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wistful. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

i cannot help it. memories swoosh around me constantly. and these days are no different. in fact, they deliver memories much like santa scooooching down the chimney – sans fanfare or warning. the memories arrive, sometimes with a kerplunk.

i suppose that it is simply a part of me to be wistful. and…the days are darker, the sun is shorter, it is colder and the holidays began to arrive in rapid succession.

i prepare myself for this – i know that time has flown on and that everything is different. yet…there is this piece of me that yearns to go back…to be overwhelmed with all that was going on when my children were little – the time of year that was fraught with choir and band rehearsals prepping, the time of year when it was hard to find alone-time to shop for surprises, the time of year when the children were counting down to school vacation, the time of year when end-of-year business records were lurking on lists-of-things-to-do, when you wrapped presents – that had been hidden in closets and the attic – around the the table in the wee hours, the time of year when you just really wanted to make cookies and fudge and sip hot cocoa around the fire with your children, reading christmas books, watching holiday movies. dreamy.

and then, there’s the further-back…the days in my growing-up neighborhood – along with our neighbors and friends outside caroling. luminaria, my dad making spiked eggnog and my mom fussing with cooking, the grandparents lingering on our old slipcovered couch, nieces and my nephew tiny and enchanted with it all.

it all seemed so innocent back then. and easy.

it’s not as easy now – as i watch families sort through all the gala preparations and the calendar of when who-visits-whom. there is much to do and, seemingly, not as much time to do it all. it makes me wish for a really big close-proximity-family with whom to share it all, all together, everyone from every side.

we prepare for our own christmas. i’ve been thinking and brainstorming and researching and googling and making lists for weeks now. we’ve been out browsing and shopping, we’ve had a moment or two indulging in a treat while out. we’ve encountered wonderful, joyous shopowners and salesclerks and a few not-so-wonderful nor joyous folks. we’ve tried hard to bring light to each person.

very happily, the boys will be coming and we are excited. but we will miss our girl and her husband. so many of us will have a facetime christmas and, though i am grateful for that technological ability, my heart – as always – yearns for in-person. so much bittersweet-ness. but…i am reminded by my own words earlier this week…“even if…enough”. it’s a good time for me to practice the enoughs.

i wonder – if it were possible – what it would be like to live back then and now simultaneously…kind of like walking from one room – the right now – into the next room – where my children were tiny ecstatic toddlers – into the next room – where i was a teenager surrounded by my island family – into the next room – where i was little and watched for rudolph’s red nose out my window.

i guess the gift of not being able to do that is the same as the hard part of not being able to do that – it is the wistfulness of it all. i guess wistful IS the gift. that thing that reminds you – just like in the movie about time to really, really live the day. “I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.”

*****

…and, by the way…just in case you misunderstood – in this climate rife with words like great and back – misused and twisted…as you are reading the words “go back in time”…i want to be perfectly clear…even in a post about these holidays…it’ s not THAT kind of going back. this is a post about love and respect for each other. it’s a post about time spent together and mutual generosity of spirit. it’s a post about decency. goodness. it’s a post about unity. together. it’s not that OTHER kind of going back. because we aren’t. going back.

*****

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curling ribbon. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

wrapped for the holidays, nature put her best curling ribbon on this stalk, replicating it all over the meadow for us to see and appreciate. clearly, giftwrappers and bauble experts everywhere must be jealous of the ease with which nature decorates herself – always minimalistic, always beautiful.

for a smidge of time, i was hired – long, long ago – as a holiday giftwrapper at a beall’s department store in florida. i spent shifts of hours wrapping the unwrappable – really one of the reasons why people have their gifts wrapped at the store. now, there are folks (having gifts wrapped) who just prefer to have everything done-and-done by the time they pull in their driveway, but most of the time it was the unwieldy that was brought to the service desk, the customer wide-eyed with wrapping trepidation. 

i did my best, but i was no wrapping maven and had not yet learned any of the wizardry of the wrap. nevertheless, the customers seemed pleased, if only not to have to do-it-themselves.

