Not the laundromat

I discovered a book in library donations today that was entitled "Washday and others"

Washday when I was growing up, was huge. There were two parents and five children in our family and we all wore clothes.

There was a laundry basket in the closet off the bathroom where we all were supposed to place our dirty clothes to be washed.

I guess what happened next was Mother's schlepping them down two flights to the cellar. I really mean cellar, with only the thinnest of pedigrees toward basement. She did advance to an electric washer about 1/3 of the way through my childhood. Before that it was the wringer outfit where we used to flirt with danger of squashed fingers feeding items through those unforgiving rollers.
 
But wringer or automatic, it was work in capital letters. Basket after basket. And yes she had a dryer and no, she didn't use it unless pressed to the wall on rainy days. All other days found her donning the skimpiest of sweaters and a kerchief over her black wavy hair and off she trotted to the wash line, clothespin bag slung across her chest like a paperboy's sack. And that wash got pegged into the wind.

Work, yes, but love by the basketful.

 And at night we slept on sheets of sunshine.

good to the last

Mugs.

We all have them spilling out of our cupboards. In my childhood we only had cups and saucers - china for special occasions, some form of modern "plastic" for everyday. Then at some point, mugs came into popular use - with all kinds of "witty" sayings on them, or holiday destinations, or anniversaries, or just mugs of all shapes, designs and colors, commemorating nothing!

I have favorites.

One Marv brought me from Pittsburgh - a very artistic one with brown, grey and purple streaks flowing through it at unexpected places, leads the pack. There is one with a blue/white country scene that has a mill which reminds me of Grandpa Weaver's; one from Harrod's in London; one from Newfoundland with a picture of the church we attended so I say hello to Nanny each time I pull it down; one from a dollar store in Ocean City bought when the boys and I did a holiday together there - precious, beloved junk; one with our son's business logo; one with Great Falls park scene, etc., etc.

Each one brings a smile. Each one brings a flick of memory or emotion.

Having the right mug, at the right time, filled with dark, rich, steaming, aromatic coffee truly is the best thing about waking up. Get a grip, inhale, and sip pleasure into the day!

when the sun shines

Seriously, does it make a difference?

Today has been damp, chilly, wet, gray, heavy, bleak, uncomfortable.

Friends of my son got married on this day. For weeks we've had high blue skies, sunshine fairly bouncing off each surface, shadows dancing in the light, breezes blowing - heavenly. I mourned all day for them!

Today I want to retreat to my easy chair, drape my shoulders with a shawl and read until I fall asleep.Yesterday I wanted to walk around the lake twice.

I'm really rather horrified that my activities are so dictated by the weather. Now if I had been scheduled to work both days, I would only have been marginally affected. But having to marshal the two days on my own, I cavort in the brightness and completely capitulate under the weight of the gray.

Wow.

Gotta move to Florida. Yep old-timer, pack yer bags.

sugar bread

As if my childhood world wasn't fortified with enough sugar from cakes, cookies, doughnuts, pies and puddings, I still have one particular shining memory of sweetness.

Sugar bread.

Mother didn't allow it often. Wonder why.

But when this wondrous thing happened, one took a slice of Sunbeam bread, the one with another little blue-eyed, blond girl happily eating a slice of white bread slathered with a buttercup yellow spread, spread one's own thickly with soft butter and then  - the coup de grace- carefully, over the sink to avoid a mess, sprinkled it thoroughly with white refined sugar. This delicacy was then gingerly transferred out on the porch and down on the steps before one bite could be taken.

My brother and I sat there, in heaven, munching down slowly into the buttery goodness, bite by bite, letting the melting sugar dance on our tongues.

The world may just have been recovering from a major ravaging war whose evil had shaken its foundation.

But for us it was just sunshine and sugar bread.

No shades of gray

When I was nine years old, I believed I would go to hell if I read the comics in the evening papers without being "saved" so I took appropriate measures -  because I had to keep up with the fascinating life of Kerry Drake!

