pink snowflake cookie ornament was one of my favorite gifts this Christmas.  Mom gave it to me early when I visited the weekend of December 21st.  Love, love, love.  ♥

Pink and pink gingham always make me happy and just seemed right for this Christmas morning.  Last year's breakfast table was aqua, and it was pretty, but I think I just needed the extra warmth of pink this time around.  The cinnamon rolls saw a generous sprinkling of pink sparkling sugar and Mike's mom's recipe of buttercream frosting.  

The pink quilted gingerbread mug and pink-rimmed dinner plates were Goodwill finds.  I had had a similarly sweet mug set out for Mike's coffee Christmas morning but knew he'd rather use his usual navy blue one, so I switched them.  That sounds trivial, but I had told Mike a few days before Christmas--the night of our encounter with the Sidewalk Thug, actually--that I don't want us to be a couple that argues over stupid things.  Every couple does, I know, but as I told him, I just want us to get into the habit of shaking off dumb little things and not wasting time or energy fighting about them.  If he wants a navy coffee mug instead of the prettier cream-colored one:  Who cares.  It's our Christmas morning and a breakfast together, not a photo shoot.  I wanted hash brown-style potatoes in the breakfast casserole; he did not.  If he was the one making it, who was I to argue?!  The years I make it, I'll add potatoes, and the years he makes it, he can skip them:  Big deal.  We are blessed to have whatever time we have with our loved ones.  Let's not waste it.   FlowerLady, if you're reading this, please know that remembering you and your dear husband is what really made this click for me this Christmas.  ♥  I've only been married a year and a half, and it is always surprising to me that just as it is easier sometimes to be good and kind to strangers and acquaintances than to one's own family, it is also easy to find myself treating others more gently than I do my own husband.  My senseless complaints about the breakfast casserole--a dish that my husband had kindly and even enthusiastically offered to make for our Christmas--made me ashamed of myself.  Hearing myself harping about hash browns and then remembering sweet Lorraine and Sandra and others who would happily eat glass if it meant getting to share a morning with their husbands again. . . .My goodness.  I knew better, so why wasn't I acting like it?  Navy blue mugs and potato-free casseroles:  Fine and good. 

We watched the Christmas Story movie while we ate.  Both the cinnamon rolls and egg casserole were wonderful.  The almost-bare wall around the hutch and tv is one of the new year's projects.  We have an ever-growing collection of posters and photos of artists, writers, actors, musicians, athletes, thinkers, and people-in-general who inspire us, and once our frame-buying has caught up with our art-acquiring, the wall will sport more than Mike's Yankees baseball pennants.  :)

Although we had a nice Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner too, it is our Christmas breakfast that has become my favorite part of the holiday now that I'm married.  This year's found us more appreciative of the safe haven we enjoy in our home and in each other, and it saw me become at least that much better of a wife.  Fine gifts, indeed.  And love will save the day.  ♥

All Things Wise and Wonderful

While at the thrift shop last week, I spotted a paperback copy of one of the books from Jame's Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small series.  Do you know these books?  My grandmother loved them and always told me I should try them, but although I devoured just about every other book and magazine in her and Papa's house, I somehow could never get into Herriot's writings.  I truly tried.  I read enough of them as a kid--then as a pre-teen, then as a teenager, then as a twenty-something--to remember, without even needing to skim through the book's yellowed pages for a refresher at Goodwill last week, how the veterinary surgeon/narrator was always being telephoned in the middle of the night by farmers in need of his help and how he always seemed to be traveling and working in the cold in the wee hours of the morning.  Grandma would urge me to take one or more of her Herriot books home with me after a visit, but I never did.  "I just can't get into them," I'd apologize to her.  I loved animals and nature and memoirs and history and (the idea of) England but still couldn't connect with her beloved book series.  It's just like that sometimes.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was another of Grandma's favorites, and she was always disappointed that I couldn't get into that story either. 

