Angie's Art

We were little girls playing with our Ginny dolls on Aunt Margaret's screened-in front porch when we heard noises coming from the basement.  Aunt Margaret called the town cop, who found nothing down there and chalked it up to "Botti's Ghost."  Wait . . . what?  An Officer of the Law believed in ghosts?  My perception of the world was instantly changed in that moment.

The "we" in this scene consisted of my older sister, Karen, and me, next-door neighbors to Aunt Margaret (who wasn't really our aunt) and Angie and Kim Botti, Margaret's real nieces who visited occasionally.  Whenever Kim and Angie visited, Karen and I had playmates for the day.  Aunt Margaret and Uncle Melvin had no children of their own, and we knew, by Aunt Margaret's stern demeanor, to mind our Ps and Qs when we were in her home.  But we were good little girls, and playing with our dolls and musing about the existence of ghosts kept us entertained.

A few years later, after Aunt Margaret hanged herself in her attic, Kim and Angie stopped coming to visit.  Another ghost added to the house.

It was several years later that I rediscovered Angie when our separate elementary schools merged into one high school.  But our individual circles of friends did not necessarily merge, and we were well past our days of playing with dolls, so our connection was marginal.  I do remember Angie taking art classes, as I did.  It was in high school that I made the sad discovery that I had no artistic talent, a rude awakening that was not visited upon Angie.

Fast forward to the Age of Facebook.  The online conversations and exchanges of photographs of Aunt Margaret reunited Angie and me and culminated in a visit by Angie and her husband to my home last summer.  The hostess gift that Angie brought was a collection of notecards of her artwork, a gift that I cherish so much, I have a hard time actually using the notecards for their intended purpose!  They are so exquisite, I just don't want to send them away.

Angie paints watercolors . . . in miniature.  Her paintings are about the size of an index card, but contain such detail that one can only marvel at how in the world she does this.  She will dismiss it as just needing patience and a steady hand, but that's Angie for you . . . humble to a fault.  The way she can capture light and shadow to create mood is nothing short of breathtaking.  The scenes she paints, mostly rural or architectural, have the power to transport the viewer to a place that is calm and comforting.  But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  You can see for yourself at
 www.perennialdesigns.net.

Be prepared to fall in love.

Silver

It's not what you think.

I grew up in a small town at a time when the only organized activity outside of school or church was scouting.  So I was a Brownie who "flew up" to be a Girl Scout.  (I predate "Daisies.")  And my fellow Scouts and I hung in there until we were 15 or 16.  The only reason we left scouting was because our beloved leader died.  Without Selma, we foundered.  But I can tell you today that I am still friends with at least a dozen of those girls, and we still love to tell the stories, sing the songs, and eat the cookies.

There was a Girl Scout "anthem" of sorts that we sang at meetings and events.  "Girl Scouts Together" was the name.  My friends and I can still sing it from memory these 50+ years later.  But there was another song, a round that repeats with us always:  "Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other gold."  Simple enough.  And what it meant to us as kids, I can't remember.  It probably seemed more like a directive to be nice to the new kids who moved into town.

But now?  I get it.  I still have many of the friends I have gathered over the various places I have lived, gone to school, and worked.  They are gold.  Some of them I have known for almost sixty years.  They are pure gold.  But the silver?

I met one of them today.  A friend of a friend.  In less than two weeks, I will be traveling with her and two other friends to see the Northern Lights in Iceland.  One of these friends is gold, one is pure gold, but this one is silver.

We met for lunch, and three hours later, it seemed like we had always known one another.  I suspect that down the road, through alchemy or just a whole lot of laughing, she will become gold to me.

But for now?  I love the silver of meeting new friends.

Click here if you want to sing along:
http://youtu.be/sMAxP-95yn4

Second Chances

So I've been kind of riled up about the "Freedom of Religion" bill in Arizona, which essentially says that individuals have a right to deny services to people if their values go against certain religious beliefs.  I know that the abortion/birth control issue, as it conflicts with some religious tenets, is a very complex one, but the probable interpretation of the bill which would allow businesses to turn gay customers away is abhorrent and backward.  I thought that battle was won many years ago through the Civil Rights Act?  So while we're awaiting Governor Brewer's decision on whether or not she will veto the bill, this happened:

I spend a lot of time on Facebook.  One of these days, it may be the subject of one of my daily posts.  But this post isn't about Facebook.  It is about a post that a friend shared about how wrong the above-mentioned bill in Arizona is.  One of his "friends" commented on the post, and in his comment, he made a rather derogatory remark against gays under the guise of not having anything against them . . . "as long as they don't make a move on me."  As if all gay people are predators, you know?  So I called him out on it.

And the subsequent exchange got ugly.  I immediately regretted that I had chosen to comment, but it was hard to walk away from it.  No need to go into specifics here.  The point of this post is that I had a choice to make.  I could continue the argument, which would likely regress into name-calling, bad language, and a whole lot of bad feeling.  Or I could do something else.

I sent a private message to my sparring partner, someone I've never met, expressing my regret that the conversation had turned nasty, and informing him that I was going to delete my comments.  Maybe he would like to do the same?

His response was immediate.  He was not comfortable with the conversation, either, and immediately removed his part of it.  He also edited out his "as long as they don't make a move on me" comment, acknowledging that it was wrong.

And then we had a nice long Facebook chat!  We exchanged stories about our mutual friend, found some common ground about the Arizona situation, and wished one another well.

We are at opposite ends of everything, from age to political views to religion.  But we made peace.  Because I had a second chance to turn something around.  And I took it.

Record-keeping

So it's that time of year.  Time to get ready to pay the U.S. Treasury.  I have an appointment with my accountant in two days to have my taxes done.  (Yes, I used to do it myself, but I got lazy.)  That means that today, I had to gather all pertinent paperwork and documents.  In and of itself, that's not a terrible chore.  But there are oh, so many ways to get distracted!

Part of my ritual is reviewing my checkbook and credit card statements, looking for charitable donations, medical expenses, etc.  That's easy enough to do, but I find it hard to stay focused on the task at hand.  In this process, I encounter all the expenditures I made throughout the tax year, and each one reminds me of something I did, somewhere I went, somebody with whom I celebrated something.  It's a pretty heady experience.  And I love it.

I am reminded of the greenhouse that my dear friends Jim and Lois and I erected in the spring, as well as all the seeds and plants and gardening supplies that I purchased.  Puts my mind right into a spring mode, not a bad thing, since I can still look out my window and see a foot of iced-over snow.

Also, in the spring, I met my artist friend, Jeff, at Two Buttons, Elizabeth Gilbert's warehouse in Frenchtown, NJ.  It was there that he presented me with the commissioned portrait of my late best friend JoAnn, a wedding gift for her daughter Francesca, who was married in March.

I visited my son in Burlington, Vermont, three times last year.  I visited my daughter Jenna in Quechee, Vermont, three times also.  And I visited my daughter Katrina in Florida five times.  (This does not mean that Katrina is my favorite.  This means that New England is cold and Florida is not.)  There was also a week on the Outer Banks in May.  My mind loves to revisit the Outer Banks and does so quite often.

