I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
Around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
Where I left them, asleep like cattle….
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for awhile in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
And the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
-Wendell Berry
We've been visiting my family for a couple of days. Odd days, outside of time. The primary reason for our trip was, of course, to spend some time with my dad and his wife. They define courage, there in their little house in the woods: she battling the cancer in her lungs and her brain, and he taking care of her every need ~ neither of them able to whip up the miracle they so desperately seek and each of them trying not to let the other see the fear and sadness they both feel. She is about to finish up her chemo, which has left her without strength or energy, and then will undergo another set of scans to see whether the month of radiation and weeks of chemo have had any significant effect. The treatments did buy her Christmas, which was not something she could have expected otherwise. I think that they appreciated our children's presence immensely, and she was able to have a candid, albeit very brief, conversation with me when no one else was around, so the quick journey was worth the effort.
Outside the window, the daytime birds at my father's feeder were wonderful: goldfinches, house finches, juncoes, chickadees, tufted titmice, white-throated sparrows, a pair of towhees, and a Carolina wren -- all endlessly cheered by the bounty he provides. A fierce determination to overcome winter prevails both inside and outside the tiny dwelling nestled in the woods and snow.
We stayed next door, in my grandmother's house, which has just been vacated by my brother and his wife in favor of their newly built home. With the exception of a few beds and a couch, my grandmother's house, in which I spent so much of my childhood, is empty -- and filthy. It sits on a beautiful spot on the top of a hill, but it needs everything: city water; plumbing, electrical, and heating revovations; air conditioning; new kitchen, windows, roof, and chimney; and a complete decorating overhaul. It will be a lovely home for the right person or family, but right now it is a sad ghost of the gracious and serene house of hospitality that my grandmother cared for.
My brother's hot tub is still there, so I enjoyed a late evening steaming outside as the full moon stretched across the snow and into the woods, turning the world a pale blue. I was hoping to hear owls, but it was so cold that even the dogs, who can usually be heard baying across the countryside, were quiet, probably having nudged themselves indoors for the night.
All in all, a disorienting couple of days.
My woods, as surveyed from the hot tub on a foggy morning.
Yesterday, with the sun shining and the cold not quite so cold, I decided to act on my first New Year's Resolution: to spend some time on the lakefront each month. Despite my jumping the gun on the New Year, my little venture wasn't a terribly successful one, since I had chosen a city park where most of the roads haven't been plowed. You need snowshoes, skis, or a sled to get down to the beach, and all I had were my feet in boots and my own creaky legs.
I did get in about two miles of walking -- of course, despite the sunshine, the lake winds provided a bitter version of cold not experienced on my sheltered street several miles away -- and enjoyed the view. And then, just before I left, I found a small cove sheltering ducks: mallards, common mergansers, scaup, a pair of canvasbacks, and a raft of buffleheads. Buffleheads are among my favorite ducks. Who could not love the name? -- and they completely live up to it! Their presence makes winter quite a bit more tolerable.
It was exciting around here last night. Lots of people, lots of food. (Lots of work beforehand.) I love to provide the opportunity for a big Christmas Dinner for my friends. I remember so well the Christmas Eves at my great-grandmother's, where the bubble lights were almost more of an attraction to us younger children than the presents, and the Christmas Day dinners at my grandmother's -- all the aunts and uncles and cousins, everyone dressed to the nines. When we had children, I wanted them to have similar memories, and I soon discovered that I have a group of friends who feel the same way.
We start the celebration with Christmas Eve candlelight services and partying at the home of another friend, who does all her work right up to Christmas Eve and then spends Christmas Day itself in pajamas. At our house, we clean like demons after we open our presents Christmas morning, and then we provide turkey and stuffing and sandwich stuff, wine and other drinks, and everyone else provides an amazing array of casseroles, salads, and desserts. One of my friends sings Oh, Holy Night as our grace, sometimes joined by the younger ladies and sometimes not, and we eat and talk and play silly games for hours. Some years we sing carols; this year we deferred to the college students and left them to their own devices in the living room. (The children's table has now become the poker table.)
