processes not resolutions in 2014

“I am still learning.” – Michelangelo

Even though the notion is a bit cliché, I am a big fan of the New Year’s resolution. They are a way to note where we are, decide where we’d like to be and set a course in that direction.

Some resolutions remain perpetually on my list, partly because I never quite pull them off and partly because they’re just such good ideas. These include: drink more water, drink less wine; eat less meat, eat more fiber; exercise more, watch TV less, go outside; read, find ways to keep my mind in shape; clean the house thoroughly, get organized.

Next are the self-reproach-based resolutions which include things like: listen more, talk less; be less judgmental; reduce the clutter, live more simply, work towards a “greener” lifestyle; do more sit-ups, commit to cardio at least three times a week; lose weight; worry less, laugh more; don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s all small stuff…you get the idea. 

Lastly, I ponder the intangible resolutions: find joy; be at peace; have more fun; be kinder and gentler; give more, expect less; keep the faith; let go, let God…that type of thing.  

 

Year after year I make the same resolutions and while progress is being made, it’s in baby steps, not leaps and bounds. Feeling successful about resolutions helps us keep working towards them and since so many of mine are like library books I keep renewing, but never quite finish, I recently decided to start viewing them in a different way. From here on out, my resolutions will become processes.

Drinking more water (and less wine) as a process is do-able; it doesn’t present like a challenge needing to be met, so much as simply something to do each day. It’s the same with the other diet and health resolutions – eating less meat and more veggies, exercising more, sitting less, losing weight, and committing to weekly cardio don’t sound nearly as scary when they’re simply “maintaining a healthy lifestyle.”    

Getting the house cleaned and organized? If I do something along these lines each day, the process is underway…The same with reducing the clutter and working towards a “greener” lifestyle. The City of Winder provides me with a big bin and free recycling; if I just read the mail as it comes in and trash or recycle it, along with my beverage and food cans, stray cardboard boxes, etc. I’m headed down the path…  

Finding joy and being at peace don’t seem so intangible when all I’m committing to is a couple of yoga classes each week. As for worrying less, laughing more and having more fun - not sweating the small stuff and it’s all small stuff is probably the process.

There’s something about “resolutions” that is destined to fail. Like bad companions, they’re big, loud and lofty, so full of themselves they don’t really care how you and the long term work out. Quiet process, on the other hand, just keeps on ticking like a chill version of a Timex watch or a Zen version of the Ever Ready Bunny.

I’m going to bet that being kinder and gentler, giving more, expecting less and keeping the faith begin to unfold in our hearts easier when we’re on the process path of letting go and letting God, each and every day, whenever a challenge large or small appears.

Like resolutions, the process of self-growth is ongoing and can loom larger than life. It’s easier to imagine myself enjoying a ripe tomato, just picked from the vine, while standing in the middle of my recently weeded garden, than it is to imagine myself obtaining personal peace and lasting calm while meditating on a mat…Process, do-able steps, one after the other…as George Sand said, “The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning.” 2014 may be a very good year…    

 

even my black dog chooses "Hope!"

“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.” – the StoryPeople/Brian Andreas

There’s a melancholy which, for me, always follows Christmas. It’s such a poignant pleasure to decorate the house, wrap the presents, prepare the food, set the table and then take a moment, rocking by the Christmas tree, to savor the anticipation of the arrival of the actual holiday and my most loved ones. Next comes the pleasure of the time together – the laughter and love and blessed plenty, celebrated in the cheery glow of the candlelight and Christmas lights.

As we unwrap presents, we wax poetic, thankful by the fire…Then come the sweet Christmas Eve “Goodnights” and happy, groggy Christmas Day “Good mornings.” How I love the simple pleasure of sharing coffee with Mr. Clark and our grown children, together at the table, in the morning…A bit of breakfast and then they’re gone, off to the things that come next in their busy holidays.

My children have in-laws and friends and pets at home that need feeding, plus a myriad of other valid things that take them from my life before I’m ready to let them go. I get that; it is what it is – a blessed reality where they have full lives that I get to share only at times. Somehow, I never get quite enough time with them, though; it’s been that way since they left for college nearly 15 years ago, that feeling of never quite enough time.

I’ve always envied families who live in one town and see or talk to each other every day. I and mine have never had that…Maybe it’s something that comes with being from the West – my people left those towns where everyone stays close and ventured out to where the wind blows loud and cold and the nearest neighbor is miles away…Maybe it’s something that stays in our blood even after the suburbs have replaced the farmsteads and there’s little adventure left in our hearts. Our extended families live far away from us and each other; we are islands that make weekly, monthly, maybe only on a holiday calls…How nice it must be to have everyone together for every Sunday dinner, the way so many folks do, here in the South.