I bought some concert tickets last year.  Most memorable were Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers in nearby Newton, The Avett Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show in New Hampshire, and Jackson Browne at Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock, where I sat two feet away from him and he looked into my soul.  It's true.  Ask my friend Margaret, who went with me and witnessed "the look."

And then there was the family trip to Australia in December.  Still very fresh on my mind.

There were several sad things that happened in 2013, too, but interestingly, my record-keeping does not remind me of them.  For that, I am grateful.

Divinity

Two years ago, I met an amazing woman at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica.  (Lest you think I am a yoga afficionado, let me assure you, I was mostly there for the Costa Rica experience, not the yoga experience.  Don't get me wrong . . . I respect and admire people who are into yoga.  In fact, I envy them.  But I have never been able to get to a point where I can say "I get it!")  The first thing I heard Karen say when we met was, "I take my yoga seriously."  And she does.  She is also a beautiful soul, inside and out.  I am happy that she became a Facebook friend and I can see her inspiring posts.  And it is one of those posts that is the inspiration for this blog entry.

It's a quote by Fyodor Dostoyevsky:  "Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.  If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.  Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.  And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."

I thought it appropriate to include that quote in today's post because I have reached a mini-milestone here.  I have fallen in love every day for 30 days.  One-twelfth of my mission is complete.  But have I achieved that which Dostoyevsky is predicting for me?  Not even close.  The mystery remains a mystery.

I willingly admit, however, that I love the word "divine."  I have long struggled with the name "God."   I won't go into the reasons for that struggle here, but it is important to note that my questions about spirituality and religion have a lot to do with that name.  So I have chosen to use other names in order to allow me to focus on defining my belief system.  "The divine" is a term I can embrace.  It helps me understand that "god" is internal, not external.  The divine is within.

And that is what I hope this exercise in falling in love is helping me do.  To look within for meaning.  The world we live in keeps telling us that meaning is to be found outside of ourselves, whether it's in a designer handbag or a hot car or a killer sound system.  I fall prey to these desires myself at times.  But the satisfaction that they bring is fleeting.  And it doesn't come close to love.

So here's to one month down and eleven to go on my journey toward divinity.

Squirrel Baffle

So you notice that the title of this post is not "Squirrel."  Falling in love with a stinkbug was a stretch, but I just don't think I can fall in love with a squirrel.  Rodent.  Varmint.  Nuisance.  Funny, if it was a chipmunk, maybe I could.  I'm not sure why Chip and Dale have something over Rocket J. Squirrel, unless it's simply a matter of size.  Smaller is cuter?  Whatever.  I am in love with my squirrel baffle.  And in case you are unfamiliar, let me provide a visual:

There's one of my many squirrels, baffled at his inability to get to the birdfeeder.  Would you like to guess how many times he attempted this, only to be baffled again?  Intermittently, he would run up to my side porch, ram his little body against the sliding glass door, and look inside as if to ask me to please come out and remove the baffle.  I am sorry that he was too quick for me to get a picture of his little face in the window.  And I cannot say for sure if it was the same squirrel every time because, you know, they all look alike.  If I was in love with one of them, I would be able to pick him out from among the others.  Because that is a component of love.

And you know something else about love?  It is baffling.  Look at our little squirrel friend.  He is so in love with the birdfeeder, but he cannot have it.  What is it that you love (or have loved) that you cannot have?  What is in your way?  What is it about love that is so baffling?

No wonder we ram our heads against the door and then plead with love to let us in.

Chipping Away

I spent the better part of the afternoon chipping away at the ice on the driveway.  It's jarring work.  Placing the shovel at the base of a section of ice, kicking it hard, hoping it breaks off, kicking it again, then shoveling whatever has broken off and piling it onto the mountains of snow that line the driveway.  The sun was my helper today, and I am thankful for that.

I made a significant dent in the ice.  But the coming week's fluctuating temperatures will likely cause more ice, more melting, and a repeating pattern that means winter will still be around for awhile, at least on my property.  So I will be chipping away every chance I get.

But despite the hard work and the resulting aches and soreness, I kind of like the process of chipping away at something.  I've always been somewhat of a "picker," I guess.  I never needed nail polish remover back in the days when I polished my nails.  I just chipped away at the old polish until it was gone.  Sanding down furniture for refinishing was never a chore for me; I just chipped away at the old finish.  Peeling skin from a sunburn?  Let me at it.

I don't have any explanation for this.  I guess it must have something to do with a visible sense of accomplishment.  I can look at my driveway today and it looks a helluva lot better than it did yesterday.  I did that.  I chipped away at it.

Or maybe the ice (or the nail polish or the dead skin or whatever) is symbolic of a layer of something bad that is messing with my karma.  I can get rid of it.  I can chip away at it.

Sadness, sorrow, guilt, regret . . . these do not have to be permanent.  I'll chip away.

I'm chipping away.

Chocolate

My birthday present from Marcel came in the mail today, all the way from Frankfurt, Germany!  Look at it!  Do you think I am in love with it?

I have never met Marcel.  We became Facebook friends five years ago and chat regularly, so I feel like I know him.  Marcel just turned 25 a few days ago.  He and I share a last name, and that is how we became friends.

When I joined Facebook, I did a search for people with my last name, since it is a somewhat unique name and I do not know many people who have it.  I sent friend requests to several Mattils, and a dozen or so responded.  Of those, I am still "friends" with a handful, but it was Marcel who became a real friend.  We do not know if we are related, but since the name is so rare, and since my Mattil ancestors were German, we think that it is likely that we are.

Our Facebook chats began about music.  Marcel is a huge Lenny Kravitz fan (I am not) and that became a springboard for our conversations.  A couple of years ago, Marcel asked me what Tommy Hilfiger polo shirts would cost in the U.S.  I had no idea.  But a few days later, I was in line to check out at Marshall's when my eyes wandered toward an entire rack of Hilfiger polo shirts priced at $24.99!  I checked with Marcel about size and color and mailed two shirts to him.  After that, in every picture he posted of himself, he was wearing one of the shirts.

But there was the matter of how he would pay me for them.  He asked me if there was something I would like from Germany.  Now I have been wearing Birkenstocks since 1983, and I can certainly buy them here, but that was the only "German thing" that I could think of.  I told Marcel the style, color and size, and he sent me a pair immediately.  We were even!

This past summer, Marcel and a friend visited the U.S. for the first time.  They chose the West Coast for their visit, and I was too busy with other things to fly out to meet them.  But I did arrange for them to stay with dear friends of mine for a short time, and I did help him with some other parts of his itinerary. 

A couple of weeks ago, Marcel told me that he and his girlfriend are going to visit Florida this coming November.  I am definitely planning on heading down there to meet him this time and offered, again, to help him plan his itinerary.  He casually mentioned something about how he could repay me for my help and I replied in one word:  Chocolate!

And then today, the package from Germany!  I immediately broke into one of the hazelnut bars, and yes, there is a difference between American chocolate and German chocolate!  But beyond the melt-in-your-mouth goodness of the chocolate, I am touched by Marcel's generosity and thoughtfulness.

And chocolate is so easy to love.