I would instead leave her and Papa's house with a paper grocery bag full of her "Best Loved" and "America's Favorite" poetry books, her biographies of John or Jacqueline Kennedy, her Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and her Golden Press nature field guides.  While looking at the tree book at their house, I would hold it up and ask Papa after every other page, "Have you seen this tree before?  Have you ever seen one of these?  Do they have these around here?"  Ditto for the American Birds book.  But the Wildflowers book was all Grandma and I, the two of us curled up on "her" chair in the corner of the living room or rocking side by side on the floral barkcloth-cushioned front porch swing as we slowly turned the pages.  Neither Grandma nor I were ever people who fell asleep easily or quickly, and it was while we were looking at the illustrated flowers one day that she told me that when she was in bed and couldn't sleep, she would try to think of a flower that begin with each letter of the alphabet.  It is funny what you remember.  When the time came in 2001 to help my parents clean out Papa and Grandma's house, I left behind many of their books because I assumed others in the family would also want them and I felt the person who had gifted my grandparents with certain books should be the one to hold on to them now.  I saved the "Disney's Wonderful World of Reading" hardcovers that Grandma had read to me before I knew how, and that I would later read and reread to her, in our afghan-covered reading chair, and I took a few more things from her bookcases, but I forced myself to be fair and let go of the rest.  

It was bittersweet when I finally read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn years ago.  Grandma was right and I was wrong:  It is one of my favorite books.  If Grandma had still been alive, it would have been something we would have talked about, or if we weren't going to see each other soon, I would have mentioned it in one of my letters to her.  I wish I could tell her that just recently, I shared with Mike Francie's mom's wise way of helping Francie feel "casually extravagant" by letting her dump her grown-cold coffee down the drain.  I love that. I also love thinking that Grandma knew me in a way that I didn't yet know myself as she watched me pull and then re-shelf books from her collection all those years.  She wouldn't be surprised, then, to hear that I bought the paperback of the James Herriot book last week--and that I am loving it too.  I have raced through the first forty-four chapters and will soon be done with the rest, and I've been bookmarking used copies on amazon of his other works so I can buy them with Christmas money later this month.  I want more, more, more!  Yorkshire is now home of the "World of James Herriot visitor attraction," I've learned this past week.  And an online shop of Herriot merchandise is, they say, coming soon!  While I can't buy Grandma a trinket from the store or museum and it is now too late for more book discussions out on the porch swing, I believe she's somehow shared my excitement this past week as I dip into Mr. Herriot's tales of performing Caesareans on sheep and pulling the village tailor's pins from the pads of his dog's paws.  I really think she knows.  As I cuddle up with the book in my own afghan-covered reading chair this week, it only seems right to believe, given all she knew before and all she knew all along, that somehow, Grandma knows.

Thanksgiving 2012

This year's was the first Thanksgiving I'd ever spent alone.  As I did last year, I volunteered to work this Thanksgiving so that I can instead have off Christmas, and Mike left town early Thursday morning to spend the holiday weekend with his family.  Friday afternoon found me catching up on sleep with Stuffed in bed beside me while the slow cooker worked its magic and later waking to finish cooking, still in my pajamas. 

I had treated myself to a $4 bundle of salmon-pink Roses and frosted and decorated a single carrot muffin--my first sugar in a month--for dessert.  After pouring my iced tea and taking these few photos, I treated Stuffed to a can of wet food, like Lisa did for her cats last Thursday, ♥ and even let him eat at the table for the very first time.  It was Friday night, then, when I finally sat down to enjoy a simple celebration of food and flowers--and a sweet fluff-ball of a dinner companion who always appreciates the good things in life--and to say thank you, again, for everything.

Thanksgiving, I reflected while dining alone (after Stuffed had hopped down from the table and curled up on the floor again), is just pausing to think about all that you have--and all that you have had--and being grateful for it.  To miss eating a bigger meal only meant that I'd been blessed by a finer meal before.  To wish I were with my husband and family only showed that I am lucky enough to love and be loved.  And to feel nostalgic for all the Thanksgivings spent sitting at the kids' table at Papa and Grandma's house only proved that Thanksgivings huge enough to require kids' tables and hosted by happy grandparents are for me, not fantasies but memories. 

Thanksgiving, I was reminded this year, isn't only a "real" Thanksgiving when one is enjoying a full plate or full home. Thanksgiving happens anytime one says thank you with a full heart.  That's all.  And that's everything.