But, back to my post-Christmas melancholy…Some years she has me pack the decorations away slowly, leave the lights up way too long and savor the season until nearly Valentine’s Day. Other years, I start repacking the plastic bins marked “Christmas” on December 26. This is one of those years – most of Christmas has been put away and it’s only New Year’s Day…Like William Styron’s Black Dog of Depression, I can’t predict or judge what post-Christmas melancholy will have me do, I just follow her lead, knowing that if I do, my life will become my own again, sooner rather than later.

Enter the 2014 datebook-day planner/Ipad-smart phone e-calendar/etc. – this is where optimism reappears. There’s something so hopeful about all those blank calendar pages stretching into the year ahead and something so cleansing about throwing all of those old calendar pages away.

I take a moment to be thankful for all the good things that happened during the last year, lick my wounds over the bad things that also occurred, then move on, filling in the birthdays and anniversaries and already known plans for the New Year. I’m not an optimistic person – every glass is half-empty, every silver cloud has a dark lining, disaster in one form or another lurks around every corner…So, you see why this ritual of sitting down and savoring a fresh calendar is special to me. It’s a fleeting and precious time of optimism in my otherwise pessimistic year. 

A particularly optimistic friend proclaimed “We choose Hope!” in her Christmas letter this year – multiple exclamation marks, “Hope!” always capitalized - several times in each paragraph. The tone of her letter was no surprise, but, something in her message stuck. “Hope!” is a choice we can all make. “Hope!” can replace fear or dread as our anchoring emotion…Imagine that, post-Christmas melancholy and Styron’s Black Dog…

It’ll be mid-January before my emotions settle down again…In the interim and thereafter, I hope I choose “Hope!” again and again…Even that Black Dog can thump his tail at times.

(The Black Dog in the photo is Roland, my beloved, old, rescue of a Rottweiller. He chose "Hope!" and thumped his little stub of a tail every day of the brief time we got to share his company.)

 

 

she's more than an angel at the top of the tree

“I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year,” – Ebenezer Scrooge  

 

The angel who graces the top of our Christmas tree is as old as me. My parents bought her the year I was born because my mom thought the angel was beautiful and her cherubic face reminded my mom of my fat, little, round one. The angel has bright red hair, a sweet wise smile and golden cardboard wings. She floats on a cloud of tightly curled, shiny bright “angel hair” (a fiberglass substance that, for safety reasons, is probably not made anymore.) To me, she has always been magnificent.

 

Carefully unpacking the angel and placing her atop the tree was always one of my favorite Christmas memories. So when my mom died, I was very happy to find the angel in my box of family ornaments. I knew that angel would hover as patiently, spectacularly and lovingly over my young family’s festivities as she had when I was growing up. And, even though my kids never saw what was special about “that old cardboard angel mom likes so much,” they understood putting something else on top of our tree was not a possibility.

 

When you think about it, it shouldn’t matter what perches on the top of a Christmas tree. After all, it’s not the tree that matters, but the family that gathers around it. Yet little things like seeing that cardboard angel appear year after year warm our hearts. They bring our holidays a sense of continuity and create a connection between things past and present. They provide a bit of predictability in the face of the uncertainly and challenges that lie ahead.

 

W. Somerset Maugham said, “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer.” That is a thought to ponder as we make our holiday memories. The things we did in the past, no matter how pleasant and precious, often no longer meet the needs of the present. The things we call “tradition” currently may well change in the future.

 

In our family, we share dinner and open gifts on Christmas Eve, then the kids, though grown, sleep over. The gay apparel we don is a new pair of pajama pants and in the morning we wake up and have breakfast together. The evening meal changes every year; the breakfast menu, however, is set in stone. It’s a breakfast casserole my dad’s wife made for us for years, every Christmas morning.

 

Like my funny old cardboard angel, it’s not that the casserole is all that special. It’s that eating it reminds us of times we had together, laughing, unwrapping gifts and enjoying each other’s company. We used to travel back to Colorado and spend Christmas with my family every year. Now we don’t do that anymore and the taste of that casserole on Christmas morning brings back those memories and joins us together again. We call, they’re eating the casserole; they call, we’re eating the casserole. It’s as if, just for a few moments, all those years and miles no longer separate us.   

       

For Woody Allen, tradition is “the illusion of permanence,” and while we know things will change as they inevitably do, the illusion of permanence is a precious one, especially as we gather together in groups large and small during this special time of the year.