At some point in the evening, we cram all of the children onto the front stairs for a picture. The adults do the same, but we have a bit more trouble creaking and fitting onto the stairs. I just looked at the stairs pictures -- there are seven children, not including my own, in the 1991 picture, who are in last night's picture. Four of them are in college now; one is out. There are two children who were here last night and make their first appearance in a picture from 1988, before we had migrated to the stairs!
Tonight, all is quiet. The candles have burned down and thestreets and sidewalks are white again. My husband has taken our children to see his family a few hours away, and I have been reading and writing and enjoying the snowfall with the dog. There are still piles of silver to sort and put away, and folding chairs stacked all over the house, but those things can wait a day. Tonight is a night to quietly savor the season, and the friendships that help it along.
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Saviour
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas Day in the morn.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to redeem us all.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly and the ivy
Now both are full well grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
Did you know...
The version of the Holly and the Ivy that we are familiar with today was first published by Cecil Sharp. The Holly and the Ivy is thought to have Pagan origins and could therefore date back over 1000 years. It is most unusual for a carol like the Holly and the Ivy to have survived over the years especially during the stern protestant period of the 17th century. The Holly and the Ivy have always been taken indoors during the winter the hope being that the occupants would survive difficult conditions just like the hardy Holly and the Ivy. The colours of the Holly and Ivy, green and red are traditionally associated with Christmas. The author and composer of the Holly and the Ivy are unknown. (A Christmas Carol Site.)
And yes, I have been enjoying my holly photo in its many incarnations. Holly is one of my favorite signs of the season So, as I drive back and forth to the grocery, make a roast amd a turkey, polish silver and polish floors, peel potatoes, cook stuffing, figure out where to cram 35 people in this house, and think about our good fortune in having friends who want to spend Christmas together and are willing to cook food and haul chairs through the snow to make it happen - I am sending you all The Holly and the Ivy as a wish for a Joyous and Merry Christmas!
Today I was poking around some journals that I often read and some that are new to me. I've spent some time following links, and links to links -- all because I am supposed to be polishing silver.
Now I am really sunk. Thanks to Robbie's Ruminations and wonderful links, I have discovered a site that all by itself could keep me busy 24/7. I can't see any reason to leave my computer ever again -- I could really get into this cozy winter hibernation thing that some people find so delightful.
Well, probably not. But at least I've found something to do while I wait winter out. And I WILL be the victor here -- I can last longer than winter can.
So, Merry Christmas to myself!
Evening is coming on quickly, so the street is a blend of darkened houses, colored Christmas lights, and swirling snow.
My husband is out there shoveling and I am in here wrapping gifts and listening to Amahl and the Night Visitors. Amahl's mother is about to try to steal the gifts the kings have brought for the unknown child.
My children are out there somewhere, finishing up their Christmas shopping.
My father and his wife are curled up in their tiny woodland home, feeding the wood stove, watching the falling snow, and praying that they are keeping her cancer at bay.
The kings aren't mad anymore; they are telling Amahl's mother that she is welcome to the gold.
My grandmother is alone in her nursing home apartment; I hope she is thinking of lively Christmas dinners past.
My sons' French friends and families are in Lyon, Vitre, and China, getting ready for their own celebrations.
My students are ending a Jewish fast day and hoping against hope for a snow day tomorrow. I have to admit that I'm with them this time. The fast day gave me a much-needed afternoon off, but I could sure use another day.
A miracle is taking place in Amahl's life.
My brother, his wife, and daughter are probably trying to drag a tree through the snowstorm and into the home into which they are still moving.
There is still so much to do: turkeys to pick up, floors to polish, laundry to catch up on, college students to get to the dentist and oral surgeon, families to visit, cards to write. I guess there won't be any outside lights this year but I think there will be post-Christmas cards.
Maybe the snow will melt and we'll put up the lights for New Year's.
It wasn't a Christmas gift. Part of what made it so special was that it came wholly unexpectedly in September, a month of no particular significance to anyone in our family.
