abiding

...thoughts on edges and cows

2012-02-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

Early eastern light reflected on coastal clouds, from the galley of FOREver AFTer

There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky,

yet it was still dark,

and the traces of morning color

were like goldfish swimming in ink.

Truman Capote, The Muses Are Heard: An Account

I met such a morning as this in June while on the boat. Mug of tea in hand, I watched color morph into shape. The bright light of morning brought the details. So many dawns, each a promise. If the start of the day is a preface, then sunset is a punctuation mark, a counter of sorts. Ticked off another day. Reset button, please.

One particular thought has stirred - and recurred - in recent weeks: life on the edges. Especially as we drove up Highway 1 on Sunday, along the headlands of the northern California coast, then out to Point Reyes. Past herds of Tule elk, deer, and cows. Lots of milk cows, mostly Holsteins. I scanned the fields, looking for an elusive breed I encountered in Ireland. Right there, in the middle of a field, lo and behold, I saw them. Not milk cows but big, beefy critters. The breed’s markings fascinated me when I first encountered a herd on the way to Killarney: black, curly coats swathed with a wide white band around the mid-section. When I searched in 2007, I found nothing. Yesterday I typed "black cow with wh" and Google populated the search window with "black cow with white band around the middle". Oh, yes. Finally, I can assuage the doubts of all who thought I was hallucinating heifers. I have found my beloved Belted Galloways. The following description is from the nice people at Oklahoma State University (http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle):

Yes, sir, that's my baby...the Belted Galloway.
Gotta love a cow that knows how to accessorize.

[Galloways are] a very ancient [breed], with obscure origins shrouded in antiquity and its name derived from the word Gallovid or Gaul. The Gauls were the native inhabitants of the regality known as the Province of Galloway. This province once comprised six shires (counties) in the very southernmost extremity of Scotland's Lowlands. The cattle of the region were said to be dark, smooth-polled, wavy-haired with undercoats like beaver's fur and for centuries they went unnamed, referred to only as the black cattle of Galloway. From this coastal environment of winds and damp cold, combined with an undulating terrain of moors, granitic hills, heathery mountain ranges and fertile glens ... emerged the Galloway breed of cattle.

William McCombie, (pioneer Scottish Angus & Shorthorn breeder) said, "The Galloway undoubtedly has many great qualifications. On poor land they are unrivaled, on land so poor our Aberdeens could not subsist upon it. There is no other breed worth more by the pound weight than a first-class Galloway." "Galloway cattle are generally very docile," quotes William Youatt, (English researcher, scientist, veterinary surgeon, historian & standard writer on cattle in the early 1800s.) He goes on to say, "This is a most valuable point about them in every respect. It is rare to find even a bull furious or troublesome." Galloways are very courageous however, and if annoyed by dogs or wild animals, they will act in concert, by forming a crescent and jointly attacking. There are claims that one or two Galloways in a field of sheep prevent any danger from dogs.

There you have it. I celebrate the edge of day, the rim of night, much as I did my brand-new box of Crayolas and pristine Blue Horse notebook on the first day of school. Inside, the promise of a clean start, along with the allure of perfectionism’s seductive but deadly dance. I dearly love sharp tips of color, clean paper with no pockmarks of last Monday’s theme pressed into the surface. But it was in dog-earred notebooks scribbled with dull nubs of crayon bits that I met my metier. And daily I find my mettle in life’s rocky fields, in the glare of harsh light, in the depth of dark moments.

When I land dead-center in the morass, when I long for edges and drama, I try to remember that I am a temple under construction. Like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, I am unfinished. What a generous man of faith, Gaudi...how many architects do you know who would willingly, yea willfully, pass along an incomplete vision to unknown others? I daresay that far too many skyscrapers populate our cities, fully built and occupied, yet incomplete in both form and function. Would - or could - Capote have written as he did without the full realm of his experience?

And when I depart this earth, I will leave my incomplete human form, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Lessons yet unlearned. Promises dangling. Humility still not my strong suit. Yep, there I’ll be, trailing dust bunnies, not clouds of glory...how fitting.

I am drawn to beautiful, dramatic edges where land meets sea. And aware of life's approaching edge as well. Thank you for my green fields wherever they are, for those places I do not choose to visit but where my center is rooted. Here's to the indwelling.

Oh, my darling Belted Galloways, preach on. Not with words but with every plodding, docile step. Meek: powerful in submission to a master, peaceful. Whisper to me, remind me, "Over the next hill, Celeste, lies a coast, but this present spot is quite good, too." You're my people!

With all this going for us,

my dear, dear friends, stand your ground [be steadfast].

And don't hold back.

Throw yourselves into the work of the Master,

confident that nothing you do for him

is a waste of time or effort.

I Corinthians 15:58

...fog and the art of dancing by the water's edge

2012-01-27T11:46:00.000-08:00

Last night's stroll to the store

'There are your fog people & your sun people,' he said.

I said I wasn't sure which kind I was. He nodded.

'Fog'll do that to you,' he said.

Brian Andreas, Story People

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.

You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E.L. Doctorow

Most days, I can be found at the intersection of Andreas and Doctorow. Not lost. Nor wandering aimlessly. I have bartered my yesterdays for today’s clarity. But I know fog.

I love winter’s grey blur. Such days are made for meandering. My favorite memories of Ireland are wrapped in mist: long walks in my rain hat and boots followed by a cuppa tea in front of a peat fire in the parlor.

My reading habits are a bit peripatetic as well. Some familiar phenomenom gets my attention, whets my curiosity and I'm all a-Google. After my walk yesterday, I ran my e-fingers through the Wiki. And found this interesting passage:

Shadows are cast through fog in three dimensions. The fog is dense enough to be illuminated by light that passes through gaps in a structure or tree, but thin enough to let a large quantity of that light pass through to illuminate points further on. As a result, object shadows appear as "beams" oriented in a direction parallel to the light source. These voluminous shadows are due to the same cause as crepuscular rays, [see photo below] which are the shadows of clouds, but in this case, they are the shadows of solid objects.

Crepuscular rays...and I thought this was just a pretty sunset.
Bill's iPhone photo, September 2010

Our advection fog results when the marine layer is pushed onto land by fronts and lows and highs. The landscape, the harbor, and the air itself are transformed into ethereal shapes lit by halos of street lamps. And so am I.

I planned to celebrate the metaphorical fog that resides at the intersection of Andreas and Doctorow in this post. [How appropriate that I now live within spitting distance of the San Andreas Fault. But I digress.] Celebrate. Yes indeed. Sometimes the well-planned life has to defer to detours in order to become the well-lived life. That's my philosophy, at least. As I sat typing this, I saw the mist creep behind our condo. The marine layer does not visit this spot...or so I thought, as I watched it break through my expectations. Once again I could not see around the next curve. The post made a right turn. The pictures tell the rest of the story better than words but they fall short of the magic.

Oh, what to my wondering eyes should appear!
Can't see the harbor past the trees.

The marine layer visited Marina Bay as I've never seen before.

FOREver AFTer is out there somewhere in the mist.
This I know.
I just can't see that far.

As quickly as it had disappeared, the sun rose from the water
and reclaimed its dominion...

The color returned and brought the boats

...and with them, the gulls

JOY
=

wait five minutes
(or more)

enjoy the wait

...the morning night fell

2012-01-19T08:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Jim, the husband of my young friend, Beth, died suddenly, unexpectedly. The news was shocking. A mutual friend, Melissa, wrote this morning, “I have thought of little else since I found out.” Indeed. A continent and a few decades separate us. But love binds. Forever. And with it, vulnerability, tears, memories. Beth and her children are surrounded by family and close friends. The precious message sent to me by a friend ten years ago keeps circling. “In the silence of a caring heart know that you are loved.” Her husband has also since died, her caring heart shattered. This morning I write: to sort, to absorb. Words weep from my soul.

Beth’s words pierce the hearts of all who love her: “My very best friend, my husband of fifteen years, the father of my children”...her partner, gone. She adds,”I need all of your prayers, please, because right now I am lost.” This I understand. I have visited this lonely place. Beth was with me then.

After the screeching halt of a life joined with mine...after the knowing, the awful knowing...came a pain too deep for tears. The tears would follow, fiercely, weeks later. Great racking sobs that took my breath but left the ache untouched. With my parents, my grandparents, death was bittersweet but anticipated, a gentle ellipsis at the end of a sentence that trailed into eternity. Not so with a partner. In the middle of my fifty-first year, an exclamation point divided life into before and after. And my days and nights - especially the nights - rained question marks.

I keep reading C.S. Lewis today. His wife, writer Joy Davidman, died fours years after they wed. This civil union between two friends allowed Davidman and her sons to remain in Great Britain. Soon after, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. The relationship deepened and they wanted a Christian marriage. Not easy since Davidman was divorced. But they were married at her hospital bedside a year later.

These two former atheists forged a union neither could have anticipated. Davidman described her conversion following her alcoholic husband’s nervous breakdown: “For the first time my pride was forced to admit that I was not, after all, ‘the master of my fate’...All my defenses - all the walls of arrogance and cocksureness and self-love behind which I had hid from God - went down momentarily - and God came in.”

Warren Lewis wrote this about his brother’s wife: “For Jack [as Lewis was known to close friends and family], the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met...who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun.”

C.S. Lewis said of his wife: “She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have had good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more.”

Of her early death, he wrote, “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.” The unsought deal, the dreaded exchange. In the early morning hours, I lift my sweet friend to the great good God, up to his healing light. And I mourn. For her. For myself. For us all. I do not want the deal. I want time. And yet, I know the gift is greater than my limited mind. Its length and breadth and height are unfathomable.

Forgive my disbelief, O God.

Comfort my friend, Beth.

Shower her with blessings.

I praise you.

This I know:
You father the fatherless;

You are the defender of widows.

And, when the night comes
and I do not know

and you seem so very far away,

you hold me still

in your everlasting arms.
Peace, my sweet Beth, love and light
forever
forever after
amen

...morph happens

2012-01-11T11:36:00.000-08:00

I watched a sand artist at work in Santa Barbara..the rest of the picture is another post

Ponderisms, my friend, Marshall, calls them. My personal definition goes like this: those soulful places wrapped in mystery that loom large, where the mind meanders much like the lost tribes of Israel: in circles for forty-odd years. Marshall’s contribution today: age is a territory that has never been explored.

Now, every day I receive at least three unsolicited emails about aging gracefully in body, mind and spirit. I can think of few subjects that are more explored than the aging process. Long before Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth (been there, didn’t work), we humans have sought to slow the march of time. On the surface, aging appears to have been explored ad nauseum.

But Marshall - who acquired his latest ponderism while on jury duty - has a point. And I’m getting there but, first, an analogy. When Bill began treating my back, I was overwhelmed and confused by the ever-increasing list of daily exercises and stretches. So I asked for a matrix. When he quit laughing and got up from the floor, I said, “Well, I’m glad I can amuse you. Seriously, though, I think this is a great idea.”

He composed himself - barely - and said, “If I had a dime for every time a patient asked me for a matrix, I’d be a wealthy man. But it can’t be done.” Had he not spoken compassionately, I might have been offended.

I’m nothing if not persistent. “Sure it can. And I’m just the girl to do it. I’ll just set up a spreadsheet....” He stopped me, again nicely.

“Well, yes, technically, you could set one up but the result would be useless.”

I said nothing, nicely. People who know me find silence - even a nice silence - on my part extremely unsettling.

But he continued. “The exercises and stretches must reflect where your body is at a given moment. What is out of balance today will differ from what you experienced yesterday. Or an hour ago. In fact, the very nature of therapy is fluid. As the load shifts...”

When I hear the phrase “load shift”, I know that he is headed toward back/neck nirvana. And I listen because I’m learning a lot. These days when we take walks by the shore, I find myself saying, “Look, Bill. That fella in front of us is definitely right-side-bending.” And he points out foot drop. We are a fascinating duo.

