Our First Photo as Husband and Wife :)

Mr. Mike and I "ran away and got married" on Friday afternoon. :) It was, as I've told him at least fifty times since then, exactly the day I'd hoped we would have: Laid-back, sweet, simple, sunny, pretty, and fun. We married at the court house in our old college town, where we met in the late 1990s. Years before we ever even started dating, Mike and I jokingly made a pact with each other that if we weren't married by a certain date, we would marry each other, and what do you know, more than a decade later, there we were, back where it all began, driving around the campus in our mid-thirties as husband and wife. Don't ever let anyone tell you that life isn't strange.

When Mike called his parents from our hotel room Friday evening to tell them, his mom said she had figured we were up to something--Mother's intuition. :) And my mom squealed, "What?! VALLY!!!" and then laughed and called out to my dad, "Gene! Val's MARRIED!" (The phone conversations with my mom and dad are two of my favorite memories from the whole experience. I laugh and smile every time I remember them.) Mom said she'd actually told our friend Vickie recently that she wouldn't be surprised just to get a phone call from me one of these days saying Mike and I had "gone off somewhere and gotten married," so she obviously believed me all the times growing up I said I'd prefer to elope. :) Our parents passed the news along to our siblings while Mike and I went out for supper, and reading our brothers' text messages and hearing their voice mails over the weekend made it all even more fun. :) We had had our ceremony at the court house scheduled since January 31st, so to let everyone in on the secret finally has been nice.)

And now it is going on midnight two days later and Mike and I both have to work tomorrow. Girly green-vintage-wedding-dress-and-black-T-strap-shoes-and-cream-tights-and-braided-hair-and-heart-shaped-sugar-cookies-and-Daffodil-bouquet details another day. In the meantime, Val and Mr. Mike are married.  :)

The Greatest Secret in This Universe

This postcard was one of the ones shared at PostSecret this past Sunday, and I found myself nodding my head while reading it. 'A lot of wisdom in a 4"x6" space, that.

When Helen Keller Was Asked ~Can You See a World?~

She responded, "I can see, and that is why I can be happy in what you call the dark--

--but which to me is golden.

I can see a God-made world, not a man-made world."

Club Level Center Ice, Babydolls! :)

I'd only been awake and recovering from work a few hours this afternoon when the message came from Mike: "[My boss] gave me tickets for tonight's game. Put your shoes on, Dear." :) And so I did, and I raced to write back and catch the bus downtown. I don't understand all the rules and penalties and terminology--hockey seems far less straightforward than baseball, which is the only other sport I've ever really watched much--but I enjoy it. Every time we're lucky enough to get tickets to games, we have some real characters sitting around us, making it even better, and I inevitably laugh into Mike's shoulder all night. Tonight it was Row of Experts right behind us--bellowing to the players such rare wisdom as "Hit the net! THE NET!!" all evening--and a man about our dads' age who sat in front of us and turned in his seat after the home team scored its first goal to scream "Woooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" in Mike's face with his eyes crossed. The "Sam the Eagle" expression on Mike's face while the man screamed set off my first wave of giggles, and I was still bursting into intermittent giggling fits remembering it three hours later on the bus home. It was, as they say, a great night for hockey. And yes, our team won. :)

O Love-Star of the Unbeloved March ~ Sir Aubrey de Vere

The best thing about this time of year is seeing my beloved Daffodils in bloom all over town. Yesterday's rain and snow bent them some, but they're no less beautiful for it. 

Time spent with cats is never wasted. ~ May Sarton

Unconquerable

Today is the 16th anniversary of my best friend's death. Last year March 1st passed by almost unnoticed by me, making me think that maybe future March 1sts would be easier than they used to be, but this year the date is hurting my heart the way it used to, and I find myself reliving the play-by-play of the "original" March 1st. Likewise, the one-year mark, back in 1996, actually wasn't too bad--I wrote Sommer a letter in my journal and really felt okay--but the second anniversary found me feeling abandoned by her and again brokenhearted by the loss. Such is grief.

That second anniversary, March 1st of 1997, I was home from college for the weekend. I remember complaining off and on all day to my mom that I hadn't felt much of a connection to Sommer lately and that that was making this day even harder. I had recently transferred to a new college, after having completed my freshman year elsewhere, and I had yet to make any friends at school. It didn't seem like too much to ask, I'm sure I pointed out to Mom, for Sommer to let me know that she was still around me. I had been so lonely that fall and winter, watching seemingly every other student on campus hanging out with their own best friend. So maybe today, two years after her death, there could be a sign of some kind: A whiff of her perfume, a favorite song of ours on the radio, a sense of her hand on my shoulder--Anything.