While I cherish the community and family values my church provided, the early scathing indoctrination of right and wrong is horrifying to me in retrospect.

Yet, now in different ways, I think it is easy to make just didactic judgments in different areas - say politics. I used to know if a person was doomed or not if they used lipstick. Now I know they are if they believe in Rush Limbaugh!

Unless  our eyes and hearts are wide open we take that black pencil and white paper and make neat little boxes - all our lives.

On the mountain road

On many a summer childhood day the declarative call went out to the kitchen door, "We're going on a bike ride" and the answering maternal call bounced back, "Be careful and be back by suppertime."

That simple.

Yes it was the country and we had simple bucolic roads to travel where the largest danger lurking was a mean dog on Billy Snyder's farm. He would run out and nip at your heels. Terrifying. To be avoided. But still, to get to those side roads meant navigating stretches of the heavily traveled Rt. 322. I still shudder when I think of our sometimes wobbly passages on pavement with no shoulders, high drop-offs, sometimes horse-and-buggy traffic snarls when cars would shoot out behind the slow moving vehicles, and always, always steady traffic. But once the secondary roads were reached we could amble at our leisure. And we often stopped at creeks, ponds, and shady trees to while away the time,whistling through blades of summer grasses.

One afternoon, however, bored with the usual, we decided to stray a bit further. I can't remember if we ever even broached the idea to our parents of riding up to the mountains, a ride far off our beaten path, to visit the radio station there - one we listened to all the time and thought it would fun to explore. We rode and rode - the actual mileage way beyond our scanty memories, anxiety mounting as we kept going. We knew that my friend's grandmother lived on the same mountain road and if worse came to worst, we could stop there and have our parents pick us up. Once committed we just kept riding. The trees got thicker, the road steeper and more lonely.

 All of a sudden a car roared by us and then stopped and backed up. I'm remembering at least three men, all scruffy, I'm sure from my now adult perspective, all high on something, called out to us "Hey girls, want to go for a ride?" Petrified, we said no and kept pedaling as they trolled along beside us. Then one of them said, "lets get 'em". The words tumble down through almost 60 years just as clearly as when they were uttered. And one guy opened the door and got out.

So who else was on the mountain that day? I didn't notice the rush of wings, but as we were pedaling indeed as though our lives depended on it, another one of the guys said, "Aw, let 'em go." And guy No.1 reluctantly climbed back in and they roared away.

We stopped. We had to because you can't ride bike with legs of jelly. We probably cried. And you know, my memory stops at that point. We may have pushed on to Grandma Fry's house. We may have turned down the mountain and literally sailed home. We obviously got home somehow. Everything is obliterated from the moment the car sped off. Horror does that.

I'm sure we were reprimanded. I'm sure parental hearts beat much faster at the telling of our story. I'm sure we never ventured beyond the known again. But we still were allowed to ride freely - now with fresh eyes.

So, yes, we lived and biked among birds, butterflies, creeks, dairy cattle in idyllic meadows, small towns with grocery stores, schools and churches in those long summer days.

But up in the mountains where life had shadows, it was not the same.

Pass the fans

The other day I heard that one of our high schools in the DC area was closed for the day because the air conditioning wasn't working properly. And I had to smile.

If that were the yardstick, my entire education experience would have had to be canceled!!

Not from the hot buzz of May days in a two-roomed schoolhouse to the swelter of June in college classrooms did we have air-conditioning. And, surprisingly, we lived to tell about it.

What has happened to us?

I am among the first at the library to mention that the a/c doesn't seem to be functioning well and prompt the call to the HVAC crew. I hate being uncomfortably hot now.

But when I stop to take a cleansing breath, I have to realize that while I don't want to go back, I would like to think that I'm not as pampered as I am!

Forward motion

My Zen calendar's thought for September is "Move and the way will open"

Hmmmm.

I guess I know one thing for sure. It won't open if ones does nothing! Movement will at least guarantee a scattering of molecules in some direction.

