Sending out wishes for peace and love to all in the coming year.

To 2012

Wherefore Art Thou, Pollyanna?

It would be easy to say, in the words of a fb friend, "2011, don't let the door hit'ya on the way out."  After all, being told that a family member has a serious degenerative disorder that often manifests in difficult behaviors is one thing; finding a way to come to terms with it is quite another. Salvaging pieces of a former life, attributing meaning to those pieces and creating something new is exhausting. It is, as I have said before, a completely serendipitous, uncharted, off road adventure lacking even the structure of destination.
"What?" You say. "Serendipitous? Adventure? But that sounds so, so...positive. So fun."
One evening last week I found myself sitting in a restaurant in Hanover NH drinking porter and eating a burger, with a rice paper notebook and pen. That is what happens when waiting for a friend and wifi is unavailable. Paper. Pen. Pen to paper. And I thought about how rare it is that one gets to choose a life, a direction, and how fortunate I am to be able to do so.


(The ending two words added 9/21/2014, reading through posts, I wanted to finish this one, but no need to go beyond that.)

Postcard Christmas: A Prologue

Because I only chronicled three days, (in too excruciating detail, sorry) of my picturesque portrait of a VT Christmas I excluded the tree part. Ah, yes....choosing and cutting down a tree. How terribly postcard, non? Snow, sun, smiling faces, snow shoes, hot chocolate and biscotti in the woods. You get the idea. Lovely. Christmas in rural VT at its most glorious.

Sure.

No real snow. No snowshoes. No walking. 4 people and a chain saw, none of those people being me, head across an early winter field in an old, rusting, should-be-put-to-rest dark greed Subaru wagon; the VT state car, for those who didn't know. The car returns some time later (we have already become acquainted with me and time, haven't we?), tree falling off one side of the roof, not quite dragging on the ground, but almost, with one person in residence, thankfully the driver. It seems the other three bailed, leaving the driver with only the chainsaw as passenger. Loyal, those chainsaws. Why the abandonment of tree, driver, chainsaw and car? Did the annual argument over the tree get ugly? No, not that. That came later. The car caught on fire. Yep, on fire. Really. Smoking car, everyone jumped out saying they wouldn't ride in that "death trap." A bit of an overstatement, don't you think? Alarmists.

After all, when the driver looked under the car (why?) there were just a few flames shooting out. Few enough that he extinguished them by throwing snow from a small residual snow patch on the underside of the car and continued on, bearing the tree. Well, barely bearing. The 3 bailers arrived on foot about a half hour later, all unscathed, so where was the issue?

Epilogue: The car was deemed so okay that it was driven to a friend's house later that day, a task it performed without incident. Sadly, rounding a corner on the way back it failed, with neither drama nor flames. Fortunately a-friend-with-a-truck came by, attached a chain and pulled green subie home and deposited it in the #1 driveway spot where it remains. VT yard art.

Post epilogue: Diagnosis--out of gas.

Christmas: Plan vs Reality

Okay, so you'd think I'd have posted before this, right? But no, that didn't happen. Thinking about posting happened, but not posting. A case where it's the thought that counts doesn't really. C'est la vie, and c'est la time for my 2011 Xmas story.

Friday 12/23 am--"So, what do your next few days look like?" a non Christmas celebrating friend asks.
"Today, a few Christmas shopping things, then home to bake cookies. Pinwheels, pfefferneuse, snow balls, and rum balls. Make dinner for all 6 of us at my house, maybe wrap presents.....

Friday reality: Spent over an hour driving around touring hardware stores and heating and plumbing supply stores looking for a rope gasket for the wood furnace door. The old one was done. Done done,
and removed from the door without a replacement in house. After all, "How hard can it be to find a gasket?" The scene at one h & p place 2 days before Christmas--walk in, are met with the smell of cold cuts and mustard. The sources of the smell on a folding table, clearly already indulged in. Several people sitting around drinking beer and scratching lottery tickets. Staff party underway. "Hey, hi, do you have rope for a furnace door gasket?" We hold out the sample. Comments while scratching tickets--"Whoa, damn, that's big!" "I just won $25!" "What happened to the one you had?" "It's toast. Take a look." "Whoa, ain't never seen one that big. Try the hardware." 
Merry Christmas!
Onward.
Tiring of the tour, getting later and later, and running out of places we buy several too small rope gaskets. We will double or triple them.
Inexplicably, errands take over 2 more hours. The grocery store is packed. We go anyway, because I will not embarrass my family with a repeat of Thanksgiving, when we were shopping for Thanksgiving dinner at noon on Thanksgiving. Yeah. I am ahead of the proverbial curve this time.
Go home. Make and eat dinner. Done at 9. Sit down to read, think about watching a movie, close eyes for a short rest. Plenty of time for cookies tomorrow. 