 

Seeing that cardboard angel, still resplendent though 56 years old, gives me a sense of continuity…Her wise, cherubic smile, surrounded by that glorious “angel hair” cloud connect me to times past and give me faith in the future – after all, she’ll still be on the tree, won’t she?

 

Merry Christmas to you and yours! And, may your traditions, old and new, bring you the same sense of warmth, continuity and connection that my cardboard angel and that Christmas morning casserole bring to my family.

 

"'those Christmas lights..."

“Oh Christmas lights, light up the streets; light up the fireworks in me. May all your troubles soon be gone. Oh Christmas lights, keep shining on.”  - Coldplay song 

 

That particular Coldplay song has been playing in my head for a few weeks now, with such regularity it has become my mental soundtrack for “the Holidays, 2013.”  For me, ‘the holidays” start a few days before Thanksgiving and last through Valentine’s Day. Winter is a dark, cold time; I’m in no hurry to give up bright lights and warm feelings just because the calendar says I should.   

After years of stressing over every detail on list after long holiday list, I’ve changed my approach. A near pathological need for perfection and closure has been replaced by a wondering fondness for the surprises a slowly unfolding, minimally organized holiday season brings.

The thankfulness of Thanksgiving is made festive by the appearance of Christmas lights, music and decorations. Shopping for gifts, I hear complete strangers wish each other, “Merry Christmas!” at nearly every stop. Yes, this season is feeling pretty bright. Once those holiday cards, photos and letters start arriving, there’s a near constant smile on my face.

Add to this bounty of holiday cheer the richness the juxtaposition of light and dark, having and needing, wanting and being well blessed brings – such stark contrasts everywhere.  While I am wrapping gifts, others are out of work and will have no Christmas this year. While Mr. Clark, our resident chef, is busy planning meal after delicious meal, others don’t have enough food to feed their families. While I have the luxury of keeping my thermostat at 70 degrees while also burning cozy fire after cozy fire in the fireplace, others are cold, bone cold, with no prospect of warmth. There’s no time like the holidays to re-realize, over and over again, how my cup does truly runneth over.

Pastor Liz from Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion challenges her congregation of stoic Lutherans to “give what you do not have.” She adds, “The thing you do not have is certitude and so you should give certainty to others as a gift.”  

What a precious thought. We, none of us, know what tomorrow will bring. At any time, this glorious excess I am currently blessed with can be snatched by an unforeseen act of God or twist of fate. So, for now, take this hug, this can of cat food, this blanket or dog bed or coat, this ham or turkey or box of canned goods, and let it create a few moments of certitude for you, from me.

The season of Advent brings promise and with promise comes hope. It’s so important for us to encourage those who are struggling. A few Christmases ago, Mr. Clark was out of work and things were grim at our house. There were no gifts; we had food, but it was simple and there were no leftovers. We had no idea what the New Year would bring…”At least we have our health and our family” was the mantra we clung to.  

The simplicity and sadness of that Christmas has stuck with me, even as I celebrate this holiday season with such plenty. Family matters; gifts do not. Gathering together matters; having an elaborately decorated house does not. Health and love matter; filling elegantly wrapped boxes with things no one really needs does not. If you are in need, hold on; better times may be right around the corner, even if you can’t see them yet.    

Luciano de Crescenzo said, "We are each of us angels with only one wing and we can only fly by embracing one another." What a lovely thought, especially for the holiday season. There's no better time than now to reach out and fly a little closer to each other.   

 

Battlin' the 'Skeeters

The most simple things can bring the most happiness.” – Izabella Scorupco

Sometimes it really is the simple things that make the most difference. For example, I have recently made the discovery that dryer sheets keep mosquitoes away. Yes, that’s right; sporting a dryer sheet really does help keep those nasty critters at bay.

I thank my neighbors for this nifty newfound knowledge. They showed up at our garden gate one evening, each festively wearing a dryer sheet. Hers was in her pants pocket, his in the pocket of his t-shirt. I found this only slightly surprising because I often accessorize myself with a dryer sheet, unintentionally, of course.  

Sensing my amusement, my neighbors quickly explained they donned their dryer sheets, which were new – not used, on purpose because of an article they read about how wearing dryer sheets has become the rage among old people in Florida due to the dryer sheet’s amazing mosquito repelling qualities.

“It works! It really works!” my neighbor said. “We’ll be rockin’ the dryer sheet look all summer long. You should try it.”   

And, so we did; Mr. Clark and I, scientists and gardeners that we are, immediately did a test. Picking beans without a dryer sheet – ouch! Those mosquitoes had a feast. New dryer sheet tucked in a pocket – significantly fewer bites. (I also tried a used dryer sheet with the hope that economy would prevail, but it didn’t work nearly as well.)  