But he is right. As I stretch one area, the load shifts and a new dynamic results. The laws of physics at work. My matrix approach won’t work. I am learning to read my body and to respond to postural habits - and pain - on an “as is” basis.

Oh, the seductive power of lovely, lazy life matrices: what better way to de-rail one’s journey. In delirium. The truth is - with aging as well as with backs - morph happens. I can watch what I eat. Exercise regularly. Work crosswords or do Sudoku to ward off memory loss. But that pesky interior journey can’t be plotted. Or predicted. My aging - my personal experience - can be examined only by me. Context is ever-changing.

Now, let us go back to the back...and neck. Bill really stirred the pot when he introduced referred pain into the mix.

“But my wrist hurts," I said, perplexed. "Why are you putting a tennis ball under my spine between my shoulders? Is the idea to create pain elsewhere to get my mind off my wrist?”

A C-4 or C-7 or F-3-1/2 vertebra explanation inevitably follows. As does my response. “But feel the lump on the side of my hand, please. I’m swelling.”

He then takes both hands and holds them in front of me and points out that the lump is present on both wrists. It’s called a tendon or a joint or a muscle, whatever. My mind so wants to ice my aching joint or put heat on it or wrap it in gauze. Bill, on the other hand (unintentional pun...Freudian, perhaps?), wants to drape my supine spine over a tennis ball. Inevitably the pain goes away. The first time he did this, I told him the swelling was gone as well. He refrained from laughing. Wisdom comes with age. This we do know.

So must my trek through time be studied. I must learn where I am disjointed. And come to grips with referred pain. This is a solo trip. Others can enlighten me. The wisest friends get out of my way. Even let me stumble. But only I can re-visit those places of the heart and soul and mind that I passed through mindlessly the first time around: to find context, peace, perhaps a little wisdom of my own.

Courage isn’t my first alternative. But every time I face my fears, I am emboldened to move forward, unencumbered, no longer captive to the power of shadows. Years ago I read To a Dancing God by Sam Keen. A drawing from that book illustrates this beautifully. I lost the book in the Great House Collapse of “03 but the picture remains in my mind. Visualize this:

A line drawing depicts a vast desert, with a huge sun beating down upon the sand (much like west Texas last week). In the upper left corner, the sun. Below, a large pyramid (named “Doubt”) which casts a shadow (labeled appropriately “The Shadow of a Doubt”). A long stretch of desert stretches across the page. On the far right, a deep chasm (labeled “The Bottomless Pit”) slices through the arid land. On the other side of the chasm, large leafy trees and water. The title of the illustration: Beyond the Shadow of A Doubt.

So I plod through my deserts, thirsty, aching...and arrive at The Pit. The Bottomless Pit. The only way across is a leap of faith. The oasis on the other side is sometimes pitifully small and the visit there brief. But never a mirage. For every time I take a leap over the unknowable, I find that I am one step closer to reality. A peace unrelated to circumstance...more often than not, in spite of circumstance. A gift. The gift. Truth.

With shameless plagiarism, I hereby deem aging The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of this writer. An enterprise that may stretch well beyond five years if time allows. Or end abruptly. I am clueless about my allotted days. My mission: to revisit the worlds I have only glimpsed, to explore new ones; to seek life and to grow in civility; to boldly go where no other man or woman can go, to that I place I avoid at times: within.

Funny, the black holes that once tugged at me do not taunt anymore. Experience empowers. I have, for instance, driven carpool for over twenty years. Once, when I was the lead car at Pizitz Middle School, my battery died, thereby blocking traffic until I could be jump-started. I survived and lived to tell this tale.

Yes, two posts ago,I gave you a list of upcoming blogs. This one wasn’t on it. Proof once more that matrices inevitably fail. The other posts on the list are forthcoming. I just don’t know in what order. Or when. Adrienne’s fifth grade teacher was a unique individual. He had each student copy this Hellen Keller quote at the top of every paper: “Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.” I never know what’s around the next bend. But I’m enjoying the trip more each day.

...twisters, hurricanes and twists of fate

2012-01-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Adrienne's gift from Venice

Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible. To love you have to climb out of the cradle, where everything is "getting," and grow up to the maturity of giving, without concern for getting anything special in return.

Merton, Thomas. Love and Living. Naomi Burton Stone and Brother Patrick Hart, editors.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979: 30-31

A taker and a giver do not a couple make
because giving in is not the same thing
as giving.
your mother

We are back in San Francisco. Bill is busy treating patients this morning. And I’m catching up with all of you. We have driven over 4500 miles since we flew south in mid-December. While there, we collected my clothes and a few stored items, loaded them in my 1997 Ford Explorer, Dora, and began our circuitous journey. Dora just plain fits. We buried Bill’s beloved Aunt Dora while in Georgia. My granddaughter Ciara loves Dora the Explorer cartoons. And Bill’s office is on Dora Street. We hit every compass point along the way in this newly christened old car. Reunions were brief - mostly drive-by huggings - but sweet. The vistas - some familiar, others new - swept past us at sixty-five miles per hour. Dora likes this speed best.

Last night we watched the sun set between the spires of the Golden Gate...a beautiful welcome home. We unpacked completely this night for the first time in three weeks. The car, that is. The bags are sitting in front of me now. But first, our visit. Because I have been thinking of all of you during this trip.

I had planned to go through boxes that are stored in Birmingham and select items to bring here. The four days allotted for that segment became one. I stood in front of the open warehouse door that afternoon and stared at large armoires, chests, and chairs carefully stacked. The boxes were behind them. And underneath. A heaviness settled over me as I stood there. The energy to shift, sift, sort and re-stack seemed too great. Time could be better spent with family and friends before we made the long trip west. I chose wisely, I think: we closed the door and left: locked and un-loaded.

The next morning, a touching encounter: I spoke with Urvi, the young lady behind the hotel desk in Tuscaloosa. I told her that this was our first visit since the devastating tornadoes last April.

The healing has just begun: pockets of destruction remain
as do scars, within and without

Eight months later, former neighborhoods are a mix of new construction and empty lots. In some areas, debris remains stacked by the road. I couldn’t recognize where I was at times because blocks of once-wooded land now stands barren. The church where my granddaughter attended daycare was swept away in the storm. Not even a foundation remained.

Then Urvi told her story. She was with her parents that afternoon in the motel they own. They huddled in their apartment behind the office as the giant twister took half of the building. Suddenly the roof above them disappeared. Urvi, terrified, looked up into the center of the monster. Inside the funnel, she saw only white, a bright white light that she said reminded her of the throne of God. And she felt calm. But the fear returned after the storm passed. For two nights she couldn’t sleep. Then she began - as so many did - to volunteer. As she carried water and food to the hardest hit areas, peace returned. And sleep. But she watches the skies now. Her parents have rebuilt. Their motel, which once had forty-eight units, now has twenty-seven.

A few nights earlier, a brief window of opportunity opened. We left our route to meet Bill’s childhood friend, Ben, who was visiting his son in Georgia. Ben has volunteered in Joplin, Missouri since the tornadoes hit there last spring. First with Relief Spark, now with a non-profit, he coordinates rebuilding efforts. The morning after our visit, he returned to Missouri to resume his work. And left us with incredible stories of the destruction, the generosity of volunteers, and the indomitable spirit of survivors.

We visited briefly with friends whose heavily wooded lot is not...wooded, that is, anymore....not since that April day. As we drove south, the tornado damage merged with the wrathful remnants of Hurricane Katrina. The casinos of Biloxi have been rebuilt and large new homes now stand in place of those washed or blown away. But Gulfport seems wounded still.

Beach Road, Gulfport, 2012...almost seven years later

The gracious old southern homes and the large oaks that lined the coast road are gone. We drove past block after block of sidewalks and driveways that lead to empty lots. A cultural loss that can only be grieved, not replaced with new buildings. But the beaches have healed. Nature is mindless of man.

Gulfport, Mississippi January 2012

In New Orleans, the tourists have returned. But the 9th Ward and other hard-hit areas have not. Through Louisiana, then Texas, reminders of the transient nature of places and people and things surrounded us. We stopped to stretch and walk beside I-10 in Texas one afternoon. In the detritus of what was last promoted as a ghost town. Not a victim to natural disaster but to changing times and economies. The tours no longer exist and even the ghosts appear to have moved on.

Kent, Texas...no more

As we visited family and friends, I thought of those no longer with us. Conversations reminded me that we are now caregivers to those who once nurtured us...new challenges, uncharted territory.

One evening, I posted this photo of a sunset in Gruene, Texas. Minutes later, our friend, Ben of Joplin fame, posted a comment: “Celeste, when I did my bike ride last year, I rented a tube and floated down the river by Gruene. They have a large water tower in Gruene that you can see from that section on the river.” I snapped a photo of that tower - it loomed over our heads as we ate dinner - and posted it on Facebook.

Ours is small world, after all. [But, please, could we find another song to celebrate this?]

Now I must unpack. I will hang the much-loved art that made the trek to California. This framed paper casting was made in Venice by an artist whose shop my daughter and I visited. Adrienne returned after I left Italy, bought this beautiful piece for me, lugged it through several countries and across the ocean. The delicate paper art arrived in pristine condition. When I look at it, I remember the sweet miraculous moments when I held my babies: the smell of baby powder, their heat against me. Fleeting, really. Roots and wings...that’s the deal. Otherwise the miracle would smother.

Every day is homecoming. An interior work, this coming home - a move toward integration and authenticity - insists that I be decreased in order to increase. Out of the shattering, wholeness...the blessings of brokenness redux. So here is to new beginnings, new friends. And here's to a greater appreciation of all my relationships whatever their duration: I am richer for what has gone before.

...yes, we are still on the road

2012-01-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

We really need to clean the windshield

We will be traveling through January 8th. From the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific shore. Before we began the drive home to San Francisco, we managed to log 1500 miles going around in circles. Since I can’t type for any length of time on a cell phone without losing my equanimity AND since I am pooped by our evening respite, I hereby issue a caveat: My posts in transit may be just a bit disjointed. More along the lines of “here’s what I saw and heard that stuck.” I marvel at these ordinary moments: the serendipity of unexpected conversations or small kindnesses.

I want to share them all with you but cannot do these encounters justice quite yet. Here, though, is a preview of coming attractions:

...twisters, hurricanes and twists of fate: The tornadoes that struck Tuscaloosa last April also struck close to my heart. My son, his wife, and my precious granddaughter live there. While in Tuscaloosa, Patrick drove me through some of the hard-hit areas. And I met a lovely young woman named Urvi who looked up as the huge twister hit. Shortly after these storms, another mega-twister devastated Joplin, Missouri. Our friend, Ben, is a long-term volunteer coordinator for Relief Spark which has spearheaded re-building efforts. Along the Gulf coast, the imprint of hurricanes - particularly Katrina - is evident.

...a proper southern funeral: Bill’s sweet Aunt Dora died during our stay. Her funeral - the inimitable Southern tribute - and other encounters reminded me of my southern roots.

...encounters with food: from gas stations to fine restaturants, we sampled them all. Words and pictures to follow.

...take the pain out of traveling: Observations about - you guessed it - travelling..

... it’s all about choice: wait and see.

We have several days left, new reunions and sights to see...no telling what's around the next corner. And no end to posts in sight.

...on the road again

2011-12-30T06:09:00.000-08:00

Forget truth north. We are in serious need of true west. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” has never been more spot-on than this week. We have been in the exact right place but time has run out.

We have had the great pleasure of THREE visits with Bill’s mom in her wonderful assisted living residence.

Special time with the kids and lots of hugs from my granddaughter, Ciara.

And yesterday, a sweet good-bye to Bill’s Aunt Dora. Shortly after we arrived in Tuscaloosa, we received a call that she had died. We had visited her last week. She was comatose, after a protracted illness that robbed her of her hallmark vitality. We drove back to Georgia for one more night. And now we are back in Alabama. One more journey along the county roads of our youth.

