Time Out

Well, the inevitable has happened, I suppose. I have a cold. One of my daughters had it last week and a few of the people who came over on Saturday did too. Add in the emotional roller coaster I've been on for a week and the weather and you have the perfect equation for getting sick.
But it's not so bad. I'm here at home, the sun is shining outside, the big tub is waiting to be filled with hot water, epson salts and lavender oil. I've been doing a little laundry, watching some crazy daytime TV and crocheting a hat.
I'm a lousy crocheter, but I'd have to be on death's door to simply sit and watch TV, especially in the daytime.
It's strange how guilty I feel, not doing something I consider to be productive. I don't have soup simmering or bread rising and I'm not outside cutting back frozen plants or working in the garden or even going to the grocery store or library. I'm not walking or doing yoga.
I'm just sort of taking care of myself in a quiet and slow way, which in my world, is something that does not come easy.
But for today, or at least for right now, I am going to let the rest of the world take care of itself. And guess what? I have a strong feeling that it'll do just fine without me, which is a nice thought, and reassuring and yet, at the same time slightly scary.
Maybe I better make some bread.

What A Wonderful Life

Despite the rain and the cold and the pewter gray skies, they came.
I think perhaps a hundred people came to wake Lynn and I do not mean try and awaken her, but to celebrate who she was, to gather and remember. This old house took them in all in and gave us her hallways, her rooms, her ceilings and floors and porches as a place to gather, sheltered from the cold January rain- her sister and brothers, her mother, the relatives from Atlanta, the old hippie friends, the mother's church and bridge friends, the folks who'd worked with her back when she could work, her child, her stepson, their friends and posses. Later on in the evening when most of the crowd had gone home to their own houses, two of the people who'd tended her at the nursing home came and that's when we danced.
And sang karaoke, which Lynn would have loved and definitely would have done.
My daughter and Lynn's niece wore dresses that Lynn had kept from the old, old days, vaguely Indian, certainly hippie, and they looked beautiful, as young as Lynn had been at one time, as full of life as we had been when we met.
My ex came with his wife and their beautiful granddaughter and he and my daughter played some music. This time he didn't break down, this time he sang all the words without crying.
People looked at the pictures her sister had brought- Lynn as a baby, Lynn as a child, Lynn as a young, dancing woman, Lynn in the crazy sunglasses she used to make, Lynn with friends, Lynn when she was pregnant, Lynn as a new mother, Lynn with her four siblings at every age and every stage. Finally, Lynn in the nursing home, even as recently as a few weeks ago, smiling that gap-toothed smile that some say means sensuality.
I say it too.
Remember? Remember? Remember?
Everyone who came had one piece of the puzzle that was Lynn. We all remembered together, we put pieces together, another picture was formed, another dozen, a hundred, and yet, still, all together they weren't entirely Lynn.
Outside it was so cold and so wet. I went out to one of my porches for a few moments and watched the rain fall on the matriarch oak out front and thought how much we need rain. I was grateful for it and was grateful for the flowers and food and warmth and light everywhere in the house when I slipped back inside.
The first guests showed up before one p.m., the last left after one a.m.
She would have loved it and I wonder why we waited until she died to do this thing, to gather these people, to play this music, to eat this food, to dance, to drink, to praise, to laugh, to honor. Why didn't we do it as soon as we knew the day of her death was to come so much sooner than any of us would have believed? When she could still have eaten, heard and understood the praise and joined in the laughter, could have taken in the hugs and kisses, could have danced and drunk rum?
Well, that's not the way we do things. We get that diagnosis and somehow pretend that it's not real or that it doesn't mean anything and we put off the fun and we put of the honoring and celebrating until it's all too late to mean a damn thing to the one we've gathered for.
And don't tell me she knew it was happening. You can't prove that and neither can I.
But two years ago, I know she would have.
But we did it up as best we could without her. And even if she wasn't here, she was the reason all those people left their warm houses and drove all the way to Lloyd with covered dishes in their hands and memories in their hearts.
We did it.
And now we go on. The sun is shining today, the house is back to being just a home, the flowers are still beautiful, the glads and poppies and sunflowers and tuberoses and I'm all alone here and I think I'll go for a walk and it'll be quiet in the woods and because I'll think of her, Lynn will be there too.
As much as anywhere except for in the bones and face and blood and soul of her son.
And there I know she lives on, no faith needed to believe that.
Here's the funny thing about death- it brings with it more good than you can imagine. Peace and celebration and joy, too. For me it brings the knowledge that nothing and no one lasts forever. Not me, not you, not Lynn.
And it's okay.
Rain falls, the trees grow stronger, the sun comes out, it warms the ground, the flowers start to wake up in the wet earth.
We remember to live after death comes. I can't say more than that.

This is a picture called The Blue Door by someone named R. Wintz. Lynn had a print of that picture, framed and hung, everywhere she lived. It was hanging above her bed at the nursing home when she died.
A few weeks before Christmas, I found another print of it in an old pretty silver wooden frame at a antique store. I bought it and considered it a gift from Lynn to me. I'll put it on the altar we're making for Lynn.
Today's the day we're having the Memorial Party for Lynn, for lack of a better term. When I offered to do it here, I imagined somehow that the weather would be beautiful and we could all go from house to yard and the bluebirds of happiness would be flocking in the trees above us and the sweet, warm breeze would remind us of Lynn and how much she loved to feel it on her face and there would be so much joy.
Instead, it's supposed to rain all day, the sky is pewter, any birds in the area are huddling somewhere warmer than my backyard and it's cold.
So much for MY plan, huh?
I have no idea how many people are going to show up. There are enough plastic cups and styrofoam plates in the kitchen already, bought and delivered by Lynn's sister-in-law and oldest brother, to serve hundreds. Also two giant bags of tortilla chips, same for Chex Mix, and an industrial sized can of mixed nuts. I've made the worst looking cake I ever made. Seriously, I made better looking cakes in the third grade. Also some hummus and banana bread- all Lynn favorites. My shed is filled with beer and wine and sodas. Two of her brothers are supposed to be coming out to get those on ice.
Where we'll put all the food, the drinks, the chairs and tables is sort of beyond me at this point. My house is large, but there are many small rooms in it. Dancing will have to happen in the hallway, and dammit, it better happen, otherwise we might as well have just had a damn service at the Bevis Funeral Home.
I had wanted this party to be an event to honor Lynn's ability to always imagine herself, no matter what the circumstances of reality she might find herself in, standing there in front of a beautiful door, looking out at a turquoise sea with a blue vase of red flowers right there.
Sunshine required. Breezes necessary. Bluebirds optional, but a nice touch.
Instead, it's dark as the gloaming, I can't imagine where I'm going to put the food, my heart is sad, my husband is out of town with his grieving sister and my cake looks like a joke.
I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but I think it has something to do with the fact that Lynn never got a damn break, ever, and I don't think she's getting what she deserves today, either.
But you know what? I know she would have found the best in it. She would have managed to have a great time and there would have been dancing and she would have drunk rum and said, "Whoop-ai-ay!" as she tossed down a shot and she would not have worn black.
I better get working on this situation.
And by "situation" I mean my attitude which I can change, although the weather is beyond my pitiful ability to do anything about.
Candles. Flowers. Pictures. Shalimar. Music. Food. Friends. Family.
Whoop-ai-ay, Lynn, my always-joyful friend. I like to think that you're living in that house now and you know what every room in it looks like and that every one of the rooms looks out onto that sea and that the breeze is blowing into every window and you are standing there, smiling, the wind blowing your hair, your eyes closed, a huge smile on your face and your arms stretched up in joy and you are dancing, dancing, dancing.

And Then....