in the years when our children were young – for reasons i still cannot figure out – we saved all the wrapping-of-presents (including stocking stuffers) for the night of christmas eve. there we were, in the middle of the dining room – having retrieved bags and boxes hidden all over the house – trying to quietly cut paper and wrap assorted gifts of all sizes and shapes – while our children were upstairs in their beds gazing out the window watching for signs of santa and his reindeer in the night sky. we’d leave christmas music on and close the swinging dining room door and the living room bifold doors into the hall, trying to disguise – or at least muffle – the clear sound of scissors meeting paper, hoping that the fact that it was quickly approaching the wee hours – like 2 or 3am or so – would mean they would have fallen fast asleep, dreaming of the next morning.

in later years – for the most part – i wrapped earlier, not saving it all for the elves-of-the-eve to desperately try and wrap as quietly as possible. though in later years the pressure of the magic was lessened, so quiet wasn’t quite as necessary.

in the latest years, we’ve had to ship presents. the boy and the girl who used to live upstairs live elsewhere and are not always home for christmas. it changes the landscape of the holiday. immensely. facetime never equals real time. and the holiday is quieter. 

to say i miss those days of reports of reindeer and rudolph’s nose lighting the starry sky would be an understatement. to say i miss putting out carrots and milk and cookies would be an understatement. to say i miss twinkling lights reflecting on the faces of my children – as infants, as toddlers, as children, as teenagers, as young adults – would be an understatement. to say i miss the chaos after midnight on christmas eve would be an understatement.

but time marches on. and every year things change. i peruse social media – seeing multiple stockings waiting on the mantels of people far and wide, stacks of presents under trees, gatherings and family parties – and i silently send my children a wish of love and light and joy. we hike on treasured trails and pass by nature’s curling ribbon and i’m reminded over and over of the miles of curling ribbon i’ve curled, the stuffed stockings under our trees over the years, the small mountains of wrapped packages, giftwrap strewn across the floor. 

and i am grateful. this holiday may be minimal in its festivity. but, sitting in the darkened living room with trees and branches and twinkling lights, holiday music or silence, cards to send out and presents to wrap on the dining room table – curling ribbon at the ready – it is no less beautiful. it is just different.

*****

THE LIGHTS from THE LIGHTS – A CHRISTMAS ALBUM ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

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we can sit together. [two artists tuesday]

and in the hours of late evening we discovered it. a song that spoke to us in every way.

it wasn’t intentional. we were intentionally watching an everest youtube, the highest of mountains, vicarious adventure.

but there was this song. we stopped the video and moved the cursor backward, to hear the song again.

“you and me.

we’re meant to be.

in the great outdoors.

forever free.”

it’s been nine years since we met face to face now. nine years since baggage claim at o’hare. nine years. it doesn’t sound like an eternity; it just feels like an eternity. and yet, not long enough.

because the moments i glance across the room and catch his gaze – well, it still takes my breath away. he drives me crazier than probably anybody else on earth, but he can make me well up in the turn of a second.

and the times we are inside, sitting and writing together, cooking in our old kitchen, happy-houring at the table in the sunroom, loving on our dogdog, mutually missing our babycat, planning trips…those times…are times that create a little bit of wonder.

and the times we are outside, on a mountain, on a trail, on the sidewalk in the ‘hood, by the side of the lake in the shadow of an aspen stand, in the new black adirondack chairs…those times…are times that create more than a little bit of wonder.

the wonder of finding, the wonder of reaching, the wonder of meeting, the wonder of walking this walk together.

we feel lucky.

eldar kedem got it right.

“we can sit together.

it’s so beautiful.”

*****

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the circle of life. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

sometimes asking a question is purely a matter of politeness. you want the other person to know you value their thoughts, but, since you’ve already decided, their answer blurs into the gusty winds inside your mind and you do what you want to do anyway.

i can’t say that all the lost turtles and frogs and hurt birds and chipmunks and leg-damaged preying mantises in the wild have come home with us. i can say that i wanted them to. he generally feels that nature should be left to carry on in the circle of life (i can hear elton john singing now) and so i already know his answer to my “what should we do?” question. we’ve come across kittens on trails and i’ve stared at him without a word as he sorts for something to say about wild cats. of course there is nothing to really say about a tiny tabby in the woods, except that we are not really all that far from civilization and, surely, this cat belongs somewhere, so taking it home would equate to, well, kidnapping it. that, for sure, stops any taking-it-home-ness from happening.

were it up to me, particularly in this empty-nest-time, all the sweet creatures we come across would be our little friends. and the circle of life – if need be – would include a stint at our house, in our nest.

and elton john would be happy.