Today we pack a few things, get organized for the drive, hug everyone as much as possible. Sunday morning, we begin the cross-country trip in earnest. My back doesn’t ride well so we’ll break up our days with walks and stretches. We’ll take the southern route to avoid snow and ice. And be alert for fog in the coastal areas. Traveling mercies, please.

Our friend, Johnny, posted a couple of Yeats’ quotes this morning. I was reminded of my favorite:

Think where man’s glory

most begins and ends,

And say my glory was

I had such friends.

Have, have...not had. At least not yet. No friend leaves. All my relationships shape me...if I remain teachable. Love travels with us and we will have reunion. If not this week, in the spring, hopefully. Or at our home in California. As for now you are in my heart, in Bill’s. We are humbled by the wonderful people who grace our lives. How I love my blogging buddies...we are scattered all over the world. But the conversation is richer for the diversity, not diminished by distance.

So, look for some road blogs as we trek westward. And send up some travelin’ prayers, please.

Love to all and a happy, blessed New Year!

P.S. Coming soon...touching stories about tornadoes and helping hands. And, of course, chronicles of the places and people we meet along the way.

...from then until now, from mourning to morning

2011-12-24T07:38:00.000-08:00

Our friend, Dan, posted a similar 1953 pose of himself with Santa at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. My photo was taken at Davidson's in Macon, Georgia, that same year. I didn't ask the bearded gentleman for anything...struck silent, a rare occurrence.

And now, another Christmas. One of life's mileposts. "Let's see. Christmas 1953. Oh, yes, that's the year...." Fill in the blank. Someone got married. Had a baby. Bought a house. Died.

Christmas 2011: The year Bill and I got married. Saw the last of the combined brood graduate from college. Swam with sea turtles. Grieved with friends. Too many times. All of them gone far too soon.

But the circle doesn't contract. It expands with each new relationship. Because Love doesn't die. We hug our close companions and cherish memories of those who are no longer with us. Not just those who have died, either. People move away but, in this era of social networking and smart phones, the connections can remain vital. Sometimes, though, paths diverge. Or one grows and the other remains static. The journey unfolds as it will.

Every step, every relationship has brought me closer to home. To the place inside myself that is authentic. I've been stuck, unstuck, stubborn, willing. You name it. Somehow, though, grace falls like manna in spite of me. Great heapings of grace and mercy that, at sixty, I cannot explain, attribute, or understand. I just say,"Thank you." Often.

The little girl sitting mutely on Santa's lap still resides within me. I am every age I have ever been. And the magic of this season still amazes me. I can't explain this either. I brake for Christmas lights (only after checking the rear-view mirror, thank you). Smile at children waiting to see Santa. Sit in the dark with a candle and think of those who are absent. I am in awe, you see, of the miracle: a radical love bigger than my likes and dislikes, larger than dogma.

I live on a very small island in the middle of a vast, unknowable universe. With every decision, I choose. If nothing else, age suggests that I find what I seek. Oh, my dear neighbors, I am looking toward the light. Because I know that I can make a wilderness of a promised land.

If you are grieving, know that this present darkness will be transformed. You will be transformed. Minute by agonizing minute, then day by day. But for now, weep. In time, when you least expect it, in the oddest of circumstances, peace will come. At a price, though. Not built on the shifting sands of fortune. But a peace between odd bedfellows: the inevitable suffering of life's dark times and the joy that comes in the morning.

So glad that Christmas 2011 marks a year with all of you. Thank you for dropping in for a visit.

My friend, Carolynn, always signs her emails with "love and light."

Joe Elmore's signature benedicttion, "Blessings!", has graced all our departures.
I long ago conscripted these words. Originality is over-rated.

So to each of you,

wherever you are,

whatever your circumstances,

I send you

LOVE

LIGHT

BLESSINGS

...there really is room in the inn

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,

And strange the plain things are,

The earth is enough and the air is enough

For our wonder and our war;

But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings

And our peace is put in impossible things

Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings

Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening

Home shall men come,

To an older place than Eden

And a taller town than Rome.

To the end of the way of the wandering star,

To the things that cannot be and that are,

To the place where God was homeless

And all men are at home.

from The House of Christmas by G.K. Chesterton

My friend, Marsha, sent the photo of the driftwood, with this message: “Christmas at St. Simons. Wish you were here. Just goes to show you that we Southerners truly will decorate just about anything! Love you and miss you.” We miss you, too. But you, my friend - indeed, all we are blessed to love - are with us.

Bill and I are spending a few days in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, at his grandparents’ beach house. The weather outside is, frankly, anything BUT frightful. Glorious, in fact. Warm, sunny...with none of the biting summer critters. The Gulf coast has been my “beach” for many years. Unless a hurricane approaches, the waves are gentle against the white “sugar” sand. Beautiful. Here, the breakers of the Atlantic roll in noisily, one after another. I walk, then stop, stare at the water, walk some more. Bill doesn't call this exercise. But he understands.

We haven’t decorated anything here because we are in transient mode this Christmas. From here we will head north for a Christmas lunch with Miss Jean, Bill’s mom. A brief stop before we drive to Alabama for a reunion with Patrick, Leslie and Ciara. I will go into full-blown “Cece” mode for a few days and love on my grandbaby. She is, in her own words, “not a baby, just a girl.” But when she wraps herself in her apres-bath hooded towel, she calls herself "Baby Ridinghood." After Tuscaloosa, we will begin our cross-country drive in “Dora the Explorer”, my 1997 Ford.

After I quit blubbering, Adrienne’s post about rootedness percolated. I’ve moved many times in my life. Once, my house moved away from me in a storm. Stationary isn’t my middle name. If, as science speculates, life began in the sea, I must share some genes with the hermit crab. Just give me a shell. A port in the storm. Home is where love resides and I have found this to be quite portable. As a child, I could not have imagined Christmas alone. Yet, I have soloed several times.

Who knows what next Christmas will bring? Or where? Rounding up scattered family is akin to herding cats. In this day of instant communication, we are never truly apart. I love it all: Skype, email, text messages (not while driving, please), FB. I even Tweet. Occasionally. Usually just to say I’ve published a blog. But I also love hugs. Hours perusing recipes followed by days in the kitchen. Long evenings at the dinner table with good food, great stories, lots of laughter.

Next year, I will have located my angel for the tree, crystal garlands and ornaments, and the eight-hundred fairy lights that decorated my three-foot tree at the condo in Mountain Brook. It was visible on Google Earth. And we will decorate something. Tie a bow or two.

This year, the marina provided us with proper send-off. A wreath on the dock gate.

And the Wahoo, a large catamaran two fairways over, left no mast or rail unlit.

Meanwhile back at the beach house, I have plowed through my old journals. I found letters to Santa from my kids. Entries that track the years, the ups and downs. I thought of all my friends who now span continents. Some live where they were born and their holiday tradition is deep and rich. Some have large families: generations will gather this weekend in a riot of wrapping paper and rich food. Others will solo this year.

Ah, family and friends. The “should’s” and “ought’s” of the non-existent “perfect” Christmas can blight the spirit: the gift that doesn’t fit, the turkey that fizzles, patience that crumbles in the face of super-charged offspring and generational guilt-tripping. Death and illness do not respect the calendar. We know too many who are grieving this Christmas.

My parents didn’t get it all right. Neither did I. No one does. But I was loved and wanted. This trumps a litany of mistakes. My children, I hope, will come to see this in their own lives. And the next generation...and so on. Because this is the miracle. “The child must know,” Pablo Casals said, “that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”

Too many people have not heard this: “You are loved. Beloved.” But some tired, exhausted, not-getting-it-right folks will send a check to a shelter. With the best of intentions or maybe out of guilt. Who cares? Some child, some homeless person, some down-on-their-luck family will eat. For one day, they will eat a healthy meal because of that gift. Communion. You are loved. Beloved. A special thank you to all who work DAILY to provide a roof, a bed, a meal to those who have not.

In the end, we are all family.

A couple of snowbirds on the beach

If we care for each other, for this good earth, there is room in the inn for us all.

If heaven isn’t now, perhaps it isn’t.

FAMILY

Our conversation is spent in talking

too much about the domestic,

too little in speaking our hearts;

too much about finances,

too little about dust-covered dreams;

too much about laundry,

too little about cleaning temples within;

too much about going for groceries,

too little about food for our souls;

too much about earthly possessions,

too little about storing treasures in heaven;

too much chastising,

too little cherishing;

too much blame,

too few balloons.

Before it’s too late,

let’s speak of feelings that have been hidden

behind bank payments

and orthodontic visits

and the PTA

Before the music stops,

let’s speak our hearts

and laugh a star or two.

from Searching for Shalom by Anne Weems

...my favorite blog post EVER

2011-12-19T19:27:00.000-08:00

My daughter, Adrienne, at Muir Beach, November 2011

Today's blog is the best ever!
I had the best, biggest, most wonderful surprise in my email.
My sweet girl
...a smart, athletic young woman, an architect by trade,
but my sweet girl nonetheless...
wrote a guest post.
A blubbering mess, I have alternated between bawling on Bill's shoulder
and squealing for joy.
But enough from me. Enjoy!!!

Here's that guest post for you, Mom...

My husband (Scott) and I suffer from ‘rootlessness’, as we call it. Neither of our families lives in the places where we grew up anymore. It’s been years since I was able to spend the holidays with my Mother (ah, married life and compromise), and it’s been almost a decade since either of our families lived in our childhood homes. This only recently really started to bother either of us. Emotionally, I tend to live in the present, and it can take years for things to settle with me. Just ask my Mother.

Inwardly, Christmas has always been profoundly important to me, but it’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve outwardly expressed my joy for this time of year. I even came as close as putting a wreath on my car last year, but thankfully, Scott talked me down from the ledge. This need to experience as much as I possibly can of the holiday season has surprised me, but I think I’ve recently begun to make sense of my change in Christmas behavior. It’s the rootlessness, or the need to connect myself to something familiar.

Last night, I made my Mother’s cranberry coffee cake (recipe below), and as I poured the batter into the bundt pan, I was transported to my childhood. I was in the den listening to my grandmother humming in the kitchen as she and my Mother prepared Christmas dinner. I thought about all the Christmases that have passed since and the life that I have lived. I am so incredibly grateful for the people I’ve come to know, the memories I have made and the many blessings God has bestowed upon me. I realized that I’m not rootless. I have roots. They live in recipes like my Mother’s cranberry coffee cake and my grandmother’s ambrosia. They live in quotes like “You smell like beef and cheese” from the movie Elf. They live in sugar cookies and Silent Night and roast beast. They live in the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas to my beautiful Mother and all our family and friends! Love you all! Thank you for giving me roots….And maybe next year I’ll put that wreath on my car.

MOM’S CRANBERRY SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. sour cream

1 tsp. (generous) almond extract

1 can whole cranberry sauce

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I prefer almonds, slivered or sliced...and I never measure, but this should be close)

GLAZE

2/3 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp. warm water

1/2 tsp. almond extract

DIRECTIONS:

Cream butter and sugar together.

Add eggs, one at a time and mix well.

Sift together dry ingredients.

Add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream.

Stir in almond extract.

Spoon half into 9" square cake pan (or 10" tube pan).

Spread half of cranberry sauce and half the nuts on top of batter.

Put remaining batter on top of cranberries and nuts, then add the remaining cranberry sauce and nuts.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes at 350 degrees or until done.

Glaze when cool.

.................................................

NOTE: Adrienne got the dessert gene and has become, bar none, the most incredible baker. She said she's making the coffeecake again next week and will take a photo. But who needs a picture of a coffeecake when you have these.

Scott and Adrienne in front of the "painted ladies" (the "Full House" houses)

Adrienne, Scott and Bill in the headlands

Scott: Boys will be boys

One more thing. Adrienne, I saw these cute brown antlers that you put on either side of the car (on top of the car windows...like football flags, you know). And they come with the cutest red fleece button nose for the front grille!