Sommer had come through for me before since passing over, after all. One afternoon in my high school Spanish class in those first few soul-shattering weeks after she had died--and mere minutes after my teacher had thoughtfully asked how I was doing and if things were getting any easier and I had replied, trying not to cry in front of him, that no, sorry, I thought things were actually getting harder and worse--I wearily flipped open a book of Spanish literature I had been assigned in preparation for my end-of-year AP exams only to find myself looking down at a Pablo Neruda poem titled "The Dead Woman":

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall go on living.
I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.
I shall go on living.
For where a man has no voice,
there, my voice.
Where blacks are beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.
When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory comes,
even though I am mute I must speak;
I shall see it come even
though I am blind.
No, forgive me.

If you are not living,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but

I shall go on living,
because above all things
you wanted me unconquerable,

and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.
 

Upon reading it, I got up from my desk and carried the book back to my teacher, pointing at the poem with shaky hands. "Can you believe this?" I tried to whisper, since it was silent reading time. "Look at this! Have you seen this before?!" He quickly scanned the poem and nodded at me, understanding what I was and wasn't saying. By the end of the class period, I had memorized the poem and its beautiful lines had become my mantras. "If you are not living, if you my beloved, my love, if you have died. . .But I shall go on living. . .You wanted me unconquerable."
 

But two years later, March 1st of 1997 was passing without a sign from Sommer, and long after my parents and younger brother had gone to bed that night, I finally gave up on it and decided to turn in too.  I stayed in bed for awhile but could tell I wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon, so I grabbed a blanket and tiptoed back downstairs to watch TV in the living room. I wasn't much of a TV-watcher then--I haven't been since I was a kid--and I didn't have a TV in my dorm room back at college either, so I had no idea what was on, and I didn't care. The first channel I stopped at was showing a film I hadn't seen or even heard of before, and I soon found that it wasn't by accident that it was on: The movie was Truly, Madly, Deeply.  In it, Nina is grieving the recent death of her boyfriend, Jamie, and Jamie returns to her both to show her that he's still there for her and to help her move on with her life. This is it! My sign! I wanted to scream upstairs to my mom, but the rest of the house was asleep. I settled back onto the couch cuddled up in my blanket, stunned.

And then I was yet more stunned to hear Spanish being spoken in the movie, and to hear Nina saying to Jamie, "I know this poem." As I sat and watched, with a chill moving through me, Jamie nodded back at her, and continued reciting the poem's verses in Spanish while Nina translated them back to him in English.  I knew this poem too:

"If you are not living,
If you, my beloved, my love,if you have died. . .
But I shall go on living."

My spine tingled. This is Sommer. Sommer is here. Sommer is here! This time, I didn't even want to call upstairs to Mom. This was my time with my friend. As loyal as ever, she had not forgotten me, she had not abandoned me, and she had not forgotten how to make me feel better. After the movie ended, I remained on the couch in the dark silent living room, just thinking. Had I come back downstairs to watch TV even five minutes later, I'd have missed it. Before heading back upstairs to go to bed later, I would tear that day's TV schedule page from the newspaper to save as a reminder to myself: Death does not end relationships. All those I've loved and lost are still with me. Love is eternal. And I shall go on living. ♥

(The Spanish begins around the 3:25-mark.)

 

Sick Day(s) with Stuffed

'Hoping this miserable cold does not turn into the full-blown respiratory infection I had in August, I have spent the past few days in bed trying to rest as much as possible. Stuffed remains by my side, only stirring when jostled awake when I get up to get another orange or more tea. Sweet little cat. ♥

Fast away the old year passes

In early December, my friend Madai shared a photo of a dear little "Deck the Halls" sign tucked in with her Christmas decorations, and it just spoke to me. The font, the size, the simplicity, the weathered black and sepia, the frame, the message: I just purely loved this tiny thing. Imagine my surprise last week when a care package from Madai arrived and after gently undoing a small sheet of pale blue polka dotted tissue paper, I found "my" sign inside! I hadn't expected that, and while it was part of an entire box full of thoughtful and beautifully-wrapped goodies, the little sign and its accompanying note were what touched me the most and made me cry. Thank you again, sweet Madai! Stuffed soon abandoned it for his food dish, but I myself will treasure it--and you--always. ♥