*****

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in the quarry. does my butt look big in this? [saturday morning smack-dab.]

a rock and a hard place. he is wedged between them and help-me-i’m-wedged-and-i-can’t-get-out he can’t escape. there is no choice but to say the wrong thing. go either way and he has sunk miserably to the levels of pond catfish, carp at best.

in these days of changing-changing-changing bodies and expectations of ourselves, we peer in the mirror and are astounded at what we see staring back. menopause and “men”opause (whatever on earth that is called) – in all its glory – has taken its toll on our metabolism and our hips and someone with a line-defining pen has carved on our faces while we sleep in the night. and those jowls. let’s not forget them.

so while i want him to understand – to really get it – to grok it at a cellular level – to feeeeeel my pain, he is thinking, “she’s beautiful” and tells me so. ohmyheavens, seriously? can he not share in my astonishment, couple with my what-do-i-do-now-ness, sympathize in a big-big way, help me pick out jeans in the next size?

there is no winning here.

it is the perpetual “does my butt look big in this?” question. over and over. forevermore.

he can “pretend” not to notice, which undermines his believability factor and, ultimately, leaves him stranded with no credibility when i am facing down the mirror. he can acknowledge and discuss the merits of aging with me, leaving me incredulous that he would suggest that i am aging. he can try to play long ball – riding the fence – acting like he can’t hear me – changing the subject.

no matter what, he will find himself in the rock garden.

eh. who am i kidding? it’s more like a deep, dark quarry.

*****

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first gear, clutch out. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

clearly, he is an instigator. just the mere suggestion that he’d be ok with registering a complaint, asking for a refund, asking to speak to management sets me in motion. i am not afraid to speak up in these situations. it’s writing-a-letter (ala my sweet momma’s chutzpah) but in person. i’m the one who goes to the service desk. i’m the one who asks for the discount. i’m the one who returns stuff. i’m the one who will go back and let someone know that their product/service/pricing was not acceptable. he shudders. he set me in first gear and released the clutch; he knows there is no stopping. there have truly been times when he will linger at the sidelines of a store simply while i return something – like chicken that was spoiled when we purchased it or something even easier – like dog food when i meant to buy cat food but the dog food package was on the cat food shelf. i mean, c’mon…that is not a big deal nor is it fodder for embarrassment, but he just sort of wanders off, a little spacey, sometimes like a toddler in a department store playing hide-and-go-seek in the rounders of displays. ahhh.

and let me just say – the aarp discount is a thing, though. i will ask ANYwhere if they offer the aarp discount. you would be surprised how often the answer is yes. you should check it out. it’s a deal. the first day i purchased an aarp membership i booked hotel reservations and saved twice as much as i had just spent on the membership fee. a deal, yes?

a long time ago my sweet poppo was the regional president of the aarp chapter. my parents went to aarp conventions and conferences all over. they were avid aarp-ers. he would be happy with my dedication to his cause.

because i was the product of older parents, i read modern maturity magazine well before my time. even now, i thoroughly enjoy the revised, renamed aarp magazine. great articles. many that are empowering. particularly about speaking up. asking for better service. getting a discount. free cups of coffee. starting a ruckus.

yup.

*****

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spiffy-doo-dah suggestions. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

the chasm between women and men widens post-menopause. i mean, it’s not exactly a divot before that. theyyy – meaning men – love to solve for things. everything. no matter what. weee – meaning women – sometimes just want to talk or vent or express how we feel. we are completely capable of solving-for when we want to be. and we are also completely capable of asking for help, asking for advice, asking for solutions…when we want them.

but, ahhh….that chasm. there are moments i start a conversation and announce, “i just want to vent.” it absolves me of guilt when i start growling if he starts to solve for the issue.