But I like the concept. Sometimes the enormity of the situation immobilizes us when taking that first tentative step brings at least a ray of light.

I have friends facing huge challenges right now and I can only guess how much courage movement - any movement takes.

A toast to first steps!

Mary

Our book club - largely composed of women - contains a woman of a certain age - 95! Yesterday, after our discussion, her daughter arrived with the makings of a small surprise luncheon. It was a celebration of pure joy. Mary's body is frail, but her spirit is boundless. She was traveling through a vale of depression following her husband's death a few years ago, and discovered our group. While we have brought life to her, she has invigorated us as well. She reads every book and her comments and observations are just as pertinent as the woman in the next seat.

95. Should I live that long, I want to be attending a book club and reaching for the heart of literature and life, too!

To your health

I heard a most interesting quote this morning on NPR : "the inability to forgive is like taking a poison and expecting someone else to die."

Forgiveness.

Such a sweet sound but in reality a jagged concept to swallow.

How, when people - from criminals to family - cross your line of sensibility can you forgive, really?

Survival, pure and simple, when all is said and done.

That poison doesn't digest easily.

dance my way to heaven

Garrison Keillor had a group on his show singing the following:

"Two Hands" by Townes van Zandt!

"I got two hands
gonna clap my hands together
I got two legs
gonna dance to heaven's door
I got one heart, gonna fill it up with jesus,
and I ain't gonna think about trouble anymore"

That shining bubble of lyrics, rhythm, music and theology jumpstarted my day

Maybe my week.

Maybe even longer.

Lying in one's bed and making it

Lets take the concept of making one's bed.

Each morning, every morning you make your bed, don't you?

Why? You will crawl into it approximately 12 + hours later and mess it all up again.
Some say, why bother?

But bother I must! Nothing makes me feel less like leaving the bedroom and starting the day like an unmade bed! I smooth the spread almost fanatically free of wrinkles and see that the hem is hanging evenly, stepping back with a critical eye.

Somehow it seems to me that in the back of my head, I believe the day will be neater too if that bed is shipshape!

Or is it the desire to banish the night? Any evidence that the darkness was here and may return.

No, for me I think its just a desire to get one small step in the day off to a good start! No Freudian overtones, just, thank God, one thing under control!

Refuge

Take the word "Mama".

Tender. A world of meaning. I always called my mother "Mama" until I was a teenager and moved to the more dignified "Mother". I think all my sibs stuck with "Mama". Years later I was talking with Mother about this and she said she did the same thing as a teenager! I can still hear my aunts and uncles referring to Grandma as "Mom" and my mother using the title "Mother". Now, why I wonder, would we both have done the same thing. Curious.

But one time when I was squarely in the Mama days, my six-year-old friend and I were climbing the willow tree in her backyard. As often developed on those hot summer days, we had to spice up the action by daring ourselves to see who could climb the highest. Higher and higher we crept until I went a branch too far and crack! - the whole branch broke and I fell flat on my back from a substantial height, knocking the breath clear out of me. At the first tiny bit of speech I could generate came to gasp "M...a...m...a!! It is astonishing that I didn't break anything but the branch! And I was truly mortified after it was all over that I played the Mama card!

But there you have it - then and now - I turn to that holy of holies, my mother, in times of deepest emotion. I know it will all feel better if I can just get to her side.

Days which will live in infamy

I am listening to a book called Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield - a wrenching, but fascinating story of a young Japanese girl and her mother who were part of the Japanese internment at Manzanar after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The bleak horror of what they had to endure was not new to me as an adult, but what I'm puzzled by is why I never heard about it as a child. Granted, the camp was closed in 1945 - too early for me to know then, but I never recall studying about it at all. I was expressing my dismay to a friend about how we uprooted thousands of innocent people in one fell swoop and left them essential prey to the climate and the power struggles within the flimsy camps. She said simply, "Remember it was war and we were circling the wagons."

Reminds me again how I hate war in all its grotesque disguises.

Book Group

What is more sweet than a group of women (with a stray man thrown in from time to time) getting together to - excitedly - discuss a book we have all read!