I look forward to 2011, but I just don't feel ready for it. I don't feel done with 2010 yet. I just packed away the Christmas decorations Monday.  And 2010 was a pretty neat year: I redid our bathroom in red polka dots.   We survived the blizzard in February, although our ceiling leaked for a good week as the snow melted.   I continued to volunteer at the two places I started at in 2009.   I redid our kitchen in a vintage-ey green.   I shoved my shyness aside and forced myself to attend a volunteering-related banquet.   I ran my first half-marathon and my third and fourth 5K races.   I got to spend my 33rd birthday with family. I got a job at one of my dream-job places.   I finally got to see Tom Petty in concert.   My nephew started kindergarten.I made some new friends online.   My cousin Mark and I started keeping in touch with letters and postcards.   I entered Stuffed's picture in a photo contest, and he won.   I only missed three days of work while sick with the Croup/respiratory infection.   I received a couple great fortune cookie messages.   I finally got around to making the hand/paw-print painting with Mike and Stuffed.  I made it home for Thanksgiving and Christmas--this one last time for each holiday as "just" my parents' daughter and not as someone's wife too.    I had a fun phone conversation with my aunt Heidi Christmas afternoon.    I decided to watch more movies in 2010, and I did, and my favorites were Little Miss Sunshine, Garden State, Before Sunset, Lost in Translation, and Love, Actually.    I liked I'll Never Be French by Mark Greenside and Anne Frank Remembered by Miep Gies more than anything else I read last year.   I loved a few songs Mike introduced me to whose names are escaping me right now.   (Something by the Gorillaz was one.)   I cooked cream of artichoke soup, "lasagna soup," and a spinach-lentil soup for the first time.   I made maple cookies for the first time.   I began feeding the birds in our apartment's backyard.   I started making the trip downtown to share Mike's lunch-hour with him the days I have to work nights, so that we'll have that much more time to connect.   I played cards with my dad for the first time.  Goodbye and thank you, 2010, a month late.  

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. ~ Eden Philpotts

Before being hired for the position I've had the past six months, I spent two and a half years working as a cook. Although I love to cook and bake, the job was not my dream job, and although I knew I was still working toward my goals and doing the best I could, there were days it was all just maddeningly frustrating. Since it takes awhile to realize a pattern is, in fact, a pattern, I don't remember when I first started noticing this, but at some point, I began seeing hearts at work: Heart-shaped soap splashes by the kitchen sink's, one heart-shaped potato chip on the edge of the deep fryer while the rest of the chips had made it into the fry-baskets, a heart-shaped spill of maraschino cherry juice. My supervisor would call out from the walk-in freezer that a container of gravy had been knocked off of the shelf and would I please clean it up, and I would be greeted by a heart-shaped gravy spill before me. I would bend down to pull a red onion from their box and find instead a heart-shaped piece of Romaine lettuce on the floor in front of me. The other cook would bump his hand into my cup and my iced tea would slosh onto the table in a heart-shaped puddle. The daily sweeping and mopping of the restaurant would almost always find me reaching for my cell phone to take a quick picture of the heart-crumb or stain that was suddenly stubbornly stuck to the floor. If one of the hundreds of red potatoes was heart-shaped, it would be I and not the other cook on my shift who would blindly grab it from the bin. 

These moments sound like stretches of the imagination, but they happened so frequently, and only at work, and even then, only when I wasn't expecting them. If I looked down at the counter in deliberate search for anything heart-shaped before beginning to make a waffle for someone, I wouldn't see a thing, but two minutes later when the waffle iron would beep, I'd start to scrape the baked-on batter from around the iron's edges only to find that some had already baked into a perfect heart. I'm sure I was Cliff Claven-ish enough to show my coworkers the heart-shaped potato and chip, but I didn't tell anyone at work just how often this happened to me.



 
I began to believe at some point that all these hearts were not "just" hearts. Granted, they were not visions of saints in toast, but as crazy as it may sound to others--and as it did to Mike when I'd mention over supper that day's latest heart-discoveries--the hearts began to feel like signs to me. All those days working in a restaurant kitchen when I ached to be somewhere else doing something else, just when I thought I'd flip out and scream, I'd be "tagged" again and a heart-shaped bacon-piece would be left over on a guest's plate like a calling card from the universe and bring me some small comfort. It is silly and a bit sad, really, the things that help get us through the hard times, but whatever works, I say. Maybe the hearts were signs and maybe they weren't, but eventually I decided that every time I found one from then on, I'd take a deep breath, thank God that I had a job at all, and recommit to the goals of hanging in there and being patient while working toward something else.
 
What ended up being two and a half years passed, as time always does, and last May, the phone call requesting an interview for my current position finally came. Call me crazy, and point out that I reaaaaaaaally could have used some time off, but I take my magic where I can find it and am grateful for it when I do. I haven't noticed any hearts--edible, spilled, or otherwise--in ages. I found them when I needed them, and I am thankful.