I was ten years old, in fifth grade, just following my afternnoon routine: a bus ride home from school with two of my brothers, a hike up the hill to my grandmother's for a snack of Cocoa Krispies and a Make Room For Daddy television break, and then the walk along the gravel road that led from her house to ours.
On the particular day that I recall, however, my grandmother handed me an envelope as the boys tromped off to the den. I opened it eagerly, unable to imagine what it might contain, and found a card on which was elegantly written, in my grandmother's beautiful hand, an invitation for me to accompany her on a week long trip to Williamsburg, Virginia in October.
My grandmother and I took several trips together, and for years I visited her and my grandfather in Florida each spring. But there was nothing quite like that first pint-sized adventure. We took the overnight train from Cincinnati -- my first stay in a sleeping compartment. We spent the week in the Williamsburg Inn -- a stately and sumptuous hotel if ever there was one. And we visited all the historical spots -- the Governor's Mansion, Bruton Parish Church, Jamestown, Berkeley Plantation (complete with kitty), the shops in the Historical District -- which I soaked up with my tri-cornered hat perched upon my head. I believe that we also made several stops at the Raleigh Tavern for meals; it became my favorite dining choice after my first roast beef dinner there.
I also remember with gratitude the afternoon that I spent sprawled on the hotel room floor, playing imaginary games with my crayons as people. I was exhausted from the nonstop sightseeing and my grandmother wisely suggested a complete break from historical houses and tours. I am sure there were places that she had researched and was sorry to miss, but she was more concerned that I enjoy my first taste of travel than that she herself visit every last 18th century library in the former Colony of Virginia.
More than 40 years have passed since that week in which the autumn colors welcomed us to the land of "Give me liberty or give me death!" But it was one of those weeks that made me who I am today ~
a history teacher, a mom who has carefully planned jaunts across the country and across the ocean to accomodate the needs and energy levels of children and teenagers, and a woman who loves to purchase a ticket and pack a bag and head off to just about anywhere!
My grandmother is 98 and didn't recognize me when I visited her a few weeks ago. I hope that illuminated somewhere in still-accessible recesses of her mind are memories of a ten-year-old girl in a red pleated skirt and a tri-cornered hat skipping down the Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg.
(I wrote this for Judi's December Artsy Essay Contest!)
I decided to celebrate this Great Day of the Solstice by writing my Christmas entry for my Lectionary journal.
Merry Christmas!
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen
Snow on snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter
Long, long ago. (Christina G. Rossetti)
But -- in just under thirteen hours it will be here -- the Winter Solstice! After that, the days begin to lengthen and things can only go uphill.
This entry is dedicated to my friend Kathryn, whom many of us have come to view as Queen of the Solstice:
"A year indoors is a journey along a paper calendar; a year in outer nature is the accomplishment of a tremendous ritual. To share in it, one must have a knowledge of the pilgrimmage of the sun, and something of that natural sense of him and feeling for him which made even the most primitive people mark the summer limits of his advance and the last December ebb of his decline. All these autumn weeks I have watched the great disk going south along the horizon of moorlands behind the marsh, now sinking behind this field, now behind this leafless tree, now behind this sedgy hillock dappleds with snow. We lose a great deal, I think, when we lose this sense and feeling for the sun. When all has been said, the adventure of the sun is the great natural drama by which we live, and not to have joy in it and awe of it, not to share in it, is to close a dull door on nature's sustaining and poetic spirit."
Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod (1928)
Walked: 2 miles in the snowstorm.
There is a terrific op-ed piece in today's New York Times entitled "The Great Powers of Europe, Redefined." It should be required reading for all Americans. In a nutshell, Timothy Garton Ash argues that while we have been focused elsewhere, the EU has continued to grow. Even more critically, nations across Europe, in the Balkans, and in Asia, are willing to make dramatic internal changes in order to join. The spread of democracy our President has been talking about? It's going full speed ahead on continents which we disdain and ignore.