.....And on Saturday I will go shopping for a few things, I always go shopping on Christmas eve, even if I don't buy anything. Then I'll go home, steam the geese for Christmas to get them started, make our dinner of hors d'oeuvresey kinds of things that we always have on Christmas eve, wrap presents and hang out. That's about it.....

Christmas eve reality: Wake up at 9:30. Drink coffee. Feed animals. More coffee. Leave to go shopping. Buy maple sugar candy. Look at things. Walk around. Talk to a few people. Go home. Now 2 pm. Take shower. Go to friend's house for tea and fab carrot cake. Back home. Somehow making dinner, eating dinner, cleaning kitchen, feeding animals (again) all takes until about 10. Sit down to read, think about watching a movie, close eyes for a short rest. Hear someone ask when I am making cookies. "Later, I'm taking a short rest." 
Voice: "Didn't see that coming."
Wake up at 1:30 am. Time to make cookies! Bake 10 dozen (I counted)--pinwheels and pfefferneuse. Think it's got to be about 4, I'll read a little and then sleep. Check watch. Ooops. It is 6. Still dark, fortunately. Skip reading. Dog and I go to sleep.


...Then on Christmas we get up, have breakfast, eggs, sausage--the organic no corn really great maple ones--bagels and lox. Open presents. Then I'll make the dinner. Stuff and roast the geese I steamed on Sat., maybe make a pie. We'll see about that. Christmas dinner. And that, in short, is pretty much it."

Christmas reality: Wake up at 9:30, well, maybe 10. Drink coffee. Drink another cup of coffee. People are eating cookies. Get dressed. Start cooking sausages and eggs, people set the table, get bagels, lox, cream cheese, more coffee. Eat breakfast. Now about noon. Open presents. Now about 2. Call some people. Get geese. No rack for the roasting pan. Sons get bolt cutters and modify a cookie cooling rack for its new purpose in life as a roasting rack. Now around 3, 3:30. Season geese, cover and start steaming. Start making stuffing. Time passes. Everyone is playing Agricola. I jump in sporadically. Geese are steaming, wild rice is cooking. "What time are we looking at for dinner?" "A couple hours," (it is now about 6) "maybe 8/ 8:30." Bets are taken. Estimates cluster around 9, youngest child (19) bets 9:30 and goes to a friend's house "for a while" at 8. Rum balls--gone child's favorite cookies--get underway, geese now stuffed and roasting. Child returns to set table, steamed brussles sprouts, cooked sweet potatoes (that we forgot at Thanksgiving), cooked geese, wine ready to be poured. 9:30. He wins the wager. Christmas dinner, good conversation and comfortable family companionship. Done at 11. Geese were great. Dinner enjoyed by all, even dogs who got got goose bit treats. 


Snippet of dinner conversation: "So, were you surprised the cookies were done this morning? Did you think I would just sleep?"

"No. We knew we'd have cookies, that you'd wake up and stay up all night to bake them. Why wouldn't you?"

Now that is faith. Or Santa. Maybe those are one and the same. In any case, may Santa and faith be with you through all your nights and days, those that are clear and cold, bright and warm, grey and bleak, and those of subliming snow and freezing fog. All are miraculous. 


In short, Merry Christmas to all, both those who celebrate it and those who don't.

Fall? For Real? You sure?

No. I am not so sure. Last night a freeze. I suppose it did happen, since it was predicted and it is pretty cold, but I brought all of the plants that would freeze in. I hope they will be able to return outside in a couple days. Surely it will get warm again. Even if just for a little while.

Actually, not all of the plants came in. It seems that my rose geranium is missing. Yes, that's right missing. It was on the porch and now it is not. I realized this last night while I was bringing in the plants and noticed it was not among them. How weird. Where does a plant go? Who would take a plant? That idea is too much for me to consider a possibility. Strange, though.

Images 9/1

September. And I want the summer back.
a dinghy: blue & white. Once loved, once contentedly tied to its place on the shore. Cast out & drifting alone on a lake. A still lake. Mirroring darkness, light, sky and trees  & stars at night (probably), or perhaps the stars live deep in the lake and the sky reflects the stars. It doesn't matter.
A lake where loons call, dragon flies--iridescent blue--dart across the water. A lake where we kayaked out to the loons. They called and lifted their wings. We stopped, drifting, holding each other's paddles. Talked. And it was easy. The loons dove deep and long, resurfacing in unpredictable places.
The dinghy blue and white,  paint just a little scratched, its cut rope shredding, fingers spreading across the lake's surface.
A dinghy: shot full of holes.

And so....