as we all know, many – and i won’t say “most” here, to avoid generalizing – many men can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. in mere seconds after placing his sweet problem-solving head on the pillow, d will be sleeping. down and out sleeping. meanwhile, my head is on my pillow, pondering life and all its idiosyncrasies. i find it flabbergasting how quickly time passes in the day and how slowly 2am – 5:30am crawls. or 12:30am – 3am. or 1am – 4am. it’s a goulash of wee-hour-clock-combinations.

so, while changing diet and exercise and patterns all seem like spiffy-doo-dah ideas, when one wants a little sympathy, one does not want spiffy-doo-dah suggestions. just sayin’.

not that i’m speaking from experience or anything. 😉

*****

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pancakes! [saturday morning smack-dab.]

we are creatures of repetition. we will eat black-bean-burgers every single day for lunch until – one day – we cannot stand the idea of another black-bean-burger ever-again. and then, after some time – poof! the yen for a b-b-b comes back.

it’s like that with oatmeal too. oatmeal-oatmeal-oatmeal. oatmeal’s biggest fans. with walnuts and dates and raisins and dried cranberries and bananas. yum! oatmeal! until – ugh – we cannot stand to eat another bowl of oatmeal.

and then, in our latest obsession, there’s rye toast. now, keeping in mind that we have been eating gluten-free, rye toast is kinda out of the safety-loop. but….ohmygoodness…it’s rye toast! it makes me think of my sweet momma and her momma and long island and – this is really great – the day my daughter was born. they brought me scrambled eggs and rye toast in the hospital and now, forever, the association is sealed. so…rye toast, rye toast, rye toast!

for a while we would have midnight-pancakes. what is not to love about pancakes and maple syrup late at night when your tummy is kinda pokin’ at you?

we aren’t ihop people. i can’t tell you the last time i went to an ihop. denny’s too. the stand-out time i went to denny’s was the day we moved to wisconsin on thanksgiving day and ended up at denny’s for dinner. it was a pitiful scene, i’m sure. but it wasn’t for pancakes. my mom and dad always went for the grand-slam-breakfast, which, i think, includes pancakes. denny’s has never made it onto our list of places-to-go when we roadtrip.

there was this place – a diner – in hanover, new hampshire just on the other side of the state line from vermont. i was eighteen or maybe nineteen. a group of us had been to a drive-in movie (where the guy driving drove in the exit backwards while i worried about getting in trouble) and were properly starving at the end of the double feature. especially me. anxiety will do that. the diner served up piles of pancakes and lukewarm coffee. it’s hard to remember the details from back in the dark ages, but, somehow, i remember the pancakes.

these days we generally try to find hole-in-the-wall kinds of places. back-roads places. small-town places. and, truth be told, we never ever – and i really mean never ever – go to any thing or any where that is “all-you-can-eat”.

though all-you-can-eat-pancakes does have a certain ring to it.

kodiak cakes had an ever-present home in our cupboard for a long time. because, really, pancakes have a way of satiating all worries and bringing peace.

the world should eat more pancakes.

*****

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no time machine. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

it flies by.

they all told me. they tell all of us. in those moments, when you think time is standing still, they tell you: time flies by. it is in retrospect – days, weeks, months, years down the road – you realize they are right.

i have awakened in this room for over thirty years.

the light has streamed in through the windows in that way i recognize and that gives me great comfort.

the radiator in the sitting room just outside the frosted-glass french door to the bedroom has clunked each cold morning as the boiler kicks on.

through the years multiple sweet dog-faces and one beloved cat-face have greeted me with breakfast and outdoor anticipation.

the smell of coffee manages to drift around the corner and waft its way toward my pillows.

i have had the good fortune of turning my head on the pillows and looking into the face of two very different men, husbands who have shared different times of life with me, one who drank nary a sip of coffee in the way-back-when and one who brings first coffee to the bedside table.

and my beloved children. i counted the months of pregnancy, reading “what to expect when you’re expecting” cover to cover perched in bed in this room. then suddenly, they lay in onesies in the crook of my arms, newborns nestled under the comforter with me. and suddenly, they wore footie pajamas and curled up after a dream. and suddenly, they were peeking their heads in the door to announce they were home so i could relax and sleep. and suddenly, they were home on college breaks and random weekends. and then, just as suddenly, they were no longer living here and the empty nest was a real thing.