Another good one died last night of another deadly neurological disease. My brother-in-law, my husband's sister's husband. He was less than one year from diagnosis to death, I think. ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease. Let me tell you- it's not a good way to die.
Ron was a huge man, over six feet five and had two enormously tall sons and was as good a father and husband as anyone I ever met. Gentle and kind (as men of his size so often are), loving, funny, and just pure of heart.
He'd gotten to the feeding-tube/respirator stage of his disease and suddenly, last night, his blood pressure dropped and his respirations increased. They took him to the ER and he was dead within a few hours, leaving his wife in a S. Florida hospital, one moment a wife, the next a widow. They'd moved there recently and had no support system yet. Their sons were in other states, his sisters in Texas. He was retired, my sister-in-law had found a good job down there and planned to work for a few years before they settled into their long-dreamed of retirement in their nice home with a pool and a yard where they could grow citrus and palm trees.
She called my husband when Ron was admitted and so my man hit the road even before waiting to hear the outcome.
"Is it okay if I go?" he asked me and what could I say? Lynn's made the journey and he needed to be there for his sister. They're the only two left from his family and there was no decision to make except which shirts to pack.
I cried while I was making him some sandwiches and coffee, but I knew he had to go. He got the call that Ron had passed less than an hour after he left.
Death is taking no holidays around here.
But there sure are some beautiful souls adding their light to the universe. I'm trying hard to remember that.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking of Ron and how we sat on the beach at Dog Island a few years ago, watching the sunset and talking about the things that matter.
I would never have guessed. I would never have guessed.

What He Said

Tallyhassle

Gray Is The Color

Last night the words "Lynn died today" came into my mind and suddenly, all the gold dust and exuberance that Lynn's flying showered upon me is gone, or at least I'm not feeling it. I feel old and tired and sick myself, but I know it's just the grief.

After my friend Sue died, years ago, I probably spent a month in front of the TV watching infomercials. That seemed to be the only thing I was capable of. Couldn't even read and for me that's like saying I couldn't eat, which didn't come easy either, thinking back.

But I have to get off my ass. I'm having the memorial party here on Saturday and looking around, I realize my house is not fit for humans. And the weather is supposed to be cold and wet on Saturday so being outside won't really work, not that outside looks too good right now anyway. Things are brown. Brown and stick-like, which looks like I feel, but not appropriate to celebrating a joyful life. My youngest daughter did comment that perhaps this is a good thing because at least people won't be stepping in all the dog poop out there. She's a Pollyanna sort of girl and I don't know where she got that. Not from me and that's for sure.

So anway, I should be cleaning, tidying, and going out to buy flowers and candles and rum and making banana bread and carrot cake and creating altars and dancing to the Beatles.
Yeah. I should. But no, I'm not.

But I'm going to do what I can and forget the rest. I sort of hate to think about people coming to my house and thinking I didn't even try and that I'm a lousy housekeeper and so forth, but I also keep thinking about something one of my kids said she heard recently which was "It's not my business what others think of me," which is good advice in many a situation, this one included. It's not about the house or the yard but about the purpose of the party which is to celebrate a life which brings us back to my original thoughts- Lynn's life is gone and dammit, I'm just sad.

Joyful

My friend Lynn took off this morning at five-fifty-five a.m. and I have no idea what happens when we die, but my feelings about the matter in this case are that she is dancing in the light and she IS the light.
It was a beautiful and peaceful dying. She took her time but she got it done.
I am joyful and I am exhausted.
I'm sure there will be more words later but for now, I will just say that there are angels on this earth and there surely were some of them taking care of that girl at the end.
I'd say rest in peace, but I can't see Lynn resting at all. Now that she has no need for that body and mind which haven't worked right in a long, long time, she has a lot of dancing and kissing and hugging and smiling and talking and laughing and singing and cooking and sewing and sailing and hair-brushing to do.
The world is a poorer place. The heavens a more joyful one.

Saturday Morning Musings

During my visit to Gatorbone, we were discussing memory, specifically as to how we are losing ours. We forget where we put our keys, our purses, and what we had for dinner the night before. Things like that.
"Did we always forget things like this?" I asked Lis.
"Yes, and so much more," she answered reassuringly.
"You're right." I said. "Like- we used to forget to use birth control."
This cracked us up and we continued to think of other things we used to forget such as to ask for last names and arrest records. Also, on occasion, we might have forgotten to hide the roaches.
Things such as that.
Forgetting where the keys are isn't such a big scary deal compared with memory lapses like the ones we had in the old days.

I'd also like to talk about women who pee on toilet seats. This is a warning: The next time I sit down on a toilet seat at Target and find that the woman who used it before me squatted over it in order to avoid butt-contamination and who, in doing so, contaminated the hell out of it, I am going to find that woman and I am going to kill her.
Ladies- if you sit on a toilet seat properly, and it is dry, your risk of disease is fairly nill but if you pee on a toilet seat that I unwittingly sit on, the risk of death or at least massive public embarrassment is huge.
You have been warned.

People who drive without their headlights are another thing that bother me to no end. When it is dusk or dawn or when it is raining or foggy, USE THOSE HEADLIGHTS. That is why we have them. It's not like you're going to use more gas if you turn your freaking headlights on. There's nothing like seeing, at the last moment, a gray car come out of the mist without its lights on to make me insanely angry. My grandfather always said that if you can't see the sun, you should use your lights.
He lived well into his nineties. Need I say more?

Chain letters are another thing that I cannot abide. Of course these days, that includes e-mail forwards that instruct you to send the mailing on to others. Sorry folks, nothing gets me to use that delete button quicker than a "send this message on to eight women whom you love" message.
Yep.

On to things that delight me:
Small children and babies who grin and gurgle at you in the grocery store. I have to stop and flirt with all of these darlings. I promise I won't grab your baby up and run, I won't even touch the little darling. But I am going to stand there and make a fool out of myself. Can't be helped.

The dog who lives on my walking route who never fails to get up out of her patch of the sun and wiggle her way to me for a belly rub and ear-scratching. "Lucy," I croon. "You are the prettiest dog in Lloyd." And she is, but don't tell my dogs I said so.

Prairie Home Companion. There is nothing so soothing in the entire world as the words, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon," as spoken by Garrison Kieller. I know some people hate him and sometimes his stories loop and circle and go off into real tangents and never really make it home, but I don't care. It is one of the high points of my week, listening to the news from Lake Woebegon and dammit, I like the rest of the show, too. And his column.
And I loved the movie, although that Angel of Death was a little over the top and unnecessary in my opinion. Who knew Sue Scott was so cute?

Laundry additives. As my daughter said to me today, "Laundry additives are the condiments of the washing process." Or something like that. She's right. I love me some bleach. Whites should be white. I like to use Oxyclean, too, although I'm not sure it really does anything.
And this leads to hanging the clothes on the line which is another thing I love. I will never, ever, EVER live in a place that doesn't allow this basic human freedom.

Seeing wildlife on a walk. Foxes, rabbits, and deer, of course, but I also include bluebirds, hawks, and eagles in this catagory. Bluebirds are so damn blue. It's like the entire winter blue sky was condensed into the size of a small bird. As my friend Tommy pointed out to me once, they don't call them the bluebirds of happiness for no reason. Once I saw an alligator while walking the Miccosukee Greenway. The thing about this sighting that made it rare was the fact that the gator wasn't anywhere near a body of water. No, it was about three feet from the trail I was walking. Whoa! Scared me to death and I don't think he was too comfortable about it either.
And of course seeing dolphins, although we have none here in Lloyd. But no matter how often I see them in the Gulf or bay, it's always a very special moment when I spy one and I always stop and watch its progress for as long as I can.

New magazines that come in the mail. There is no better bang for your buck than a subscription to a magazine. I get Florida Gardener, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and the Oxford American. If you do not have a subscription to this magazine, go here immediately and whip out your credit card. The Southern Music edition is going to come with TWO CD's this year and that alone is worth the price of admission.

