Perspective

The night the first FBI bombshell announcement came out we were on our way to a Brahms concert given by a local choir. My anger/distress level was so high at that point, I thought - why am I even here in the quietness of this church. My soul is not ready.

But when the opening strands of music began, they seemed to begin plucking at the knotted chords of my anxiety and loosened them one by one. And my spirit began to lift above the debris of this election season. The exquisite harmony of these voices poured over me. I thought about what a gift these singers gave to me - a gift that took hours and hours of practicing and discipline - and here it was, handed to me, unwrapped but precious as jewels,

And I thought of Brahms and Trump.

Some things endure.

Some wash away with the first rain. 

I hope tomorrow we will be washed clean.

and the winner is

One of the clues to my morning crossword puzzle was "reply to Little Red Hen request" and as I joyously printed "not I" my mind flew back to a sunny kitchen in Hinkletown. I was at the home of a friend and we were playing the game Little Red Hen! I have no idea how it was "played" but I remember so clearly "who's going to help me grind this wheat?" and the defiant, "not I". No one wanted to help but everyone wanted to be in on the party when it was done. I never forgot the lesson through all these years. And I'm not sure we even played the game that many times because I have only the vaguest memories of the details, but the moral sure stuck!

Games, games, games - what did/do we learn through them? I think the strategy and execution is a high component - but surely the ability to gracefully lose as well as win has to be paramount. It is a life lesson that has to be swallowed over and over and over!

And it doesn't get any easier!

One-for One, Two for Two

The moment I enter the Antique Emporium I am transported back to my childhood - whether if be the metal lunch boxes, the tabletop radios, rolling pins, irons, depression glassware, glasses with flowers painted on them that were once filled with peanut butter, washboards, wooden high chairs, posters of 40's movies/songs/fashions - a whole world of nostalgia descends softly on my shoulders and I wander for hours, lost in the past.

Wednesday was no different. But when my eyes lit on a small square red box with the huge, bold letters in black," PIT", I stopped in my tracks! That was a game that hadn't even crossed my mind in 60 years! I opened it carefully and there on the first card that had "Flax" up in one corner, my eyes went to the middle of the card where men of the 30's, 40's (?) dressed in three-piece suits and hats were mobbed on the floor of Wall Street! I never knew what on earth we were trading as we yelled "two for two" or "four for four" at noisy games with the cousins on Sunday afternoons! Commodities and Hinkletown had very little in common!!

I was reminded again how time, though it gradually weakens the physical eyes, it sharpens the lens of understanding.

As I continued on I saw a Flinch box as well, which I hadn't revisited for years either - had I seen a Touring box, I'd have hit the long-lost Triumvirate!

That old time religion....games, games, games, in the "flesh" not on a flickering monitor. How they sweetened our hours.

all is well

This morning when I was walking around the lake, early, I looked up and saw the faint, full, outline of the moon.

Last night when I looked out the bedroom window I caught my breath! The moon was huge, lemony against the inky sky, riding high above the trees.

And now the sun was beginning to gild the day. I saw an overhead V flock of geese reflected in the lake. One flaming tree also deep in the lake as well.

The sun by day, the moon by night. Lovely symmetry. Safeguards from the world beyond.

straight from the heat

I heard the author Mary Carr say early this morning that nature means nothing to her.

Wow, that woke me up!

Nature means everything to me.

I know she grew up in a very harsh environment with alcoholic parents and the core of her existence was chaotic. On the other hand, I grew up in a loving wave of comfort and safety - and the wonders of the natural world were highlighted daily. Mother constantly pointed out the nuances of beauty each day, so the absorption of nature around us became as natural as breathing.

I understand how privileged I have been, nature-wise, all my life. I have fed off the beauty of the farmland and creek beds of Lancaster County, the forests of the Adirondacks, the rolling splendor of the Shenandoah Valley, the high wide skies of Kansas, the rocky crash of Newfoundland and now the last thirty years of Reston's architectural and natural exquisite construction. My soul is sated with beauty.

If I go to a city of concrete, steel, rushing people and traffic, lights, buildings, noise - cacophonies of the senses, I love it. For a day or two.

Beyond that I grow lean with longing for the sass of a jay, the disappearing twitch of a squirrel's tail, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the hard high blue skies, the lake diamonded in the rising sun, the scent of decaying wood - organic life coming at me straight from the source.

I'm a country girl, through and through.

This little light of mine

This morning I heard a quote from a Martin Luther King speech in 1968 - had to be just before he died - that contained the thought that Lincoln enacted the Emancipation Proclamation but there were no accompanying tools to go with it. He said it was like telling a prisoner who had spent years and years in prison for some crime he never committed in the first place - "you're free to go" but then never even giving him bus fare to get to town. You need to build infrastructures to freedom and justice.

How true.

And how quickly society judges failure as proof the experiment never should have been tried.

From our individual corners we can't solve all the social problems of the world, but we can be kind each day. Kindness. The world cries out for it.

 And who knows, those random actions may morph into bus fare.

In the moment

An NPR Storycorps segment on Friday featured a Hospice chaplain and her 9-yr-old son. The son had accompanied his mother on one of her workdays to visit patients with Alzheimer's. She commented how she loved that he talked to them completely in their moment, not trying to correct them about anything.

And I thought, how beautiful.

It seems to me that it is one of the toughest things to do - employing  that childlike acceptance and just listening to people, particularly people in pain. It is so instinctive to rush in with advice or personal experience or counsel of any kind. We want the pain to be corrected and thus disappear, making their lives and ours consequently smooth again.