Think about it!!! Next year! Love you, girl!

Adrienne is not quite one in this photo; Patrick, three.

I'm blubbering again.

Merry Christmas!!!

...to all our silent nights

2011-12-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

Moon over Marina Bay

My friend, Mary, emailed after I posted “I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose”. This followed her trip to the Middle East in August. Here is her message:

I stood on the Jordan side of the Dead Sea as the sun rose. There was a hill behind me that it had to clear. I was told that at the right moment, I could see Jerusalem, and the sun would reflect off the Dome of the Rock. There was a haze. Through the lens of my camera, across the Sea I saw two dim gold reflections. The light was catching the Dome of the rock, and the spires of the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mt of Olives. I snapped a few shots, then put my camera down to look. Without it I couldn’t see them and I wondered at the fuss. Then, for a few seconds, the angle of the sun, the Dome, and my eyes were just perfect. The Dome became an expanding starburst that grew and then shrank with the speed of the sun’s movement.

I felt the earth turn.

One of those once-in-a-lifetime intersections. I daresay that if Mary stood and waited, watched, even managed to see this display again, the effect wouldn’t be the same...watered down by expectation, stripped of surprise.

But the unexpected can be a sucker punch as well. I am reading Patricia Gilman’s book, The Anti-Romantic Child. Rather than describe, here is the first page:

“A poem . . . begins,” Robert Frost once wrote, “as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness . . . It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.

“This book began as a lump in the throat, as a homesickness for the magical world of my childhood and for the home life I was looking forward to with my child. It began with a sickness of love for a child I adored but did not understand, a love searing in its intensity, overwhelming in its sense of longing and vulnerability, a love I feared would never be reciprocated, and worst of all would never make an impact. It began with a pining for contact with the spirit or essence of my child, a wrenching fear that perhaps everything I did and said was in vain because he was unreachable and unimpressionable, a fierce devotion to a child I would do anything to save.

“This is a story of the relationship between literature and life, the ideal and the real, of poetry vs science, magic vs measurement, honoring mystery vs unraveling it. And at its heart this book is a love story: a story of two very different people learning to accept and affect and make space for each other in mysterious and powerful ways.”

While I write this, John Boswell’s arrangement of “Silent Night” is playing. A quiet, poignant version I love...the silence is heard as clearly as the notes. More than any song I know, this one transports me to places of the heart, to places where dreams and life intersected. Or just plain collided.

Here's the link. You know you want to hear it. Besides, it took me a good thirty minutes to get this thing to load. Had to lie down a couple of times and then stretch my neck and back. The doggone thing is opening in another window and I don't have the time to diddle with it anymore. But if you read blogs, you know how to click on the blog tab and get back. Or play it after you finish reading. Humor me, please. Thank you.

Silent NIght by John Boswell

I discovered that, out of the wreckage, acceptance is born. The acceptance of things just as they are. And with this, peace. In my case - in the spirit of full disclosure - this follows a long, arduous labor. After I walk into wall after wall, fall down repeatedly, I eventually relent...even though I know that when I let go of “my way”, something finer is born. The “something finer” is not necessarily softer or gentler. Unrecognizable for while, perhaps. But definitely finer than my own design.

So, at the end of the dream, in the middle of the muddle: a beginning. Having written this, rest assured that, when Google comes out with a Life GPS, I’ll be the first fool in line at the app store. I’m in the remedial class. I know the truth but I really like a good shortcut every now and then.

So here I sit with a cup of coffee. I’ve now selected “repeat one” on my iPod. The song is looping. I can’t help myself. Yes, I’m jumping ahead to Christmas Eve. Yes, I wrote a blog about not skipping Advent. But at every turn of this journey, the past and present intersect. Advent seems to find thoughts which seek words. I recall a Christmas eve in a church basement that smelled of strong, dark coffee. People sat in a circle and spoke in turn. I listened as they told their stories...humble, vulnerable, honest. Most of them. Some lied. Their time had not yet come.

When my nephew, Darin was little, he went to his mother’s room. Glenda loved on him, as we say in the south, then told him to get back into his own bed.

“No, mama. I don’t want to go back to that room. It has nightmares in it.”

That meeting room in the basement had dreams in it. Many of them born of nightmares. I doubt that any of those dreams were actualized as envisioned. But I am glad I was present, glad that I heard hope stream from one dark story after another. Humbled that I was invited to the birth. At the end of the gathering, the Christmas Eve service in the sanctuary above drew to a close and “Silent Night” fell down upon us. No one moved. Or spoke.

Several years later, in the upper room of another large church, I sat alone and waited. Another Christmas Eve. I had worked until two-thirty. Cooked dinner for friends and family. Cleaned the kitchen. Wrapped a couple of gifts. By seven-fifteen. Later we would attend the 11 p.m. service at our church. The book I brought with me remained unopened in my lap. I closed my eyes and listened. In the room below, more stories were told. In the sanctuary, a Christmas Eve service drew to a close. “Silent Night” again. As I walked toward the stairs, the Reverend John Claypool came through a side door, headed to his study. The man must have been exhausted after multiple services and the pressures of the season. The next morning, more would follow. But he stopped in front of me and held both of my hands. His blue eyes looked directly into mine. “I hope you have a blessed Christmas, Celeste.” We stood there for a moment in the dark hallway. A brief but sincere intersection, a deep blessing visited upon me by one acquainted with grief.

So many Christmas Eve services have passed. Some rich and hopeful, others an exercise in exhaustion. The details are dim now. But a collective memory weaves them together: the sound of “Silent Night”, the smell of evergreens on windowsills, the flicker of small candles that each of us carried out into the cold midnight...light going out into the world.

Light going out into the world. We are carriers...or nothing at all. With every baby, the miracle is born. As we grow, we manage to make a muck of it. All of us. To one degree or another. This year I wish for you the vulnerability of those who told their stories in the church basement that night; who believed, hoped, dreamed of second/third/fourth chances. Let your dreams be worthy and your disappointments, blessings in disguise. May you hear a melody that carries you outside your self, one that takes you to that uncommon place called Grace.

And wherever you are, whatever you believe, I hope you look up at the stars in the silent night. Feel the earth turn. Sing and shout. Or sit in the deep quiet and rejoice. In the middle of the muddle, good news: we get a do-over.

If you are interested in this blog

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2011-12-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

Decadence with sugar on top

I resolved to give up New Year’s resolutions years ago. Listen! Hear the sound of this, one of my most revered holiday traditions, breaking. I can't even wait until the new year. Today, December 10, I hereby declare to post a healthy recipe at least once a month. I promise. Something green, crunchy.

However, tis not the season to be unreasonable. If you’ve ever eaten a granola cookie that outweighs your computer bag, you understand. I plan to bake some honest-to-goodness Christmas goodies this weekend. Or baddies, depending on your viewpoint.

If we weren’t traveling this year, I’d probably go into overdrive. I admit without reservation that I listen to 24/7 Christmas music stations. And to all of the umpteen dozen Christmas playlists on my iPod. I have one playlist of nothing but my favorite versions of “Silent Night.” Blog to follow soon about this one. From Andrea Bocelli to Perry Como (yes, Marie, Perry), from sophisticated orchestral arrangements to YouTube videos (no covers, however; I do have standards)...my halls are not only decked at Christmas, they rock. N’roll.

Speaking of rolls, can there be a better time to make home-made cinnamon rolls? Or maybe a batch of angel biscuits with yeast? Nay. Or a more appropriate moment to whip up fudge or almond/toffee bark? Of course not. But we will be on the move during the holidays, so I must limit myself to a few concoctions. For gifting. Of course, a taste - or four - is required before I pass them off to an unsuspecting public.

Have you ever tried - successfully - to cut an itty-bitty slice of pound cake before serving and then tried to shove the cake back together? The dilemma: can't give an untasted cake; can't give piece-work. Cookies, on the other hand, are the perfect solution. Who on earth checks how many cookies arrive in a tin? And then comments, “I count twenty-two. I bet she ate a couple.” An ungrateful person, that’s who. Know that when you get something from my kitchen, I will have thrown myself over that fully-loaded gooey butter bar first to save you from a bad batch.

I’m typing this post before I bake because I am a woman on a mission today. So the photo is from Pillsbury who awarded Jean Olson of Wallingford, Iowa a prize for these delicious morsels in 1990. But I’ve made these cookies countless times over the years and they always look just like this picture. Frankly, they’re best served warm from the oven with a glass of cold milk. But I’ve choked down quite a few three days later and enjoyed every bite. Hope that you will, too!

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 cups flour Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose or Unbleached Flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup sugar

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup margarine or butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

1 cup chopped pecans

48 Rolo® Chewy Caramels in Milk Chocolate (The Pillsbury recipe adds “unwrapped”. I avoid assumptions but really? Unwrapped? How many of you would bake a la “foil and all”?)

1 tablespoon sugar

4 oz. vanilla-flavored candy coating, if desired (I usually melt white chocolate which I keep on hand. If the Girl Scouts gave a badge for ‘Dessert Pantry Readiness”, I could have had a more impressive display. My knots were rather shabby.)

DIRECTIONS

In medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa and baking soda; mix well.

In large bowl, combine 1 cup sugar, brown sugar and margarine

Beat until light and fluffy.

Add vanilla and eggs; beat well.

Add flour mixture; blend well. Stir in 1/2 cup of the pecans.

Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 30 minutes for easier handling.

Heat oven to 375°F.

For each cookie, with floured hands, shape about 1 tablespoon dough around 1 caramel candy, covering completely. (Okay. Here’s where it’s okay to count. A bag of Rolo’s usually contains 48 candies. Count them first. And, for heaven's sake, don’t forget to unwrap. If I have four dozen, I half the dough, half again, half again, until I have forty eight equal pieces. The “about a tablespoon” direction never seems to work out properly. If I have forty-nine candies, I eat one while I roll dough.)

In small bowl, combine remaining 1/2 cup pecans and 1 tablespoon sugar. Press one side of each ball into pecan mixture. Place, nut side up, 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake at 375°F. for 7 to 10 minutes or until set and slightly cracked. Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets. Cool on wire rack for 15 minutes or until completely cooled.

Melt candy coating in small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Drizzle over cookies. (This step gilds the lily. Drizzle or not. It's your call.)

Last night, at Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg, CA

Whether with friends
or a best friend
or peacefully alone
by a fire
or not
have yourselves a merry little Christmas

...and here's a little tune for y'all while you bake

Baby, It's Cold Outside by Lady Antebellum

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...tis the season

2011-12-06T07:42:00.001-08:00

before the merger

Bill's Marina Christmas 2010

Celeste's Condo Christmas 2010

My earliest Christmas memories are magic. Until I was old enough to have a Christmas job, I spent a week or more with my grandparents and Jo, the world’s best aunt. My parents didn’t arrive until Christmas Eve. Late.

I loved every second of those days and nights. During the days leading up to Christmas, my grandmother’s kitchen became a confectionary. If you read my blog, you already know that desserts run in our family. Popcorn balls. Pecan logs. Meringues. Fudge. Fruit cakes. Yes, fruit cakes, and her’s were good, thank you. Especially her pecan/datenut cake: sliced with cream cheese slathered on it...my breakfast of choice. Sugar cookies decorated with sprinkles. Peanut butter cookies because I liked them. A coconut cake for my daddy. A ten-layer caramel cake with pecans sprinkled on half the top (for me) and not on the other half (for Jo). A lemon cheese cake. A Lane cake (for mother). Then there were the pies: pecan, cherry, sweet potato, pumpkin, blackberry (for my Poppa). Every summer, Granny would bag freshly-picked blackberries and hide them in the back of the freezer. This tradition had its roots in a oft-told family story.

Mother said that, when she was little, Sunday was “visiting day.” Relatives would drop in after church, unannounced but more-or-less expected. And Granny made sure that she had enough food on hand for whoever arrived. One Sunday, Poppa walked into the kitchen and saw a blackberry pie fresh out of the oven. Granny was in the dining room. When she returned, Poppa was sitting at the kitchen worktable, eating a healthy slice of his favorite dessert.