Some of Mr. Ash's points:
"Why is it that Americans do not understand the power of the European Union? Is it because they are simply not well informed by reports from Brussels and other European capitals? Or is it because, as citizens of the world's last truly sovereign nation-state, Americans - and especially American conservatives - find it difficult to acknowledge the contribution of a transnational organization based on supranational law?
***
In the way that some American conservatives talk about the European Union, I hear an echo of Stalin's famous question about the Vatican's power: how many divisions does the pope have? But the pope defeated Stalin in the end. This attitude overlooks the dimensions of European power that are not to be found on the battlefield."
***
The European way of life, its culture and societies, are enormously appealing to many of its neighbors. Meanwhile, the policies of the Bush administration have prompted a wave of hostility toward America around the world, while its security measures have made it more difficult for foreigners to study or work in the United States."
Two of my children have studied in France; one is there now. We've traveled as a family to France and Italy. Our President and his cronies turn up their noses at gracious and dignified friends who have found it difficult to see their interests as allied so precisely with our own that they would send their young people to war, and they have gone out and found new friends.
If we really want to play on the world stage, we need to make friends, too.
Walked: 3 miles.
that Snow White had a frig?
No, this picture, another in the Marshall Field's holiday display window series, has nothing to do with anything. It's just fun. I'm no longer contemplating poisoned apples. In fact, I'm smiling, remembering that my daughter's first dramatic role ever was as a 5-year-old Wicked Queen.
Meanwhile, in my life:
I got myself back in gear today after a long hiatus from exercise. See below.
This morning I talked to the son visiting a girlfriend in France. So far so good; tomorrow is meet-the-family day.
My daughter's last day of school was today. It didn't take her long to make plans for the first evening in 3.5 months with no homework.
I had a perfectly delightful dinner out with my other son -- two hours of uninterrupted conversation about college (physics is a disaster; is it time to become an English major?) and life plans (maybe open a bar in Chicago?). Probably the best two hours I've had in a long, long time.
And then my husband came home from his soccer team's practice with Christmas candy baked by one of the player's moms. How good is that?
No outside lights yet though.
*****
Yoga: 20 minutes
Nautilus workout: 30 minutes
Walk: 1.5 miles at the gym, and 1 mile round trip to Little Italy for dinner.
OK, enough of this cheer and good will stuff. I am stressed almost to the breaking point. Back to the grim in Grimm's Fairy Tales:
The Wicked Queen in Snow White (One of the Marshall Field's Holiday Windows)
5:45 a.m. Alarm goes off and husband gets up. Roll over to find glasses and remote and turn on tv to check snow day information.
5:50 a.m. It is clear that, per usual, every single school in our area is closed except those at which daughter and I have to put in an appearance.
6:20 a.m. Hear husband taking dog out.
6:25 a.m. Snow-covered dog lands next to me.
6:35 a.m. Drift back to sleep.
6:40 a.m. Daughter's alarm goes off.
6:50 a.m. Check tv again, just in case. No such luck.
7:00 a.m. Daughter comes into my room to complain about everyone else having the day off just as phone rings -- son calling to say he has arrived safely in Paris and made it to the train station. I can't really hear him over daughter's indignation but at least I know he is on the ground.
7:05 a.m. Call down the hall to ask daughter if there is gas in her car.
7:10 a.m. Pull jeans and coat on over pajamas and head out to clear 6" of snow off daughter's car. Discover that her gas is at a solid EMPTY.
7:15 a.m. At gas station across street, discover gas cap cover and trunk are now frozen in open positions. Gas guy helps me pry gas cap cover open.
7:20 Tell daughter not to leave for school until sun comes up. It's still snowing and our side street is always among the last to be plowed. It's not really a side street but the city likes to pretend that it is.
7:30 Watch some news and listen to daughter mutter over the fact that the school next door to hers is closed.
7:50 Daughter decides to leave. Tell her that it doesn't matter if it takes her an hour to get to school and that she should watch out for the trunk lid flying up when it thaws.
7:55 Curl up on couch in damp pajamas and realize I am not going back to sleep.
A college son already bored and asleep on the couch...