Seriously. What?

I lead a group that has been gathering since 2001. That's a lot of books. A lot of words. A lot of emotion.

But here's the thing. You read a book. I read a book. I think one thing. You think another. Yet in the sharing of those thoughts, edges blur and substance fuses. With my group I can pretty well guess by now, how the dice will fall, but still, I'm always surprised!

I thank God for curious minds, open hearts, kindness and laughter. Mix all those things together and you have a delightful hour dancing between the pages.

least of these

We choose
carefully
our targets
for righteous
indignation.

A child
abused
bullied
left in a hot car
malnourished.

But when they
wander into
politically
mined
borders 
 
we
are
silent.

Elementary, my dear Watson

Whenever I write a note at the Info Desk for a patron - writing down a call number, author, title, phone number - whatever - invariably someone comments on my handwriting. Now its not that I think my handwriting is bad - but compared to my dad's it's pretty ordinary! As a child we copied cursive letters from the large white-on-black alphabet letters that rested atop the blackboard, painstakingly shaping and measuring them to touch the appropriate lines on our special handwriting papers. We spent hours doing this!

In the gentle,spoof bragging that we did in our family, Dad always touted the Palmer method of penmanship he had to learn as a child. And boy, did he learn it! His handwriting held beauty - flowing, even, lovely.

I'm truly shocked to read that children of today are no longer necessarily being taught cursive writing of any kind, let alone Palmer! What kind of milestone have we reached when we assume there is no longer need for cursive writing? Does that mean - no hand-written notes of any kind - thank you, I'm sorry, I miss you, have a safe trip, happy birthday/bar mitzvah/anniversary/baby/graduation/father's day/mother's day/grandparent's day - nothing?

And will we block print both lines where documents say, "print" and "signature"?

And will typing just be the only way to communicate outside of talking?

The other day when a mother complimented me, I stepped on my soapbox. She said, "oh, I couldn't agree more. At our Catholic schools we insist on cursive writing."

To which I say, way to go Catholics!

 C'mon people. Palmer Method or not, we need to learn how to write!

After Arthur

I know on the beach-goers are sighing. Particularly, if this is their cherished summer vacation time. Arthur has brought buckets of rain along the coast, but what it has brought to us here in Northern Virgina is magic! Instead of the drone of a/cs we have open windows/doors and the washed sunny breezes are sweeping the house. Ahhhh.

To amend my mother's cheerful mantra - "Open all the windows, open all the doors, and let the merry sunshine in" I would add "merry wind" as well today.

Usually March winds get my attention, but this July wind is priceless.

last laugh

You know the days when you take to work a special kind of dessert (i.e., biscotti from Costco that are drizzled with chocolate, caramel and sea salt) in a little plastic bag that you intend to last a week – or perhaps just two days – and the sun doesn’t set on those suckers? Yep, that’s today.

What is it about those good intentions? They seem to have the staying power of mist. I step on the scales in the morning and say, “okay, today be mindful of everything you put into your mouth.” And truly, I am mindful – which ratchets up the guilt of indulgence exponentially! Those five pounds, that just seem to dance on and off my body at will, taunt me

 

Why is the last of a lot of things the stickler? I had a member of my book club, who had broken her ankle over winter, tell me that she met a “last step” support group! They were all injury-blessed people who had missed that last step on a staircase! Now going down any flight I look and look again, because I know how that last step gets taken for granted – you made it, crash!

 

I guess that's the key. Be mindful to the very end of everything! Don't just start the process.

and the earth gave forth

I awoke to a bird symphony, so much better than a buzzer.

Being Saturday, I headed down to the Farmers Market. The stunning array of color, texture and scents caught my breath - radishes, corn, tomatoes, basil, kale, blueberries, eggplant (God had a surge of artistry going in that creation!), goat cheese, croissants, sausages, herbs, pickles, popcorn, salad greens, honey, breads, raspberries.... the kaleidoscope dazzled. But here's the thing, I brought a small amount of cash to limit myself and two stops cleaned me out! If I had a market like this to go to each day, I'd buy for the day, each day. But so much is fragile and fleeting so you really can't buy for the week.