“Henry, we won’t have enough to go around! What if Betty and the kids come?” Betty was Poppa's sister. Granny was no fool. Her persuasive powers were legend.

“Exactly. If everybody shows up, I won’t get any.”

Mother said as soon as they sat down to eat, a slew of relatives appeared at the front door. Granny offered the pie to the guests first. Gone in sixty seconds. Every Christmas after that, Poppa got first dibs on his beloved dessert.

During my stay, we’d pick magnolia leaves and make wreaths and garlands. Poppa would cut a fresh cedar. The tree didn’t go up until just before Christmas and I put the icicles on...one at a time, not tossed carelessly. The lights were the old-fashioned large bulbs; the ornaments, round shiny balls that over time began to lose bits of color. But I always thought this the most beautiful tree I’d ever seen.

Each year, Jo would take me to work with her for one incredibly special day. I adored her as did everyone else. Sitting by her desk, I basked in the aura that emanated from her. She would let me type or use the adding machine during slow moments. When I was little, we lived close to each other. I was allowed to carry the monthly check for the electric bill to Jo’s desk. She’d give me a receipt, a kiss, and a piece of divinity (refer to “dessert gene”). Imagine my shock when we moved to another town and no divinity came with the receipt.

Two days before Christmas, we were in high gear. Poppa drove us to the Piggly-Wiggly where I watched as my grandmother checked out with two carts. The total: approximately $45. I’d never seen such an enormous grocery bill. In the carts, a large turkey, a cured ham, a standing rib roast, and ingredients for all the fixin’s that would carry us through New Year's Day. Next we’d go to Mr. Coleman's butcher shop where Granny would buy a fresh pork roast. Then, to the fish market. Every Christmas Eve, she broiled fresh fish on a large, well-oiled bay leaf. Not the little ones in a can but a large fresh leaf from a bay tree. She would fry the roe (fish eggs) on the stove top for Poppa.

My job was to wrap presents. I curled ribbons and experimented with mismatched papers folded artfully. Small pinecones dipped in glitter or a piece of costume jewelry missing a catch or pin added sparkle. When this was done, I wrote “The Silver Haven News”. Here my blogging roots were born. I’d draw the ads, write all the stories, and then read it out loud to Granny while she cooked. We’d have fits of giggles and she’d say, “Lord have mercy, I’m never going to get this done if I keep laughing!” Then she’d add, “Don't stop. I’m going to be lonesome when you have to leave.” That thought was too horrible to consider.

Christmas Day arrived with the usual breakfast and gifting. In the afternoon, we’d visit nearby family to check out other desserts. And on Christmas night, we’d drive into McRae to see the Christmas lights. No ornate displays like we see today. Just a series of Christmas trees in front windows. Porch lights showcased the wreaths. Every now and then someone would wrap the door in shiny foil and tie a big bow on it. But evergreen circles dominated. Eventually things spiced up when a neighbor bought one of those aluminum trees with the revolving color wheel. Then Mother decided flocking the family tree would be a nice touch. Nothing stays the same.

This year we won’t be decorating much since we’ll be away. I’m holding out for a wreath on Forever After...don’t want her to feel left out at the marina. We’re heading south to visit Bill’s sister and his mom. And I’m gonna see my boy and his sweet Leslie and hold my grandbaby for as long as she’ll let me. Ciara, Cece’s comin’! Then Bill and I are driving my car across the country to its new home in California. Rest assured, Bill and Celeste’s Most Excellent Adventure will be a source of several blogs.

But we have established one new Christmas tradition post-merger...

To the right of Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus and the angel, a votive for each of our immediate living family members: Bill, Margy, Christina, Mary, Michael, myself (see note to Bonnie below), Adrienne, Scott, Patrick, Leslie, Ciara, Miss Jean (Bill’s mom). To the left, a single large candle for those no longer with us but present in our hearts and in our very special Christmas memories: James, Bill and Margy’s sweet son; our dads (AKA to me, Mr. Ray and Daddy); my mom; John, my late husband and father of my kids; our grandparents...indeed all who are missed and loved. [Note to Bonnie: Dollar Tree ran out of those little votives. You and your kiddoes are very much on the living side so all of you and I share one light. Seems perfect since you are the nexus for this coming together. Also, our smoke detector has a quick trigger and we're afraid we'll set off the emergency sprinkler system.]

Whatever your traditions or memories (sweet or not), may this season bring you joy, healing, hope, love and light.

Merry Christmas to ALL. We're family. And feel free to eat dessert first!

P.S. Cheryl, Glenda, all the Brady's: y'all have another big candle on the end table but I ran out of matches before taking the picture. Photo to follow. For an only child, I'm loaded with siblings!

...stepping out

2011-12-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

First, a song

http://youtu.be/VXK50lsrdq4

I grew up in a culture that gave little voice to the life of Mary. But in the daily afternoon quiet of the Kinsale parish church in 2007, I knelt and looked up at Mary with new eyes. A sculptor's vision of this vessel of love stood over rows of candles. As I prayed for my grown children, I looked at this mother, her arms outreached. This woman whose devotion carried her through hell and back. Whose steadfastness assured me. Whose life challenged me. Mary, the universal mother. The idol in this story is, sad to say, my comfort level.

Mary: this woman who said “Yes” in the face of all that screamed “No!”

who gave birth in primitive conditions;

who fled for the life of her young child;

who would spend three days searching for her twelve year old boy;

who would find him in the temple, teaching;

who washed his clothes, bathed him, disciplined him, loved him with all her heart;

who said to him at the wedding, “They have no wine”

who told the servants to help her son, knowing, knowing;

who heard the cruel words, words that pierced her heart;

who sought no power in the face of those who sought nothing more;

who waited helplessly as her beloved son was scourged

who watched him bear mockery, crowned with thorns;

who watched him carry that awful cross and saw him fall, fall again;

who stood in agony as her son was nailed to a cross;

who kept vigil from below on the blood-soaked ground until His final breath;

who caressed Him in death;

who trusted love,

a love made manifest in joy, pain, death;

for love was Mary’s charge:

in her arms grew the great saving love;

that says, “There’s room at the table.”

In his day, Jesus was not revered by the important people. He remained in their minds a bastard child, the lowest rung of the cultural ladder. And his mother, Mary bore this judgment, too. No accident that wounded people recognized his radical love. Then, as now, the numbers of those who suffered were great. Even as he loved the disenfranchised, Jesus threatened those who sought to have and to hold power. They damned his healing words, hated the precious tears he shed for those who hurt, feared his influence over the multitudes.

I bet Mary celebrated her little boy’s birthday. Gave him a gift from time to time. I will tie some bows this season. But this is not my destination. The journey is toward love. To recognize my deep need for mercy...as receiver, as giver.

Before I mock those who seek forty virgins in paradise, I have to answer another question. Do I seek pie in the sky when I die? What’s the difference? Am I called to love without counting the cost? To put faces on suffering orphans? To weep with the unnamed mother of a dying child? To love those society deems unworthy? Do I turn my head at the sight of dirty, bleak faces? Does this Advent carry me toward the magic of a Christmas morning that disappears quickly with torn wrapping paper? Or am I traveling deeper into the mystery? Moving beyond “what’s-in-it-for-me” to living the questions as I walk toward the unknowable? Beyond my comfort level?

Eternity is now. Timeless. Today slips silently into yesterday even as tomorrow dawns each second. Let these seconds count for something. It is possible. As a mother, I know it is possible to move beyond fear to love. To open the heart to the possibility of an unthinkable breaking. We are nothing if not universal mothers. And fathers. A lot of folks - of all ages, colors, creeds - could use some loving.

Love is the charge. Even at the cost of tears.

The Cross in the Manger

by Anne Weems (from Kneeling in Bethlehem: Poetry for Advent and Christmas)

If there is no cross in the manger,
there is no Christmas.

If the Babe doesn’t become the Adult,
there is no Bethlehem star.

If there is no commitment in us,
there are no wise men searching.

If we offer no cup of cold water,
there is no gold, no frankincense, no myrrh.

If there is no praising God’s name,
there are no angels singing.

If there is no spirit of alleluia,
there are no shepherds watching.

If there is no standing up, no speaking out, no risk,
there is no Herod, no flight into Egypt.

If there is no room in our inn,
then “Merry Christmas” mocks the Christ Child,
and the Holy Family is just a holiday card,
and God will loathe our feasts and festivals.

For if there is no reconciliation,
we cannot call Christ “Prince of Peace”.

If there is no goodwill towards others,
it can all be packed away in boxes for another year.

If there is no forgiveness in us,
there is no cause for celebration.

If we cannot go even now unto Golgotha,
there is no Christmas in us.

If Christmas is not now,
If Christ is not born into the everyday present,
then what is all the noise about?

...happy birthday to us!

2011-11-29T17:58:00.000-08:00

The FIRST Four Seasons of Abiding

Dear Readers,

My scribe and I are celebrating our first anniversary. The first post was November 30, 2010. In honor of this occasion, I’ve offered to fill in as guest blogger and give her the day off. She’s using the time to look through pictures of hair-do's following an unfortunate hair-don't style session. Frankly, I hope she finds a good one soon. I can’t get through to her until her mind clears. And the moaning is getting old.

One year and forty-two blog posts have passed with only a few hitches. Celeste was a bit irregular in June and July...more than usual, if you get my meaning.

But she did get married to Bill

and move.

One must make allowances from time to time.

I admit that, in the beginning, I had my doubts. She was none to keen on public exposure. And her start/finish record wasn’t the best in the world. But we seemed a good match in all other ways, so I proposed. She accepted. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. For richer or poorer. The rest is history. Archived. She's looser now and seems to get the message...

In every moment, choose

to do the next right thing,

to think the next right thought,

to speak the next right words,

to practice the right silence.

And to leave the results to God.

We’re both pleased as punch that you’ve joined us this year. The messages, emails, and comments are most appreciated. As our friend Mary said last night, the “word of mouse” is heard world-wide these days. You’ve brought diversity to the dialog. My scribe wrote these words in her journal: “I am grateful for the intersections, sweet moments of grace. This collision of worlds, this erosion of old patterns and recognition of new ones, could not have been mapped, only lived.” Not too bad without any guidance from me.

Perhaps this is the best part of our little blog. It IS a living entity, a conversation in the cyber-hood. I told you once before what our friend Bill (another Bill) wrote last year. But I like his world-view so much I want to tell you again:

“As I travel all over the world to places as wealthy as Monaco or as poor as rural India, I find one recurring theme irrespective of religion, culture, education level or standard of living. Just as a shake of the head means “No” anywhere on the planet, people simply want to live in peace...to provide for and raise their families, to enjoy social interactions. It’s the same everywhere. Only the crazies want to destroy others. Only the desperate turn to violence to make a statement. Almost everywhere that there is tolerance, there is peace.”

To my scribe, Celeste, Happy Birthday to us! To all of you, our friends and ether-neighbors, please come back. We wish you peace, love and light.

Yours truly,

A. Blogspot

...advent-ure awaits

2011-11-27T11:28:00.000-08:00

Advent. A walk in the wilderness. A time to wait. To acknowledge darkness. To hear the words of Aidan Matthews: God comes to us disguised as weekdays. To adapt them, as my friend, Carolynn, did: God comes to us disguised as weak days.

In this “I don’t have time for the pain” world, Advent calls for patience. Trust me. I do not go willingly into this good state. Age and experience foist it upon me. Thank you, Father Time. Even if you do have to clobber me with your sickle to get my attention.