and i awake every morning and they are the first thing i think of in the middle of familiar light rising and coffee brewing and dogdog’s gleeful greeting and d’s face on the other pillow.

our son cautioned us that we shouldn’t ask how he described us when he arrived at the restaurant and looked for our table, but of course, that was an open invitation and i couldn’t resist asking. “i asked where the older couple was sitting,” he said, watching me for my reaction. i poked him on the shoulder and rolled my eyes saying, “geez! we’re not THAT old!”. there was so much to talk about so the subject of us aging into ‘the older couple’ dropped, but i thought about it later.

when i was shy of 30 my parents were in their late 60s, a few years older than we are. i suppose it’s possible that i might have described them the same way. fair is fair, after all. and time probably flew for them too. even without them realizing it. as i think about it now, i bet they didn’t feel old either.

sometimes in the quiet moments of morning, as i sit with coffee perched against the pillows, i imagine the sounds of the house waking up thirty years ago, twenty-five years ago, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, ten years ago.

and, although i would love to have those moments back – to live again, to embrace again – time has moved on and there is no time machine.

instead, i cherish the times that were – each and every slow-motion and flying-by-time – and look at my children, all grown-up and living life out on their own and celebrate them.

i look to each and every time i can see them with joy and excitement.

and at the end of the day as i lay my head on my pillow in this very-familiar-room, i thank my lucky stars to have had all of it, to have all of it.

*****

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back window. front window. [d.r. thursday]

i don’t think that i will ever be able to have a kitchen sink placed without a window above it. in all the homes i have lived as an adult – every single one – both houses in florida, in wisconsin, even on island – there has been a window over the sink. working at the sink, gazing out – a time for pondering, reviewing, sorting. it is the place to watch the world go by, the seasons, time.

the big plate glass window over the sink in our home has given me a view into the flow – filmy strands of babies growing, toddlers on swings, snowmen on the deck, cherished dogs romping, snacks in the fort, oversized plastic t-ball stands, basketball hoops, a bright yellow slide that attracted a bazillion tiny gnats at a certain time in the spring. i’ve watched trees grow and shed and bud and shed, plants planted, transplanted, re-planted, snow fall and cherry tomatoes flourish. there’s been grass and no grass and dirt and grass again. i imagined the patio – where people would gather, play ukulele, dance, laugh – before it was there. and the little pond has been a treasure, inviting birds and squirrels and chipmunks and frogs to its little rock bank. i’ve stared out that window with great appreciation. i’ve stared out that window, wondering.

in this time of covid, lots of our time in the winter is spent looking out. we are not really participating in gathering, trying to minimize risk to ourselves and others. even vaccinated and boosted, we know that so many around us have taken ill, have fallen to the highly contagious pandemic. so it has been rare to see even our neighbors. sightings of them, as we stroll the ‘hood or they walk by, past our front windows, have been about it.

but monday afternoon they all gathered in our driveway. just before 4:30 there were two loud bangs outside. directly across the street, in the driveway, tucked up by the garage and right next to the house, the neighbor’s jeep exploded. the firetrucks were here seemingly instantly and the road was closed off by police cars that came from all directions. and all the neighbors stood together on the apron of our driveway. for the while that it took to extinguish the flames, we had time together. we could see each other’s faces, exchange a few words, exclaim about how scary it was and express relief that our neighbors-across-the-street were safe and unharmed.

a police car or two began to leave. one of the fire trucks left. the neighbors began to disperse. after some time the tow truck came. the tiny bit of time that we were all out there, mostly coatless in the cold, was over. but i could feel something else…the reminder that we are all here.

someone spoke the words: “i hardly ever see or talk to anyone in the neighborhood, but do you remember after the derecho that came through? everyone was out, walking around. eight hundred or so trees down, sidewalks heaved, power out…all in the matter of less than five minutes. and we were all walking around. together. and now…here we are.”

out the big kitchen picture window looking over the backyard are reminiscings, fallowed and growing plants, a bubbling pond fountain, massive trees, tiny creatures, dreamy summer nights, barney, bonfires, grilled eggplant, snowfall.

out the front window is community.

*****

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