And you know what? I guess that's all I want to talk about right now.
Hope you're having a nice weekend. I am. I think I'm going to hang my clothes on the line now. And then I'll take a walk. And I was going to do something else, but I can't really remember what it was.
I'm sure I'll think of it eventually and I'm certain that whatever it was, it will not result in an unplanned pregnancy.

Love Your Local Artist

I'm back from the far-away mystical land of Gatorbone, Florida where I was treated as lovingly and as graciously as the proverbial Prodigal Son, although in this case, it would be the Prodigal Daughter and I am better for it.

The trip was just as good as I thought it would be, and the baby-kissing just as sweet. It had all the elements of a great get-away which are: wonderful food, a cozy bed, terrific music, big, black loving dogs to pet, and people whom you love to share perfect days and jovial nights with. The shopping was good (the Scratch and Dent food store in St. Augustine is NOT to be missed, my friends) and the weather couldn't have been better. There were several themes to the trip, one of which was "It only burns for a minute," and the other, "These martinis are not getting any colder!"

And I just can't tell you how fabulous the young grandson was. Perfect in every way, and amiable to letting me, a perfect stranger, feed, hold, burp and dandle him.

And the drive over and the drive back were uneventful and I could get NPR on the radio the entire way!

Did I tell you it was the perfect trip?

But now I'm home and glad to be. As much as I love my friends, I am at heart a hermit and I have the potential for an entire weekend to myself. The Man is off hunting in Georgia. I think it's the last weekend for does or something like that. I'd think that he had a girlfriend except for the fact that he asked me to go with him. Although it was a terrifically sweet offer, I had to turn him down. There is no electricity or bathroom up there at the hunting camp and really, I'd rather be here with my stove and my lights and my plumbing.

I'm old.

So this weekend I plan to write the Great American Novel and get it published and maybe do a little yardwork. Take some walks. Make some fish, create a soup, ponder what the hell I'm supposed to be doing on this planet.

Same as usual.

I'm thinking a lot of artists and how they have to work so hard and be so brave to do what they have so obviously been put on this planet to do. It's weird. Brittany Spears, who is famous for falling apart in a spectacular and often void-of-panties way is richer than hell while people who are actually talented and work their asses off have to scramble for day jobs and live with the worry of having no insurance or retirement plans or regular incomes and yet somehow manage to keep on believing in what they do to the betterment of us all.

Support your local musician, folks.

And artist and writer and actor and so forth. All the people who take the basic, common items of life like words, notes, threads, color, paper, wind, metal, glass, wood, corn meal and oysters and create the things out of them that make us stop and think and rejoice or get angry or cry or pray or smile or dance or swoon with sheer pleasure.

Good for the heart, good for the soul, good for the economy, good for the artist.
Buy a painting, go see a play, buy a t-shirt, CD, book or hand-crocheted shawl, eat at a restaurant that a local chef works her magic in.

It only burns for a minute, feels good forever.

And do I hear someone saying that this martini is not going to get any colder?

Here's to those who live the dream, which is much, much harder than you would think.
God bless them and I thank them, these people who make the art that makes our lives worth living.

With Friends Like This, Life Is Sweet

I have a very good woman friend who is one of those people you'd hate if she wasn't so joyfully wonderful. Her talents range from organizing and putting on a major folk festival every year to baking the most stunning and delicious wedding cakes you've ever seen or tasted. She also gardens, is incredibly smart, is wicked funny, dresses with a sense of style like no one else's, AND is beautiful. To top it all off, she's also a musician who plays what I guess we could call new grass, although recently she started writing her own songs which have sprung forth from her completely formed and amazing both lyrically and musically. In fact, she's already won several song-writing contests so I'm not just saying this because I'm blinded by love. She plays guitar, she plays banjo and fiddle and piano and probably about fifteen other instruments that I'm not naming here. But her true gift, in my opinion, is her voice.

She sings like an angel. I'm telling you, the woman can make you cry. Especially when she's singing one of her own songs.

Despite all her gifts, she's incredibly unassuming and modest. She certainly never says anything to the effect of I'm a musician and you're not, although if I were her, I definitely would.

But it's funny- no matter how close we are, when she goes onstage and begins to play, the fact that we share hearts, secrets, recipes, shoes, dresses, giggles, drinks, hopes and dreams- all of that fades away and suddenly, I am struck with awe and she is, for that time onstage, someone that I can barely look at. She is a creature of wonder and mystery to me.

Our joke is that when she goes on break, I can hardly speak to her. It's more truth than joke, however. I find myself tongue-tied and might as well be in the presence of Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan.

Anyway, I'm going to drive across the state tomorrow to see this friend and I'm really looking forward to it. She and her dear husband, who is also a fine musician and songwriter, live in a small house in the Florida scrub down near Gainesville and they are the perfect hosts. They are gracious and kind and go out of their way to make me feel at home and loved and I always do.

And now, to make it even more apparent how clearly superior this woman is to me, she's managed to have a grandchild and we'll be going to see him while I'm visiting.

So I'll be off in the great world, or at least a tiny corner of it, for a few days, visiting and being in awe and kissing a baby and listening to music, and I'm sure I'll come home a new woman, one determined and inspired to practice my own art and to strive to be the sort of person my friend is- one who brings light to the world and joy to the hearts of the people she loves.

Or at the very least, a woman who is even more intrigued with the idea of becoming a grandmother than ever. I'm certainly not about to develop any musical talent at this point in my life, nor am I about to start putting on folk festivals or baking wedding cakes and I'll never be, like my friend, beloved by thousands, but I'm lucky enough to have a friend who does and who is and with a little more luck, like her, one day I'll be a grandmama because all you need for that, thank God, is children.

You too can visit Lis, in the virtual sense anyway, by going to http://myspace.com/elisabethwilliamson
It's a trip worth taking.

Where ARE Those Ducky Diaper Pins?

I am thinking that perhaps there is a biological clock for grandmothers just as there is one for mothers. Do you think that's possible?
I ask this because despite the fact that I'm not consciously craving grandchildren, I've been dreaming about babies lately. And in the dream I had this morning, besides the cutest, darlingest little dumpling of a babe you ever saw, there was an older woman wearing a T-shirt that said, "I can't get pregnant anymore."
Although that doesn't sound particularly clever or T-shirt-worthy, in my dream it was one hell of a chuckle-inducing bon mot.
Ha-ha! I said in my dream. How funny!
What's funny, of course, is that my mind quite recognizes the fact that I am not about to have another baby but believes, dammit, that there must be one somewhere around that somehow belongs to me.
I have three daughters who are all of child-bearing age. They too, are reporting baby dreams. One of them is going to be married next April and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she didn't present me with my first grandchild within the following year.
Surprisingly, I am not exactly sure how I feel about this. Having just spent thirty-one years in fairly constant child-rearing, I'm not certain that I'm ready to be enlisted in baby-sitting at this point on a regular basis. But as a friend and I agreed recently, discussing just this topic, there is probably some switch that gets flipped when a grandchild is born similar to the one that gets flipped when one's own child is born and the heart is flooded with all sorts of lovely light and hormones that make you love that baby more than life itself and indeed, reveals the meaning of life in a way previously undreamed of.
I'm hoping.
And frankly, I think that all of this is beyond our control and has a lot to do with our evolution as humans and has deep roots in our ape ancestors and it's something we have no need to try and figure out or worry over because it just happens.
When I think of my ancestral mothers, I think of a long, long line of women, holding out a hand to the next one in line, all the way back to a woman who looked very much like Flo, one of the chimps that Jane Goodall studied so intensely in the Gombe. Flo was a mother of outstanding devotion who spent her life raising her many offspring up to become high-standing members of their community up until the day she died, and I have often asked myself in situations with my children where I was unsure how to act, "What would Flo do?"
It is a great comfort to me to think that somewhere deep inside of me there is a mother-wisdom that stretches all the way back to a mother like Flo and if I just relax and get out of my own overly intellectual internal meanderings and believe in what I know to be the truth, all will be well.
The human race still exists because women know, instinctively, a lot of things that they aren't aware of.
And I'm just becoming aware that all of this mother-wisdom might come in handy if a grand baby were to suddenly appear.
At least my dreams are leading me to believe that.
Tick-tock.