Cat's Purr

We have nothing equivalent.  Sure, we can coo and whimper and even gurgle or moan to show our contentment or pleasure, but those "noises" don't even come close to a cat's purr.  My Google search tells me that "scientists have demonstrated that cats produce the purr through intermittent signaling of the laryngeal and diaphragmatic muscles. Cats purr during both inhalation and exhalation with a consistent pattern and frequency between 25 and 150 Hertz."  So that clears that up.

I think some things just should not be questioned, deciphered, or analyzed.  Cats purr.  That's all.

My cat of 12 years has not been feeling well these past couple of days, and I am puzzled by her symptoms, so we are likely off to the vet tomorrow.  Cassie has never been sick, ever, so this is new territory for us.  The one thing that is holding me together through this bewilderment is her purr.  There is a theory that, in addition to showing contentment, a cat's purring strengthens bones and promotes healing.  Either way, I am grateful for her purr when I check on her and coo loving words to her and pick her up and pet her.  I will be doing this all evening.

But imagine if we could purr!  Imagine if it was not something we could turn on or off, but rather just something that automatically happened when we were feeling happy.  Or when our bones needed some strengthening.  ("No, dear, I am still really mad at you.  My bones just need a boost.  Do not think that my purring means you are out of the doghouse.")

And, by the way, why is a doghouse a place for punishment while a cathouse is a place for pleasure?

But I digress.

My cat is ill.  I feel helpless.  Somehow, her purring tells me not to worry, that she understands that when I put her in a cage and then in the car tomorrow to take her to a strange place that is sterile and cold, that I am doing so because I love her.  Her purring says, "It's okay, Mom.  I will trust you."  Oh, Cassie, it is I who trusts you!  I trust you to reassure me that I am loved, which you do every time your purr reaches 50 Hertz or higher.  Keep it coming, Sweetie Pie, and I will do what I can to make you better.

Pileated Woodpecker

There were times in my life when I fell in love with men who were unreliable, unpredictable, and untamable.  In hindsight, I think that was part of the appeal.  These men enthralled me in those heady days when we believed that love could change people, just like it could change the world.  Call it naive, it still made for some damn good music.  It was, after all, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

And so it is with my pileated woodpecker.  He is unreliable, unpredictable, and definitely untamable.  And I am in love with him.  (Yes, it's a "him."  I looked it up.)

The myth is that Woody Woodpecker was fashioned after a pileated woodpecker.  The truth is that Walter Lantz and his wife were tormented by an acorn woodpecker on a vacation at a cabin in the woods.  Walter wanted to kill the bird, but his wife suggested he turn it into a cartoon.  The fact that Woody shares more characteristics with the crazy pileated woodpecker lent credence to the myth.  Either way, many homeowners have named their backyard woodpecker visitors "Woody" regardless of Woody Woodpecker's origins.

Not mine.  I call him Willie.  As in Willie "Roll-Me-Up-and-Smoke-Me-When-I-Die" Nelson.

I have several species of woodpecker who visit my backyard feeder, including the red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers.  But none of them can enthrall me the way that pileated guy can.  He is compelling!  Just watching him skew his head from side to side . . . what attitude!  "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willie?"  Clearly, he is the King of his Domain!

Pileated woodpeckers like logs.  Well, duh.  I live in a log house.  They also like suet, and I make sure there is a fresh supply every day.  Better that he peck on the suet than on my house.

Willie, you are Crazy.  Always on My Mind.  And definitely, an Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.

If you had not have fallen,

then I would not have found you,
Angel flying too close to the ground!
And I patched up your broken wing

and hung around awhile,

tried to keep your spirits up

and your fever down.
I knew someday that you would fly away,

for love's the greatest healer to be found.
So leave me if you need to,
I will still remember
Angel flying too close to the ground!
Fly on, fly on past the speed of sound!
I'd rather see you up
than see you down.
Leave me if you need to,
I will still remember
Angel flying too close to the ground!

Scrabble

Scrabble is a nerd's game.  I have anywhere between six and ten Scrabble buddies online, nerds all.  Well, maybe I should clarify that, because we are not only nerds.  We are cool, too.  The nerd part comes in when you consider someone who can feel almost orgasmic at a bingo, get depressed when the sidebar says "Their Turn" instead of "My Turn," and has a love/hate relationship with JO, QI and ZA.  I am guilty of all of those, and I'm pretty sure my Scrabble buddies are, too.

Of course, I grew up playing Scrabble on a board with wooden tiles.  But even then, you could divide a classroom into those who played Scrabble and those who didn't.  It wasn't like Candyland or Uncle Wiggly, which most friends would play.  Scrabble was for the kids who also enjoyed Go to the Head of the Class.  (By the way, I still have my GTTHOTC game from 1957.)  My best Scrabble buddy back then was Peggy, who was also my best friend and lived next door, so we racked up quite a few games.

In my 20s, I met Korey, a Scrabble nerd, but she elevated the game to a whole new level.  In Korey's Scrabble world, every word had to have something to do with sex, which basically meant that once you played a word, you had to justify why it was a sexy word.  Only creative nerds could follow Korey's rules.  Like I said, we were in our 20s.

Online Scrabble spoils you.  No arguments over whether a word is a word, instant shuffling ability, AND you can chat while you play!  I notice that many of my Facebook friends play something called "Words with Friends," which they tell me is just like Scrabble.  They have invited me to play.  I have not accepted their offers.  Scrabble is Scrabble.  And sometimes my Scrabble friends are my Scrabble enemies.  No, not really.  I am at that point where I don't really care whether I win or lose; I am just in love with playing.

After almost five years of playing Scrabble online, my "Victory Percentage" is only 65% with 1055 wins and 543 losses.  My Best Word Score was PROMISEE, which spanned two DWs and scored 158 points.  My Best Game Score was 635 and I have had 561 bingos.  Don't ask me how many Sexy Scrabble games I won when I played Korey because we didn't keep track.

And now, if you will excuse me, there are Scrabble games waiting for me.  I love it.

Handwriting

So the other day, when I fell in love with recipes, it was primarily with ones that were handwritten by people I have loved and lost.  So it was a multi-layered love.  I fell in love with the recipes, with the food itself, with the friends and family who'd given me those recipes . . . and with their handwriting.  And in writing that post, I thought a lot about handwriting, which some will tell you is a lost art.

The bulk of my teaching career took place in a time when students submitted their essays in their own script.  A handful of students, those who took a typing class or those who were fortunate to have a typewriter at home, submitted a typed copy.  I would save grading those papers until last, my reward after struggling through dozens of handwritten papers.  Although it would have been nice to require that all papers be typed, we could not do that, as it would discriminate against those who did not have access to a typewriter.

And it was the same thing when computers arrived.  Until . . . computer labs!  Even if a student did not have a typewriter or computer at home, the school's computer lab was open during lunch, study hall, and after school.  No excuses anymore!  English teachers everywhere celebrated the end of bad handwriting!  And so it has become the way it is, but at what cost?