The young boy listened.

When she asked him what he took away from the visit he said that he thinks he understands that he should enjoy the good things in life, because sometimes there are bad times.

Wow. Message of the morning received.

Get out and enjoy!

Last evening, at 7, the temperature was still around 90 but I hadn't walked my daily circuit of the lake and gathered up my courage to do so. Imagine my surprise when I reached the Lake Anne plaza and there were lots and lots of people out, eating at the restaurants, playing in the fountain, setting up for a concert, boats coming in to dock, kids on paddle boards, students reading near the spray of the big fountain - mothers, fathers, kids, dogs, America! I suddenly felt as though I had been cheating myself on all these hot, hot days, not to venture out and just get acclimated to the temps, rather than hiding in air-conditioned climes!

I vow not to let the rest of summer get away simply waiting for ideal temps. In all likelihood summer is a state of mind rather than temperature!

Not what it used to be

Our back porch had a hammock suspended on two hooks - one against the back wall and one on the middle post. On many a hot summer day the only cooling air against hot bodies was the gentle sway of the hammock, as we lazily pushed back and forth, sometimes lying side by side, sometimes head to toe-always quibbling about who was taking up more space. In more raucous times we swung higher and higher trying to touch the ceiling or snatch things from the little drying line where Mother hung her tea towels. The porch was shaded by trellises at either end and if we wanted cool solace, it was the place of dreams. It was also a place for reading, or playing with kittens, or sharing deepest secrets with my bosom childhood friend.

Toto, I know we're not in Kansas anymore because today I would probably be nauseous from the motion in about 3 minutes.

Going for the gold

The Olympics.

I always sit back in awe, not about the performances themselves - though they are astonishing - but about the athletes. Who would do this??

I saw one little preview about a table-tennis player who is really young - 16, I believe - and will be competing in Rio. I think I heard that he practices 6 hours a day. Six hours a day playing table tennis.

When I was 16, I felt two hours of evening homework was an imposition and that was varied subjects and not every day. I can't even comprehend such rigor!

And  here's the thing - for what? Yes, I get the medal. Yes I get the endorsements. Yes I get the money and fame. But that's only for the one at the top. And how long does any of it last?

I knew one family whose daughter at one point started taking ice skating seriously. They were a normal family with limited time and money. The sacrifices the entire family had to make to get her to practices were wrenching.. And that was just the tip of the iceberg! They had to drop out.

While its all amazing to watch, the story behind the starting whistle and the end tape may be indeed unglamorous. Or worse.

I want to cheer the depth of discipline and determination. But truly I wonder, at what cost?

foundation

I came across a card that my best childhood friend had written to me upon the death of my mother, years ago. She wrote about coming over to our house and how my mother was always busy doing something, but that her presence was a sense of security. She could always be counted on to share whatever goodies - often chocolate chip cookies from a tin container in the wash-house  or a gigantic tin can of Good's potato chips which resided for some strange reason in a staircase off the dining room, but that she left us to our dreams and schemes without interference.

And that's what I remember about her all my life. She was always there - whether physically or not - and she didn't monitor my dreams and schemes....well I take that back. When we had decided (at 8) to "build" a clubhouse from scraps lumber Dad had scattered all over the second floor of the barn, that dream cane to a crashing halt before it could even reach the gates of Dad! But by and large, she would just smile at our wild ideas, knowing of course which we did not, that they'd never happen.

She was there.

Dad was there.

Presence.

Safety.

Priceless.

balancing the seesaw

I had library patrons of two extremes of parenting in one day's time.

The first mother said "Could you point me to the books (picture books) that have a good message for my daughter?"

Well, now, seriously, what picture book doesn't intend to contain a good message??

And I swallowed a whole lot of inappropriate responses and started showing her books she clearly knew nothing about - McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings, Madeline, Babar, Angelina, Tacky, Lily, Mo Willems, Cynthia Rylant, Curious George, on and on - nada.

Sigh.

Then came the mother who asked, "My daughter has read the Iliad and the Odyssey - what would you suggest next?"

"How old is your daughter?"

"Eleven".

Again, seriously, how many 11-year-olds are ready for those classic works?

And after about 20 minutes of attempting to guide the daughter (aka, the mother!) into something a mite more attainable, I came back and discovered she had chosen Les Miserables and Three Musketeers -  each with more than 1,000 pages, never mind the span of content!

One parent not even peripherally engaged and the other up to her neck in pressuring.

I recognize that the best my mother could do, with her allotment of education, time and responsibilities was largely encouraging me to explore books, and quoting poetry and stories to me from memory. But in this advanced current state of avalanching information, I think it is a tricky road to balanced enlightened parenting and sadly too few travelers.

the crossing

When my grandmother died, a cloud of sadness rested on our house in Hinkletown. She had been ill for a long time with different types of cancer, so it wasn't a surprise. But the finality brought the lightness of our family to a halt temporarily. I was just a young girl, but I remember looking over at our neighbors across two garden plots and seeing them playing and laughing and having a grand old time. And I longed for the heaviness to pass. I wasn't personally grieving that much because my grandmother had been ill most of my life and never very approachable. But I just wanted the world to right itself. I wanted Mother singing and laughter threading through the day. I wanted normal.

Yesterday morning I got an email from a longtime library patron-friend with whom I play on-line Scrabble. I hadn't heard from her in a few days and thought she was on vacation. Instead, the email told me very simply and completely clothed in non-detail, that her daughter had passed away. She thanked me for setting her daughter on a path of a life-time love of books and thanked my husband for being one of her favorite professors. I was completely devastated. I don't know how she died, but I'm guessing it was self-directed in one way or the other. I may never know, but maybe she will want to talk at some point.