I cannot consider Advent without thinking of Joe Elmore. The Reverend Joe Elmore, that is. Methodist. Wonderful. Wise. Humble. The “whole” kind of holy, not pious. Given to laughter and tears. Fallible (he would insist on this at the beginning of the list so I must insert it somewhere). Purveyor of Grace. I love the story of his first appointment as an ordained minister. Sent to a small country church in Alabama, he found himself in foreign territory. The congregation had ideas about everything, and this season was no exception: Go straight to Christmas. Joe said that he had never felt so alone as he did that first Sunday of what-would-have-otherwise-been Advent as the members stood and sang “Joy to the World.” He longed to hear “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” A proper gestation before birth. The whole journey, not just the fairy-tale that has sadly become an end to itself.

Admittedly, I like to DVR, to move at a rapid pace through commercials to the bits I want to watch. But my life works better when I don’t choose pieces of it and fast-forward through the rest. Like that wise sage, Garth Brooks, wrote, I am glad I didn’t miss the dance. Otherwise, I would’ve missed the rest. Advent is a good time to look at the steps I’ve taken that led me to today. If I have greater peace, thank you very much for all that has gone before and I will keep going. If I do not have greater peace, thank you very much for all that has gone before and I will keep going.

Today, dear Joe, I am thinking of you. And want to thank you for taking me to those places I would not have otherwise visited:

My insides. What a relief to unstuff the hidey-holes. To let go and not hoard...just do my part each day and go to sleep in peace. To awaken to the lightness of being that spiritual de-cluttering brings. To let this move into my environment. To KNOW that mercy and grace are the way.

The AIDS house for infants born infected with the HIV virus. This place was filled with precious little ones rocked by all and any who would come. And the location had to be anonymous. Because of the fearful...unaware of a more insidious infection that threatened their very souls. When I rocked those children, the god of what other people think lost his hold on me.

Grace. Your calling, Joe. To go beyond legalism to the land of the truly alive. To live in Grace. Unearned. Undeserved. To pass Grace on to others. Unearned. Underserved. And, in this, to discover abiding joy.

The Bible. Not “just the facts, ma’am” but the essential Truth found in the wisdom of the ages. To look not for a checklist - “tick these off and avoid Hell” - but for guardrails that protect and enhance this journey. Both mine and the journey of others I encounter. To tell our own stories ...honest, real, unflinching...and rest in the truth of them.

Joe, you have been steadfast. You have known abiding joy and deep pain. You are a master wordsmith who lives the message. Though often frustrated by technology, you have embraced - while bemoaning - this tool of your outreach. And you have, at every turn, revealed the dichotomy of truth: how we are at once imperfect, yet perfectly made. Because it is the “just as I am” in each of us that allows intersections.

My friend, you are willing to walk in darkness with others. And we all love you for this. I met you in my wilderness. You listened and persevered. What would have remained scars and stumbling blocks are now gift. Indeed, all is gift, as our mutual friend, Dr. John Claypool, wrote.

You will chafe at these words. Will not want the spotlight. But this is not praise. Just gratitude. You managed to be my pastor and "a regular Joe." Because you dropped your mask, I was able to shed mine. So, on this first Sunday of Advent, I wish for you "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"...and send you love.

Blessings!

Oh, the comfort —
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person —
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. Dinah Craik

...the journeys we would never choose

2011-11-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

Ruin near The Burren in Ireland, 2008

THE MOURNING AFTER

The long lonely walk passed through unrelenting brightness,

Around remnants of recollection,

Over shards of broken dreams,

And all within cried to be crushed.

But the walls held:

Held old hurts,

Held laughter,

Held ghosts of hope that died some time before.

I could not remember when.

Between birth and death one small dash carved in stone,

Between loss and renewal a clock ticking slowly.

Each day a Holy Saturday,

Living the questions in a land of unknowing

Aged, fermented, poured out, emptied.

But in the darkness illusion died.

And with this death, a dawn that lit an empty tomb.

All that was unholy led me to the gift not sought.

I have resisted this story. And I do not want to cause others any discomfort. Stop here if you are raw. Not every story is for every individual. I can only tell my own. Time has re-framed the events. The truth set me free...agonizingly slow, in-your-face at times. God operates outside of time and is not concerned with instant gratification. Messages arrive in the oddest packages. This morning, a single tweet from The New York Times: an article entitled “An Effort, Years in the Making, To Capture the Miracle”. Within this article a reference to Franz Wright’s poem, “The Only Animal.” Click here for the text of the article if you are interested. A link to the poem can be found later in the post.

Underneath the photo of the castle ruin above is a bit I wrote in 2008. The words reflect my state following several events that occurred over a year: the death of my mother from Alzheimer’s, the death of my husband, and the loss of my home in a storm three months after his death. I thought I understood grieving....one day at a time, recognizing and mourning each separate loss. But I was foolish. Life can’t be broken into manageable bits and bobs. We exist in a continuum: at times a Frankenthaler that bleeds; in other moments, a jumbled no-beginning, no-end Pollack. A year passed before I knew what I had not grieved. I had lost the context of my life in twelve months. When I wanted to cry, I felt guilty. My losses didn’t measure up to what others I knew had experienced. How do you say “But the insurance didn’t cover anything” and not feel a bit shabby? When I told this to my counselor and she used the “arrogant” word, I felt worse. But as I began to shatter, I decided to give up guilt for Lent. Just trust me and let go. Let my stumbles be your wisdom.

Here’s the story of that morning when mourning began. Before I continue, I must add that my husband long before gave me his blessing to tell his story If I thought another might benefit. I pray that a healing intersection can be found here.

The nurse described the events prior to his death, saying finally, "Your husband was a very stubborn man." With that, she handed me his bag and left the room. No hospice moment as with my dad and mom . . . just "good riddance and don't let the door hit you on the rear on the way out." I gripped the bed rail for a while, looked at this man with whom I had lived for over thirty years. In some ways I felt as if I were looking at a stranger, that my husband had died some time before.

Standing by the bed, I stared down at his face, lips bloodied from his struggle, and touched his cheek with my hand. So many caresses over the years, so many tender moments, and now nothing. Just his cold, unshaven face and chilly, unyielding fingers . . . no precious memories, no tears, nothing but relief that his battle was over. I have never known such silence.

The nurse, nerves raw from the battle John fought that night, saw me through a filtered light. Later, much later, I wondered if abuse, mental illness, alcoholism or addiction had touched her life. [ It had.] In the pre-dawn hours in CICU. though, I felt only anger, abandonment, hurt, anything but compassion. Only later, much later, would I pray for that nurse.

Gripping John's small suitcase, I turned away and walked from the room. Leaving CICU, I saw no one as I began a long, lonely walk. The waiting area in the lobby was empty at 5:30 a.m., so I sat down and made the first of many phone calls. I was motionless when he approached me. Dressed in work khakis and a knit shirt, the black man said, "Ma'am, something bad has happened, hasn't it?" I wasn't crying but I suppose shock is evident by the absence of gestures, movement, expression. Standing up, I said quietly, "My husband just died." He took my hand and said that he would pray for me, that God would be with me. I remember thinking that he had kind eyes. He asked if I needed anything. I placed my other hand on top of his and thanked him. We embraced briefly and I felt God's arms around me. Then I sat back down. When I described him to my physician and another nurse, no one knew who he was. I attach no mystery to this, only the precious humility of one man. How great are the anonymous acts that leave no calling card.

The day of the memorial service was surreal. I remember the shock of entering the sanctuary, surprised to find it filled with friends and coworkers. The minister, Joe Elmore, a friend who cared deeply for John, spoke movingly and directly, addressing John's depression and struggles while at the same time revealing the man who was more than a disease. Jim Hooper, his best friend, gave the eulogy, his voice breaking at times. The service was full of quiet emotion, simultaneously comforting and heart-breaking. Insignificant moments coexisted with the substantive. Late in the service as we stood singing the congregational hymn, I realized that my purse was still hanging on my shoulder but I didn't care. At some point, John eldest brother suffered a stroke. Unnoticed until we stood to leave; he was helped downstairs and transported to the nearest hospital. And as we left the sanctuary, one man asked me, “Do you think John was saved?” There is a reason for everything...had the purse been hanging freely in my hand, at that moment I might have swung it.

What of the ones who break? They are God’s children. Higher than the angels. Smarter people than I say that the cosmos operates outside of time and dimension. Time is, after all, man’s invention to make sense of our oh-so-very important schedules. So here is my creed: I believe that God is good and we are made in God’s image. I believe that Jesus walked...gave me footprints to follow and forever vanquished the power of death. And I believe that the broken bits of the life I loved - love - rejoined the Creator: forever healed.

Here is a link to Wright’s poem. He drank, drugged and visited mental hospitals. And came to believe in grace and healing. He and his father have the distinction of being the only father/son duo to win Pulitzer Prizes in the same category.

If someone you love died as a result of addiction, mental illness, suicide, I ache with you. I pray that all choose life. One day, though, the truth of death and choice slapped me in the face. I knew that my children had lost too much for me to harm myself. Many nights I had this conversation with God: “They are grown and I am of no use to them. If I don’t wake up tomorrow, it will be fine with me.” The Great God did not take my advice. We can die spiritually and emotionally long before our bodies wither. My late husband has kept many people sober. Taught others the humility of not judging. Starting with me. We are all finite beings. I cannot claim credit for the perseverance I have any more than I can judge the mental illness that haunted John. I am content. I laugh and cry and go to bed and get up and embrace the sunrise. And I celebrate the sunsets.

Life doesn't open like a Hallmark card. Few of us live in a Norman Rockwell painting. Pain doesn't evaporate. But, if we face it - unmedicated, honestly - it is distilled: the alchemy of truth.This Thanksgiving, we will have empty places at our tables. In their absence, those we forever love are present. And so are those we've never met, never even liked. We are all God's children.

I frequently revisit the words of the Rev. McLean in A River Runs Through It when he speaks of his late son:

"Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding."

...why the desk won't be painted for Thanksgiving

2011-11-18T07:03:00.000-08:00

LAUNDRY DAY IN KINSALE

Directions:

Look out the upstairs front window and check for clouds.

Repeat process at back window.

If sunny, clip clothes to line.

Turn on the kettle and put tea bag in cup.

Reach for the biscuit tin.

Run to back door as rain arrives unannounced.

Unclip clothes quickly.

Hang them in front of windows.

Hang them in the hall.

Hang them in the kitchen.

Drink tea, eat an extra biscuit because rain has stopped.

Repeat next Monday.

We'll get to the laundry part in a minute. First things first. I have a head cold. For the most part all I want to do is lie under the down duvet. I would sleep but the hacking and sneezing are winning. So I’m blogging. It helps to keep my mind off the pity party I’m dying to throw. A pox on “three days coming, three days with you, three days leaving.” Adrienne and Scott are arriving in two days and I’m on the path to wellness. I may be delirious but I’m sure that I’m feeling better. Either way, this makes me happy. If mainlining Vitamin C and swilling Airborne dissolved in orange juice works, then nominate me for the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Delirium. Definitely delirium.

In my world, I feel that certain rules should apply when one is cold-ridden. A box of White Cheddar Cheez-its followed by a box of Wedding Cookies - washed down with ice cold caffeine-free diet Coke - would be the definitive cure. Thank heavens, I don’t have any in the condo. My diet du jour is chicken soup and hot tea. I once liked Barry’s Tea. But frankly, my dears, I’m beginning to loathe the sight of the box.

Two loads of laundry that I separated when I rousted myself out of bed to get more Vitamin C are staring at me. So far, neither has moved. When I brew the next cup of tea, I’ll load the machine.Then repeat this for the second load when I heat the last cup of broth. At some point, I’m going to take a shower. Before Bill gets home. My hair now looks as if I stuck my head in the Cuisinart.

I can’t complain about the laundry. Wash day in Ireland was a far cry from my usual routine. For that matter, “wash DAY” was - for decades - an unattainable dream. Laundry was an ongoing event, with late night rush jobs for school jeans suddenly “discovered” in the walk-in attic (don’t ask). And I confess that on more than one occasion I forgot a load in the dryer and re-washed rather than iron everything. This may be illegal in conservation-conscious California. Shhhhhh.