Another college son over the Atlantic and en route to France...
A senior daughter smiling with satisfaction over an A+ on a story, grimacing over mail from colleges, and hoping unreasonably for a snow day tomorrow...
A mom hoping for exactly the same thing...
An absolutely beautiful tree, if I do say so myself, but no outside lights... .
...and read Gilead, the new novel by Marilynne Robinson.
This is the best book I have read in a long time, and I read a lot of books.
Spare. Haunting. Bittersweet.
John Ames, the aging pastor of a small church in Gilead, Iowa, writes to his little son, the product of his recent marriage to a young woman. He wants to leave something of himself, something of who he is, what his cares and concerns have been, for the little boy who will soon be fatherless. His story roams across three generations of Ames men, merging the personal with the history of the slave-free state debate in Kansas, and juxtasposing the interior tranquility of a pastor who has "loved this life" with the inner turmoil and jealousy that trouble him at the same time.
Grace abounds in this book. Even if you have no idea what grace means, and even if you couldn't name it if it leapt upon you or surrounded you, you will know when you finish that you have been immersed in it.
I've had a lot of work to do since Thanksgiving, and I managed to resist purhcasing this book for maybe a week after it appeared on the cover of The New York Times Book Review. I finished it at 2:00 a.m. a few mornings later. And I read it from beginning to end. Well, okay, I did read ahead a little, just once, after I realized that there was a mysterious past that needed to be addressed. But then I went back and kept reading, every single word. Now that is something I seldom do. And I plan to start over again tonight.
There is, by the way, no Christmas episode in the novel. But the whole novel is about Christmas, in one way or another.
It's not really so chaotic around here. But I am almost too tired to move. I'm only staying away from my bed and a long winter's nap because I want to hear the live Christmas Vespers concert from my high school, on in a few minutes -- something I haven't heard live since singing in it in 1970! The internet is an incredible invention.
My own final paper for my grad school class is basically finished. My daughter's college applications are basically finished, with the exception of the voice audition CD she is to make tomorrow. Let's hope that she stays healthy for the next 24 hours -- it was a real challenge for her to co-ordinate her schedule with those of her choral and tech directors. (The challenge, of course, had mostly to do with her A+ in Procrastination Skills for Life.)
My sons are home from college, and they're out looking for a digital camera -- the Christmas gift for the one heading back to France to spend a week with a girlfriend. Let's also hope that the folks at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris have their security run-throughs in better shape this week.
The tree is up, the lights are on -- thanks to a 10:00 p.m. trip to Target last night for more -- and the decorations are strewn all over the place. The boys are in charge of outside lights today -- since they only got up about an hour ago I'm not holding my breath on that one.
My daughter's gone to a play with a friend and my husband has gone off to coach a soccer team. It's just me and the animals...and Christmas music!
The plight of New York City red-tailed hawks Pale Male and consort was recently brought to my attention by journalist Danielle, who introduced us to the disheartening story of the removal of the nest of these long-time city residents by the board of the co-op building where they claim squatters' rights. Pale Male and girlfriends have been a symbol of the joy and exuberance of the natural world in the midst of a hostile setting, not only for New Yorkers but for the wider audience which enjoyed their exploits in the book Red-Tails in Love (1998) by Marie Winn.
Ms. Winn has a beautiful webpage devoted to the story of the hawks, which includes years of nesting history and updates on the nest removal controversy.
Today's New York Times features the story of Co-op Board vs. Pale Male on the front page. It seems that several of the conservative co-op residents have longed to evict the hawks for some time. They finally overcame the various stumbling blocks in their way and effected a quick and complete removal of nest and supports. The outcry has been swift and dramatic.
It will, I imagine, be short-lived. As one saddened letter-writer to the Times pointed out yesterday, the loss of a hawk nest is a small thing in the context of our larger woes.