But every since those words, "my daughter passed away" her burden has become mine. I have lots of distractions, but every time there is a quiet moment and my mind sweeps the day to the side, her world of hurt comes sliding into my heart. I will keep writing and sending my words of love but I am on the fringes of this abyss. She is in the vortex and will never be able to escape the pull. She will get back to the music of the day at some point. But there is no more normal for her.

enter, the library

If my sister was driving, she had to be 16, which made me 11. So let's say I was 11 when she first drove me into Lancaster to the Free Public Library. All I have is a memory kaleidoscope of marble floors, high elegant ceilings, wide staircases, and heaven. I simply could not conceive of having that many books to peruse, let alone check out. We each got a little square cream-colored card with a metal clasp in the middle and a brown fitted envelope to slip it into for protection. Ticket to paradise.

Now, years later, all my library books are shuttled through technological portals - some by-passing paper and binding all together and it's slick, efficient and lightning speed.

But I will always remember the little girl from the country, who stood and gazed upon her first public library with eyes full of wonder, not believing the world was hers.

The magic lives on.

Written word.

A long-time library patron died a few days ago. She was the most loyal, passionate, enthusiastic lover of books all her life. In years past she was in a political position to help support keeping open the library that I managed - which was no small feat. But beyond that, she'd come in regularly and say, "What good book do have for me today?"

I didn't even know she was ill until last week; it's hard to keep track of everyone. But another friend told me she was very ill and now this week she is gone.

As I stopped in at the visitation before the funeral, on my way to work, I met her only son for the first time in the twenty plus years I had known her. His face was etched with sadness and my name meant nothing to him until I said, "I'm from the library." And where there were tears, a huge grin flashed across his face and he said, "Mom, loved the library!" And I said, "We loved your mom!".... and we were off and running through our stories.

Books. Friends. Tears to joy. Oh, the power.

Oh, the sensory bliss of it all

Aunt Jenny's date and nut pudding.

Those six words send saliva into my soul.

Each Christmas we always had a Weaver gathering of some sort, at some part of the holiday, and my mother's brother's wife, Jenny, made this concoction that would make angels blush - it was so slutty with goodness. I don't think it required any special finesse to make - just a mass of sugar, butter, dates, nuts, flour, milk, baking soda, lard, salt - tossed with whipped cream. She always served it in a deeply cut, exquisite glass bowl.

Sometimes it was dessert at the big Christmas dinner at noon but other times, for an early evening supper before folks wandered home, we'd have this exotically rich dessert - with savories on the side like cheese, bologna, celery, etc.. Though it was probably the calorie equivalent of breakfast, lunch, and dinner in regular times, each sumptuous spoonful of that mixture of cream, date, nut and pudding was ecstasy, pure and simple.

My sister recently sent me the recipe. I studied it for a moment and knew I would be feasting on memories alone! At this point in my life, if I made a whole recipe of that I'd be needing to circle the lake ten times daily to fit into my clothes, while begging my arteries not to collapse in horror.

But oh those blessed culinary memories - how deliciously they linger!

Strawberries on a china plate

The strawberries came from the Saturday morning market at the lake.

I put them on a dainty rose-spattered china plate and smiled. The plate was bought for my mother by my dad. One Saturday morning about 34 years ago my dad and I went shopping in a farmers market in PA. There was a side building that hosted an antique/flea market each week. On an impulse we went over to it after getting our market goodies. We found all kinds of treasures! But at one point, Dad came to me with this small oval plate with scalloped edges and said, "Do you think Mama would like this?" I was charmed by it as well as his thoughtfulness and assured him she would indeed.

She did.

A very short time later, Dad died in five minutes of a heart attack. The shopping excursion turned out to be our last time together.

When Mother died, I picked the plate from the pile of dishes.

Now each time I pull it out, I remember the whole history of loving.

And the strawberries melted in my mouth.

Along with my tears.

Hully Gully

sometimes words from a poem just jump off the page and land in your heart.

yesterday was such a day.

Rita Dove was on NPR and I was so inspired by the interview that the minute I hit the library I headed for the 811's and pulled off a volume of her poems called Grace Notes.

This is the last stanza of a poem called "Hully Gully"

"daughters floated above the ranks of bobby socks.
Theirs was a field to lie down in
while fathers worked swing shift and
wives straightened oval photographs
above exhausted chenille
in bedrooms upstairs everywhere...."

"exhausted chenille"! How I cherish/covet those words. I cannot think of a more succinct, panoramic combination.

I remember back to the chenille spreads of my childhood and there wasn't a one that wasn't exhausted! Perhaps it was a concept of softness that should have stayed in its creator's mind because it is synonymous with a world of tackiness in my young mind!

Beyond that, the bobby socks of the fifties, the soft world of the boomers, the hard work of the parents, the generations before looking out through stern oval lens - Rita Dove, you are masterful!

letter perfect

The sun rises, the newspaper, double-bagged lies beyond our front wall, and inside is ---- the crossword puzzle! Oh, sure, the world is aflame with misery on the political, economic, social, environmental levels, but what settles my soul for the day is to do the puzzle.

Why is it delightful to poise above those small squares, pondering the correct letter, the correct definition, the correct nuance of the clues. Some squares I fill in boldly with assurance, almost contempt! Others I niggle. Could it be this? That? This morning there was a clue "Mercedes-Benz category" and I had "ac----". My mind started down the path of accura or something similar and I couldn't divert it! But I shaved nearby letters, and honed the edges and all of a sudden "aclass" popped into being. Voila!