Curious about the mechanism involved, I Googled “dryer sheets and mosquitoes.” Apparently, the jury is still out as to whether the wonderful mosquito repelling quality of dryer sheets is real or something we imagine.    

The believers are an enthusiastic lot who do specify that the dryer sheet has to be new; many say Bounce is the brand of choice. Some say just wearing the sheet is enough; others say you have to rub it on your skin. 

The nay-sayers are equally fervent in their belief, saying that only repellents containing the chemical DEET are effective. While there is some concern about using DEET on babies and small children, it has been proven time and time again to be the most effective product on the market to keep not only mosquitoes, but also ticks, away.      

Avon’s Skin So Soft also has a following, so much so that Avon now offers a version of the product that contains Picaridin, another proven insect repellent which is considered safe for use on little ones.     

The way these products work (including the dryer sheets) is they block the receptors on mosquito antennae that sense the things that tell them where their next human meal is – things like sweat, odor, warmth and the smell of carbon dioxide. The chemical reacts with human skin to produce a compound that makes us “invisible” to mosquitoes. According to studies at the University of Florida, Deep Woods Off, which is 23.8% DEET, kept mosquitoes away from test subjects’ arms for a whopping 302 minutes; Avon Skin So Soft only worked for 9.6 minutes. They didn’t test dryer sheets. 

My Google search revealed some other theories on mosquito evasion, as well. One fisherman swore all he does to avoid getting bit is take one Vitamin B-1 pill each day. As long as he does that, he doesn’t need to use DEET or dryer sheets or anything else. Some say Vicks VapoRub works like a charm; others swear by pure vanilla (not the syrupy extract.) On a recent trip to Mexico, my daughter said the native Mayans burn sticks made from a plant that smells like kerosene…seems like that would repel a lot of things.  

Citronella is, of course, a standby to keep the hungry swarms at bay, but I’ve never found it to be that effective. Combined with a dryer sheet, however, all those torches and candles might really work…

My quest for bite free backyard time recently led me to take a $30 chance on a small battery-powered machine called Bite Shield that I found in a mail order gardeners’ catalog. It sprays essence of geranium oil, which is touted to be 400% more effective than citronella at repelling not only mosquitoes, but also gnats and no-see-ums; and, it really works. You can even clip it on your pocket (right next to that dryer sheet) for mobile protection.

So, yes, it often is the simple things that give the greatest joy. Pretty soon I’ll be pulling ripe tomatoes off the vine and enjoying ‘mater sammiches, bug bite free thanks to that cloud of geranium oil I’m blissfully surrounded by and that fine dryer sheet I’m rockin,’-  this time on purpose.     

     

that's me and my dad

“Dad taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, he didn’t teach me everything he knows.” – Al Unser

“I yell because I care,” was my dad’s motto when my brother and I were growing up. We were a busy pair and there was always plenty to yell about. The angry-sounding decibels never bothered us, though, because the love that was their undercurrent was always so clear.

My dad is a skilled man, knowledgeable about many things, and a perfectionist. He was also a teacher, well aware and often weary of the ways of youngsters. Pleasing him wasn’t easy, but I don’t remember that bothering me much either. Again, it was just so obvious how much he loved us that all the gruff stuff wasn’t scary; it just masked how much he cared.

My first memory of my dad is riding on his shoulders. I don’t know how old I was, but I remember how broad and strong his shoulders felt. It seemed like I was on top of the world, riding there, so safe and tall in his arms. In a way, that’s how I’ve always felt about my dad. I knew he’d never let me fall and if I slipped, he’d catch me, even if there was some yelling along the way.

The first time I got really mad at my dad I was five. He was teaching me how to swim and we were having a great time. We were in the shallow end of a bright blue pool. He backed a short ways away and told me to swim to him. I paddled and he encouraged, and I paddled and he encouraged. After what seemed like an awful lot of kicking and splashing, I finally reached him only to find that we were at the far end of the pool – in the deep end. He’d been slowly walking then treading water backwards, making me swim the entire length of the pool - even through the dreaded deep end. I was furious.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again!” I cried, feeling like my trust had been forever betrayed.  

He just laughed and said, “I knew you could do it and now so do you.” That’s my dad, ever willing to do what it took to teach us and build our confidence, even when it made us mad at him.   

I don’t have a lot of clear memories of one-on-one time with my dad because he was always working. His teacher’s wage only stretched so far and my mom didn’t work while my brother and I were growing up. My parents always wanted the best for us, so my dad farmed a wheat farm for extra money in the summer. He often had a side job to pay for Christmas or our braces or new band instruments or whatever. He also maintained everything that needed maintaining in our lives – the vehicles, the house, the yard - you name it, he could fix it. The thought that he should be spending more time with us never occurred; we knew he did what he did because he cared.      