But it is an occasion for woe. Twenty-five years ago, new to birding and the excitement of the avian world, I spent several springs watching a pair of red-tails nest in a huge sycamore tree that spread its branches across an isolated valley off the interstate. I had discovered them quite by accident, and subsequently visited them every few days while they were raising their young. I was practicing law then, and would drive south of the city in the early evenings, wearing my business clothes and sneakers, park in a construction site, and trudge across the muddy fields that led to that magical valley. On week-ends I would get up early in the morning to drive down there, and spend hours crouched in the underbrush, just watching. The parents would sail close to my head, screeching warnings of impending doom, as I crossed the open spaces of the fields, but they would forget about me as soon as I was hidden by thickets and brush. I could watch them soar through blue spring skies, hunting and generally enjoying themselves, and I could witness their fluffy white young growing and elbowing each other with their wings until they practically tumbled out of the nest.
The nest is gone now. Like most land surrounding interstates, that area has been developed -- God knows we need more office buildings and more hotel, restaurant, and bank chains.
We are capable of losing so much, so quickly.
Fra Filippo Lippi(after 1440)
Some thoughts for the third Sunday in Advent are here.
(There's a Christmas song for you, Lisa!)
I looked out the kitchen window into my neighbor's yard yesterday morning and saw a flash of brilliant red in the midst of the hard brown ground under the drizzly gray sky. I realized how quickly I have succumbed to the stress and bleakness of a midwestern December and much I have missed in the past few weeks by not getting out for my walks.
It's difficult to maintain any kind of routine as the winter begins to press in, with its demands on health and family relationships, its end-of-semester pressures, and the tensions created by the ever-changing needs and momentum of three young adults (or, as one prefer preferably identify them, three individuals in the throes of advanced adolescence). It's even harder when the already gray and damp days shorten into pre-solstice darkness and misery. No wonder people are suddenly frantic to get their holiday lights out.
But there, bravely resisting the inevitable, a red-bellied woodpecker optimistically scavenged my neighbor's dead grass for a meal. As far as I could tell, she was not concerned about her Christmas shopping, her final paper, the crashed computer system at work, the students who suddenly want help with college essays, her children coming and going at lightning speed, her ill stepmother or her disoriented grandmother. She was out there in the moment, a flash of brilliant presence in an otherwise darkened morning.
This week has been on the intense side, a good time to step back and contemplate the gifts of the artists among us who have interpreted the Advent scriptures:
Mary astonished
Miracle baby asleep
Giant cat descends.
*******************************
Shepherds watch the sky
Angels we have heard on high
Cat guards infant child.
Last night I was reminded of something I've been meaning to post for awhile. It's made the rounds online several times, always without credit, so you may have read it already and I can't tell you where.
I have a group of friends that has been together for seventeen years. I know that because we met when my daughter was a newborn. We have seen each other through great joys and sad losses as women, brilliant triumphs and staggering defeats as mothers, long nights and early mornings as humans adrift in a world that.often makes little sense.
We get together on Saturday mornings and on holidays. Christmas has been a tradition at our house for fifteen of those years, but I'm feeling pulled in various directions this year due to my stepmother's illness. Where to go and what to do? I've missed several of our Saturdays, but the word came back yesterday that everyone had agreed that they want to do Christmas here but are fine with an emergency back up plan in case my family has to go out of town. Of course, the back up plan could be our house without us in it -- whatever.
You need the kind of friends who will open their homes to a couple of dozen people without warning, and who will see anything that appears on the table as a feast. You need the kind of friends who know absolutely that the important thing is to be together, whatever the surroundings and despite the events.
And in this era, you can be together in other ways, too. I have another group of fast friends, a group that decided many years ago to form a bookclub out of a larger online group. I don't even know how long we've been together (one of them is probably about to tell me), and I'm not entirely clear on who has actually met whom in real life. But we have shared stories and pictures and successes and diasters for a long time now, and now we all need each other, too.
There are a lot of things in my life that are light-years from perfect. My friendships with other women are one of the most astounding gifts I have experienced. So Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukkah to them all:
********************************
I sat on the porch that long ago summer day, drinking iced tea and visiting with my Mother.