But back home I sliced my first heirloom tomato, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and felt summer begin. Gloriously.

on the banks

This morning's walk around the lake was that little slice of perfection that so seldom comes your way. The sky was sun-bright clear and the water reflected every sparkle.

My mind skipped to the Chesapeake Bay where we go every summer and mornings on the dock when the bay is flat-calm. "Like glass" by childhood father would announce to us coming back to the cabin after an early morning survey of boating conditions.

Gazing out over brilliant water irons out my soul. Somehow all the tangles of life seem to have potential for fixing or at least managing.

Water somehow rights my balance.

And sets straight my path.

With joy.

Heavely breezes blow

We're re-landscaping the front of our townhouse and it strikes me as being a bit like raising children! You don't know exactly how it's all going to turn out. Will this shrub spread out too much? Is this the right texture? Color? And how much space to leave? - now there's the question!!

And on that theme we were at a wedding over the weekend where the minister quoted Gibran and the idea of having space between you and your lover to "let the winds of heaven dance between." I do so love that quote and feel it has saved many a marriage, and kept many a child from running away from home!

Question is - how much heavenly wind do I need between my spreading yew and my Japanese maple?

out, damned spot

On NPR I heard a quote from the book The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet:

 "Adults were pack-rats of old useless emotions."

How true!

 As I weed through my closet and discard that dress that I will never be thin enough to wear comfortably again, the sweater with a missing button, the skirt that really doesn't "go with" anything else, the blazer that has shoulder-pads, the jeans that are too short or too long or too snug, the blouse with the shadow of a stain ---- along with all these items that I might, just might, want to wear one day should go:

the slight from a friend ages ago

the failed resolution

the embarrassing faux pas

the consternation of  unwise decisions

the fears of what might be

the sawing anxiety of should-have-dones

.....etc, etc. 

Toss!

Vacuum the whole area!

Clean spaces make breathing so much easier.

Oh what is so rare

June.

Morning.

Tit-mouse's "Judy, Judy, Judy" (will he ever find her?)

Sunlight spackling green leaves,

Nosey breezes float through the window.

Eden.

In a galaxy far, far away....

Remember observation decks at airports?

I was reading in my mother's 1957 diary about how the whole family traveled from Lancaster to LaGuardia to see a cousin take off for Switzerland. It was a very big deal! And as the plane was late - (even in '57!) - we had lots of time to be out watching the planes, landing and taking off. We spent hours there and it was pure entertainment. We thrilled as the plane finally took off in the darkening sky.

Wow. There are just so many things that make that scenario seem like it should be in a history book instead of my life!

April

For one glorious month the world breathes color softly.

The greens feather layer by layer.

The pinks emerge petal by petal

The sky croons an azure love song.



Autumn blazes.

Spring is slow, wondrous promise.

Guarded

I was thinking yesterday about openness.

A line from Mother's diary yesterday said "we slept with the windows and doors open".

While our windows always open except in severe cold or heat, our doors are always locked. Always. Day and night.

In our childhood home we didn't even have keys to doors - that I know of. I guess the back door had a push lock, but the house was simply never locked - even when we went away on long trips. And we never gave it a thought. I don't ever remember being scared of burglars or invasions of any kind.

Now look at us.

In a near DC suburb, a beloved music teacher was shot point blank when she answered her door. Still no reason.

I never answer the door unless I rcognize who is standing on the other side

As for answering the phone, we haven't for years. Our land-line whose very existence is nearing an end, has an answering machine whose volume is turned up and we screen all calls. Cell phones offer the same preview. In my childhood days we raced to answer the phone. It demanded and commanded. Now it is all but ignored.

It seems impossible that in my one seemingly short lifetime, our world has gotten so buttoned up, stitched shut, turned and hemmed for good measure.

We are wary of life.