And there it was - a small, satisfying, early victory of mental tumbling! And perhaps ridiculously, I felt ready to begin the day that would hold lots of research, questions, answers, conversation because I had carved out Mercedes Benz into aclass!

But maybe not so ridiculous after all.

Daily bread

An extensive time at the Information Desk on a quiet afternoon yielded four conversation with long-time patron friends, and each one expressed pleasure at the interaction. And that's what life is all about. Finding your niche.

I'm sure many people wonder why I don't retire - and one of these days I surely will - but to have been given the gift of a natural fit, occupation-wise, I consider such an enormous gift and I'm not ready to relinquish it.

When a patron comes in and says, "I need a book for this weekend - you always know what I like" - to me it's the Oscar of the library world!

And beyond the matching books and people is the life line of birth, illness, joy, successes, children, marriage, divorce, death. The confidences ebb and flow. It is the bar-tender phenomenon because I don't know these people beyond the desk. And yet I have a stake in their happiness.

In looking back, what could be better than lending someone a book, your ear, your heart?

feathered friends

I am always amazed when I compare the "Judy, Judy, Judy" song of the tufted titmouse to the actual body of the bird! It is such a teeny little creature, but it just belts out it's reverberating song through the entire woods. Talk about a PA system! What are we mortals missing? If we all had vocal cords like that we could do away with things like "Match.Com"!

And my other avian observation of the morning - a large crow kept landing across the street and pecking, very skittishly, at a filled white garbage bag waiting for pickup at the curb. I had never seen that before and I always thought that birds' sense of smell wasn't highly developed. Even vultures I thought relied heavily on sightings. And whatever was inside the garbage bag was all wrapped up tightly. Was there advanced avian word out that the Japanese neighbors had exotic leftovers?!

Other than that, I'm just kicked-back lolling in this spring-shot morning.

frock time

We had a tea for our library volunteers yesterday, always a delightful Spring ritual to thank all the lovely people who oil our organizational joints throughout the year! And as we were preparing for it I quoted this poem to the colleagues I was working with - a poem from my mother's 2nd grade reader with the brown cover and the pages that were shiny and cracked with turning -

You're going out to tea today
So mind your manners well,
Let all accounts I hear of you
Be pleasant one to tell.

Don't spill you tea
Or crumb your bread
And don't tease one another,
And Tommy mustn't talk so much
Or quarrel with his brother.

Say "If you please"
And "thank you, ma'am"
Be home at eight o'clock
And, Fanny, do be careful
That you do not tear your frock!

At least that's how I remember it being quoted to me! I suppose I read it for myself one day too, but I can hear my mother's voice reciting it over and over upon request.

Just the language of manners, frocks, pleasant accounts.... ah, another era...one I know that had its own problems, but oh the civility of it all!

Safety

if I was a jewel
my dad was the box
lined with the softest cotton

if I was a seashell
he was a rounded mound
of sand that kept me
from washing out
to sea

if I was an egg
he was the woven strands
of hair, grass and twigs
hollowed out
holding me

if I was a child
he was always there
at the edges
quietly
encircling.

and so today.

the dilemma of Mr. Clean

I just checked in my mother's diaries to see what she was doing on this day in 1954 and 1958 and each day she was doing spring housecleaning. Just like clockwork her household rhythms ticked along across the years.

I have never done spring housecleaning.

I hope that confession doesn't cause any seismic changes in the universe.

It's a concept that I applaud heartily but I think at first I was working full-time, then was having children full-time, then working again full-time and now working half-time and completely sold on the concept of leisure time whenever possible!

And while I would love to once more experience the delight of a room completely aired and washed, dusted, polished, shined from stem to stern if I have to make that delight happen, it's going to remain just a concept.

I will do the day to day order, but beyond that life is too short to be tied to a mop!

salvation of bleach

My mother must have commented to me sometime - perhaps many times - that a dingy dishcloth was the sign of a "careless" housekeeper! You know the drill, a cloth that normally has white squares eventually turns a uniform gray must be Cloroxed to retain its genteel status - not to mention that of the housekeeper!

That maxim hounds me! Often I used disposal cloths, but when ever I rotate back to actual cloths, eventually I'm pressed into Clorox action! And today I was just wondering to myself why that was such a big deal to my mother? She was far from an obsessive cleaner - though she certainly keep a tidy house it was rarely "clean down to the shine" as I knew some of our relatives homes were. She didn't clean her keyholes with Q-Tips, for instance! But gray dishcloths met with her full disdain! Perhaps it was a Grandma Weaver dictum passed down from her mother and so on. I wonder if gray dishcloths were an issue on the Mayflower?

I guess we all have our quirky standards of muster. What I tolerate easily would appall other and vice versa. And somehow we all survive!

Ain't life grand?!

Spring, wherefore art thou?'

Okay, its April and I'm just now hearing a forecast for rain/snow showers overnight and snow showers in the morning.

What is wrong with this picture?!

This morning the landscaper who did our front stoop a few years ago came back to do the spring pruning and in the twenty minutes that I stood out talking to her I was chilled to the bone! That after we have already run the a/c once in March! Now not only are there climate changes there is climate madness!

I know all too soon the DC area will lapse into it's summer sweats... which is all the more reason why I hope the exquisitely balanced temps of spring will soon return.

Because the good Lord knows we know little enough about balance of any kind in the Washington area as it is!

On the board

How far would you have to go to find a blackboard?

