Happy Birthday, Joan!

 There are some days we remember for no apparent reason. It could be a random encounter with someone where nothing very important happened but it sticks in our mind for some reason, such as the day I was standing in the ketchup aisle at the supermarket and a man I didn’t know engaged me in a conversation about meatloaf recipes and a dinner party he was hosting. It has no significance to me yet I remember it anyway. There is the day my daughter and I were shopping at a department store and I was mistaken for someone named Dot. There we were, looking at the costume jewelry display when a random woman said to me, “I thought you were my friend Dot, but she uses a cane and you don’t so you’re not her.” Then she walked away. We still laugh about that. Then there are days that had some significance at some point in our lives that we still remember long after they mean something to us. Like June 3rd, my childhood friend Joan’s birthday.

Joan and I met in the first grade and to be honest, I was a little afraid of her. She was a tomboy, loud, direct, and bold. She’d just ask you a question if she wanted to know something about you and you answered if for no other reason than you wanted her to move on to someone else. I was more timid, less sure of myself and I felt intimidated yet I liked her. She lived within walking distance, maybe 1/2 mile away if you cut through the school fields. We lived in an old cottage type house and she lived in a split level ranch in “the development” as we referred to those houses. That whole neighborhood and the elementary school used to be farmland. When I was very young my 2 older brothers and I used to walk across the street and watch the cows in the fields. I don’t actually remember that but was told by my mother. I was perhaps 4 when the school was built, and the houses as well I imagine. Joan and I remained good friends through graduation from high school.  We played together in elementary school, and in our tween years in middle school, when I was being bullied, she was supportive and protective of me to the point of fighting in my place when bullies ganged up on me, telling me to go home with 2 of our other friend group while she took care of things. For my 14th birthday she somehow talked my parents into letting her give me a puppy, which was my heart’s desire.  In high school we remained friends and added some new friends to our circle, one of whom, Cathy, I am still close to today even though physical distance separates us. Hanging out at Joan’s house listening to music and talking about life and goofing around took the place of sleepovers and late night tv movies once we were in our mid to late teens. Boyfriends and proms were all experiences we shared, culminating in graduation. Somehow after graduation we lost touch, and briefly communicated when email first became a thing nearly everyone did. We even had a reunion of our little trio, Joan and Cathy and me for an afternoon at my house. That was about 35 years ago, and we haven’t been in touch with Joan since. People do come and go throughout our lives, it’s just how it is. No animosity, fond memories, but we grow apart, our lives take different paths.

I don’t know why I always remember Joan’s birthday but I do. Every year I wish her a happy birthday. So, Happy Birthday Joan! Wherever you are.

Mothers Day 2025

 

I hear her in the birdsong

And the rustling of the leaves,

The tinkling of a windchime,

In the whispering of a breeze.

 

I see her in the flowers

Yellow faces in the sun,

Red petals of the tulips

That grow gracefully one by one.

 

I smell her in the perfume

Of a balmy summer day

In the scent of fresh washed laundry,

In fresh-baked bread always.

 

I feel her in the stitches

Of the mittens she once knit

With the warmth of loving fingers

In each and every stitch.

 

She is around me always,

(We can’t truly be apart),

Though she now resides in Heaven

She’s in my mind and in my heart.  