In Kinsale, a clothes line, a drying rack and hangers replaced technology. A limited wardrobe also simplified the process. Two pairs of jeans, tees, turtlenecks, lingerie, and a pair of indestructible black pants cycled around the glass door of that front-loader more times than the pack lapped the Indy 500 speedway.

As my Kinsale laundry instructions indicate, weather was the only complicating factor. Jane and I watched the BBC weather report. The Republic of Ireland was omitted. We watched ITV Wales. The Republic of Ireland was omitted. We asked several locals where to get a decent forecast. They said - to a single person - the same thing:

“I just stick my head out the front door.”

So each morning, I swung open the bedroom window, stuck my head out as far as possible and called out to Jane, “This is a one [or two or three] undershirt day.” We were confident in our system. Until a Sister from the convent warned us to watch out for the east wind.

“When does this usually occur?” we inquired.

She answered quickly, “You’ll know.”

Today I do not have to face the elements or walk more than twenty paces to wash the dregs of my contamination. But recalling those days in that lovely Irish village is a nice thought at the moment. At any moment.

And one more memory has returned. When I joined Adrienne in Venice during her study-abroad semester, I was over-joyed. I slept on the plane and arrived ready to hit the ground running. Except for the headache that resulted from my neck flopping over while sleeping on the plane. I had forgotten to pack Advil so I headed toward the Grand Canal where, surely, one pharmacy would be open. Not a one. Only the kiosks were doing business on this most holy day. I stopped and inquired with my best broken Italian (twenty three words, most of which referred to food). "Per favore, farmacia, where?"

“Ah, signora, no, no farmacia, uh, ....”, he searched for his English words, and finished with, “up.”

“Per favore, when?”

“Ah, tre, quattro. Maybe cinque?” [translation: 3 p.m., 4 p.m., perhaps 5 p.m.]

Back at the B&B, the host asked me if I had found my medicine. I told her what the kiosk owner said and she laughed. “Oh, no, no. No open today. Italian men, they like to give you hope.”

She must have also wished me the same because she didn’t tell me that Easter Monday is also a holiday. But Venice trumps a headache just as good memories and this lovely spot diminishes a cold.

By the way, take a look at washday in Burano, Italy. We need more color here. They elevate laundry to art.

Good health is returning in time for the joy of family and good food. But there will be no chicken broth or hot tea on the T-Day table. And that desk in the bedroom isn’t going to get painted either. Get over it, Martha Stewart.

Bill just called and told me to get off the computer and rest. I seem to have a low boredom threshold that is inversely proportional to my viral state. When I explained that I am writing this lying down, he explained what this is doing to my neck. And offered to do the laundry.

And, just so you can relax, kiddoes, everything will be cloroxed, decontaminated and ready for you Sunday!!!

...for the patience of a seed

2011-11-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected. Robert Frost
Photo of Moss Creek, Birmingham, AL 2010

I am in the process of burning photos to dvd’s. Yes, they are backed up on an external drive as well as online. But Triple-Redundancy is my middle name. Especially where pictures are concerned. A photo transports me to a moment. In that moment lies the intersection of other memories...of dreams that never came to pass...of lives lost or forever altered...of great wondrous moments beyond my imagination.

Next week we will celebrate Thanksgiving. The menus are planned. I’m one of the lucky ones. Surrounded from the beginning by family. Imperfect, all of us. But we loved as best we could. I cherish memories of home-cooked feasts and walks in the woods...to recover from those meals. And I recall my childhood dreams. But I have discarded the illusion that life unfolds according to my plans.

Someone has altered the script.

My lines have been changed,

I thought I was writing this play. Madeleine L'Engle

The plot has changed. Many times. I’ve survived. Others haven’t. Old dreams died but new ones have risen from the depths. And these, too, will morph. I will tend some and let others wither. Some will be removed from me. Life is capricious and out of my control. This is good. I am not qualified to run the universe.

This Thanksgiving I celebrate hope.

"...trust in creation which is made fresh daily and doesn't suffer in translation. This God does not work in especially mysterious ways. The sun here rises and sets at six exactly. A caterpillar becomes a butterfly. A bird raises its brood in the forest and a greenheart tree will grow only from a greenheart seed. He brings drought sometimes followed by torrential rains; and if these things aren't always what I had in mind, they aren't my punishment either. They're rewards, let's say, for the patience of a seed." Barbara Kingsolver

Here's wishing you a blessed season of gratitude and the patience of a seed. Hope you enjoy this beautiful song by George Winston:

...11.11.11: in remembrance, in hope

2011-11-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row,
that mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn,
saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.
(excerpt from the poem "In Flanders Fields" by Lt. Col. John McCrae)
Poppies illustration adapted from a photo by Dirk Beauregard

Today, in Great Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Canada,

poppies are worn on Remembrance Day.

From government officials to newscasters to the general populace,

the symbol is seen everywhere.

Yesterday I read a poem by the late Israeli poet, Amichai, called “The Diameter of the Bomb”.

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters

and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.

And around these, in a larger circleof pain and time,

two hospitals are scatteredand one graveyard.

But the young womanwho was buried in the city she came from,at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,enlarges the circle considerably,and the solitary man mourning her deathat the distant shores of a country far across the seaincludes the entire world in the circle.

And I won’t even mention the crying of orphansthat reaches up to the throne of God and beyond, makinga circle with no end and no God.

An ever-widening circle. The ripple effect. A butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing. The tipping point. A million bad choices later, war. The poem builds to reveal the ugliest circle. Death, mutilation, torture, the senseless slaughter of innocents...beyond solitude to utter loneliness. No great goodness left in the world. The bad choices seemed harmless once, even proper, before the holocaust...born out of a need for control, the fear of change, free-floating distrust, prejudice, different values and opinions. And they mount - one at a time, then a hundred, then a thousand - until all decency is lost and truth distorted. Since reading the poem, my thoughts have focused on the circle, the symbol of the infinite, a metaphor often found in literature. I dusted off my e-journal and re-read my entries.

And therein lies the whole of man's plight.

Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line.

That is why man cannot be happy:

happiness is the longing for repetition.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable LIghtness of Being

Ever spent an afternoon with a toddler? Watched him build a Lego tower, then knock it down and do it all again? Nine million times? Or listened to your granddaughter sing the alphabet song? Nine million and one times? The old adage - “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.’ - is part of the truth. But perhaps another aspect is that repetition reminds all of us that we have learned and gives us hope that we can learn more. A straight line, on the other hand, moves us away from all that is familiar. We are marching toward the unknown.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe,

a part limited in time and space.

He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,

man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitzer

How sad that our circles are so often miniscule. We build exclusive compounds - sometimes in our minds, sometimes with brick and mortar and razor wire - to guard “our kind”. But the comfort they offer is only a false, temporary illusion. At some point these walls become our jail where we are bound to others by fear and hate only.

I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems,

which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand

exactly around the spot where you are standing right now.

I was never not coming here.

This was never not going to happen.

Elizabeth Gilbert

I have stood in many spots now. When I view my journey, all my small circles are strung together like a great, infinite strand of pearls. My gems. In the beginning, though, I could feel only the irritating grain of sand, not the beauty in creation. I could understand only the words of Robert Heinlein: When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. I am grateful for the erosion of illusion. But not proud...I am still under de-construction.

The war within must be faced before I can begin to understand the war without. The seeds of all ugliness reside in me as do the seeds of beauty. What do I choose to water? From the death of self, I pray that something lovely can take root and bloom.

Most of us memorized “In Flanders Fields” in fifth or sixth grade. A powerful juxtaposition of beauty and death: profuse mounds of poppies springing up in the fresh-turned soil between graves of fallen soldiers. The poem was written by Lt. Col. John McCrae, a Canadian physician, the day after he witnessed the death of his twenty-nine year old friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer.* The cold statistics of war mount and the impact is minimized. Steven Spielberg addressed this powerfully in the film, Schindler’s List. We first see a small girl in a red coat running in the ghetto. Later, when the dead - huge piles of bodies - are being carted off, the only bit of color in the black and white moment is the red coat of the dead child. What was inconceivable becomes gut-wrenching, real. Let us remember names when we can. The Vietnam Memorial, the roles of the dead that are found in sundry places, not only honor the dead but touch the living.

And it’s not enough to think of declared wars but of all who are killed by hatred and prejudice. By disease, physical and mental. To remember those who walk among us, scars visible and invisible. I do not like sharing my birthday with the Oklahoma City bombing. But those who died once lived, live still in the hearts of those who love them. And in Birmingham, it is not enough to say that four girls died in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. Remember their names: Cynthia Wesler, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Denise McNair. They were full of life and vigor that morning. Banish the killers to anonymity perhaps but not these young girls.

I’ve read and re-read “The Circumference of the Bomb.” I have not lived in the Middle East and do not have the poet’s perspective of the senseless killings that occur with random, horrific regularity in his homeland. But I cannot accept the last sentence. When we are enveloped in darkness, surrounded by evil, good seems at best a distant wish, at worst, absent.

I believe, though, when our circle is in that dark place, the good God is present with us.

Weeping.

Fifteen men were executed in the prison yard at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, Ireland, after the 1916 uprising: the last, close to death, brought through a gate on a stretcher, so badly wounded that he had to be tied to a chair to be shot. Whatever ideology, religion, or cause is cited, the bottom line is that the human capacity to kill, to torture, to subdue, pales in comparison to the power to love, to comfort, to empower. My culpability: have I told anyone this? Have I shared that I broke, that willpower and self-reliance failed, that good deeds pointed only to myself? That I am loved just as I am?

Wars are not started by demagogues or stoked by ideologies alone. One person, then two, add a few more, become complacent. Delayed gratification - a loser’s choice in this winner-takes-all world - falls by the wayside. Little by little, lines blur:souls sullied by the quick fix, too in need of approval to make the hard choice, lulled by empty promises, point fingers, then mix another drink: the road to oblivion so inviting . . . until the crossroads, where stands one ancient cross. The choice? Through it or around it. “It is done.” Already. Celeste Bracewell, 2009

Jesus wept.

John 11:35

...the struggle to forgive

2011-11-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

When you are reluctant to change, think of the beauty of Autumn.

― V.B. Brown

I am evidently not aware of my age. Recently, I was telling Bill about a friend and said that she is a few years older than I am. I was thinking late forties. I’m sixty. Do the math. I know that I am no longer considered relevant by the young. To them I say, “You’re right. I am simply making a daily journey. The longer I travel, the less I know.” I would advise stopping at, say, your mid-thirties if your goal is to hang on to illusion.

But I like my autumn...this knowledge that I’m not very significant. Takes a lot of pressure off my shoulders. Relationship is lovelier when competition isn’t foremost. The difficult moments are fewer and farther between. Two recent conversations reminded me, though, of those people who are not safe. A blog post I read elevated this to a universal level. How do we deal with evil? Without becoming like the despots?

Simon Wiesenthal’s book, The Sunflower, is a provocative, troubling view of the struggle with foregiveness. In the first part, he gives the troubling account of a young, mortally wounded Nazi soldier who asks to see a Jew before he dies. Wiesenthal, a concentration camp inmate, was summoned. The young man told him of his happy youth, then his involvement in the Hitler Youth, and finally the SS. During this process, hIs father disowned him. While fighting in Russia, his group slaughtered a large group of Jewish mothers, children, and old people. The scene wouldn’t go away. He said that he couldn’t die in peace until he confessed to a Jew.

Wiesenthal listened to the gruesome details. The young soldier ended by asking for forgiveness. Simon left without responding. He learned the Nazi died during the night when the work group returned to the hospital the next day.

This memory remained with him for years. He wrote: “Ought I to have forgiven him? Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong? This is a profound moral question . . . The crux of the matter is, of course, the question of forgiveness. Forgetting is something that time alone takes care of, but forgiveness is an act of volition . . ."