Finally. After weeks of holiday madness and cooking and cleaning and shopping and wrapping and following rules I don't even believe in and trying to be not the perfect wife and mother but the adequate wife and mother (and daughter and aunt and sister and friend)....
I got an entire afternoon to myself.
So what did I do?
I wrote. I opened the story that I've been working on for months and months and haven't looked at in weeks and just sat down and let the words flow.
It was as painful and ecstatic as it was going to yoga for the first time in two weeks was yesterday.
Okay. That's not true.
It was a hundred more times more painful and a hundred more times more ecstatic.
Now I'm gonna go cook me some salmon.
Oh yeah.

Ya-Ya, Y'all

Well, it's 6:35 on New Year's Eve, 2007, as I write this. And I am celebrating.
I'm not especially celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of another. That's so random. What is time, really and why do we try so hard to define and mark it?
So we can get to our dental appointments when we're supposed to, I guess.
No, I'm celebrating because New Years officially ends the damn holiday season.
Yep. It's well and truly over. And 2008 will be the last year that we have George W. Bush as president, which is reason enough to celebrate.
I'm on my own back porch, as I write this. We didn't stay in the orange house on Anna Maria Island although it was actually fairly charming on the inside and we probably would have had a lovely time had we stayed there. There was a tree in the yard- I was wrong about that. I guess the orange sort of blinded me to it. And wild parrots feed in the yard every morning beneath the tree. They like the pine cones. So that alone would have been a joy to watch.
But I just wanted to come home. I didn't need to come home so much. I just wanted to be here.
I like being home for New Years. It's a good and safe place to be. An old guitar player friend of ours used to say that New Year's Eve is Amateur Night. All the people who normally never go out drinking and driving think that the last day of the year is a good time to try it, endangering everybody on the road.
But besides that, I'm old and I like being home and that's all there is to it. I wouldn't bet the ranch on me being awake at midnight and that is just fine.
Also, I don't have any firm New Year's Resolutions. Last year I resolved to wear more colorful clothing and less black and even that didn't work out too well. As always, I'll just strive to do the best I can and finish another novel and get in shape and try to be less crazy. Maybe I'll buy a few more blue t-shirts.
And I'm not looking back on 2007 with any nostalgia, either. The most momentous thing that happened in my life this year was that my nest sort of emptied out, although not entirely, since the last baby bird only flew as far as the dorm at FSU and she comes home quite frequently. I certainly didn't discover a cure for cancer or the meaning of life although I did come up with an excellent recipe for salmon which I will gladly share with anyone who wants it.
Which leads me to give you the advice I read about diet from a man named Michael Pollen who has written a book entitled In Defense Of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. His advice goes like this:
"Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants."
I love that.
So I'll leave it at that and remind you to eat your black-eyed peas tomorrow. They are a big bowl of heaping natural plant goodness and if they offer any good luck for the upcoming year, all the better.
And I'd like to say that I've gotten a lot of joy from writing this blog and getting comments and reading a lot of y'all's blogs and thank-you for your words and thank-you for commenting on mine.
Be safe. Be healthy. Don't forget to dream. I hope you get to kiss someone you love at midnight.
I guess that's all I need to say.
Oh yeah. And bless our hearts.
Love....Ms. Moon

Some Things I Have Seen

I have a friend who seems to be operating on a completely different time-frame than I am. It's as if he lives on another planet where time is measured differently or maybe he's discovered some secret time-stretcher or maybe, just maybe, he is more adventuresome, energetic and wastes a lot less time doing things on the internet.

I'm not sure.

When he goes on a vacation he can easily fit some early-morning yoga, a swim, a jog, eighteen holes of golf, three gourmet meals, a nap and a couple of museum visits into one day. And this is how he relaxes.

Me? I'm lucky to walk a few miles and get lunch in. Seriously.

But I have seen a few things on this trip and here I am, wasting time- no! I mean, making good use of my leisure time! by reporting in here.

The most striking thing I have seen on this little adventure was the most amazing comb-over I've ever personally laid eyes on. It was beyond horrible and went well into the absolutely unbelievable category. We sat behind the man sporting it at a busy breakfast place and I could barely take my eyes off the complicated train wreck which was his hairdo. He was accompanied by a relatively regular-looking wife as well as what appeared to be their daughter and her two children, one of which was the prettiest baby I've ever seen despite the fact that she was bald. Granddaddy should take a tip from her- bald can be beautiful!

I've also seen some pretty night skies. We would have seen what was probably a beautiful and soul-stirring sunset yesterday but we were asleep. We did manage to see the right-after-the-sunset-sky and that was real nice, although it lacked the drama of the actual sunset.

I've seen an awful lot of really fat Americans. Whoa. No need to go on about that. We saw a roller-bladin' granny today who was wearing very little and what there was of it was black spandex. To her I say, "You go, girl!" She looked great.

I've seen a lot of bougainvillea, incredible palms of various and exotic species, some lovely, flat Gulf seas rolling quietly into shore with gentle swishes and hisses of foam, a tree fern that made me realize why they call them tree ferns, and the cutest little Yorkie who was so tiny that that my Yorkie could have eaten her for lunch.

And I may have seen Jeff Bridges, although my husband says no, it wasn't him.

I'm as boring outside of Lloyd as I am in Lloyd.

Didn't think it was possible, did ya?

Well, it is and I am.

We did just make a drink and walk down to the beach to check out tonight's sunset but due to an incredibly thick seafog, the sun was nowhere in sight. I'm sure it's there somewhere, but we sure aren't going to see it.

Oh well.

One more thing I've seen is the house that we have so graciously been offered on loan for the last two nights of our little trip. This house belongs to the friend of a friend and I can't believe I'm saying this in a public place but we've driven by it several times now and each time I am shocked anew at the sight of it. Can I just say that without a doubt it is the ugliest and least charming house on the entire island of Anna Maria?
Maybe it's really cute on the inside. And I shouldn't look a gift house in the mouth, right? But honestly- there isn't even a tree in the yard and it's not like it's on the beach. It's orange, okay? Orange cement block. With dark orange trim.

We may come home early.

Unless we decide to take up golf or something.

I'll let you know.

It's Working

Despite a million tourists (what are these people doing in my state?), this is a lovely place. Although the gulf is not lapping at our front porch, we're not in a motel by the interstate either.
I can feel myself relaxing.
Sometimes getting away is just the thing to do.

How Did I Forget? How Do I Remember?