"Don't forget your girlfriends," Mother advised, clinking the ice cubes in her glass. "No matter how much you love your husband, you are still going to need girlfriends. Remember to go places with them now and then; do things with them. And remember that girlfriends are not only friends, but sisters, daughters and other relatives too."
What a funny piece of advice, I thought. Hadn't I just gotten married? Hadn't I just joined the couple-world? I was now a married woman, for goodness sake, not a young girl who needed girlfriends. But I listened to my Mom. I kept contact with my girlfriends and made more each year. As the years tumbled by, one after another, gradually I came to understand that Mom really knew what she was talking about.
Here is what I know about Girlfriends:
Girlfriends bring casseroles and scrub your bathroom when you need help.
Girlfriends keep your children and keep your secrets.
Girlfriends give advice when you ask for it. Sometimes you take it, sometimes you don't.
Girlfriends don't always tell you that you're right, but they're usually honest.
Girlfriends still love you, even when they don't agree with your choices.
Girlfriends might send you a birthday card, but they might not. It does not matter in the least.
Girlfriends laugh with you, and you don't need canned jokes to start the laughter.
Girlfriends pull you out of jams.
Girlfriends don't keep a calendar that lets them now who hosted the other last big party.Girlfriends will give a party for your son or daughter when they get married or have a baby, in whichever order that comes.
Girlfriends are there for you, in an instant and when the hard times come.
Girlfriends listen when you lose a job.
Girlfriends listen when your husband strays.
Girlfriends listen when your children break your heart.
Girlfriends listen when your parents' minds and bodies fail.
Girlfriends cry with you when someone you love dies.
My daughters, sisters, family, and friends bless my life.
When we began this adventure we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.
I got started yesterday with a soak in my brother's hot tub. Ensconced on my grandmother's porch, the same porch where I spent countless summer evenings long ago, it offers a winter's view of a wide lawn covered with frost and the sunrise filtering through the stark woods of bare trees. Sitting in the steamy water, I could watch the day beginning and review my plans at leisure.
I guess it's a good thing we don't have a hot tub here. My brother likes to relax in his late at night, but I'm usually too tired think about changing clothes and looking for towels. I'm much more of a morning person. But the truth is, if we had one here, I'm not sure that I'd bother getting out of it to go to work, not ever.
****************************
Christmas Decoration Report for Marian: A few fully lighted and decorated trees have appeared in windows. There's a yard a few blocks away in which Santa and Baby Jesus get equal billing, and a blow-up Frosty has appeared on another block.
I left work at 2:00 yesterday afternoon (Friday -- Jewish school) and drove the four hours to my dad's and stepmom's, where I had a nice little dinner visit with them before she conked out. She is 3/4 of the way through her daily radiation treatments for the cancer that has metatasized to her brain, and has lost her hair, her slim face, and almost every ounce of her energy. It's hard to believe that she was canoeing the wilds of Canada three months ago -- this morning she protested my suggestion to take advantage of the beautiful weather with a walk out to the mailbox.
After dinner I went next door to my brother's. He and his wife are actually living in my grandmother's house while building one of their own, which is almost ready for them. His wife and I went off to see it -- another hour's round trip. I can't say that I have any burning desire to live in either a development or a new house -- but theirs could change my mind. It just sparkles -- oak floors, carpeting, glorious windows, a magnificent kitchen -- all shiny and new. Just imagine -- choosing paint for a new living room instead of taking a sledgehammer to the wall to access the leaking pipe from the 90-year-old toilet above it (one of our upcoming projects)! My brother and his wife have been in my grandmother's house for at least a couple of years. They were hoping to purchase and renovate it, but that didn't work out. I think they are going to enjoy this new home tremendously.
This morning I drove the extra hour to visit my 98-year-old grandmother in her assisted living apartment. What a sad experience. My grandmother and I have always been extremely close, but I'm not sure that she had any idea that anyone other than the nursing home staff was there. She certainly had no idea who I was. She is usually lucid and alert, but she has lost most of her hearing and vision and, if she's having a bad day, she seems to be in a completely altered state of consciousness. In fact, that may be exactly what she's in -- she is apparently on antidepressant medication of some kind, and achieving the right dosage seems to be something of a challenge. I felt so badly for her -- I had known that conversation would be impossible, but I had hoped that she would recognize me and know that she was loved and cared for.
