we spent a wonderful day thanksgiving friday in boston with craig and dan. taking trains here and there, we had brunch at the greatest little dietary-restrictions-aware-diner called the friendly toast, walked through a magnificently decorated copley place, had drinks together and went bowling, a tradition that has been established now for a few years. it would have been hard not to feel the holiday spirit; carols were playing and everything was decorated…and we were together.
copley place had enormous decorations. i mean eNORmous. everywhere you looked there were oversized ornaments and lights. now, normally i might find that gauche; in this case it was stunning. they really made you take notice. i wanted to sing carols and skip through the mall.
i keep carols on pretty much non-stop in this season. in the house they play on a boombox booming out of my studio. we drive with them on in the car. i sing in the shower. i make up new words to old standards and sing LALALALALA really loudly when i can’t think of the lyrics. joy joy joy! big joy!
thank you to copley place for the reminder that THE JOY of the season – those moments we are together – is enormous. it is oversized. it is stunning. take notice.
with snow on the ground and visions of sugarplums and reindeer, late-at-night we would gather together on christmas eve in the neighborhood i grew up in. luminaria bags lined the streets, you could hear people caroling, children excitedly running around. my sweet momma and daddy held this tradition close each year, even bringing it forward a few of their first years in florida. back on long island we would walk around the block, singing, talking, debating white-lights-vs-multi-colored holiday lights, dreaming about what would be under the tree the next morning. it was magical and time was suspended. midnight seemed early after everyone’s late church service.
a few years ago, missing my sweet momma and poppo, holiday tradition with extended family and not always having my own children here to celebrate, i felt an emptiness and a yearning for something more. reaching into bright memories, i asked david if he would like to host a luminaria party, to start right here…on our street…with these sweet bags of sand and candles spaced on the sidewalks, a couple of firepits in the driveway (thanks to john and michele we have more than one firepit!), an abundance of wine and snacks on tables set up with christmas carols playing on a boombox. we invited our neighbors, friends, our church community. they stayed till a time-suspended-magical 2am and a tradition was born. this year is our fourth.
it starts at 10:45. you are welcome to come. just rsvp, bundle up and bring a beverage and snack to pass. come share in the magic of tradition…yet another wondrous thing.
a couple of weeks ago i ran into a couple i hadn’t seen in many years. they asked me about my children and how they were; i excitedly rambled on about them for several minutes, explaining where they were living – 20 hours west and 20 hours east – and what they were doing in life. then they asked me how i was. i said, “you can always gauge a mom’s happiness by how recently she last got to see her grown children.” i was fortunate enough to see my daughter in november AND my son in november, so i was happy-happy-happy. time spent with them. a wondrous thing.
i was perched on one edge and My Girl on another, a ways down the side of the canyon. we yelled back and forth, listening to the echo, ultimately dissolving into laughter. the beauty. the joy. the echo. the laughing. a wondrous thing.
it was not his best bowling day; the planets clearly were out of alignment for My Boy, who pretty much rocks at bowling and many other sports, but he goofed around and cartooned and had us all laughing. so much fun on that lane. a wondrous thing.
we stood around the piano and sang in my studio, wendy’s voice next to my own. suddenly, that thing-that-happens-when-two-people-who-are-related-sing-together happened. my sweet niece’s voice and mine had the same timbre and it took my breath away. i had to stop for a moment to take it in. a wondrous thing.
from the moment we walked into their house, my girlfriend-since-elementary-school and i laughed. we told stories, reminisced, struggled to remember details, poured a little wine, shared some more. our husbands sipped lemon drop martinis and we talked non-stop. i wanted to stay longer, talk more, remember more. so much of my growing-up-history was standing next to me, hugging me as we left. a wondrous thing.
we don’t really leave the kitchen table when we are there. we sit on high stools and the chatter starts as soon as we arrive. our dear friends jen and brad and the two of us have potluck dinners on many friday nights; each couple has leftovers from the week and no one has to worry about cooking. we just heat up our leftovers and plate them and talk, wine glasses (or a beer in brad’s case) in hand. conversations about our children, our work, politics, travel, ukuleles, npr…the spectrum is wide and we relish the time that flies by; six hours later we glance at the clock pointing to post-midnight. a wondrous thing.
as glorious as the high mountains, ocean-front waves, flowers birthing out of winter, exquisite melodies, the first sip of coffee in the morning, a magical snowfall, texts with heart emojis, a hand holding yours, finding an old note in your child’s little-kid handwriting, black and white pictures of your parents in young days, shooting stars and sunrises…the list of wondrous things we can see around us is endless…limitless…boundless…
and moments shared? also endless…limitless…boundless…
peace signs. the word peace. ornaments of peace. our home is punctuated with these. i believe it is possible – peace. but then, for truly big things, i believe in that which i cannot see.
the days older that i get, the more i see the simplest things are the things that bring me peace: the moment in the car with my beloved daughter, driving and laughing in the high desert or standing on a red rock precipice overlooking a canyon, tears in my eyes. the moment my beloved son let me link arms walking through the city or his hugging me -one more time- right before the train, yes…tears in my eyes. being -anywhere- with my beloved husband. all the stuff of deep soul warmth. the stuff of good tears.