Election Day Love

I love Election Day.  If making it into a national holiday wouldn't "water it down" by eventually changing it to a Monday and turning it into an extended weekend of sales at the mall, I'd say that I'd love to see Election Day become a national holiday.  More friends and families heading out to cast their votes together.  Holding canned food drives at polling places.  Planning Election Day dinners and parties. 

This country, of all countries, should be as enthusiastic about Election Day as it is about the Fourth of July.  Red, white, and blue-sprinkled cupcakes in the bakery shop windows.  American flags whipping in the wind on every house-front.  Lines to vote as long as lines to watch parades.  

"It's not the voting that's democracy," playwright Tom Stoppard (author of my favorite play, Arcadia ♥♥)  notes.  "It's the counting."  Mike and I will walk to our polling place together tonight when he gets home from work, and then it will be a night of sandwiches and spinach-artichoke dip in front of the TV as we watch election coverage.  

I found a number of American flags while out on a walk this morning.  

I love that.  I love seeing the colors, the pride, the lack of apathy.  Today matters.  

Whenever my Italian grandfather would hear some story of "only-in-America" craziness on the nightly news, he would shake his head and mutter, "What a country!"  And always, always, he would follow that with "But I wouldn't want to live anywhere else." ♥

"You kids," he would tell us.  "You just don't know how good you have it." Like most of what Papa said, that is always a good thing for me to remember when I need some perspective. 

This morning shined bright in my neighborhood.  Leaves glittered in the sunlight as they fell from the trees.

After a dark week of rain, this morning's sunshine was a blessing.  A renewal of hope both in and out of the voting booths.  Senator John Kerry's 2004 concession speech beautifully reminds us that "in an American election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans."  ♥  I wish Papa had lived just three years longer so we could have talked about that.  He surely would have been nodding appreciatively at Senator Kerry's words.  "See," he would have told whoever was there in the living room with him.  "He knows.  He knows." 

Crunchy fallen leaves on sidewalks.

Last week's Halloween jack-o-lanterns still sitting on peoples' stoops and front porch steps.

I love the whimsy especially when it is in the form of adult-carved cat-faced pumpkins feet away from political signs and bumper stickers.

I am just pleased to see people take an interest and vote, no matter their choice.  We tend to associate political campaigns with so much negativity, but it seems to me that that is mostly found online and in the media:  In "real" life, I think we all tend to be pretty respectful of each other.  And excited about this day.  Mike's and my old polling place was an elementary school gym, and outside it, the kids would sit at folding tables with hand-drawn-in-crayon "VOTE!" posters taped to the fronts and sell voters cookies.  I really think that when those of us of voting age turn off our televisions and computers and get in line to cast our ballots, the same simple excitement and wonder is ours, as well.  "Hardball" and Fox News and this week's poll and yesterday's "best" attack ads and last week's hard-hitting blah blah blah blah blah all slip away, and We the People are at the polling place with nothing but hopes and dreams and ideas about Changing Things and Making Things Better on our minds.  ♥  Happy Election Day.

Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life. ~ Abraham Lincoln

This week was the first in this apartment that found us sleeping in a "real" bed, since we just this past weekend assembled our newly-bought bed-frame and headboard.  The bedroom is the last room of our new-even-though-we-moved-in-August-1st-of-2011 apartment to be arranged and decorated, so finally, this Monday night, we slept in a properly made-up bed in a room that looked like a bedroom and not just The Room We're Unpacking From.  And it was the strangest of juxtapositions, the cold winds of Hurricane Sandy howling and its rains pelting the windows while Mike, Stuffed, and I curled up under quilts and comforters with a space heater on at the foot of the bed and a battery-operated candle flickering on Mike's nightstand:  Never before had we had such a snug and sound sleep in our new home, and all the while, so many were suffering so horribly.  Mike and I had watched CNN and the Weather Channel for hours before going to bed, in between checking on friends in New Jersey and Connecticut, so we  knew it was getting bad and going to get worse, but it was still shocking, when Mike woke up at 2 a.m. Tuesday and read aloud a news alert that had come across his phone:  "18 people dead."  That number has since risen, of course, but at 2 a.m. Tuesday, to hear such a thing while safely cuddled up against my husband and cat in a comfy new bed, was stunning.  And what was there to do at such an hour but cuddle closer and pray.