It amazes me that you could take a class of 25 second-graders and teach them how to write in script, all of them able to view the posters of the letters of the alphabet right there above the blackboard, and each one of them will enter third grade with handwriting that is uniquely his or hers.  There has to be something to this.  And I'm not talking about the flourishes that individuals apply when they enter their teens, like dotting the letter "i" with a smiley face or making an elaborate loop out of every letter.  We all follow the basic construction of the scripted letters, but somehow, when we put them all together, our writing looks different than everybody else's.  And I do not think this is deliberate.

When I would collect in-class writing from my students, I knew without looking at their names whose paper it was.  Their handwriting was as much a part of how I knew them as their smarts, their laughter, their shyness, their style . . . or their lack of any of those things.  Their typed papers told me less about them.

I have an antique steamer trunk that is full of family heirlooms, military medals, and various other memorabilia that I have inherited.  From my mother, I have an essay that her father wrote on government.  When and why he wrote this, I have no idea.  In fact, I never knew my grandfather, as he died before I was born.  There must have been a reason that my mother kept this essay, and I suspect that it is because of the beautiful handwriting.  Although some spelling errors abound (there is no "n" in government, for instance), the essay gets an "A" for sheer beauty.  And so I am in love with something handwritten nearly a century ago by a man I never met, a man who served his country abroad in WWI, arguably the worst war ever fought, but held such a deep respect for his government that he wrote about it in perfect swirls and measured loops of letters that provide me, his granddaughter, with a small idea of the kind of man he was.

Icicles

I need to fall in love with them before they're gone.  And I, like everyone else around here, am hoping that will be soon.  But until that 50 degree day that the weather forecasters keep talking about actually arrives, I intend to enjoy the crystalline beauty of nature's winter decoration.

Do you recall the craze a few years ago to string dripping lights under the eaves at Christmastime?  And the people who still do so have my utmost admiration for climbing ladders and balancing on rooftops to put them in place every December.  More admiration for when they take them down a month later.  No admiration at all for those who leave them up until June.  And pure disdain for those who leave them up all year.  But I digress.  Those dripping lights are supposed to mimic icicles, creating the illusion of the exterior of a snuggly warm home in a Disney cartoon.  I confess that my family joined the craze.  But we could only afford the cheap strings, the ones that didn't have enough bulbs to be impressive.  And they had wires that bent in crazy ways, eliminating the illusion of "dripping" icicles.  Nonetheless, we joined the crowd and took pleasure in our decorated house, even if it didn't look like the one in Home Alone or The Santa Clause.

Well, it's now almost two months past Christmas, and there is no need for strings of icicle lights.  The real thing has decorated every house on the block, and they are impressive.  But despite their beauty, the ice jams that they are creating on the roofs and gutters are going to be a problem.  We're all just holding our collective breath, watching for dripping water to emerge from our ceilings.  I considered knocking them down until my friend Jane cautioned me that she tried to knock hers down, only to have one land on her head.

Which reminded me that icicles are the perfect murder weapon.  Once the deed is done, all evidence of a weapon is gone.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), I cannot think of anyone I want to murder.  Except maybe certain politicians.  No, not really.  I will limit my victims to stinkbugs.

But right now, and until that first drip from the ceiling lands on my head, I am in love with the icicles that are cascading off my roof.  One of them looks to be about four feet tall.  Some have forked bottoms.  All are different, like snowflakes, and together they have created a glassine fortress that surrounds my home.

Yes, I need to fall in love with them before they're gone.  And that thought should not apply only to icicles, should it?

Recipes

At a certain age, one begins to take note of all the "stuff" that has accumulated over time and asks, "Who the hell is going to deal with all this crap when I'm gone?"  So, like many a fellow Baby Boomer, I am trying to downsize, a little at a time.  Making decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of is no easy task, but there is a gleeful reward of having lightened one's load.  Until, of course, you find yourself needing that thing you got rid of.

Today's task was one I'd been putting off, but I found it to be much easier than I'd anticipated.  Recipes.  Two wooden boxes plus a bulging file folder, crammed full of recipes culled from magazines, newspapers, Internet cooking sites, and delivered by friends.  The last is a result of wanting to compliment people on their cooking.  How many times have I said, while sampling the dishes at a party, "Oh!  This is SO GOOD!  Can I have the recipe?"  (Too many.)  And how many times have I actually prepared that recipe?  (Maybe once.)  Time to be realistic about which of these recipes I am ever going to use.

My chore was made easier by a couple of factors.  Many of the recipes were from the 70s, the years of quiche, cheese fondue, and things made with lots of mayonnaise.  Discarded.  Most of the recipes were meat dishes.  Having given up meat several years ago, it was quite easy to get rid of those.  Gone.  And since all those magazine clippings predate home Internet access, the realization that I can easily find a new recipe for New England clam chowder or mint brownies (if I should ever need one) allowed me to get rid of even more.

So what did I keep?  Not much.  But I should explain.  My kids and I each have a copy of a cookbook that I put together a couple of years ago.  It contains all the "family recipes," the dishes that my kids grew up on, the special recipes for holiday dinners, and the recipes handed down from my mother and grandmother.  It is also a photo album, decorated with every picture I could find of my kids with food.  (There were a lot.)

But sorting through all those recipes today, I came across ones that were handwritten . . . by people whom I have loved and lost.  My grandmother's cabbage salad.  My mother's recipes for banana bread and "Tote 'n Eat Chicken."  Pete's scrawled instructions for making polenta or enchiladas.  Peggy's bacon water chestnut appetizers.  JoAnn's sour cream pastries. Their handwriting makes these more than just foods that I have prepared and eaten.  They are memories.  They are reminders of the single most important ingredient in any dish, that which makes home cooking preferable to convenience foods or restaurant meals, and that which stirs the brain to recall not only taste but the labor and effort behind any good meal.

You know what that ingredient is.  Stir it in generously.

Vinegar

If you were expecting a different V-word for this February 14 post, I'm sorry to disappoint.  No, not really.  Despite the fact that my father's first name was Valentine (try getting through grade school with that!), I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day, for obvious reasons.  A pair of doves flew onto my side porch this morning, just to rub it in.  But at the same time, my friend Janet sent me a Valentine's greeting on Facebook chat, but instead of typing out the word "Valentine," she meant to interject a  heart icon.  However, the icon didn't come through, so she wished me a "Happy  's Day!"  And I thought, yes, for those of us who are uncoupled, we can have a Happy Apostrophe Ess Day.  Somebody call Hallmark.

But about vinegar, that miracle liquid that has my love today.  I have been on a cleaning craze during this frigid winter.  Vinegar is helping me clean my floors, my cabinets, my walls.  Its versatility is amazing!  The only problem is that I keep craving hard-boiled eggs.

When I was a kid, I thought vinegar existed for the singular purpose of coloring Easter eggs.  That smell was as much a part of Easter happiness as the smell of chocolate or of ham dinner.  My mother must have used vinegar for something else, but I have no idea what.  Our only salad dressing was store-bought orange-dyed French dressing, which was poured over a wedge of iceberg lettuce.  I'm pretty sure the lettuce wedge only served as something to hold the French dressing, which was, of course, the main attraction.  If there was any vinegar in it, you could have fooled me.