Shelter

There's been a lot of talk lately about the importance of families eating dinner together.

Always I am transported back to the kitchen table in Hinkletown, seven of us gathered around the table, bowls and platters of food heaping the center - usually containing something like creamy mashed potatoes, with a big dollop of butter melting down the sides and a liberal sprinkling of pepper. And of course meat, fried, sauteed, simmered, roasted - always super tender and gravied.
And vegetables from the garden - fresh, frozen, canned. And desserts - pies, puddings, cookies, cakes.

But all that, despite its mouth-watering goodness, was incidental to the conversation. Make that, bombardment of words! Everyone was eager to chime in about his or her day. It was a challenge to be heard. More of a challenge not to be mocked by my all-knowing elder sibs. But it was a family forum. If you had issues with your teacher - always the teacher side would be taken. "what did you say?" What were you doing at the time?" Always a different perspective was brought out. We vented jokes, resentment, hardships, achievements, - all the stuff of life got tossed into the family fire. Insignificance evaporated, gold remained. The day could be shelved now that it was shared.

Today's accelerated schedules have families eating, sharing, musing on the run. That can work too.

 But there is something irreplaceable about laying down baggage before a group of inspectors who love you and who motion you safely through that day's security check.

the link

My Pakistani hair stylist believes the mind controls the body. If you meditate deeply you can purge yourself of illness of the heart and flesh. I love the way her eyes sparkle and how she believes.

And while I truly agree that there is an element of truth there, her philosophy when followed through to the end, quickly leads one down the path to a dimly lit childhood room where neighbors sobbed over a damaged child who was to be healed that day and wasn't.

Who was the culprit who didn't have enough faith?

 Lord, is it I?

On the road again

Picture it. Road trip in the 1950's. Family car full of  4-5 children (depending on who got bribed to stay home) and two parents. No a/c.  Snacks like chips and pretzels. Thus water - in a thermos jug with a spigot and a top cap-cup which we all drank from with one accord.

And for entertainment? We played the Alphabet Game, scanning billboards (remember them), advertisements, license plates, place names, business signs, anywhere letters were lurking was fair game, until you reached the end and shouted "Z done!" Loudly. The Q, X and the Z were the toughies, and J was no easy get either. I remember in a bleak prairie stretch I snatched a J from a passing Henry J and was jubilant! Quaker State Motor Oil gas stations were our friends.

Or we played the Animal Game. Yes, that's right, we counted animals. Most four-legged critters had a value of 1, but dogs were 5 and cats were worth 20 lovely points - if my distant memory serves me. And if you came to a graveyard on your side (you had to pick a side at the start) you had to "bury" all your animals and start over. These were the big times.

Or we sang. Lots. Within the car most likely we had four-part harmony and it was lovely.

Or we played Twenty Questions or other mental guessing games.

And sometimes - if we were lucky, we hit along the wayside, a series of  rectangular signs that contained a little poem and the end sign which read Burma Shave. I never knew anyone who used Burma Shave, but it has a warm spot in my heart always for the sprouts of laughter it brought along life's highways. Two I always can remember

A man, a miss
A car, a curve
He kissed the miss
And missed the curve
Burma Shave.

and

Cattle crossing
Please go slow
That old bull
Is some cow's beau,
Burma Shave.

There were no CD's, DVDs, smart phones, iPads, Kindles - no one was plugged into his or her own electronic world. The time traveling on those four tires was shared. And yes of course from time to time there was bickering, "picking on (fill in the blank)", irritable, hot, sweaty, tired, hungry people ---- but for many more miles we played together.

 I would just like to return for just one sweet draught of that simplicity.

better boring

Freddy Falooting Frog
Hated to sit on a log
So he hopped on out
To a crocodile snout
Now Freddy is no more!

Heavenly

Sunday morning
Russian choral music
swept clear
a path to God.

Conestoga yearning

This winter morning,
Harris Teeter's mint
stood at attention,
each delicately veined leaf
beckoning.
Sure it was
$2.29 for a small bunch,
but what a bargain
for the deep inhalation
of meadows.