I was just remembering those wonderful items of the past! And remember the teachers' marvelous loping penmanship. Currently my boss (early 30's) has never written in cursive. I find that fact too astonishing to contemplate. Further, though he would print them, he rarely, if ever writes notes of any kind to people. And a letter? - forget about it!

As a child I was in love with blackboards. I never tired of watching teachers fill the panels with poems, songs, assignments, facts to learn - all of which we would copy painstakingly in our brown, lined notebooks. Most of those songs I remember in full to this day, so somewhere along that path from teachers hand - to blackboard - to child brain - to brown notebook the process took! Just now as I was preparing chicken for dinner I was singing "The Boy Next Door Has a Rabbit To Sell" - brought to you by the good people of Hinkletown Elementary School!

The blackboard was the total vehicle of communication. It was the teacher's hallowed territory but on rare honored occasions we could use it for fun. On rare painful occasions we (I) could write "An Idle Mind is the Devil's Workshop" 100 times before going out to play at recess. (Though I raced through it, I think I got five minutes of recess that day.)

And school chores involved taking the erasers outside and "clapping" them together, scraping them over each other to rid them of excess dust. We were strictly forbidden to "clap" them against the red brick schoolhouse for obvious aesthetic reasons.

Now we live in a world technological gadgetry and communication happens in vastly different ways. And while I rue the passing of blackboards, I absolutely mourn the passing of writing.

blow, blow your horn

Last night we had what my Grandpa Weaver would probably have described as a "tempest"! The wind roared like the derecho we had some years ago here. It's a sound that literally sets your small arm hairs on end! Branches and twigs were pelted against the front and back exposures of our town house but there was thankfully no damage. Lots of people in the area lost power, but we're some of the lucky underground cable people.

But each time this happens I realize once again how hollow my normal sense of security really is. We build shelters to shield us from the elements, but really whenever we even glimpse the edges of the forces of nature we realize we are at the mercy of the universe - completely. Earthquake, wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail, fire bring us to our knees.

Still, I must side with the optimistic outlook of my childhood and, "Open all the windows, open all the doors, and let the merry sun shine in!" Because after all the good, the bad and the ugly there is still the exquisitely dazzling everyday unfolding.

violets rule

"Living is like licking honey off a thorn" - so says Susan Lenzkes in her book about living wisely in a world of pain and sorrow.

Great concept.

And doesn't the honey taste sweeter knowing you must taste judiciously and can't just blunder in greedily?

I love the idea of contrast and don't know if truly you can understand health if you've never endured sickness, life if never brushed by death, joy if never crushed by sorrow.

And so today would my heart have leaped so high to see at the turn of my daily walk, one regal violet pushing out of the brown earth, if I hadn't crunched through snow at that exact spot two months ago?

Good Friday

I'm always puzzled why this holiday has stuck with the US public. Wall Street, of all institutions, is closed today. With all the hue and cry about separation of church and state, why would this most singularly Christian holiday still be observed. I understand that Easter and Christmas are also Christian holidays at the conceptual level as well, but the Good Friday observation goes beyond that. Think of the traders on the floor at Wall Street and guess how many of them truly observe the Crucifixion aspects of the day. I think it would make a fascinating study.

Whereas, even having grown up in a very religiously-oriented household, I still remember almost no religious rituals connected with the day.

Except, of course, the exquisitely devout practice of egg-painting.

I know I've written of this before, but it was such a happy time! And my nose still twitches at the remembered acrid scent of the dyes hitting warm, hard-boiled eggs. We began so earnestly, carefully sketching designs, the colors still pure. But as cotton swabs picked up other colors from the eggs, the colors in the cupcake tin began to muddy - as did the eggs.

A life lesson in the making!

Convictions so startlingly pure and decisive in the start, when they start rubbing up against others, start to morph into new shades. In the end, some riveting blends exist.

Something to be said for that.

the moment

There are no adequate words for this time of year. I reach for literary vehicles that will convey the absolute joy I feel as I walk around the lake these days. Every few steps reveals a new shade of green, yellow, pink, white, magenta - all crowned with the bluest of skies.

It is the season of anticipation.

I think of all the things I look forward to - dinner with friends, vacations by the ocean, trips to the city, afternoons alone with a book, a good movie, family times... on and on. Almost better than the event itself is the anticipation of it. The thought rests feather-light on your soul for days. Something good is on the way.

Springtime is the ultimate something-good.

hopscotch

That tangy smell of earth these days transports me back to school days. As we had no sidewalks or any paved area to chalk, our hopscotch days were necessarily in the warm earth days. When spring came sashaying into our school yard, the grounds grew soft and then downright muddy. But that's when we would take sticks, make them as sharp as we could and carefully sketch out the hopscotch board in the soft earth. Then the trick was to find a flat stone with a nicely balanced heft and off we went! I can never pass a hopscotch grid on my walks even now without hopping through the single, double jumps! What an extraordinarily simple bit of fun. Do kids these days even know what a hopscotch game looks like?

Again, this theme reverberates that as a child I played a lot of the games my parents did as children. When our sons were growing up, they played some things we did. But this generation of kids finds their pleasures in such enormously different playgrounds that it's hard to take in. A swing, rope and board, metal chain and seat, old tire and rope - whatever variation provided hours of fun! Trees were for climbing, fences for straddling, field and creeks for exploring. Now so many hours are spent with a gadget of some kind in hand.

Sad.

Hopscotch rocked!

March tease

With wavering resolve
winter caves
to spring.

Brown dry withered brittle
flares
into green,

And
birds,
people,
insects,
breathe
yes.