My first Mother’s Day as a new mother was in 1990, just about 6 weeks before my first baby’s first birthday.  I don’t really remember much about it, I’m sure we celebrated it with my mother and the rest of the family, my 3 brothers and my younger brother’s wife who is and has always been more like a sister to me as they became a couple in their early teen years while I was in my very late teens. At any rate, we would have all gathered at either my parents’  or brother’s house, bringing flowers to honor Mom and probably a potluck meal as we were not a family that went out for dinner much.  As we all aged and had more children we still gathered with Mom at the center of Mother’s Day although we rotated houses between me and my younger brother. I hope Mom felt the love we all held (and still hold) for her as we talked and laughed about nothing and everything as was, and still is, our custom when we gather together, although Mom has been gone for 20 years now. Things did change after she left us in that we no longer all get together on Mother’s Day but celebrate with our own children. Last year was difficult because it was the first year without our youngest, Hillary, and my husband and I started the day by going to church, then to the cemetery where she rests, then home to relax until our remaining daughter and her fiancée came over.  While the men went outside to plant some flowers for me, my daughter and I made door wreaths together, and we had a wonderful time. We went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant of my choice and to be honest, it wasn’t very good.  The service was slow and the food not the way it was described on the menu.  We came home and had some delicious ice cream, so the meal wasn’t a total loss.  We haven’t gone back to the restaurant since. This year will be different, as we are looking forward to the birth of our first grandchild in June.  It will be a much happier day and next year there will be 2 mothers to celebrate—me and my daughter. In my daughter’s face I see the echoes of the line of mothers she comes from, and I will see those same echoes in her child’s face because we carry a bit of every one of our ancestors, whether it’s the shape of our nose, our talent in music, or our love of gardening. When I look at myself I see my mother’s cheeks, and I have the love of writing my maternal grandmother had. My daughter has the musical talent my mother had, and the stubbornness that I exhibit from time to time.  I wonder what echoes her daughter will have, and look forward to finding out, one Mother’s Day celebration at a time.

              My daughter and me last year with the door wreaths we crafted together on Mother’s Day.

                 Me and my daughters many years ago on vacation in Alexandria Bay, New York.

                 Me and my daughter at her baby shower. My baby is having a baby!

 

Synchronicity

 

Note: This picture and poem don’t really have anything to do with synchronicity. Also, I struggled with this subject and am not sure I “got” it but thought I would share it anyway.

            What is synchronicity? I have heard the word, but never really thought about its meaning, or if it was much of a factor in my life until it was a subject suggested by a friend in a writers group. I looked it up numerous times, discussed it with friends and spent lots of time considering where it fit in my life.

            I first thought of synchronicity as it might be seen around me. The way a flock of birds rise as one from treetops forming a black swirling cloud headed first one way then suddenly turning in unison to soar in another direction in perfect synchronicity. Next I thought about dancers, like the Rockettes all kicking as one in a dance routine. Then I considered a less formal way to see synchronicity in daily life. Driving down the highway for any distance you might notice that there are other drivers taking part in an impromptu ballet of passing each other, falling back, then passing each other again, changing positions for miles all heading in the same direction and sometimes stuck in a traffic jam together. Many times this happens for commuters who each leave their home at the same time every day to form a kind of team of strangers all headed in the same direction.  You might even count on these teammates to let you know by their presence that you’re running right on schedule.

            Finally I considered where I could identify synchronicity in a more personal way.  Sometimes it is the sale on an item I need to purchase which saves me money, such as soap or coffee. There’s the synchronous way holiday meals come together as well as the ensuing clean up, my sister-in-law, daughter and niece each moving in harmony to make things nice for all.  By far my favorite bit of synchronicity is when I am thinking about a friend I haven’t spoken to in a while and later that day she contacts me. It is as if we are somehow on the same wavelength.

            Synchronicity is all around us, and one of life’s wonders. I never really thought much about it, but now I look for it. Somehow I am reassured to realize that we are all connected in some harmonious way.

For Love

 Here we are already in February, the month when we celebrate love, and time is flying by because life is full of things to do, places to go and people to see. It is mind boggling when I take a moment to reflect and look at the year just past with the perspective that the passage of time allows. We have been without our sweet princess for a little over a year now. We still miss her every single day. When I think about everything we did to make sure she had as good a life as possible I don’t know how we did it sometimes. There were hard things to do, everything from running from doctor to doctor, fighting with insurance to get the things she needed to remain healthy and participate as fully as possible in life to figuring out what she was trying to tell us in her non verbal unique way. There were also wonderful things, like seeing her joy at bubbles floating by outside on a sunny summer day, her happiness at watching her favorite cartoon and how she enjoyed being at a party surrounded by friends. I wonder sometimes how we did it, but the answer that comes to me that we did it all for love. She was loved in this world. When there is great love there is great determination to make things joyful and as comfortable as possible for those important to us. Love is a great motivator, it can spur us to work through difficult things, compromise, and push through obstacles once thought to be insurmountable; in the end we can look back and see that we not only survived, we thrived. We did it all for love.