Becoming environmentally conscious in recent years meant finding alternate cleaning products in order to limit the use of harsh and destructive chemicals.  The long-suppressed secret, the knowledge that Proctor & Gamble and Dow Chemical and S.C. Johnson didn't want you to know is that vinegar can clean everything, from your toilet to your laundry to your eyeglasses to your fruits and vegetables.  Just google "vinegar uses" and you will find how to use vinegar to remove crayon marks, soften your fabrics, and polish your furniture.

In the kitchen, you can use vinegar to make a buttermilk substitute, tenderize meat, and keep cheese fresh.  Beyond the kitchen, vinegar can be used to make your own aftershave, cure your athlete's foot, and make your nail polish last longer.  Just amazing!

This past summer, on the advice of a gardening friend, I substituted vinegar for the evil Roundup to kill the pesky weeds that try to take over the stone pathways around my house.  And it works!  Those weeds just wither when I approach them with a sprayer full of vinegar.

And here's where I get confused.  How can something capable of destroying plant life also be helpful in  washing vegetables, tenderizing meat, and dressing salads?

But then, isn't vinegar just like love?  Capable of destroying your heart, but oh, so delicious when offered up as garnish for life!

Happy Vinegar's Day!

Me

Those of us who live in the Northeast and have winter birthdays know that this is a possibility . . . that a snowstorm can eliminate any plans for celebration.  So with only my cat here to keep me company (and she's not much on birthday celebrations), I am left with only Myself to commemorate this day.  I have a bottle of wine to share with Myself, a frozen pizza to pop in the oven (provided we don't lose power), and generally, a pretty good attitude toward turning the age about which the Beatles had a hit song back in 1967 when I was a child of 17.  And Myself is the same age as me!  As a Baby Boomer, I have a lot of company.

The best thing about having a snowstorm ruin your birthday plans is that everyone is snowed in and bored and spending way too much time on Facebook.  Consequently, I have had well over 100 birthday greetings and it's not even dinnertime yet.  My favorite greeting was from a former student (now an Emmy Award-winning Hollywood make-up artist) who told me that I am the answer to the security question on her online accounts, as in "Who is your favorite teacher?"  I presented her with another Emmy, this time for Most Original Birthday Greeting.  That, alone, totally made my day!

So I am raising my glass to Myself and congratulating Myself on surviving another year.  I did some cool things when I was 63, like buying a condo in southern Florida. I also took a road trip down the eastern coast of Australia, snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and celebrating New Year's Eve watching the fireworks in Sydney.  Stepping out of my comfort zone.  In less than a month, I am off to Iceland, hoping to see the Northern Lights.  At this age, one takes the concept of "Bucket List" pretty seriously.  Forget the "cottage on the Isle of Wight" . . . although I have received invitations to visit friends in England.  Who knows where this year will take me?

For now, I will celebrate Myself, joyful in the life I have lived, even if it has sent me to my knees on more occasions than I can count.  Because I can always pick myself up again.  So far.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Neighbors

We've all had bad neighbors.  Not much you can do about it except mind your own business and hope they mind theirs.  But I've seen people build eight foot fences to visually separate themselves from their hated neighbors.  That kind of puts their business out there for everyone to see, don't you think?

Where I live, there is only one other house near mine.  My neighbors and I don't have a lot in common.  We are separated by age, by politics, by taste in music, and by pet preferences, among other things.  For instance, I have a cat.  My neighbors have a pig.  (They used to have a rooster.)  They also have six dogs, two of whom still come over here looking for Mack, the dog I used to have.  Whenever they do, my memory immediately calls up the image of my Golden boy, tail wagging in excitement over his visitors, and I am filled with my love for him again.  So I don't mind the visitors.  They miss him, too.

I cannot imagine better neighbors than mine.  Although we may view the world differently in some ways, I think we have the utmost respect for each other's opinions.  We have had some intense conversations about politics, but we have never gotten angry at one another.  As I am very passionate about politics, this is really saying something.  My neighbors' sons each did two tours in Afghanistan, and there was not a day that went by that I didn't think of their mother's pain and worry or of their safety.  I still worry about what scars that war left on them.

The thing about my neighbors is that they look out for me.  This is never more obvious than when there is a snowstorm, but there are so many other things they do for me.  I am the kind of woman determined to do things for myself, from shoveling eight tons of black dirt into raised beds in my garden to climbing a ladder to wash down the log walls of my house.  I can manage most things.  But there are times when upper body strength just isn't there.  I can call my neighbor and he will come and help me out.  Or maybe I'm out of town and I'm not going to make it home in time to feed Mack (when I still had him).  I can call my neighbor and she will come over and be my dog's best friend.  Although I try to reciprocate, my neighbors do much more for me than I am able to do for them.

And this brings me to the oil delivery truck problem that I wrote about yesterday.  My neighbors came to my rescue, clearing out the base of my driveway with every tool, vehicle and product at their disposal.  And yes, the oil truck was able to deliver!  My warmth is secure!  (Assuming, that is, that the pending storm isn't accompanied by a power outage.)

Today, I am in love with the blessing of good neighbors.  No fences required.

Warmth

I lied yesterday when I said that I had enough oil in the tank.  I don't.  I'm down to 1/8 tank and there's a problem.  Twice the oil delivery truck has tried to back up my snow-covered driveway and failed.  I am trying to solve this problem with the help of the township road department, my neighbor and his ATV, and some mojo which involves watching youtube videos of whirling dervishes and banging my head on the desk.  My house is still warm for now, and I am in love with that heat.

One of my daughters is living in a condo that I own in south Florida.  Another daughter is living in the rainforest in Queensland AU where it is summer.  Last night I chatted at length with a friend who is a musician on a cruise ship in the Caribbean and then this morning with a friend who recently moved to Guatemala.  All of that warmth while I am facing a possible freeze-out here in northwest New Jersey.  (Yes, I do have a son who lives in Vermont, but he likes to ski, so no sympathy.)  And right about now, you are thinking, "She owns a condo in south Florida and she's still wintering in New Jersey?"  Yes, that's true.  I purchased the condo as an investment and as a way to help my daughter live affordably while she is in grad school.  Although I thought it might be nice to visit occasionally, never did I envision myself as a snowbird.

Guess what?  I think I can see that now.  No surprise, right?  After a winter like this one, I'm sure a lot of people are dreaming of warmer climates.

If you grow up in the Northeast, you develop a love of seasons that are discernible from one another.  Not only do you appreciate the changing landscape and the beauty that is inherent to each quarter of the year, but you also measure out your life in relation to seasonal changes.  "In the summer, I will be sure to get the house painted."  "Next autumn, I am hoping to clean out my closets."  "I'm going to get an earlier start on the garden next spring."  "Next winter . . . "

I am moving to Florida.

Meanwhile, here I am, basking in the warmth of the little oil that is left in my tank, dreaming of palm trees and ocean breezes.  There is a Nor'easter brewing with an estimated arrival of midnight tomorrow.  That gives me one more day to get that oil delivery.  Third time's the charm, right?

If you don't see another post here by tomorrow night, don't be alarmed.  I'll just be in bed, buried under every comforter I own.  Or I'll be frozen solid.  Or MAYBE . . . if all of you bang your heads on your desks while watching videos of whirling dervishes, we can conjure enough mojo to get that truck up the driveway.  Think warm thoughts, people.