Snow morning

When I awoke and looked out the window every leaf, twig, branch, trunk, weed was ridged with cotton ball snow. Glorious. And even though it was my day off, I pushed myself out of bed to walk in the still falling snow. My walk time around the lake was dotted with pauses to take another picture!

Now it's 3 hours later and I can't even see a flake of snow - anywhere!

Carpe diem. To the max.

Sometimes age pushes us to pursue opportunities that are fleeting.

 More often, the energy thing kicks in and we say, maybe next time.

A mix of the two responses is acceptable, but this morning is a reminder that the effort taken will be smiling back at me for a long time.

"Attention is the doorway to gratitude."

Those words stopped me cold on Sunday morning. But then I started turning them over and over.

Attention. Sometimes, upon reflection, I realize I have gone through the whole day with very little attention.

My mother was attentive - to beauty, especially.

She noticed the nuances of the seasons - geese flying north or south, yellow-green of new willows, golden Norway maples, the snow-scented air, greening meadows.

As we drove she pointed out daffodils by stone walls, sunsets, creamy clouds in blue skies, shadows dancing across stretches of patchwork fields. Small, bountiful things.

But she was also attentive to feelings. She knew the smallest child at church by name, and visited elderly friends in retirement homes on sunny days, sweltering in their over-heated rooms. She laughed, cried, joked, cajoled, comforted with family, friends and neighbors.

She saw life between the cracks.

Thankfully, I remember.

A breath of air

My mother was just a naturally hot person - for as long as I can remember. The stages of life ebbed and flowed but the flashes of heat did not flag. And one of her ways of coping was to step out on our front porch - which curled around the side and front of the house - and get a breath of fresh air, no matter what time of the year it was.

I find myself doing the same thing. I step out on my front stoop.

Her view took in fields that stretched far to the horizon, as well as scattered neighbors' houses on the periphery.

My view takes in a suburban cluster of houses with tall trees.

Neighbors for her were all of one skin color, economics, religion.

Neighbors for me run the gamut on all counts.

She saw sunsets and blue sky.

I see rainbows of diversity.

But she passed along her peaceful heart which makes all the difference.

I do

I was just dusting off the framed marriage certificate of my parents this morning. The frame is cracked and crumbling at parts and the lettering is fading away into eternity. But it bears witness of a beautiful beginning.

Just a parlor gathering, with a few close friends, family and the bishop was all that it took to set, eventually me, in action. From Mother's notes they went back to her home for a big meal and that was it!

The average wedding today now checks in at $28,000.

That was 1935 and, yes, everything has inflated drastically since then. Still.

The inscription at the bottom of the certificate is "And Boaz took Ruth and she was his wife."

And Abram took Mabel and she was his wife.

And the marriage lovingly lasted 'til death parted them. Amen.

On a shoestring.

The Pope and Donald Trump.

Just when you thought the political season could not get anymore absurd along comes yesterday.

I don't think it's just age but I find the present scene - well, akin to the Gladiator sport in Roman times. Apparently the public cheers for blood - and incivility - and conflict. If you have a political gathering that merely discusses issues - how blah! No sound bites. But let one adult male call the other a liar - well, that's news! And top off that delectable sundae with a cherry that contains one of the highest religious authority's questioning one of the combatant's faith and you've got a party! I just wonder how low we can go - it's the political limbo dance of all times!

I hark back to the sweet innocence of the farm boys (ultra-conservative) at Hinkletown school chanting,
 
"Ike is in the White House
Ready to be re-elected
Stevenson's in the garbage can
Ready to be collected!"

 And I don't think the Vatican got into the mix.

In this together

I've thought a lot about generations lately. I look at the lives of my sons and realize how different they are from ours. The places they live, the things they hear, see, experience, delight in. They would be astonished at the simple parameters of our early lives.

And I think back on my parents' lives and don't think they were that dissimilar from my grandparents lives. While the differences from this perspective don't seem that dramatic, perhaps they seemed just as dramatic to our grandparents.

It just seems that the world is changing in leaps and bounds, not inch by inch. Our boys marvel that they remember black and white TV. We marvel that we remember only radio. Our parents would remember days of first cars!

Progress, yes, but I hope somehow we can preserve the structure of community that came with a simpler way of life.

Whose woods are these?

I just returned from a two mile hike around the lake in the snow - how gorgeous! It's always amazing to me how falling snow transforms life. Normally on my walk I would encounter lots of other walkers, dogs, runners, workmen, etc. Today, I met two people total. Other than that it was a white swirling world of silence.

 A world handed just to me.

 A Robert Frost moment on foot!

review of "the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry"

Queenie is dying in Berwick-upon-Tweed and Harold is walking five hundred miles from Southern England to keep her alive. The idea came to him over a burger at a garage where the girl attendant shared her story of an aunt with cancer whom she helped by having faith in her healing and vowed that we have to" believe in what we don't know."  A light dawns in Harold's darkness.


Now he is walking for Queenie . And for his own salvation.

He is walking in yachting shoes, with no cell phone, no maps, but a world of heart. And hurt.

He and Queenie were work colleagues. One night, in an anguished moment, Harold committed a destructive act and Queenie took the blame. She was fired and disappeared from the scene. Now after many years he receives a letter from her telling him of her approaching demise. He immediately pens a sparse letter of response and sets out to mail it to her. But instead of slipping it into the finality of the postal slot, he decides to deliver it in person. What follows is an account of his pilgrimage.