Soon after, I dreamed that I was walking past a store that had a group of Salvation Army bell-ringers out front, but they were not only ringing their bells hoping for the usual handfuls of change to be dropped into their red kettles for charity, but also singing, and it was the most beautiful sound I've ever heard, the most beautiful a cappella choir, their voices rising to the sweetest notes and harmonizing perfectly.  I was so moved by the sound of it, I wanted to cry out to tell them how beautiful they were and what a tonic their voices were, but of course, I didn't want to interrupt.  Dropping money into their kettles seemed almost too crass a thing to do in response to a moment of such beauty and grace.  I tried to catch the eyes of some of the singers, but--it being a dream--they were staring above and beyond me while they sang and I couldn't get anyone to make eye contact with me.  I decided just to leave whatever money I had on me, but after scrounging through my pockets and bag, I only came up with 37 cents.  After wrestling with my embarrassment for a few moments, I decided that if that was all I could give, then it would just have to be enough--better that, than nothing--and I dropped my handful of coins into one of the kettles, trying again to make eye contact with the singers while I smiled at them, hoping they understood my appreciation and my offering. 

This week with all its news of Sandy-related destruction and fledgling recovery has so heartbreakingly highlighted our fragility and strength.  "True strength is delicate," as the saying goes.  I have made my small donations to the Red Cross and the Humane Society, and I pray that those at this moment trapped in flooded homes and digging to find anything salvageable in burned-out yards can somehow sense all the prayers and good wishes we have all been sending and find strength in them.  "I don't feel God around me at all right now," I remember whimpering in disbelief to my favorite teacher the day after my best friend died in high school.  But He is here, he reassured me, explaining that God was my friends and my parents and anybody else who did anything kind or good to help me through my grief.  I still believe that, seventeen years later, so now I pray that we are all somehow putting our best selves forward for each other, being the little kids' God who gives away not just clean dry clothes but also coloring books and Halloween candy in makeshift shelters, being the adults' God who sends rescue boats and helps with insurance forms and who hands out hot coffee too.  Let our prayers and our offerings, even if they strike us as small, be enough today and in the days ahead.  I believe that love changes the world and that God is always here, masquerading as Halloween candy, warm blankets, and handfuls of coins.  

 

Flea Market Cat and the Year of (Not) Letting Go

While making my way through muddy paths and blustery winds at the flea market with family last weekend, I spotted this antique toy on a table.  I'm not one for knickknacks but fell for this simple old black and white cat, and after handing my eight dollar bills across the table to the elderly woman who was racing to cover the rest of her wares before the next rain, it was mine.  The older I get, the more I love the quote from William Morris that advises us to "have nothing in [our] houses that [we] do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."   This cat fits the bill for me.  I also love the advice to get rid of a few things for every one thing you bring into your home, so sometime this week, I'll be putting together another bag to donate to Goodwill.  A memoir of my mid-thirties would surely have a chapter titled "Clutter Be Gone."  Too much "stuff" makes me antsy.  Unless it's of books, I despise piles. 

At 24, I wasn't like this.  While discussing one of the "Hoarders" TV shows a couple weeks ago, I told Mike about the time I was shopping at a Salvation Army store in my hometown a few weeks after my family and I had finished cleaning out my grandparents' house and came across some of their belongings on the store's shelves:  My parents had donated to the store the items from Papa and Grandma's house that no one in the family had claimed.  I hadn't wanted these things before, but I suddenly felt sick at the thought of strangers owning the contents of Papa and Grandma's home.  I bought back all their books that I could find on the shelves, along with a porcelain swan that had always sat on top of their piano and that was now marked with a neon green price sticker.  My grandparents had just died in the two months before, and I wasn't ready to let go even this little bit.  Not ready at all.  I made peace with it eventually, and at some point, the books and swan made their way to the Salvation Army a second time, but I spent the spring and early summer of 2001 surrounding myself with boxes and piles of Papa and Grandma's belongings and berating myself for not having "saved" more of it from their house in the first place.  And what little money I was earning that miserable year and the next, I spent too much of on more "stuff" that further cocooned and comforted me.  One afternoon, the mailman delivered an embarrassingly tall stack of packages onto my doorstep only to return to his truck for a second stack--and in front of my younger brother, whose respect is chief amongst those I'd never want to lose.  It was easy for awhile to tell myself and others that I was just buying what I needed for my new apartment or "treating" myself after a hard year of too many disappointments and losses.  Although I was far from a hoarder, I was, in those heartbroken days of 2001 and 2002, surrounding myself with Any Little Thing That Would Make Me Feel Better, even if only by association--This "new-old" damask tablecloth is just like one of Grandma's--or because of misplaced hope--Maybe I'll be wearing this new sky-blue sundress the day my ex-boyfriend finally comes back to me.  I don't laugh at the people being buried alive by their possessions on TV shows.  Sometimes tablecloths and dresses mean so much more than tablecloths and dresses, and sometimes you need to hang on to them awhile.  Some peoples' "awhile" never ends, as those hoarding programs show us, and I feel sorry for them and their loved ones. 