Enough

If the word that I chose as the title of this post was followed by an exclamation point, you might be deceived into thinking that you were going to be reading a rant.  Enough of this winter!  Enough of this snow!  Enough of this divisive political climate!  Enough of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber already!  Enough!

But there's no exclamation point.

I happened to hear a new song by Elizabeth and the Catapults this morning called "More Than Enough."  And it set off an explosion of thought in my morning head.  Indeed, we live in a culture where we are told every day that we do not have enough.  Surely, there is more to be had, and the corporate world wants us to have it.  (For a price, of course.)  Those of us who grew up with seven channels on our black and white TV sets (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13, in case you forgot) have been told for years that it wasn't enough.  Even Bruce's 1992 hit "57 Channels and Nothin' On" has become quite dated.  There are hundreds of channels now.  And it's still not enough.

There are never enough wars, never enough big box stores, never enough fast food choices, never enough talk radio voices.  (Never enough accidental rhyme?)  I could go on and on with this list, but I will spare you.  You've been told and sold the same hype as I have.  Buy more.

But I have enough.

I have enough pesto in the freezer, enough books to read, enough oil in the tank, enough faith in something better.  I have enough music to fill my home, enough memories to make me nostalgic.  I have enough sun coming through my windows, enough birds at my feeder, enough "likes" on my Facebook posts.  I have enough patience.

I have enough love.  My cat loves me.  And I'm pretty sure my kids love me, even if I do tend to yell too much.  (Having enough patience is never enough.)  I have enough friends, a few of whom have crossed over that line of liking me a lot to loving me and telling me so.

From Elizabeth's song:

Once in awhile, though it's never the plan
I go blue and ungrateful, take to hiding again
To the friend at the window, disguised as an angel
It's enough.  It's enough.

I am in love with all that I have.  And it's enough.

Napping

I debated about the title of this post, thinking that "Snoozing" sounded better than that abrupt little brat of a word, "nap."  Add an "s" and mix it up and you've got "snap," hardly a relaxing word.  "Nap" is quick and jarring; "snooze" is long and sleepy.  But as you can see, "Napping" won out, because, after all, we all know what it refers to:  that luxurious idea which usually comes to us first thing upon waking in the morning, "I think I'll take a nap later."  (The opposite of this kind of thinking would be Warren Zevon declaring "I'll sleep when I'm dead."  Well, Warren's dead now, but I'll bet you anything he is NOT napping.)

One of my earliest memories is of taking afternoon naps when I was four.  But I'm pretty sure I didn't actually sleep.  With my parents at work and my sister at school, I was left in the care of my beloved grandmother, my Nanny.  I would lie down on the bed in the spare room while she set up the ironing board nearby.  Because I loved her beyond measure, I would not have considered telling her that I didn't want to nap.  Instead, I would pretend to be asleep while listening to her recite her Hail Marys to some imaginary set of rosary beads while the iron plunked and slid over pillowcases and shirts.  Somehow that droning and gliding were comforting enough that I could manage to lie still long enough to satisfy a time requirement for a nap.  Or at least until the day's ironing was done.

In Kindergarten, we had to nap en masse.  Looking back, the fact that a Kindergarten "day" was only three hours long to begin with, and that we were expected to sleep during half an hour of it, makes me question the work ethic of Mrs. Goodrich, that sour old biddy who scared the bejesus out of us.  Napping for us meant putting our heads down on the hard, cold, wooden tabletops and closing our eyes.  That didn't prevent us from peeking and pointing at our neighbors and stifling giggles.  Nobody actually slept.  But heaven help you if Mrs. Goodrich caught you peeking or pointing or giggling!  Good little girl that I was, I was never publicly chastised for failing to nap.

And then naps disappeared for the rest of our public education, unless, of course, one was home sick with nothing to do but crawl into bed and try to keep the nasal passages clear long enough to catch a few winks.  College brought the return of The Nap, usually following an all-niter of cramming for an exam or writing a research paper in one sitting.  I do remember sleeping once for 22 hours straight.  I don't know if that qualifies as a "nap," but I do know that I felt like crap for days after.

As any parent knows, having children means the end of adult napping.  I have been known to say, on more than one occasion, "I haven't had a nap since 1985!"  Not exactly true, but close.

These days, the idea of napping occurs to me every winter morning.  It is a thought I flirt with until the caffeine kicks in and I'm good to go.  The truth is, I am a terrible sleeper, and if I napped during the day, I would have an even worse time falling asleep at night.  Nonetheless, I am eying the leather couch in front of the fire, listening to my iPod on Shuffle, and thinking how nice it might be later on to give in.  There's snow in the forecast again, and the words "had just settled down for a long winter's nap" are messing with me inside my head.  So maybe . . .

One thing I know for sure.  If I do take a nap later on today, I will be in love with it.

Permission Slips

We spend a good portion of our lives asking permission.  Certainly, as children, we must ask our parents and teachers for permission to do most everything, from being excused from the table to using the bathroom.  I learned to say pleaseandthankyou and to raise my hand.  (True story:  in grade school, if we raised our hands for permission to go to the bathroom, we were expected to raise one or two fingers to indicate what business we intended to do!  I still cannot wrap my head around that requirement.)

But it wasn't just parents and teachers from whom we sought permission.  We had to ask our scout leaders, our ministers, priests and nuns, our crossing guards, our librarian, pretty much every adult we encountered in our day-to-day life.  They all had authority over us and we knew it.  So did they.

And it didn't stop when we grew up.  As adults, we ask permission from our bosses, our law enforcement, our courts, our government, our spouses (maybe), and sometimes, even our children.  ("May I enter your room, son?")  Always asking someone else if we can do things.

I do have a fond memory of asking permission.  I can still recall, as a child, the simple joy of getting a phone call after dinner from Julie or Kathie or Marty or Connie or Susan or Lynn or Karen asking, "Can you come to my house after school tomorrow?"  And once parental permission was granted, there was The Note.  "Dear Mrs. Newton, please allow Terry to walk home with Julie (or Kathie or Marty or Connie or Susan or Lynn or Karen) after school today.  Sincerely, Mrs. Mattil."  And of course, permission was granted.

And then there comes a time when there is no longer anyone to ask for permission.  At this age and in my circumstances, I can do anything I damn well please, and I don't need anyone to tell me I can or can't.  Sounds great, right?  Well, not so much.  Lacking any other authority figure, I have become my own authority, and I can be really tough.  In fact, I usually don't even ask myself for fear that the answer will be no.  After so many years of being a student/teacher/homemaker/wife/mother, and having to be productive in all those roles, I dare not ask permission to have a day off.  The demand for productivity lives on, even if it's only in my head.  So I don't read for pleasure when there is a bathroom to clean.  And I don't go for a drive when there is paperwork to tend to.  And I don't sit on the porch swing when there are weeds in the garden.