Phew. Wow. It's over.
Really.
Not really. Because the melancholy madness of Christmas which always descends on me after the presents are opened and the older kids leave to go to their various second stops for the day hit me so hard this year that I'm still reeling.
I spent yesterday cleaning my kitchen as therapy, I suppose, although it needed a good cleaning. I went from the top of the refrigerator to the cabinet under the sink. I took the aprons that I hang on the walls as decorations down, washed and starched and ironed them and hung them back up. I wiped down shelves and I mopped the floor. I threw out stuff.
I tried to clean my soul of despair.
Didn't work so well but my kitchen is clean.
My husband has suggested that we go out of town today and I think we're going. This, of course, has me twisted even more tightly because of my recent development of what I can only assume is a form of agoraphobia, although it's not necessarily the marketplace I am afraid of- I do quite well in Publix, thank you, and can even handle the mall for short periods of time, once or twice a year.
It's the idea of packing my things and loading the car and leaving my home behind that gets me. We really don't know where we're going. We have the vague promise of a house somewhere near Sarasota on an island and I don't know a thing about the area in general or the house in specific and I'm freaking out, albeit quietly.
I know I need to get away. I need to leave my worries about children and friends behind and just....go.
But first I have to pack and I don't have the slightest idea what to take (do I need towels and sheets?) and I look back on times before in my life when I'd do something like this and it was just a fun adventure and not a grim exercise in trying to stretch my horizons a little. Like my friend Lynn who lost her ability to cook and clean and make a bed and decorate her Christmas tree and type and talk, I find myself wondering when did I forget how to do this?
It shouldn't be scary to get in a car and go wandering down the state of Florida for a little fun time.
Should it?
That's the trouble with depression (because let's call this what it is)- nothing sounds like fun and everything seems overwhelming. I know I have a strong tendency towards depression and nothing can set off a good bout of it like Christmas.
Besides all the emotional baggage that gets unpacked every year with the lights and ornaments, I cease doing the things that keep me somewhat stable. I don't exercise as much, I certainly don't eat well, and I'm thrust into a situation that requires me to do a lot of things I don't enjoy and don't really believe in.
It all adds up to a good old-fashioned melancholy that I believe a lot of people must feel this time of year. The kind that paralyzes you.
I kept waking up last night thinking that I really can't go on this trip. I need to go visit a friend on the east coast who has a new grandson whom I haven't seen yet. I need to help my daughter find and buy a laptop. I need to take the dogs to the groomers. I need to go see Lynn. I need to....
I need to get out of my little world of worry and fear and try to relax and remember why it is that I married my husband and see if he can remember why he married me.
When did I forget how to do this? When did I last smile like I did in that picture?
And will I ever do it again?

So This Is Christmas

And what have you done?
Fed the hungry? Taken in the homeless? Given to the poor, cooled the brow of the ill, provided warmth to the cold and hope to the hopeless?
Yeah, me neither.
Here's what I have done:
Survived.
So far.
Christmas Eve day and the feast for tonight is in progressive steps towards doneness. The venison for the tamales is in the crockpot and has been since last night. The sourdough is rising. The greens from the garden are simmering, as are a pot of pinto beans. The Moon Family Traditional Chicken Salad is resting in its bowl, ornamented with grapes and pecans, as always. The pecan pie and the lemon chess pie are cooling on the sideboard. Or what passes for a sideboard in my kitchen.
The presents are wrapped and under the tree with two fire grates set around them to discourage the yorkie from lifting his leg to annoint them. The creche is set up on the mantel with branches from the magnolia set around and behind it. Buddha is sitting right beside the baby Jesus in the creche, smiling his big Buddha smile which I translate to mean (this time of year anyway) "Hey Jesus! You're God too!"
The kids will all be coming out soon to feast and spend the night.
The husband is on his way home from hunting and going by the bank to get the kids' Christmas cash.
And I'm sitting here, writing this because...
I can.
A real true Christmas miracle found its way into my life yesterday when my permanent crown (that's the kind for my teeth, not my head) arrived at my dentist's office and he, perhaps wearied by my phone calls to him wailing about my temporary falling off, met me at the office last night, a Sunday night before Christmas, along with his wonderful and beautiful assistant, and put my gold crowns on my old teeth. I am not in pain, I can eat, and I have mouth jewelry.
As I was driving home last night from that visit, I looked up into the sky and there was the biggest silver moon I think I've ever seen.
Silver in the sky, gold in my mouth.
It was a moment.
And I have so much more than that to celebrate and I do and I will. Mostly it has to do with family, of course. I am more than blessed there.
Even though I am blessed with far more than most in every way, I still am not going to have one moment of what you'd call real Christmas joy, I can assure you. Not one. I realize that the spirit of Christmas is not in me.
But I'm taking what I've got, which is this feeling of utter gratefulness and contentment.
For me, that is more than enough.
And tonight I'll look up and that moon will be even fuller and more silver than it was last night and red Mars will be sitting right there beside it, riding high on the waves of lunar light.
I'll flash my gold smile and I'll think of all the ones I love and send them a wish of good tidings.
And if that's all I've got, it's more than enough.
I'll celebrate any baby born, Jesus too. His birth, like the birth of any healthy baby, is a moment to pause and give thanks and ponder the possibility of what a life can mean.
Ponder. I love that word. My favorite part of the New Testament's account of the birth of Jesus is Luke, Chapter 2, Verse 19, where it says,
And Mary took these things and she pondered them in her heart.
I'm pondering, as always, what all of this means- my life, all our lives, war and peace and greed and fear and suffering and death and joy and light and love and generosity.
I can't make any sense of it, and I doubt I ever will, but I continue to try. To ponder.
Merry Christmas, y'all. Look at the moon tonight and think whatever good thoughts you have and maybe, for a moment, the silver moon will look down on us in peace.

When There Are No Words

I went to see Lynn today. I knew it was going to be tough. Christmas- hell, she loved Christmas. She never had much money to buy presents but she'd find that one perfect thing to give, maybe tiny, but perfect. She loved the lights, the things she'd collected over the years to decorate with. She loved the cards and the songs and the colors and the tastes and the joy.

I remember the year her disease really started taking hold in a cruel way. She was still living in her house and a friend had brought her a tree and she got out all her decorations and then....
she couldn't figure out how to put the lights on or how to put her baubles and ornaments on. When I got to her house, she was crying. "How did I forget?" she wailed.

So I knew, between my own fragile state and the whole situation, it was going to be hard.

I went inside and she was parked in that spot all by herself in the hallway, next to the pay phone. I'd brought her some strawberry ice cream and I wheeled her outside to sit under the tree and I started feeding her the pink goop. She's sort of like a baby now - if you touch her lips, she opens her mouth. I fed her some and we sat and let the breeze blow over us and she was agitated. She kept trying to get out of the chair that she was tied to. I usually say something like, "Where are you going, girl? It's okay. Now settle down."

Today all I could do was pat her. It's not okay and I wasn't in the mood to lie about it or try to make it any better than it is.

There's a guy who works there named Lee Roy, who likes to come and talk to me and he came out to change a light bulb that blew in the rain last night. We got to talking, as usual, and then he asked me, "Did you know her before she was like this?"

That was all it took. The dam broke. I started sobbing.

"Oh yeah," I said. And then I tried to tell him what Lynn used to be like. I used words like "Hardest working woman you ever met," and "Oh, my, she loved to dance," and "She loved music so much."

"We can't understand these things," he said. "Only the man upstairs. As we get older, all will be revealed."

I listened politely while I fed my friend like a baby, one spoonful of cold, sweet, pink ice cream after another, but I was mad. Mad at God, mad at whatever evilness had caused my friend to get sick. Eventually, I said, "Yeah, well, all that works better if you believe in the man upstairs." I wouldn't normally say anything like that, but I did today. Lee Roy had tried to make me feel better and it did nothing for me. Not one damn thing. If there is a God, then what the hell is he thinking? There's so much suffering going on in this world that I can't even begin to fathom it. I can't even fathom what Lynn suffers and I'm sitting right there watching it.

He knew how I was feeling and soon took off to go do another chore and I sat with Lynn some more. "I'm sorry, baby," I said to her. "All I have in me is to sit with you some today." I held her hand while I cried, and although usually I don't even think she knows where her hand is, today she pulled my hand to her mouth and kissed it.

I broke down again and when she grew more agitated, I took her back inside to see if I could find a nurse to give her the medication to calm her down.

I kissed her to tell her good-bye when I was leaving and she kissed me back, which she hasn't done in forever, which caused me to cry even harder. The nurse, seeing my distress, asked me several times if I was all right.