In the second part of his book, he poses this question to theologians, psychiatrists, philosophers, and victims of other murderous regimes. The answers reflect a wide-range of cultural, philosophical, and personal viewpoints.

Most of life’s hurts do not rise to the level of a holocaust or genocide. But evil does exist in our midst. In our own hearts. We may not murder but careless, angry words can kill the spirit. In some, evil takes hold completely. How do we deal with individual wounds. How do we forgive those who do not seek forgiveness?

Two recent conversations and another’s blog reminded me of a conversation with a now-deceased minister friend. My twenty minutes with him many years ago changed my life.

He stopped by my office one day and said, “You seem to have something weighing on you.”

I told him I was dreading an encounter with someone who had caused deep hurt in my family. And added that I had prayed...to no avail.

At this, he perked up. “I have a lot of experience in this area." He added, with a twinkle in his eye, “As a minister, I have a much longer list of people to forgive than you.”

“Here’s what you do. Pray first,” he told me, “for those you dislike most.”

Then he told me how. He started with a statement. “I bet you’re asking God to bless this person.”

“Well, yes.”

“And this is what you truly want...right now, while the hurt and anger are still fresh?”

“Well, no. I just want peace.”

He chuckled. “There you go. First thing you have to do is get honest. You have to give God something to work with. He paused and added, “Speak the truth. I usually just say "Lord, I don’t like the [insert inappropriate phrase here] but I know You care so I hand this [insert inappropriate phrase again] over to your care.” He suggested that I clean up the language. “Do this daily, more if needed and, after a while,” my old friend continued, “God will change your heart.”

So I began. “I don’t like this person, not one little bit, but I know that You love her, Lord. She’s mean-spirited, a rumormonger, a selfish manipulator, a controller. But she’s Your child just as I am, so You are going to have to love her for me.” I think my list might have been a scooch longer.

Weeks later I realized the language was evolving: “Lord, I am still struggling but she’s your child so love her, please, for me.”

Months passed: “Lord, I lift this person high, out of my shadow, so that Your healing light can reach all of the darkness. You know her needs better than I.”

One day I called my friend to say that a prayer of thanksgiving slipped out before I could stop it. He laughed.

“Hurt is real. But God heals our wounds,” the old preacher told me, “and let’s us keep the scars as reminders. Betrayal, pain, life’s losses: these are too big, too deep, for us mere mortals to conquer and subdue. We alone cannot create a forgiving heart. Just keep praying and one day you will realize that you care about this other soul . . . about this other’s soul. And yours,” he added, “will have grown.”

A relationship developed between two old adversaries. When she was dying, I was privileged to take the hand of this woman who had taught me how to forgive and to whisper “I love you.” I who had nothing to give, received. Since then, I have practiced this regularly. Often there is no response from the other. But my own turmoil subsides, along with hateful feelings.

I cannot generate forgiveness within myself for those who hurt my children or others I love. I can seek to understand another person's past wounds and find temporary empathy. But the intellect alone is powerless before repeat offenses. I am forever grateful for the dear man who guided me outside of myself, beyond my analytical mind.

Several seasons may pass before the contempt fades. But the journey is life-changing. God not only forgives us. He gives us forgiveness for others. If we ask. Honestly. Persistently.

A scrap of paper with this scribbled prayer was found in a concentration camp

near the body of a child who, along with the author, was a Holocaust victim.

This is forgiveness:

O God, Remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember instead the fruits we bought thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits that we have borne, be their forgiveness.

The writer of this prayer had looked into the face of radical love.

Love that is ours for the taking. And for the giving.

...have you hugged a biscuit today?

2011-11-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

When I cannot write a poem, I bake biscuits

and feel just as good.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Thank you, George and Shannon, for the dish towel.
Nothin' says lovin' like something from the oven!

If I had to choose a favorite book TITLE, Eat Pray Love would be on the leader board. And if I had to choose a favorite saying, then this would be in contention: we are not human beings looking for a spiritual experience but, rather, spiritual beings having a human one. Mind. Body. Spirit. One for all. All for one. Omnipresent. Just try to still the mind - conscious and unconscious - in meditation. And is there a moment when body awareness fades? Now post-vanity (removed by time, not surrendered willingly), just ask my aches. As for the spirit? My friend, the soul whisperer, entreats me to become prayer...not finite/infinite words but an openness, a living, a giving. A verb.

At the moment, my thoughts have turned to eating. When I was little, my grandmother made biscuits in a large, shallow wooden bowl filled with flour. Into this she worked her magic: lard (yes, lard, rendered after the annual hog-killing...this was farm life, not Whole Foods), milk, salt, baking powder. And some sugar. Granny’s kitchen religion: a little sugar in every salty thing and a little salt in all sweets. I can see her hands quickly forming the dough: light and moist, the scent of promises.

I try to observe healthy food habits since my metabolism has retired. But once a week I cook something forbidden in this corner of sophisticated, light, and healthy cuisine. I watched three emaciated women at lunch recently nibble a variety of lettuces with no dressing, NOT EVEN ON THE SIDE. Maybe this trio wouldn’t bite, but I bet if you set a platter of these buttery homemade biscuits down on the counter in most of these gourmet-lite, granite-heavy kitchens, they’d be gone faster than you could say Alice Waters.

I’ve tried a gazillion biscuit recipes over the years and have hit it lucky from time to time. Never, though, have I duplicated the goodness of those childhood morsels. Granny’s biscuits were delicious hot out of the oven or split open and toasted with butter the next morning. Hardly contained by gravity but graced by gravy...or homemade preserves, honey, and, in the true southern vernacular, sorghum syrup mixed with more butter. O happy day when a blogging neighbor published a recipe that had Granny written all over it. Edie from www.lifeingracecblog.com. Give her complete credit for the recipe and the quotes here. Visit her...such a treat!

These biscuits aren’t stand-up, tall and elegant. That’s another recipe. These aren’t even round. You may even want to eat them with a fork.

Now for the recipe:

We begin with Edie’s words: “First, you must start with 2 cups of self-rising White Lily flour. There shall be no substitutes. It has a lower protein content and says on the front ‘a southern tradition since 1883′. Don’t mess with Texas.” My words: White Lily flour is not sold anywhere in California. It IS available now on amazon.com. I love the internet. Back to the biscuits.

In a large bowl, mix the flour with 1/4 c. sugar, 1/2 t. salt, 1-1/2 t. baking powder. (Yes, the flour is self-rising. Add the baking powder anyway. Trust Edie and me.)

Cut in 1/4 c. shortening (two forks, a knife and a fork, a pastry blender or a whisk: whatever works for you) until the mixture looks like cornmeal. Sort of. Don’t stress.

Okay, I can't stir, focus and shoot at the same time. You get the general idea.

Add 2/3 cup heavy cream and 1 cup buttermilk and stir. This makes a wet dough.

Put some flour in a bowl or on a work surface. Here’s where Edie made me cry. She drops the dough by scoopfuls (her measure: “medium ice cream scoop”) into the flour JUST LIKE GRANNY. Flour your hands a bit and form the biscuit. Don’t mess with the dough too much either. I roll it between my palms very lightly so that the outside is delicately coated with flour and the inside is still wet. Shake off the excess flour and place in a round pan (cake pan or iron skillet) sprayed with Pam. My pans are still stored so I made do with a Chasseur casserole I found at Marshall's for $14.99. I love discount stores. [NOTE: not the right shape pan exactly - Edie's "angel wings" are prettier, so check them out - but the finished product tasted great.]

Edie's words are as crucial here as White Lily in the first step: “Place the biscuits very snugly into the pan. This step is key. These are southern biscuits so they’re invading each other’s personal space and hugging and back-slapping like crazy. If you’re from the Midwest, where personal space is recognized and respeted, this step might be hard for you. But, trust me, I made my first batch with biscuit-boundaries and they were flat and boring. Scooch ‘em close together and they’ll sing the Hallelujah Chorus.” I did. They did. A good time was had by all. Oh, and, pat the biscuits lightly in the pan. Granny did.

Place the hugging biscuits into a 425 degree oven for 18 to 23 minutes until they are golden brown on top. Invert them on a plate, and then again onto another plate so they land right-side up. Brush with melted butter. Cut them apart with a knife and butter again if your cholesterol is still too low. A couple of these once a month may be illegal in Marin County.

I’ll get around to a healthy recipe next week. I promise.

Just as soon as I clean the buttery smears off the edges of my Mac.

...grace for the journey

2011-11-01T16:08:00.000-07:00

Intersection: grave design by Carlo Scarpa

We measure the moments not by duration but by grace

Early this morning I read my friend Connie’s post on FB: “One never knows the appointed day and hour. Get your house/heart in order. It is heart breaking when a long time friend, younger than yourself, dies suddenly and unexpectedly. RIP Scott.” Connie, of the big heart and wonderful smile, pours time and love into the care and recognition of our military men and women, those alive as well as the fallen. And when her big heart breaks, the love inside spills on all around.

Her words have lingered. I am sixty. Sixty. Hard to believe. As far as I can tell, there is no official “sixty” feeling. I am aware that I have much more time behind me than I have in front. And that I am beyond blessed by all who populate my life. All. Not just the pleasant ones, the ones I love who love me back. All. The ones who are difficult to love, impossible to like, and just plain unsafe to be around. They have taught me much about boundaries and forgiveness. Falling flat on my face has forced some humility on me. I know that I can make a u-turn when my thoughts veer in the wrong direction before I drive off a cliff with them. Sixty is good. Death is a fact. Today is gift.

Before I moved last year, I sorted bits of paper and the odd dinner napkin or deposit slip that I had filled with my scribbles...the piecework of my life. I had not revisited these thoughts for years. The winter afternoon turned dark before I finished. After all were read and a few set aside to record, I sat by candlelight in the silence. All those words poured out on paper had been an emptying. And I knew that I had finally come home. Not to a place. Not to a final destination. But at home within my own skin.

"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

Mr. Wolfe, you are right. Everything changes. But the past is woven into every day. And the home to which I journey rests within. One that can’t be swept away by flood, fire, wind or earthquake. I have, Mr. Edgerton, been walking through Egypt* for a long time. With each passing year, with every letting go, though, the journey grows lighter.

C.S. Lewis wrote of the early death of his wife Joy, “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.” The peace I know today is the struggle I had before...just as much a part of the deal.

In my stash of papers I found a brief but loving sympathy note from a friend: “In the quiet of a caring heart, Celeste, know that you are loved.” I often pass this on in those moments when other words would ring hollow. Today, Connie, for you. You are right. We do not know our appointed time. But Joanne posted a Greek proverb this morning, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.” I believe it’s planting time.

Love and good thoughts, Connie. Here’s a prayer, written by my friend, Gerve. It helps me keep my house in order. I share it in memory of Scott and your reminder this morning.

Gracious Lord,

Into Your Hands I commend my spirit and my entire being
I pray for the acceptance of exactly where I am with all its positive and negative aspects

Help me to go forward this day from even the darkest and most fearful depths of my soul

I will turn over to You at this time all my daily activities, my thoughts, problems, pains, fears, and inconveniences
Praying for alertness and awareness when difficulties arise

Remembering they are already in Your Hands so that I can immediately let them go;

And, with Your help and my willingness to accept that help, to go forward doing the next best thing,

Knowing that everything will be taken care of and "all will be O.K. at the end of the day."

I pray for compassion, patience, kindness, and tolerance for all,
And that prejudice and judgment be removed and replaced with willingness to be helpful.

I also pray that Your grace this day will make me an instrument of Your peace,
Illuminating my mind,

Listening through my ears,

Speaking through my voice,

And working with my hands

So that all with whom I come in contact may receive your blessing.

May I continue to pray for high hopes but low expectations,

For flexibility to change according to Your Will,

And for BALANCE in my life.

Lord, please, grant me the great gift of HUMILITY that I may be worthy to receive these and all your graces.

AMEN

*Walking Across Egypt, Clyde Edgerton