Well, life is short, and I think it's time for me to give myself permission, starting today.  So here I go:

To Whom It May Concern (which is only me):

Please give Terry permission to sit on the recliner all afternoon and watch the birds at the feeder.  Let her have the cat on her lap, too.  At some point, please tell her it's okay to pick up that novel she's been wanting to read and get started on it.  For dinner, allow her to have ice cream, even if it doesn't pair well with the wine.  And this evening, let her choose from all the highly recommended TV series available on Netflix and begin a lazy month of living vicariously in someone else's world.  Thank you.  

Sincerely, Myself

Today, I fell in love with permission.  My own.

Roasted Veggies

I do not consistently enjoy cooking.  I am in awe of people in the food industry who cook every day and look forward to the next day of cooking.  For me, it is a labor-intensive, exhausting endeavor, one that I would usually rather avoid.  And living alone, I can avoid it more often than you would think.  But that does not mean that I rely on fast food or processed ready-meals or junk.  My "cheaters" would be scrambled eggs loaded up with veggies or pasta with frozen garden green beans and homemade sauce.  Or I'll cook something that will last for several days and is so good that I don't get tired of eating it every night.

And that's how it is with roasted veggies.  So today, needing some love , I got out my paring knife and went to work.  Stored from my garden harvest:  carrots, red potatoes, and onions.  From the grocery store:  broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and assorted peppers.  And some cubed firm tofu.

Cut it all up, throw it in a very large bowl, add EVOO and various herbs and spices, spread it out on a baking sheet, and roast for about half an hour.  And while that's happening, cook up some orzo.  Then add a cube of frozen homemade pesto to the steaming orzo.

And of course, drink wine while you are doing this.  It lends an air of sophistication to this "country" food.

All done?  Pile some orzo/pesto on a plate, scoop lots of roasted veggies on top, and sprinkle on some shredded mozzarella.  Pour another glass of wine.

Are you in love yet?  I am.

Mobility

Never miss your water til the well runs dry, right?  I am desperately in love with mobility today because I lost a bit of it yesterday, and despite my pleas, it is not coming back to me fast enough.  I either threw out my lower back or I have that thing they call sciatica; no matter what you name it, there is pain there when I move, and not being able to move freely is a real problem for me.  Because, you know, I can't sit still.

And it's not even like I did anything strenuous to deserve this repercussion.  I simply shoveled a mere 20 feet of snow/ice two feet wide in order to clear a path from my front steps to my driveway.  Goodness, I've shoveled my entire driveway in the past and walked away intact.  And that's the thing with injuries of this sort:  you never know when they will knock you down.

So today, I could not fill the bird feeder, continue my cleaning frenzy, climb the stairs, sweep the snow off my Jeep, sit comfortably, or stand for long periods of time.  I even found it hard to coax a stinkbug onto a piece of paper and then toss her out into a snowbank.  Yes, you read that right.  Thirty-six stinkbugs later, I am no longer in love with them.

But I have to admit, I am humbled by this experience.  Because I have taken my mobility for granted.  I have a young cousin, 31 years old now, and he has been paralyzed and in a wheelchair since he was fifteen.  Nonetheless, he is a history teacher and a basketball coach.  He has no idea how much I admire him, because telling him would draw attention to his limitations, and that is not what I ever want to do.  I think about him more than he would ever imagine.  I guess it's the old "There but for fortune go I."

So today, I am in love with the freedom of movement.  And I am begging it to come back to me.  I am a desperate lover, and I am ready to promise anything to have this love returned.  Whattaya say, Mobility?  Can you give me another chance?  Please?

Birdseed

Last winter, I regularly filled three birdfeeders.  Squirrels thought that two of them were put there for them.  Never mind that I bought them because they were "squirrel-proof."  There's no such thing.  So this winter, I got smart.  I fill one feeder.  It has a squirrel baffle on it, and so far, so good.  I buy a seed mix that is appropriate for this area, and I pop in two suet cakes for the woodpeckers.  I am as diligent as I can be in making sure that the feeder is filled every day, and I am rewarded for that by having regular customers.

Most of my visitors are the usual junkos and nuthatches, adorable little things that leave tiny arrow footprints on the snow that has drifted onto my porch.  There are usually a couple of brilliant male cardinals and their not so flamboyant mates, a few bully bluejays, and some downy woodpeckers.  This morning, I was host to at least a dozen mourning doves on the ground below the feeder.  (I look forward to those summer mornings when their cooing wakes me at dawn.)

But every once in awhile, I am treated to a fickle visitor, that impressive pileated woodpecker.  He is glorious in his size, his color, his stance.  And he is compelling.  I will stand at the window in a standoff . . . which one of us will leave first?  (It's usually him.)

What I am in love with today is the birds' appetite and their manner of satiating it.  I will spend $30 on a 40-pound bag of birdseed, lug it into and out of my Jeep, dig into it every day to fill the feeder, and before I know it, it is time to go out and buy another bag.  This summer, I grew some sunflowers and painstakingly harvested the seeds from them in the fall, thinking I was so resourceful in being able to feed the birds from my own harvest.  Well, those seeds are long gone, and there is still a lot of winter to go.

Birdseed is tiny.  Birds are tiny.  Surely, mine is not the only feeder they are frequenting.  It is amazing to me that these little visitors can ask so little and then consume so much.  And they do it joyously.  Today was full of snow and sleet, but that did not stop my little friends from meeting at their local bistro and filling up on manna.

Michael Smith wrote a song that I find dear.  "We Become Birds."  I like the idea.  I am in love with that which feeds all those souls who have returned to us.  I love that my birdseed allows them to stick around for awhile.



     And the whole day goes by
     Birds and more birds
     We become birds when we die
     We fly away but we come back
     We become birds when we die

Snowfall

Yeah, you knew it was coming.  Falling in love with snow.  To be truthful, I am hoping that blogging about it might convince me that there is something to love there.  More truth:  I am retired, so I don't really have to go out in it, thereby making it easier to love . . . from my living room window.

Living in northwest New Jersey most of my life means that I am used to this, and having been a teacher for thirty years, there was no greater thrill than getting that 5:30 a.m. phone call announcing a snow day.  And I have some foggy memories of being a kid and actually liking spending a day out in the stuff, frostbite be damned.  So we have a history, snow and me.  Like any other relationship, it was extreme.  When we were in love, it was beautiful, and when we were angry at one another, it was not pretty.

It snowed all day yesterday, one of those Currier & Ives kind of snowfalls.  I had nowhere I needed to go, and I was quite content to putter around here, glancing out my window every so often to see how much was accumulating.

And this morning, the sun was out, and I am about to become guilty of using every predictable adjective you can think of.  Yes, it was glistening.  It was pristine.  It was effin' SHIMMERING, it was so damn beautiful!  I put my Jeep into 4-wheel drive and went off to do some errands.  It was early enough that the snow still covered the branches of the trees, and yes, it was a Winter Wonderland.  (Still guilty.)  I drove slowly, taking it all in, allowing myself to fall in love.

And I did.  For now.  There is more snow in the immediate forecast.  And there is snow beyond that.  Forget the hysterical warnings to GET MILK!  GET BREAD!  I have coffee, I have wine, and there is still some summer garden harvest in my frig and freezer, provided I don't lose power and cannot cook it.  With power, I'm good for a week or two.  My house is warm.  And I have a cat.  So let it snow.