Some dads cut their kids loose once they’re grown, but my dad never did. Even though age has tempered some of the yelling, his support and willingness to guide and help us whenever he can remains as true today as it has always been.

There was the time he flew from Colorado to help us paint our house. Here he came with a suitcase full of tools, including a paint sprayer, and three days, 50 gallons of primer and 50 gallons of paint later, the job was done. Years later, there’s my dad hunched over some brown fuzzy cloth, reading glasses sliding down his nose, hand-sewing a bear costume for my daughter’s wedding. The little boy who was the ring bearer wanted to be a “Ring Bear” instead and so, with the blessing of the bride and groom, my dad made it so. And, there’s the beautiful pergola/gazebo he built in our backyard for our son’s wedding. One of us mentioned the idea or showed him a magazine picture and there it was, done.    

As long as I can remember, my dad has been like those shoulders I remember riding on - a strong and loving foundation on which I could depend, there to catch me when I fall, always expecting, indeed yelling for, the best of me.   

Yes, ours is a loud family - we yell because we care. We’re also a group of people who can work hard, get things done right, and keep family first. So, thanks, Pop, for all that you are and all that you do. And, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! (I yelled because I care…)   

spring...again!

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” – John Steinbeck

I just talked to my Dad in Colorado. They are buried in snow there - high today of 18 degrees, low tonight, 12. In contrast, I am sitting in my office, windows open, warm breeze blowing through – the high today here will be 84, the low tonight 60. The birds are singing so loudly my Dad asked if I was in “some kind of bird sanctuary.”  Nope, just my yard; it’s a busy time of year for birds here…springtime in the South.

I grew up in Colorado where April blizzards are the norm. My daughter was born in early April; she was born in a blizzard and celebrated more snowy birthdays than bright ones until we moved to the South. Once here, those spring blizzards drifted away as possibilities in our minds; my daughter grew up with the dog wood tree outside her bedroom window in full bloom, rather than a storm, proclaiming her birthday.

Contrast is odd that way - wherever you are is the middle of everything. It’s hard to visualize all the different places and circumstances other people are in. My poor ole’ Dad’s out shoveling snow while I’m donning shorts and flip flops...It’s the same with so many other things. When my family is all well, it’s hard to remember there’s illness in the world. When an accident happens to one of us, it’s hard to remember what all those healthy days felt like.

The worst, for me, is trying to wrap my head around the truly big disasters like catastrophic storms, floods, tornadoes, mass shootings, wars, murdered children…I see images of the aftermath, the devastation and need, and I’m paralyzed - even writing a check to the Red Cross seems like too much. It’s as if, if I really look at those images and then do something even as minor as write a check in response, the catastrophe has become real and somehow touched my life. I don’t want catastrophe to touch my life.

It’s the same with regard to serious illness or injury. I broke my shoulder, had a few months of pain and inconvenience, and it was as if the world was ending. There are people with terminal cancer, people who have a loved one who is very sick, people who have suffered terrible accidents, or watched their loved ones suffer from the same…Somehow they manage to go on, and on, and on, so bravely. I fear that I could not do that, so I turn away. I’m not proud about this, but it is, at least so far, how I am.   

That’s the thing about spring, though. It always brings hope – hope that things can be different, better, changed, not the same. If those tiny seeds can turn into those huge tomato plants, then maybe we can grow, too. Maybe there’s some seed of something inside me just waiting to sprout, something unexpected that makes me stronger, wiser, more joyful or more useful than I am.

I planted my garden a few days ago and for me, that is a powerful, spiritual experience, in a light-hearted sort of way. Every year I curse the weeds and dirt clumps and compost as I prepare the soil. Every year I fret about how tiny and lost those seedlings look out there in that big garden, trying to get used to the sun, wind and rain. Every year I marvel at how quickly the seeds sprout and the plants become tall and strong. Every year I grow weary of continued weeding and watering at about the time the fruit starts coming in. Then, there’s the bounty of the ongoing summer harvest…Where did all these veggies come from and what in the world are we going to do with them?

Like life and the seasons, gardening is cyclical and wonderful for being that way. I like to think even the sickest or most broken people, victims by no fault of their own, still glean a moment of peace or comfort when the sun shines just right on their face, or when, for even a moment, a spring breeze blows by…Maybe the sight of a tiny plant pushing through the devastation or a bright bloom outside their window gives them hope, hope for a better whatever comes next...I like to think that, anyway.