My own "awhile" lasted about a year and a half.  By the end of 2003, I had donated or sold on amazon and eBay most everything that had before seemed so soothing.  I had healed some.  The vintage tablecloth wasn't necessary.  The sundress wouldn't be seen by the ex-boyfriend.  I would continue to remember reading on Grandma's lap as a child even if I gave away most of her books.  Papa and Grandma's house would still live in my memories after its foyer's porcelain swan found a new home.  Eventually, I just realized I'd be okay without it all and that I was, when it came down to it, okay without Papa and Grandma and the ex, as well (if I had to be, and God knows how stubbornly I struggle to accept a loss).  But what you need--all that you really need--I learned in those years, you carry within you.  Death cannot steal it from you, not really.  Goodbyes do not negate it, even when your present seems to have cancelled-out your past.  If the wooden flea market cat makes me happy, I enjoy it.  (It suits me, for sure, and it does look sweet amid the autumn leaves and little pumpkins.)  I enjoy it all the more knowing--finally and truly--that I'd be okay without it too. 

On Sommer's 35th

My friend Sommer would have turned 35 today. She died in a car accident a few months before we graduated from high school in 1995. I myself will be 35 this May, and that seems natural enough, but to imagine Sommer that same age boggles my mind: I didn't get to see even a 19-year-old Sommer, after all, or make it through my twenties with a "twenty-something" one, I didn't get to celebrate our 30th birthdays with her. . . .Som is always my just-turned-18-year-old buddy.

I had a cheerful-looking bouquet delivered to her mom's house today, and tonight I celebrate my sweet girl in a way I think she'd love: Watching her favorite movie, Last of the Mohicans, and eating a batch of cookies my mom had jokingly named after her since she loved them so much and used to request them when she'd come home with me after school. "Wow!" she told her when my mom explained the new name for these most-basic chocolate cookies, "I've never had a cookie named after me before!" Goofball. :) I don't know if I'll be able to get through the movie without bawling--I have only ever seen it with Sommer, one Friday night in 1994 that found us sprawled out on her waterbed to watch it during a sleepover, and I haven't been able to bear it since she died--but I am going to sit down with a few of her cookies and some tea soon and try again. I remember enough about the film to know I will have to mute it during Clannad's hauntingly beautiful song "I Will Find You," for it was on a mix tape Som had given me and it shreds my heart every time I hear it. ("No matter where you go, I will find you ~ If it takes a long long time ~ No matter where you go, I will find you ~ If it takes a thousand years. . .") But I will try. I will try for you, Sommer! Hopefully, my love of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, if not my love of Sommer, will be enough to see me through it. (This is when 17-year-old Sommer and Val would look at his photo above and utter a giggly "Hubba-Hubba!" to each other.) ;)

As Movie Night begins here for me, please give your own friends some extra love and attention. I do what I can for Sommer now, and in the end, I believe love and prayers (and chocolate cookies and Daniel Day-Lewis) really must be enough, but I would give so much for one more of her headlock-bear hugs and to hear her raucous laughter one more time. 

♥

P.S.) If you'd like to join me in baking
some "Chocolate Sommers":

 Mix one box of chocolate cake mix,
two eggs, and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil.

Drop or shape the cookie dough however
you wish, and bake at 350 degrees for
about ten minutes.

You can do this with any flavor of cake mix
to turn it into cookies, but "Chocolate Sommers," 
are, of course, the classic recipe.    :)