Let it snow.

Let it snow.

Candlewax

Winter is being such a drama queen this year.  Snowed in again, but I don't really mind.  It's an opportunity to get stuff done.  Since I don't want to waste spring days cleaning, I'm getting a jump on it and doing it now.  Eleven years of dog hair requires some pretty serious cleaning.

Everyone has drawers and cabinets full of forgotten junk.  These are the drawers and cabinets that rarely get opened, so unnecessary are their contents.  Since I am rearranging furniture as well as cleaning, I have had to empty these caches and make decisions about their future.  One cabinet was full of candles, candlesticks, candle sconces . . . all things waxy and fragrant and decorative.  I decided to sort through all this wax and try to pare down my collection.

I know for a fact that some of these candles have been with me since the 70s.  Seriously!  What is wrong with me?  In 40 years, I have not been able to find an occasion to burn these candles?  But, gee, that little unicorn candle is so damn cute.  How could I possibly melt it down to nothing?  Do you see my problem?

I am not going to tell you what decisions I made about the fate of all this candlewax.  You already know that breaking up is hard to do.  What I will tell you instead is a story about one particular candle, a cinnamon-scented red one encased in a decorative glass with a stained-glass globe on top.  This holiday candle was given to me by my son when he was eleven years old.  What I remember about that Christmas was taking him shopping so that he could buy his gifts for the people he loved.  I can still see him with his wallet full of all the money he owned, making wise decisions about the gifts he chose and carefully counting out his dollar bills to pay for them.  But shopping for a gift for his mom was a problem, as his father had died a year earlier and was not there to take his son shopping for a present for mom.  So my son was on his own to figure that one out.

A neighbor (who was also the mom of one of his friends) had a home decor business.  I can only imagine my son's concentration on selecting the perfect gift for his mom.  I do remember him coming home with a suspicious package that he hurried into his room.  And the look of pride on his face when I opened his gift at Christmas is an image forever etched in that part of memory that is reserved for only the most important events.

So today I fell in love with candles.  Or at least, one particular candle.  I intend to light it tonight, a beacon glowing strong in this snowy landscape.  And my thoughts turn to a favorite song of mine, from the 70s, when I was not burning my unicorn candle.  Tim Buckley's "Morning Glory" still blows me away with its beauty:

I lit my purest candle close to my
window hoping it would catch the eye
of any vagabond who passed it by
and I waited in my fleeting house.

Bitty

All the spare love I have today is going to Bitty.  I've never met Bitty; I've only seen a picture or two.  Bitty, also known as Fat Mike, was a 14-year-old cat belonging to Amy, a childhood friend of mine.  Amy posted Bitty's passing on Facebook, and I could not help but notice that so many of the condolences made reference to the commenters' own pets and the anguish that they, too, suffered at the passing of their beloved animals.

And I was there myself, less than two months ago, when I had to put down Mack, my Golden Retriever.  My grief is still raw, so I am sympatico with Amy.  But so are many, many others, including ones whose pets left them months or years ago.  So I am trying to process this powerful grief that is visited upon us many times over the course of our lives.

If you asked me to make a list of the pets I have lost, I would have to reach back into memories that I've carefully tucked away so deep that I no longer feel the pain.  The list would begin with Susie, the English Setter that somehow disappeared when I was five, and it would end with Mack, the sweet soul whose absence still reminds me every day that love hurts.  The list would span almost 60 years and would probably contain more dogs than cats.  My list would not be much different than yours.  And you, like me, would have a few favorites in the group.

Mack came into my life a couple of months before my husband died.  Bitty was Amy's companion through her husband's dying and eventual death last year.  So I am going to take a risk here and say that Mack and Bitty were special angels with a directive much bigger than the average pet.  In no way do I want to undermine the great love that anyone else's pet delivered, but I do believe that Mack and Bitty were sent here with a more complicated karma.

Amy's career involves being away from home for stretches of a couple of days.  When she would return from one of these jaunts, she would post a picture of Bitty curled up at her feet.  And she would be at peace.  Bitty was her comfort, her security, her reminder of the great love that she shared with her husband.  Losing Bitty will deepen Amy's grief over the loss of her beloved John, and there is nothing that anyone can say or do to change that reality.  But Amy is no stranger to grief, having lost her own mother when she was eighteen.  She is resilient and strong and not ashamed to fall apart when she needs to.  So is there any question about my falling in love with Bitty today?  I am sending incredibly large waves of love out to Bitty, and those waves are radiating out to Mack and Pete and John and all the spirits, human or animal, who visit us in this world and then move on to some amazing communion of souls, a party that can only be referred to as Heaven.  Godspeed, Bitty.

Brussels sprouts

I've been trying to fall in love all day.  And therein lies the problem.  I've been trying to fall in love.  Everybody knows it doesn't happen that way.  When I fell in love with Brussels sprouts, I certainly wasn't trying to.  It just happened one December night in Vermont.  I never saw it coming.

In the list of mostly canned but occasionally frozen vegetables that I was forced to eat as a kid growing up in the 50s, Brussels sprouts would have to be #1 of the Most Hated.  Mutant Cabbage Heads with a smell akin to gas that has been passed.  In the melodramatic displays I was prone to then, I would feign regurgitation, a surefire way to get myself removed from the table and sent to my room.  Reading a Nancy Drew was a far better option than chewing on those bitter balls of fart.

Somehow, years later, I made the mistake of letting my mother-in-law know how much I disliked Brussels sprouts.  So, of course, she made sure to have them on the table at every dinner I ever shared with my husband's family.  Overcooked and heavily salted, they would be passed my way with an accompanying smile.  Eventually, I became brave enough to pass the bowl without feeling obligated to take some, but it took me years.  Before then, I became a master at controlling my gag reflex.

Fast forward to one December when my husband and I were enjoying a getaway weekend in Vermont.  The Arlington Inn was a beautiful place, complete with a dining room.  I remember ordering lamb chops, a splurge.  (Note: this was many years before I became a vegetarian.)  There were assorted vegetables on my plate, including a handful of very small Brussels sprouts.  As the meal was quite expensive, I was determined to eat everything on my plate, including the Brussels sprouts.

Wait a minute!  These are so good, I cannot believe it!  I was so overwhelmed with the deliciousness of these tiny orbs, I had to ask the waiter about them.  "Oh, yes," he casually stated, "the cook just picked them in the garden this morning."

The garden?  This morning?  But it's December!  In Vermont, land of snow and ice!

I later learned, from a gardening friend, that the secret to Brussels sprouts is to let them get hit with a few frosts.  It sweetens them.  So we began to grow them in our New Jersey garden.  We never harvested them until November or December.  They were always a staple at our Thanksgiving dinners.  Even my kids love Brussels sprouts and expect them to be a part of a holiday dinner.

I don't have any Brussels sprouts in my larder tonight.  But that does not mean that I cannot fall in love with them all over again.  Isn't that a component of love?  To yearn for something/someone that you cannot have near you at the moment?  Doesn't that very longing enhance love?  Check in with me in November, after I have harvested the Brussels sprouts in my garden, and I will tell you that the longing and the wait were worth it.  I will tell you about love fulfilled.