Sons

"I am a warrior that my son may be a merchant and his son may be a poet." Thomas Jefferson.

I love that progression!

As for me, from that first moment of conception realized, my soul breathed, "let this child be a loving person.

Prayer answered.

Not on the list

In our neatly rowed patterns of library activity, comes a young Asian lady, comfortably dressed, heads for an easy chair in the furthest corner of the stacks, sits down, covers up with her coat and sleeps. Every Monday when we open. Now Monday and Tuesday.

Who is she?

Why does she sleep here in the morning?

This is an elite neighborhood, not reached by public transportation. At other libraries she would have sisters and cousins whom she reckons by the dozens, but not in our upscale demography.

And so we wonder? Illness? Overnight job? Estrangement?  Heartbreak?    We wonder.

A fly in our vichyssoise.

Confrontation

Flapping
scarlet
invitation
to some;

jagged
glass
swallowed,
to others.

The first

Recently I have been using scraps of my childhood memories to build work passwords, so that every time I sign on to my computer I have a lovely waft of long-ago sweep over me. And one I used recently was a variation of my first grade teacher's name.

I was fascinated by her. She had short, curly, dark hair, flecked with silver and I do believe a chin wart with a hair sprouting from it! Her most riveting feature, however was her diamond ring. To my five-year-old eyes its dazzle was magnetic. She would hold an open book in one hand as she read to us and slide the ringed hand in and out of the pocket of her maroon sweater. It was hard to concentrate on the story with that much glitter going on!

She was most kind and wrote on my report card under Deportment that I was "a little angel" which brought hoots of laughter from the supper table that evening.

Curiously enough, she was also my father's first teacher - in the same two-roomed school. He was one of her first pupils and I was one of the last.

Alpha and omega - with a diamond ring.

Parenting

do you know how much I love self-contained children?

I just want to hug them - and more particularly, their parents.

Child comes to library info desk: "Excuse me, could you please help me find the second book in the Ranger's Apprentice series."

From that sentence I know a world.

Independence, knowledge, manners, sense of place - all there. Certainly not by accident.

Parents dug, planted seeds, weeded,  - and above all, provided sun and room to grow.

And the world shares the harvest.

Ah, sheer dazzling ordinary beauty.

black morning

Yesterday morning I embarked on my usual morning walk around the lake. Thermometer by the door read 43 degrees. Fine.

Halfway around the lake, though with an eagle eye out for black ice, I slipped and fell. Not badly, but fell. I fell on ice about four years ago. Not since.

Okay, thinks I, no big deal and continued. One minute later I saw I was completely in the Land of Black Ice. I still don't know if there had just been a quick shower of freezing rain before I began or what. None-the-less, I was in trouble! No other walkers as far as the eye could see and now it seemed just as dangerous to retreat as to proceed. So on I went.

About five minutes later, I fell again - this time I skinned my knee - through thick sweats, mind you. Still, not a bad fall. So from that point on, I basically was walking in/on the deep, hard, crusted snow because both path and streets were totally ice. It was hard painstaking work, but I made it eventually back to my blessed front door.

I was shocked, upon reflection, to realize what a harrowing environment my morning walk had turned into in an instant - one that I have walked almost daily for nearly 20 years and never had I encountered any danger!

My scraped knee throbs. I am so lucky.

anniversary of my father's death

Thirty-two years ago
my father left this world.

His life was a quiet, steady flame
that warmed many people's hearts.

I will always miss him.

I will always love him.

I will be forever grateful that he was mine.

then and now

The scent of freshly sliced bananas sends me on a rocket ship path back to Sunday mornings as a child. For some reason, on that morning, and that morning alone, we sliced bananas and had them with milk -from a bottle that held an elongated circle of cream on the top - and sugar. They were delicious! But trumping that, on other Sunday mornings, was another delivery in that tin milk box right by our door, bottled chocolate milk. Now that was the mother lode! Chocolate milk so thick and creamy that it took a while to drink a whole glass of it. But you just wanted to make the moments last and savor that velvety swirl of goodness in your mouth

Now I think, how many walks around the lake would I have to take to counter those calories and saturated fat?

