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(my first found hearts in awhile)
Last week at this time, I was delighted to find the above postcard in the day's mail: The stranger I'd briefly talked with on a walk in February to whom I'd sent a surprise Valentine had written back. The postcard's front was one of Monet's dreamy water lily paintings. The note on the back mentions that, "[His] water lilies also resemble hearts." Yes. The postcard had made my day anyway, but that observation continues to tickle me. How sweet this world can be.
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One of the highlights of watching the finale of "Downton Abbey" yesterday was being surprised to see Daisy transformed into my grandmother's 1927 high-school-graduation portrait-self. Even their dresses were so similar. I started crying as soon as I saw dolled-up Daisy after Anna styled her new haircut.
For Grandma's high school graduation present, her older brother treated her to a trip to stay with him and his wife in Detroit. Below is Grandma on that trip, looking like she could be visiting "Downton's" Mary and Henry at the race track.
Such a dear hairdo. I tried its once in my mid-twenties and can assure you that it just doesn't happen with naturally curly hair. :)
But Daisy and Grandma--and certainly posh Mary--more than make it work.
Those eyes!
That lace collar!
Sweet, sweet Grandma. And sweet "Downton" too. I didn't like a lot of this final season, but the finale was solid. Their "Happy new year" and the home in the snow, and with Grandma on my mind. . .I cried a few times while I watched this yesterday. "Auld lang syne," indeed.
While out walking a couple weeks ago, I noticed the heart-shaped Ivy leaves growing along the front of a house. I paused to take a few pictures of them, and while crouched down to get the right angle, I heard someone call out, "Is something interesting?" I felt a momentary flutter of panic then realized I could hear a smile in the voice. I looked up and saw a woman backing her car into the house's driveway while she waited for my response. I explained that the Ivy had heart-shaped leaves and that they were too striking not to photograph. Still smiling, she said she was glad to hear that something on her property was photogenic. She had been living there for more than forty years, she went on, and it was nice to hear that other people saw things they liked about it. The property is beautiful, so I easily found more than a couple other "photogenic" things to mention about it. "Are you a professional photographer?" was her next question. I explained about my walks and how the camera makes them more fun for me, and as I gestured to her Ivy again, she commented that the picture would make a nice Valentine. She was quite right, so after making a mental note of her house's number, I had the photo made into a greeting card last week and I mailed it out to her address this morning. I have been wrong about things like this before, but I am guessing this pleasant person will not mind the surprise.
The holiday hoopla threw my writing routine out of whack, but this first week of February, I'm finally settling back into one. This is how dreams live or die, it seems: A few days of not working toward a goal turn into weeks of not working toward it, and then a couple months have passed, and then a whole half-year, and then the dream becomes something one was involved in in once years ago. . . .I return to this, though, and I will keep returning to it: to my seat at this table and to these stacks and bags of index cards and diaries and family photos, and to the belief that this matters.
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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.
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"I do remember you with your beautiful hair bouncing until your mother pulled it back." So funny. How in the world would she remember such a thing?! She just retired from teaching in December after having taught dance for fifty years, she reported. And she signed her letter, "Love, Miss Karen." Surely, we must have called her that in class instead of just "Karen" as I had been recalling. My mom will probably remember. She filled an entire note-card and it is all so sweet. Oh my goodness, I will treasure this. ♥
Eleven years ago today, I made these nephew-in-his-snowsuit sugar cookies for my family. Little Dylan was then the bundled-up dumpling below, so you can see why I just had to. ♥
At that time, I was in my last push toward finishing graduate school and the baking and cake/cookie-decorating were huge parts of my stress-relief that winter, as gardening was in the warmer months. My family and I ate more than our fair share of buttercream back in those days, let's just say.
And now this pudgy baby who inspired his own sugar cookie is heading to middle school next year. But still: So sweet. ♥
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