I said I was, although that was a lie. She said she'd give her her meds and there was another employee there who really seems to care a lot for Lynn and he said he'd take care of her and so I left.

On my way out, I looked out for Lee Roy, hoping to see him to tell him that I appreciated the fact that he'd tried to make me feel better. His wanting to make me feel better had helped, even if his words hadn't.

But I didn't see him and there was nothing for it but to get in my car and drive away.

Well. Here we are. Five days before Christmas and I am NOT ready. In fact, I feel sort of sick to my stomach. Speaking of sick, my youngest seems to have the flu. She went from a sore throat and no fever yesterday to a sore throat, feeling terrible, and a fever last night. Bah! I hate it when my kids are sick as much now as I did when they were babies.

She's a strong, healthy girl, though, and I'm sure she'll make it through this. I just hope it's in time for Christmas. It's sort of reassuring to remember that she was sick with something similar last Christmas, and the Christmas before that the poor child had poison ivy covering every inch of her body. That was the same Christmas my dermatologist had convinced me to go through a regime of an extremely evil medication called Effudex which is supposed to find and destroy precancerous skin lesions and let me just say that my whole entire face must be made up of precancerous skin lesions because my usually mild complexion turned red, raw and ugly and when I finally got tired of the blood on my pillow and the small children running from the sight of me, I quit using it. We did not take a lot of pictures that year.

Today I figure I can get all my baking done, wrap all the presents and finish up the blanket I'm making for my niece. That sounds doable, right?

Sure, if I'm blessed with a freaking Christmas miracle.

And I'd like to say that a very, very old friend of mine (he must be old, he's the same age I am) is blogging now. If you enjoyed the comment left by B. Boy on my last post, check him out at
http://fishheadblues.blogspot.com/
The man can rant and he's not afraid to say what he thinks. This could get scary. You might want to wear safety goggles.

Anyway, I hope all of you are having a wonderful time of it and that your presents are wrapped and lying under the tree, unless like at our house where if you put the presents under the tree the dogs pee on them, and that your days are merry and bright.

And so forth.

Try to remember that just because eggnog has eggs in it, it's not actually a breakfast beverage and let's all get this thing done!

Oh hell. What am I saying? Eggnog can be breakfast if you want it to be. I would recommend, though, that you use the light rum before noon.

Ho-ho-ho.

It's The Endtimes, Folks

I have gotten used to, although have not become comfortable with, the use of the songs of my youth being used in the marketing of products and services on television. A lot of people do it these days and I understand why and I hate it.

But this. This is just enough to push me over the edge- which is admittedly, a very short journey at the moment.

I just saw a commercial for a disposable diaper (and yes, there are other types of diapers but that's another rant) and the music playing as the cute little toddler danced and giggled was, and I hate to even say this...All You Need Is Love.

This may not be the end of my world as I know it, but it's definitely one of the end signs.

For those of you who don't understand my rage here, let me just tell you that All You Need Is Love is a song written by John Lennon and performed by the Beatles on the very first ever live global television link in 1967. You can watch the video right here on youtube.

All You Need Is Love. That was the very simple message that John Lennon was trying to get across to the world. He was not saying that all you need is paper, plastic and chemicals that last forever to keep baby poop and pee off your furniture.

I am so angry. How DARE they use that song to catch our ears and get us to buy bags of these damn things that are going to end up crowding us off the planet? It may be legal and I don't even care who sold them the rights. Michael Jackson? Paul McCartney? Yoko Ono?

It's immoral.

Yeah, yeah. I know there's a lot more going on in the world that deserves my rage far more than this commercial should. I should get over my old damn hippie self and let go of the idea that love had anything to do with it. That four guys from Liverpool singing music could ever change the world. That the world, in fact, can be changed.
I still believe the world can be changed. But I'm quickly losing faith that it can be changed in a good way.

Toast. That's how I feel about the human race at this moment. If we can take a song that was written to send a message to the world that love is all you need and turn it into a marketing tool to sell disposible diapers, we're just toast.

It's fascinating, sometimes, looking for images to go with a post. Sometimes you find things you certainly didn't expect, and these are frequently pornographic, which can be startling, but somehow, not as much as you'd think. Oh, those crazy humans- they things they'll do with their body parts! In front of a camera, no less!

Tonight, I was thinking I'd write something about rain, which is something I've written about before. There are plenty of things to say about rain, especially when your state has been in a state of drought for years, and most of it goes like this:
Rain, please.
Or if it is raining, it goes like this:
More, please.

So I wasn't sure what I was going to say but it would definitely be something in the way of more, please because it is raining tonight and fairly seriously, too. I didn't have any specific thing in mind, just how nice it is to finally get some rain and how thirsty the world seems these days and how when it rains, it's like the miracle of the dove bringing Noah an olive branch, only in reverse.

So I was flicking through the Google images for rain and the picture above came up and I had clicked on it because- well, it's amazing. Turns out that the man in the picture was a Souix warrior named Rain In The Face and I can't think of a more beautiful name than that to be given to anyone.

The photograph is credited to a photographer named A.L. Huffman and was taken in 1880. That may or may not be true. Things sure can look true on that World Wide Web, even if they're not, but this was posted on the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition page (that would be sort of fun to say out loud, but sort of hard, too) so perhaps it's accurate. Then again, perhaps it's not.

I don't really care. Chief Rain In The Face has been dead for a hundred and two years but his picture is on the internet and it's raining in Northwest Florida tonight and anything is possible. Anything at all.

It would be a mighty sweet thing to fall asleep tonight with the sound of rain falling and to dream of a Souix warrior named Rain In The Face. That's what I'm hoping for, this rainy night, ten days before Christmas, 2007.

Just Because

I am completely paralyzed with the prospect of all that I must do in the next week and because I haven't begun to do any of it (I tried, I tried to go shopping but the sight of seeing an old lady buying a very pink Christmas tree made of feathers made me retire to my car to weep), I am, instead, here at your service, providing Holiday Humor.
Here's my favorite New Yorker cartoon of all times. So far.
Could someone please come over and kick my ass into gear?
Thanks.
And just in case you don't have your magnifying glass, what Santa is saying is, "Stop avoiding me. I know when you are sleeping. I know when you're awake."
Sorry. I can't find a bigger image and we're all lucky I can figure this picture thing out at all.

Virgin Of Guadalupe's Special Day

As irreverent as I am, I have a great fondness in my heart for this little lady right here and today's her feast day.
In Mexico, right now, they are celebrating with parades, music, dancing, and giant icons towed around on trucks driven in from the rancheros out in the country, complete with flashing colored lights accompanied by darling little girls dressed all in white.
And masses, too, I'm sure.
I wish I was there but I'm not so I just wanted to acknowledge this special day for the original saint of the Americas.
Some say that she was created to syncretically (yeah, look it up) represent both the Virgin Mary and an Aztec goddess by the name of Tonantzin, which works for me.
Happy Feast Day, Virgin! And your older sister, Tonantzin, too.

Let's Try Life

Okay. I think time’s up. Time’s up for the current world leaders to try and do something about this mess. They’ve given all the Big Questions their best shots, don’t you think? The Middle East, global weather changes, the whole energy thing, all the religions and boundaries and beliefs and starvation and disease and nuclear treaties and desires and needs and rights and creeds and crimes and well…

Guys. Let it go. Go on home. We don’t like your answer to most of the big problems, which always seems to involve another damn war.

Nah. It’s not working, that death thing.

I think it’s time to let some real experts try to handle the problems.

I say, let’s give the midwives a chance.

Why do I say that? Well, because midwives know what life is all about. They know what it takes to get it here and how to keep it going once it's here. Can't you just see a gathering of women from all over the globe, each selected for her ability to safely and skillfully and wisely work with the forces of nature to deliver life?