...picture this, feel this: Push toes against the bottom of the pool, feel light blue chipped painted concrete beneath them, rough and worn and warm and familiar. Feel the edges of the toes, the final translucent layer of skin leave that comfort. Now--engulfed in streams of bubbles softly popping with a whisper along thighs between toes, and off of their tips. And then. And then droplets running over the face foreheadcheekboneschin, Awakening. Cool air pushes head neck shoulders and falls sheeted against the water's surface the sun--jagged planes--blinds. An assault along with the slap-cool of the air and sting of a multitude of needles of sound: marco. polo. marco hey. don't push. no dunking. screams. shouts. briefly opaqued by the softness of splashing. An assault. & the wish to close eyes against the sun shards, lean back against the surface tension break it and let go the air in a thin stream of bubbles and float down open eyes now sun breaking and unbreaking into mercurial forms the world smaller and smaller, muffled, back against the concrete now, the last of the lifeline of air lazily dancing upward as if it doesn't matter if it is broken. it is safe here for now, but the surface of the water and the air beyond defy gravity and pull at arms and legs and lungs and once again the return to the havoc.

And so it is sometimes with life, the distance between safety and comfort infinitely thin; a plane, 2-dimensional, and yet so distinct.One is clearly not the other, although they share this--one can survive in neither, and so the trick is to quiet the air, smooth the sun-shards, round out the edges of the sound, and then there is little need for escape, and no need to consider, even fleetingly, letting go the lifeline.

Christmas

Is there anything more prone to salvage than rememberances of events gone by? More symbolically salvageable than Christmas ornaments?

Once something is realized as "the last" so often the last is already gone. Had, done, passing without notice. And so, I think of this Christmas as the last, but really, it was the first, the last being the Christmas before--2009. And to silently commemorate the first-ness of this year the children cut down the tree in our woods. Usually we go to a tree farm and get one there. Strangely, last year, as Tom was tying the tree to the top of the car, the thought: "I will never see him do this again," flashed through my mind. At the time I simultaneously took a couple of pictures and shook my head as if to throw that thought off; toss it back into the snow and trees where it could be forgotten.

But forgotten that moment was not. It came, a haunt in the day and the night, sneaking into my thoughts like a wisp of mist between firs.

Kite (draft--may be edited later)

in a tree a kite. wind pulled and wind ripped, shreds and shards breaking, diminishing the overall. the (once) entirety of it.

For here is a kite, long ago made by hand, tissue paper colours chosen for their liveliness and compatibility, for their exclamation of joy! which the kite enlivened as it bounced and twirled and soared high, until  laughing, it returned to earth,  to loving hands and loving hearts. Hand made. Yes. Each frame-piece measured and cut with care, tied together in a perfect diamond. archetypal. And then the tissue, once picked out, cut and smoothed over the frame with fingertip gentle care, so it would not tear,then pasted. flour and water.

kite
string attached, reeled out, sent forth:  at first bouncing low, reaching toward currents and eddies, falling, reaching, falling reaching and then with a shout, pulling up into the blue against the blue and the clouds and the gentle chimes of the trees and the laughter of people below. And it was loved, that kite, and it loved in return, soaring--a smudge of bright in the air. the invisible air.

then.
a downdraft
the tree.
snared.
shredding.
rain and wind and time pull at the kite, crumpled, discarded, left to dissolve, disappearing fiber by fiber scrap by scrap, shard by shard until it will cease--surely and entirely--to exist;
until its very existence is forgotten altogether
& the sky closes up around the space it occupied.
seamless blue.

Rapt or Unwrapped?

awaiting ascension

Rapture update: 

For >1/2 the world the beam is a bust.

What is the opposite of enraptured? Unraptured? Unwraptured? Whatever, terminology needs to be decided on because it seems the end of the world is a bust, for much of the world anyway.

Or perhaps not. Nicholas Kristof, http://twitter.com/#!/nickkristof tweeted from Calcutta that he didn't get breakfast because the hotel staff had all been beamed up. Huh. They must have had some amazing karma because he posted about 9 hours ahead of schedule! That is impressive. And the Family Radio web site is unreachable, sooooo.....stay tuned (evidently not to Family Radio, though).

Maybe there are more ascensions than we know. After all, Camping said 200 million "believers" would be raptured. Out of about 6.92 billion that means, what? 2/70 or 1/35 have ascension potential. Some may be kicked back as they start heavenward, but we'll not bother to estimate that number and stay with the 1/35. That sounds like a lot, but if you take into account that Camping's believers are probably not randomly distributed across the population many of us probably know no one who has beaming potential. In fact, these people may just all know one another, so there will be no one to notice that they are gone, except for the guests in that Calcutta hotel.

There is another problem, of course, one that received much less media attention, but is critical to this issue. Stephen Hawking says that heaven is "a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." "Hawking on Heaven's Door," Times of India So, if he is right then Camping's prediction is fatally flawed. No heaven, nowhere to ascend to. Grounded.

And a final note (not final final for me, perpetually & decidedly unwraptured), as we await 6 pm on the east coast, advice given to a friend when she told someone she was headed skyward, "your halo is around your ankles, so don't trip!"

Photo credit:
Halos and tiaras