Progress? I think not

to my friend

remember
with love
the times together
that dance and sing
and smile.

wrap them around you
to warm the
keening edges
of grief.

Friday Haikus

gray morning blanket
frayed with scuttering sunlight -
throw back the nighttime!


________________


pink window tulips
push icy winter shivers
into springtime dreams.



___________________


bluebird on feeder
midst January doldrum -
happiness on tap!

Blame

Oops,
A mistake.

What to do.

Mine,
Your's,
Ours.

But
that's
the order
of
healing.

In Person

I have one person with whom I still write letters. One.

If you're a saver like me, you probably have boxes of letters from the past. Or, if you're like me, a whittled-down, rubber-banded pack in your desk drawer. They seemed important to keep.

When last have you gotten a letter through the mail? When one arrives through our slot, I am absolutely thrilled. Someone has taken the time to find a blank sheet of paper, a pen that works, a stamp from the depths of a drawer somewhere, an address book, and the time to sit at the kitchen table, a desk, an easy chair, and write their thoughts of you, to you.

Exquisite. 

While I'm not decrying email, texting, whatever, I'm ready to marvel at the amazing procedure I described above because of how much time and effort it requires.

When we taught school in Newfoundland, I, of course wrote home volumes to my parents, trying to bridge the enormous gap between Carmanville and Hinkletown. The miracle wasn't that I wrote; it was that Mother kept those letters and returned them to me years later. They are now in a notebook, all different size paper, red-blue-black inks, smudges - but they are gloriously real. The experiences that I may question in my heart,  there they are on paper - the highs, the lows, the delights, the sorrows - all there.

Yes, we can record all of those things electronically today. But isn't there an enormous differences in the life that breaths through those hand-written documents? When my friend writes in her awkward lefty script, I see braids, freckles, laughter, skinned knees - the person. When I read a typed page I get the message, not the essence.

I mourn.

Bread

Today I made bread. As I smelled the first wafts of baking yeast, I remembered this poem I wrote about Newfoundland ages ago -


In this land of rocky coasts
and ill-traveled roads,
when you meet a stranger
on the highroad,
you invite him home
for a 'drop of tea.'

Strong tea in fragile cups,
served up with bread -
shining loaves,
coarse and nourishing
as the salt air.

Bread that rises by the kitchen stove,
clicking white dough
shaped by weathered fingers
with ancient assurance,
baked by the heat
of dawn-frosted logs,
to a golden crust
hollow to the tap,
spread scarlet with marsh berries.

Bread warm
against the sea
and wind
and being alone.

Ornamental Pleasure

Taking down the Christmas tree ornaments, it suddenly occurred to me that they were like little histories  And quite true to life, I can't remember where some of them came from! But most of them have a unique memory attached to them.

The most precious one is Perky Penguin - a gift from JD when he was four. We had just moved to Reston and he wanted to buy me a gift. The little ornament took all his money and he came in tears to me that he didn't have enough to buy Dad one too! Perky occupies a big heart space each year.

But others come from extended family, colleagues, neighbors, friends, school days... and each one brings a flood of thoughts.

Perhaps that is really the best of Christmas. Not all the chaos of shopping, baking, decorating, parties, presents - but that quiet moment of remembering life on little metal hooks.

January 1

Mrs. Miller would walk to the tall, free-standing cupboard at the back of the room, unlock the doors and hand us fresh tablets of lined paper and new yellow Ticonderoga pencils. The school year had begun!

I feel like that today. I have been given a new year and I must certainly sharpen my pencil and begin.

One of the morning show people said - "choose one word to focus on for the year.' Instantly w-r-i-t-e flashed into my mind.

I'm way overdue.

*****


A bluebird
landed on
the feeder.

A yes
landed
on my heart.