And this wouldn't be happening at Camp David either. No, all it would take would be some basic housing and plenty of kitchen tables for the women to sit around. Midwives know how to figure things out sitting around a kitchen table, late into the night, sipping nothing but raspberry tea.

And there they'd be, all these women of every color and creed and religion and belief and age, dressed in saris and mini skirts and burkas and blue jeans, with their strong midwife hands, their wise midwife hearts, their powerful midwife arms, their smart midwife brains and their midwife souls, dedicated to life.

All of that instead of a bunch of men in suits with bodyguards and computers and war on their minds.

Why not let these women get together and try to sort out the problems we face because midwives know what's really important and what's really important is for life to go on. Not just our lives, but the lives of all the things that make this planet livable. Midwives know that it is the tiniest of creatures who hold all of the future.

Midwives know that life is too short and precious to waste our resources on bombs and guns and tanks. They know the money would be better spent on making sure that everyone has enough to eat and that everyone has clean water to drink and air to breath and medicines to treat what can be treated and access to those medicines and to education for all the children.
Midwives know what it means to breathe life into a child born not breathing and what it takes to ensure that that life gets a chance to keep on breathing and be healthy and productive and deserving of the amazing effort it took to get it here.

Midwives are not afraid of blood or work or shit or tears or love. They know that all of these things are necessary for the creation and delivery of life.

I think that if all these women were gathered together with all their skills and knowledge they might be able to figure out some of the things that we are so obviously not able to figure out with the tools and fools we're using now.

It might take time.

But every good midwife knows that birth always takes time. And patience and constant vigilance and maneuvering and the ability to stay awake and pay attention.
And the constant knowledge that nature must be respected in all ways and at all times in order for life to thrive.

At the very least, it would be interesting to try life for awhile, and peace, too, while we're at it.
I'm tired of this death thing. I'm tired of war.

Let's give the midwives a chance.

No Wonder

I woke up in such a funk.
Twenty-seven years ago.
Bless his heart.
I miss him still.

Power Granny

And on a lighter note...
Last week two of my daughters and I went to the nursing home to see Lynn. We visited for awhile, sang her a few Christmas carols (badly- she laughed at us) and when it was time to go we were saying our goodbyes to her in a little niche in the hallway when suddenly, right in front of us, a therapy session sprang up. Two therapists were trying to help a very, very old lady walk, which wasn't going very well. She seemed to have no more idea of how to walk than a newborn baby but they were doing their best to encourage her.
"That's it! One more step! Make it a big one!" etc. One was holding the poor old lady up with sheer will and strength and the other was standing right behind with a wheelchair, just in case the lady needed to sit down, I suppose.
It was a lesson in patience, standing and watching. At one point the old lady stepped one white-socked foot right on top of the other and the wheelchair therapist had to lean over and remove the offending foot off the innocent one. As I said, it wasn't going well.
All traffic down the hallway ceased as this exercise progressed.
Everyone was patient. I mean, come on- it's a nursing home- who has anywhere they have to be in a hurry?
Well, one old lady, it would seem. She was on a walker and she stood there for a moment and then, realizing that the space was big enough for her but not the walker, simply hefted the walker above her head, passed on the right and booked it on down the hall. I think maybe she was going to Bingo.
It was one of those perfect moments that you just WISHED you had on video. Everyone in the hallway looked at each other as if to say, "Did you SEE that?" And we all smiled.
It was perfect. A perfect moment in a crazy and often sad place.
I love that old woman. She brought joy to my heart and I hope she cleaned their clocks at Bingo.
I bet she did.

Our Black Holes of Despair

We are all born starving for air, hungry and hurt and looking for the nipple. That is the truth. And we breathe that first breath and take that first sip and set in motion a chain of events that never ends until we've breathed and sipped our last.

I've been thinking about this hunger lately and how it relates to that vast sense of emptiness that can open up inside us sometimes. I believe it's that sense of emptiness that drives us to do most of what we do on this earth, in this life. It is for me, anyway.

Some days the emptiness is just a small tickle and one that I can easily manage with a yogurt, say, or a nice walk and a good laugh with a friend.

Some days, though, there seems to be a black hole of darkness inside of me so huge that I can easily imagine falling inside of that which is inside of me, which of course can only be done metaphorically unless perhaps there is a real explanation in string theory, which I don't begin to understand but which seems to explain a lot of weird and magical stuff.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. It would be interesting if we all had a meter we wore on our chests that indicated how big the hole within us was at that particular moment. Sort of like a mood ring, only for existential despair. I think we'd be surprised to see just how empty a lot of people whom we may think of as normal and relatively well-adjusted really feel.

There's an awful lot of emptiness-filling attempts going on all around us all the time. We eat too much, we drink, we do drugs, we have sex, we look to God, we buy things, we paint and sculpt and write and get married and have babies and do all sorts of things we believe will fullfill us and all of that works for a little while and sometimes for a long time, but I don't think anything really works all the time. And don't tell me God does, either. If Mother Theresa could feel an emptiness where her God should have been for a great many years of her life, then damn! I know it won't work for me.

All I know is that if I hang on during the hard, crazy-feeling times, the emptiness seems to get less and there is more light and less darkness in my heart. That's one lesson I've learned from aging- that although when this melancholy is upon me I feel that it always has been and always will be, it hasn't and it won't.

I'll wake up one morning (and probably soon) and for no apparent reason, I'll feel okay about things. Maybe not ecstatic, but certainly okay.

And until then, I just have to accept the fact that I will not fall into anything unless I let myself. I remember a thing that Stephen Gaskin, the Big Daddy of the Farm Commune said once, which is that insanity was just his back yard and he'd wandered around there a few times but mostly he chose not to.

I always liked that. I feel like I've sat on my porch many a time and looked out at what might be a really scary place but I've always known that exploring that particular part of my yard isn't something I need to do.

Not yet, anyway. And I doubt I will because as vast and deep as my own personal emptiness feels sometimes, I know it's nothing but a thimble-full compared to some people's who can't help but jump into that back yard of their Jungle of Despair. I'll never get a gun and mow down people at a mall and I'll never take too many pills and hope for death, either.

It ain't that bad.

I'll just struggle along like most of us do and I'll probably never figure it out, but I do take comfort in the fact that there are great mysteries of life and that's all there is to it.
That's sort of slim comfort, but it'll do for now. It'll do.

And again, I've used a painting by Karen Davidson here and it's called Distressed Woman and I love it. I know just how that woman feels and isn't that what art is all about? Looking at something that someone else did and recognizing our own selves in it?
I think so.
Karen- you're an artist. Send me more pictures, please.

Don't Mess With Santa, He Might Hurt You

Since so very few of you wanted to share your favorite Christmas gift memories with me, (and it's not too late!) I've had to go out and find my own cheer.

Luckily, and quite serendipitously, I am succeeding, as you can plainly see from the picture above.

This is me and my new Santa Claus which I found yesterday at the Goodwill when I went to find a thin blanket for use in a Christmas gift quilt-making project. Of course I I didn't find what I was looking for, (you cannot go to Goodwill and expect to find one specific item unless that is an item that has an owl in it and this has all been discussed in a previous post) but I did find this Santa and I bought him and brought him home and plugged him in. He delighted me so much that I took our picture. I sent the picture around to a few people and got such great comments I thought I'd share them for everyone's Christmas pleasure.

The first person I sent the picture to wrote back and said, "That's a pretty serious Santa there."

Frankly, that was the first I noticed the actual expression on Santa's face. It is pretty serious, isn't it?

Then I sent it to my friend Unca B who wrote back with this:

"wow, that is a very scary santa. what's he got in his
hand, a fucking pick axe? he doesn't look serious
about christmas, he looks like he's seriously about to
kick my ass. but i like that he lights up."

I wrote back and said, "No, he's holding a bell. He's also holding a sack," which got this reply:

"bell my ass. that's a pick axe and his sack is full of puppy heads. I'm sure of it."