Onward -- a little shopping, another little visit with my family, and another four-hour drive. I listened to a lot of Christmas music on the way home -- the Christmas portion of The Messiah, a CD of the King's College (Cambridge) choir singing some pretty old stuff, and even some of the popular music on a radio station that's switched to all Christmas. (I'm not sure that I really count Elvis and Andy Williams but, whatever.)
I wished that I could have pulled off the interstate on the way home. The most amazing sunset stretched across the sky behind me. The sun went down as a fiery and golden ball, and then the horizon began to morph into a medly of oranges, pinks, purples, and finally, crimsons. The stark black outlines of trees against the deeply colored sky was dramatically beautiful.
Something to listen to as you drive across the Midwest under a blazing evening sky: Once in Royal David's City. This is a broadcast about the song, traditionally sung at the beginning of a Lessons and Carols service -- it was the best I could do, and it's actually quite interesting. But I guess you will have to either go to a Lessons and Carols service or listen to one on CD or the radio to hear the song all the way through, from the a capella solo to the massive choir to the kettle drums.
Our scraggly neighborhood decorations have had an effect; I'm starting to get into the holiday season:
The Sixties: Our parents took the four of us to see the Black Watch Bagpipers at Cincinnati Gardens. I still remember how wonderful that evening was.
The Seventies: As we piled out of our Chistmas Vespers concert on the last night of the semester, we discovered that it had begin to snow while we were in the chapel. We were surrounded by inches and inches of fluffy white, weighing down the pine trees and completely covering the ground and roadways. One of my best friends, from Arizona and, like me, not enthused about our lives, danced down the steps in the swirling snow in the dark and cried out in delight, "Oh, I'm SO glad I go to boarding school in New England!"
The Eighties: One of our five-year-old sons, decorating his very first tiny Christmas tree and dragging it over to the big one because "the little tree needs to be next to its mom."
The Nineties: Dragging a dhrurrie rug upstairs to the tub, with the help of one of the dads from the ten or so families crowded into our house, because a certain other son had become so excitedly overwrought that he had thrown up hot chocolate all over the off white background. And no, that rug was never the same.
The Aughts: Christmas Eve in France, with the family hosting that Christmas tree son for the year: lots of gestures and laughter over an amazing feast.
2005: We're working on it.
One of my friends has a great entry today about the unoffical Christmas decoration contest going on in her neighborhood. I commented that we are pretty restrained around here, but tonight as I drove home I decided to test my statement.
In the twelve blocks, some long, some short, before and including mine:
8 sets of outside lights
2 wreaths
1 bare tree in a living room window
1 decorated tree in a living room window, and
On my own short block of about 15 houses:
Nada, zilch, nothing.
I'll file another report after the week-end -- there should be some improvement in the situation by then.
We had a second day in Chicago, and spent most of it wandering around. One of our stops was the Bean sculture at Millenium Park -- the sculpture has a real name, but everyone calls it "The Bean," for obvious reasons. That's my son in front, mimicing the Bean:
We spent a lot of time at the Art Institute -- I had no idea that its collection is so extensive. Duh, it's Chicago. Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Picasso, Degas, on and on and on. A favorite is a display downstairs of little dioramas depicting home interiors in exquisite detail -- makes you want to go right out and start a dollhouse hobby. Most of the interiors are American and European, but there are a few Asian examples. Since I'm teaching early America right now, it was fun to note the contrast between the rough Jamestown settlement that my students are studying and the luxury and ostentation of English libraries and drawing rooms of the same time period.
We also did a tiny bit of shopping -- one purchase -- and went to see the big tree at Marshall Field's and went to one of my son's favorite hot dog extravaganza restaurants for dinner. And we went to The Incredibles -- not something I would have ever chosen on my own, but a lot of fun.
Underneath the Bean