 

In the holiness of the birds, trees, flowers, barns, evening "squares of buttered light from windows, he finds internal solace and begins to remove the fragments of his life from his mind. With initial hesitant caution and then increasing openness he examines each momentous turn of events involving his childhood, marriage, son, job and selfhood. He discovers the people he meets surprisingly

have their own burdens, but they share joyously in his quest to save Queenie.

Month after month the journey wavers and surges as Harold puts one foot in front of the other through exaltation and deep sorrow. In his painful reverie, he begins to revisit his relationship with his left-behind spouse, Maureen, and their troubled son, David, and how his death poisoned the thinning marriage and  shut out the light - the ripples of his suicide flowing out into the darkest corners of their blaming.

But there is counterbalancing joy! The kindness of strangers provides him with plasters for his blistered feet and hope for his soul, buffering his sorrow. Like a magnet he attracts bizarre fellow-travelers with their own agendas, the media, the disillusioned in search of truth, and yes, even a
dog accompanies him for awhile.

Meanwhile back at home, Maureen with the help of a grieving neighbor slowly is also able to pull back the curtains of her life - literally- and remember a time when she and Harold laughed and loved.

But all pilgrimages must come to an end and the triangle lives of Maureen, Harold and Queenie culminate on the banks of Berwick-on Tweed in a baptism of tears.

As Hemingway once said, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places."

That is our prayer for Harold and Maureen. And for ourselves.

 

 

phonecall

February 9 marks my life as before and after.

On that momentous date 34 years ago, my beloved father, after shoveling a driveway full of  wet snow, came indoors, sat down on his favorite chair, and died.

He was scarcely sick a day of his life. He was my gentle rock.

When you get a long-distance call that your father has died, the words hit your ear, dance dizzily in your mind and try to gain purchase on any familiar ground. There is none.

That long-accepted framework of trust, guidance, love, understanding, acceptance, safety - was gone in one second of time. I will never be the same person.

It was the first towering granite boulder in my pathway that I couldn't get around, over, under - I just had to dig through it.

And yes, I got to the other side. And there is still joy, laughter, sunshine, springtime, love in all shades.

But now there is an edge of understanding that all that is cherished is on loan and must be savored.

Because the phone can ring again. At any time. And digging through boulders is such hard work.

Mighty Casey

You've shoveled the snow....endlessly....

You've stepped with mincing, pathetic slowness over the black ice...

You've endured scarfs over your nose and ears, and frozen fingers and toes...

You've slid into cold car seats...

You see mostly grays and browns when you look outside...

So, doesn't your heart leap to hear the words,

SPRING TRAINING BEGINS FEBRUARY 19!!!

Suddenly you can smell grass and popcorn and feel the sun on your face, and feel the ecstasy of the crowds, the players, the mascots.

Summer's song.

Sure, it's can be boring, frustrating, agonizing, slow.

But it's long days under blue skies. It's hope that this is our year. It's a melding of a community. It's a passion that spreads over the warming months.

More than that, it's a pastime. Something to talk about. Something to frame your days. Something to argue, rejoice, scorn, revere, exult, disparage, dream about.

So take a deep breath and hold it for the next few weeks and soon, very soon, you will hear that  ageless edict , "Play ball!"

Let the peaceful mayhem of baseball begin.

Lowly words

My sister unearthed one of her school composition books from 1947! Enclosed was a note from my mother to the teacher. The note was probably hastily penned, telling the teacher what a help my sister was with my brother and I and how we looked forward to the end of the week when she would play with us and read to us.

And there it was. I was four and looking forward to being read to. The beginnings of a life-long love affair.

The romance of words can begin early. For a developing child to hear the sparkling stream of words flowing over him endlessly is really one of the treasures that is freely available to all. But I mourn that lack of focus today. Now it's much rarer that those words aren't accompanied by moving images of the most sophisticated kind, overshadowing the distinction of language. Whereas, God bless my sister, mother, teacher who read and read to me stories, poems, nursery rhymes - words danced through all my days and took strong root in the fertile soil of my imagination. I filled in the blanks.

apricot sponge

I always called my mother the queen of pudding making!

Saturday was her day to "prepare". Like her mother before her, she spent the morning making sweets for Sunday - and the week to follow, but particularly Sunday. They took the form of cakes, pies, cookies and, always, puddings. Cracker pudding, graham cracker pudding, tapioca, sometimes rice pudding, chocolate and vanilla puddings, caramel pudding, pineapple fluff and the clear winner of the bunch - apricot sponge!

It was always served in a glorious heavy cut-glass bowl.

The preparation involved soaking apricots, cooking them, putting them through a fruit press, adding gelatin to one part and whipping the other. The end result had a gelled apricot bottom, a feathery apricot middle and all topped with swirls of whipped cream.

I'm hyperventilating just typing the words!

And do I make it a lot? Once or twice in fifty years! I think I try to excuse myself saying that I no loner have a fruit press, but that's nonsense. I could improvise. I think it's more that I want to preserve a shining childhood memory.

 And let the queen reign forever.

neighbors

Isn't it interesting how the snow empties houses?

If you live in a house-close community you could go an entire year without talking to any of your neighbors more than the merest chat about the weather and that's only if your coming or going coincides with theirs. We have great neighbors and know a few of them on a social basis and still fewer are close friends. Yet when it snows we're all blood brothers and shovels are our tongues!

My husband had just begun the mammoth task of unearthing his car when new neighbors across the street (husband Japanese, wife-American, kids-adorable) came and offered their help. A two-hour solo job for one  person became 40 minutes with three people digging it. Later, he baked them scones and took them over, warm from the oven.