Then I sent the picture to Downtown Guy. He wrote back with this:

"Only twenty more chopping days 'til Xmas."

Oh my God. This Santa has already filled me with more goodness and joy than one million Bing Cosby Christmas records ever could.

So- in the spirit of holiday sharing, I am now sharing with you.

Much love!
Ms. Moon

Dealing With Despair By Using Happy Thoughts

When I wake up in the morning there is a period of time when I'm in despair. This is just the way it is. Doesn't matter how beautiful the day, how sweet the life, my brain will be telling me that I'm a worthless, talentless being who has no business taking up space on the planet.
This is not a good thing and is best suffered in solitude. My husband knows by now to leave me alone until my brain does its daily adjustment and I come out of the deep well of sadness and self-loathing that I'm inevitably in upon awakening.
Bad chemicals. That's what I blame. Purely and simply, just bad chemicals and since I know what's going on, I can almost ignore the bad thoughts, although I do check my forehead in the mirror as I wash my face to made sure there's not a big, bright L engraved on it, because I certainly feel as if one had been placed there in my sleep.
I wonder how many other people go through this every day.
Right now quite a few of the bad thoughts and self-loathing have to do with Christmas. As in, I haven't even really started getting ready. My sweet yoga teacher is giving us weekly tips on how to de-stress during this holiday season when we're so busy and doing so much for others. Since I've not yet become busy and am certainly not doing anything for others, I feel incredibly guilty as we breathe and stretch and clear our minds. Of course, the day I can entirely clear my mind of guilt is the day Satan and Hitler are pelting each other with snowballs, but that's another story.
Anyway, I was thinking it would be a nice thing, a positive and possibly therapeutic thing for me if folks who stop by here would leave a little comment about the best Christmas present they ever got.
(Okay. I am totally stealing all the ideas but it's my blog and my idea and I do really want to know.)
I'll start off.
The best Christmas present I ever received was a used typewriter. I suppose this was back in the early sixties and the typewriter was one of those big, black heavy things that could crush a dwarf. I think it was an Underwood and my mother, who gave me this typewriter, had paid to have the machine (and it was most definitely a machine) refurbished and cleaned and it had one of those snazzy two-color tapes in it so that I could type in either red or black, which was pretty high-tech for those days. She also bought me a typing manual and I spent every spare moment I had for the next few months teaching myself to type with it.
fffffff, I would type.
Then hhhhhhh. My little fingers could barely depress those charm-like keys but I was diligent and did each lesson in its turn and you know what? I did eventually learn to type although I'm still a little shaky with the numbers. I guess I got burnt out by the time I reached that part of the book.
I don't know why my mother got me a typewriter and I don't know why I was so enchanted with it, but she did and I was and that was the beginning of something I'm still not over. These days I love my MacBook with all my heart. Maybe even as much as I loved that big, oily, iron writing machine, but the surprise of getting that typewriter was something I'll never forget. It was as if some magical force had urged my mother into buying me something I didn't know I wanted with all my heart.
Now. What's your story?
Give it to me, come on, I want it. I need it. This could be the very thing that brings a bit of Christmas cheer to this grinchy green old heart of mine.
I'm begging you. Tell me what made you happy. And when I wake up in the mornings, I'll think about those things instead of checking my forehead for the Loser Brand and we'll all be better off.
One note- if your story sounds something like But the best Christmas present I ever got was the feeling I had after we gave all our money and food to the homeless man who lived under the bridge, it's not going to make me feel any better.
But if that's your story, tell it if you must.
Thanks! And oh yeah, Merry....
You know.

The Dowager Diaries

Just when you realize how really cute you are, you're not.
This has been my experience, anyway.
I never really thought of myself as an exceptionally good-lookin' gal, but when I happen across old photos, I realize I wasn't hideous by any means. All my life I've been worried about my weight, unhappy with my nose, resigned to being that girl with glasses, too short, too short-waisted, not to mention not really having a waist, and so forth.
I have, though, always liked my legs.
When I hit my forties I really started working on things more seriously. And when I say working, I don't mean anything having to do with getting work done which is our modern euphemism for having our bodies and faces surgically altered in order to turn back the hands of time, or to be more realistic, the ravages of time, gravity, childbearing and God-given, self-perceived shortcomings.
No. I haven't gone that route for several reasons, some of them being expense, my neurotic fear of all things medical, and the realistic realization that no matter what you do, things are going to catch up with you. Get your face lifted and your butt's gonna fall. Get your butt lifted and your breasts look like something from the National Geographic Magazine. Get your breasts enhanced and lifted and you're still going to have that weird thing happening to your legs and arms where the bone and flesh seem to separate into two different entities and if you can do something about that, I don't know what it is so just give me some more bracelets and a pair of black tights. Okay?
I'm just pretty sure that this quest for a surgical solution to aging would never end.
So no, no surgery for me, thank you.
Instead, I have chosen to go with the old tried-and-trues: exercise, a good diet, etc.
And honestly, I think that I was better looking in my forties than I'd ever been in my life and despite a certain amount of face-crumpling, I was happy with the way I looked. I was even carded upon buying alcohol a few times into my forties and boy, did I feel like maybe I'd found the fountain of youth.
Well, I may have found it, but I have since lost my way.
Since entering my fifties, things are happening here that no amount of exercise or diet-watching are going to have much effect on. Seriously. Approximately overnight I went from being carded to being asked if I qualified for the senior citizen's discount and I have to tell you that when I do reach the age of the senior citizen's discount, it better amount to about 75 percent off to make the way I feel when I'm asked if I qualify worth it.
Now I'm not certainly not against the concept of aging and I'm not against the concept of aging gracefully, either, but I'm struggling with both of those things on a personal level.
Last night the husband and I went to one of those work-place Christmas office parties which was sort of a dreadful prospect to me on about fifty different levels, but getting ready for it was just a nightmare. I swear, not three months ago I could still muster up some belief in myself as a not-bad looking woman of a certain age who, despite that age, could and did look not so bad. But everything I put on last night either made me look like a fool or an aging dowager, although I am not completely certain what a dowager is, it was the word that kept coming to my mind.
A friend called and asked what I was doing and I said, "Trying to pick out a costume," which confused him because Halloween is long over. I tried to explain about the office party and said, "I feel like I'm trying to dress in drag," which was true, but still a little confusing.
I finally settled on a black dress with a black lace thing over it and I put my hair up and put on some make-up and I did, in fact, end up looking like a dowager. An aging, widowed dowager, perhaps. The red earrings didn't change a thing, but I put them on and said "To hell with it, like Popeye I am what I am," and slammed a rum and coke and went out the door.
Now the funny thing is, I've taped some pictures to my bathroom wall of some older women who sincerely look like they are not only completely happy with who they are, but also women who are absolutely beautiful and...dare I say this? sexy. They have gray hair but their eyes sparkle and they look like someone you'd want to talk with at a party. Someone you might want to flirt with at a party. Women whose lives are definitely not over in any way.
There are also four tiny pictures of Bill Murray in all his age-ravaged beauty, too, but I'm not here to discuss what happens to men when they age (and it's not fair!).
I put those pictures up to remind me that aging isn't necessarily all about becoming ugly or invisible or unimportant in any way. These women are not models. One of them is an artist and one a designer and although the pictures may be misleading, it would appear that they're having the times of their lives and are not afraid of sparkly eyeshadow.
Sometimes I am inspired by these pictures and feel completely okay about where I am in my life and in my looks. Sometimes, like last night, I am not.
But that's okay. I am quite certain that if I manage to live another twenty years, I'll look back at pictures of myself at the age I am now and think, "Good God, but what a beauty I was!" and I'll regret that I spent one moment doubting that.
That's the theory, anyway.