i have found that peace doesn’t have to be complicated. it is simply there. in the very tightest concentric circle around me. if i can be at peace, perhaps i can do my part, i can ripple that outward. and maybe, eventually, with all our ripples, peace and earth will truly combine to be PEACE ON EARTH.
we played a game on the roadtrip back from boston and time spent with our beloved boys and family and friends. our on-the-road-many-hours-to-pass game was “if i were first lady/first man, my platform would be….” we spoke about what we would choose as our impassioned work, the reasons we would choose that very important work and how we would try to support it.
coming back – after thanksgiving gratitude and in the beginning of this beautiful holiday season – to this painting morsel of HELPING HANDS and the full image of david’s deeply touching HELPING HANDS painting, i can think of no better platform than that of those two words – helping hands.
i had landed in denver, took the little plane for the small airport in the mountains. The Girl picked me up and we did errands in town, because telluride is an hour and a half away and there is no target or starbucks or any chain store there. when we got to the little house she just moved to and shares with three others, i looked for something to cut the stems off sweet flowers so i could place them in a facsimile of a vase. having not unpacked all the way, and knowing she was also not all that familiar with her new place yet, i knew that i should just make do with anything that cuts. i grabbed a large knife off the counter and starting sawing. the only thing wrong with that is that i sawed my left pointer finger as well. ouch! i did everything to make it stop bleeding but it was stubborn and kirsten and i wrapped it in bandaids and paper towels to wander around town. yowza.
i wasn’t going to mention it to d – the cutting-stems-with-a-big-serrated-knife thing and all – but couldn’t resist looking for a little husband-sympathy. so after another hour or so, i texted him. he texted back, “we are twins. my left index finger. i sliced mine hours ago…” what?!?
we have this beautiful print in our home, a simple calligraphy by my big brother….it reads, “when one weeps, the other will taste salt.” hmmm.
i’m thinking this is just a fancy term for procrastination? you know, those moments when you have a list-of-things-to-do and you do something NOT on the list. to be honest, i ALWAYS add the things i ended up doing TO the list so that i can cross them off. there is something i find so very satisfying about crossing things off. even if i haven’t gotten to the crux of what i need to get done.
d says that i work in a circular manner. i suppose he’s right. but i swear it’s a woman-thing. we are spinning many plates at the same time, keeping them all in the air, and, although everything will eventually get done, we move from one thing to the next and then circle back. i know very few gals who – in an OCD kind of way – stay cemented to one task until its completion without punctuating it with others.
when The Girl and The Boy were little i was constantly moving from writing at the piano to reading books aloud to playing with matchbox cars to making business calls and back to the piano….many layers all at once. i remember having a phone conversation with one of the VPs of barnes and noble when they were placing one of my albums on the listening station wall. in the middle of this phone call, you could hear one of my children in toddlerhood – i will not mention which one – in the background, beckoning me from the bathroom, yelling, “i finished! i pooped!” the VP heard it too and he was gracious enough to tell me he would hold on. it’s a mom thing, right? those spinning plates.
we work differently, d and me. we are both productive, but i’m guessing he would oft label me productively avoidant. eh. he just doesn’t see how i accomplish that ever-growing-ever-crossed-off list in my head (or on paper, for that matter.) it’s amazing what i can accomplish when i am “supposed” to be accomplishing something else. i know you know what i mean! #allwillgetdone #whatdoesitallmeananyway?
at 93 these words were texted by my sweet momma on her iphone, about a week before she died three years ago. she was amazing. and damn strong. “whoa!” i think, re-reading this text, “you go, momma!”
“…more than i say…more than i speak…more than you realize…” like every mom she walked the thin line between not saying enough and saying too much. The Girl and The Boy are practiced at rolling their eyes at me and, i guess, i must have done the same to my momma. so there’s that moment you dig in and, ignoring every quivering fibre in your body, you do not say anything. you notice, you think, you know. but you remain quiet. for you also know that the lives you have gifted into this world are not yours to live; they are only yours to love, to hold closest to your heart, to support in every way you can, to lift up when they stumble or fall.
“don’t. underestimate me.” so true, momma didn’t want to be under-estimated. her spirit in the world accomplished bigger things than most professions can tout. her kindness was rippling, her curiosity abounding, and her fortitude…that sisu. you don’t want to be the retail/corporate/organization recipient of the “write-a-lettuh” vindication; momma was going to win. she “wasn’t born in ny for nothin” as i say. the day after the extra surgery she had just one day after her double-mastectomy a few months before this text, she sat on the edge of her hospital bed and called us “idiots” for not getting back on the road home. she was going to be “just fine” and she was more worried about us on the road than herself. that’s a mom for you. that’s my sweet momma.
beaky dug in. she was engaged and big in the world. and her sisu made her powerful. she was wise even in silence. she knew, even if i didn’t tell her. like moms everywhere, she was tuned in, in ways that made her ever-present. i always counted on that. i still do. she is on the edges of this earth, where the wind carries her to me.
i can only hope that one day my own children realize that – no matter what – i am right there. i know more than i say. i think more than i speak. i notice more than they realize. and never, ever, underestimate me. because as their momma, i will go to the ends of the earth for them. just like my mom.
reverse threading 