On the other hand when I was trudging through a neighboring cluster trying to avoid the huge drifts, I heard two young 30 something coo to another snow-shoveling neighbor, "Ooh, you had the baby - when?" And he said, " December 7"! This was January 26. And until I could slog by, I learned that the baby had to be re-hospitalized for some virus in that period of time. I just had to think that we know some sketchy parameters of our neighbors lives, but really we know nothing unless we make the effort.

Speaking of which, a new woman moved in three houses down from us some months ago, and as of the snowstorm, I hadn't even caught a glimpse of her. Walking back from the lake I saw her outside her house and stopped to introduce myself - finally. I learned in just a short conversation that she had lost her mother just a month ago and was having a hard time getting to even ground. We talked for 1/2 hour, despite my freezing toes.

Good snowstorms make good neighbors.

being there

A friend of mine told me that her granddaughter had gotten bitten at daycare - hard enough to see teeth marks.

Now I know that biting is an age-old tactic of the young . But seriously, I have two boys and I can't dream of either one ever doing such a thing. I don't mean they were perfect or didn't fight in any way, but biting just seems to be in such a different category. I would be worried about the amount of aggression/hostility revealed.

But, of course, it happened in day care where a whole universe of copycat activity takes place. I'm sure studies have been done a hundred times over about the contrast of kids raised in daycare, and those who were raised by stay-at-home moms. You certainly must have children who benefited from the stimulation of daycare and thrived there. You certainly must have children who were stunted by the routines of just a regular household.

But in my heart of hearts, I can't help believing that children who are raised within the loving radar of parents guiding, comforting, instructing, joking, supporting them 24/7 turn out differently from those left in purchased hands.

I know there are extenuating circumstances that require daycare. But I would be comforted to know that it's not  just the natural default of modern parents. If you're going to bring a child into this world, do whatever you can to nourish them as completely as you can. And it seems to me that time spent together is  like "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

And probably biting isn't part of that picture.

Say it isn't so

I can truly say, and most thankfully and humbly say, I don't feel the aging process very much at all. I have been most fortunate health-wise and I know it. But one measure of age that stares me in the face is my activity in the snow!

Yesterday when I was out in the deep snow, whenever I go to a place where the "path" - i.e, a semi-trodden down area - ended and I would have to navigate snow that was two feet deep in order to proceed, it was all I could do not to panic! When did that happen??

As kids, the deeper the drift, the more exhilarating! We'd fling ourselves into the snow with such total abandon. The thought of broken bones never even brushed our consciousness! Now, though I refuse to stay inside and have walked every day at the start, middle and end of the blizzard, I walk so very carefully, while visions of fractures dance in my head! I really hate that transformation!

So I guess I will just sigh and accept the vulnerability factor and give thanks that for the large part of my life at this point, I still feel like a kid!

the storm

Snowbound!

Why do we love it so! But love it we do at this household. And we are still in the exhilarated stage of looking out.

Later, when it comes to shoveling, our ecstasy may waver!

Last night as the snow was falling we walked down to Lake Anne to our favorite Greek restaurant, and out of the cold and snow, walked into a world of light, calypso music, food, wine, laughter and community. 

It was the perfect send-off to our blizzard celebration.

Still better, was to walk home in the darkened white, with only the quiet swish of snow to guide us home.

mother

"She was bendable light - she shone around every corner of my day."

I can't quite remember where I picked up that quote, but I think of my mother every time I see it. Her light wrapped around me completely, always, still.

She wasn't perfect, but she was so doggedly optimistic. She'd sing, "let the merry sunshine in" and she did.

She didn't truck fools, but she could tear up over a sentimental card.

She was the church librarian and knew every single child's first name and greeted them personally.

She quoted Longfellow and Mother Goose.

She played as hard as she worked.

And laughed.

And loved.

Her spirit bends toward me each day.

And keeps me safe.

weather or not

Snow.

Why do we love or hate it? I always feel a kinship when I see a  fellow traveler's eyes light up at the prospect of a storm! But of course that's all woven into your personal fabric by experience.

Snow in my childhood - if it was bad enough - meant that our two-room schoolhouse closed down. It also meant building snowmen, having snowball fights, building forts, playing snow tag and sledding on Kliney's hill if you had older brothers and sisters to take you there. The airborne zing of taking an icy bump as you sped down the long slope provided all the inner heat you needed to stay warm despite frozen mittens and toes that suffered inside rubber boots!

But now, I most love the silence of a big snow.

Here in the noisy suburbs, the snow slowly shuts down all activities, one by one, and there is just a solemn quiet.

And just for a little while, you can be still.

And try not to think about all the shoveling to follow!

Martin Luther King Day

I remember very clearly where I was when I got the news of his assassination. I was driving home from an evening sewing class (what a leap of misguided optimism) in Ohio, and had the radio on when the bulletin came through. The horror was nearly overwhelming. And had I known my beloved Bobby Kennedy was to follow two months later, I would really have thought the world was grinding down to a disastrous gear.

Growing up in pure white Lancaster County, black acquaintances were non-existent. I do remember driving into Philly at a very young age and being astonished at seeing black children! My encounters with black people were mainly of the Amos and Andy and Aunt Jemima types and it never occurred to me that they came in small sizes!! I was a complete cultural innocent.

Since then, my path has been woven with people of all cultures, colors, voices and I am far the more complete person because of it.

But surely Dr. King would be saddened to see how his vision is still so stalemated, nearly fifty years later. Undeniable progress has taken place, but oh, the places we could still go!