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.

Braving the Rain

 “It’s raining, I don’t want to go, “ I told my husband. He replied, somewhat absently, “I don’t blame you,” as he scrolled through something on his phone. I took another sip of my coffee and stared out the window at the pouring rain and reflected on how often I don’t want to go places lately, and especially in the rain. I go anyway as these are things I want to do, have agreed to do with friends and relatives, and I know I will be glad to be doing whatever it is which generally involves food or at least coffee. Between the coffee and reminding myself that I would enjoy myself I found the motivation to get myself ready and go on my way.

As I drove through the rain to the mall, which was the day’s destination, I reflected how my whole life I have gone out in the rain and survived, it was not detrimental in any way to my health and wellbeing.  When I was a young child I walked to and from school and friends’ houses in the rain. All I needed was a raincoat, umbrella and perhaps galoshes or rubber shoe covers; although in my teen years sneakers were enough because one must be “cool” in the teen years. As a young child my brothers and I donned our bathing suits and ran around outside splashing in puddles on rainy summer days. In high school I was in the marching band and we marched in parades and attended football games in the rain getting soaked, but we had a lot of fun and didn’t really care that it was raining. In college I trudged across campus in the rain to attend classes and visit friends in other dorms. All my adult life I drove to work, doctor appointments, and to see family and friends in the rain, although I came to dislike going out in the rain; but it didn’t stop me and I did it without a second thought donning raincoat and umbrella for protection. Now that I’m retired I avoid going out in the rain, I find it unpleasant. I used to enjoy the sound the rain made hitting the umbrella, I used to go out for a walk in the rain. I guess as we age we change a bit and no longer enjoy some of the things we used to. Such is life.

I had a nice time at the mall, we walked and talked a little and had a leisurely lunch. My companion forgave me for my rotten mood and by the time we parted ways I was feeling much better. It was misty as I drove home, but I’m glad I braved the weather that I have survived my whole life to enjoy some time with someone I love.

Oh Spirit

 Where is my Christmas spirit? I wish I knew! Buried, perhaps, somewhere under all of the other feelings I have from dealing with the upsetting and life altering events of this crazy year? Well, probably. Surely it is in there, waiting to be awakened. I’m hoping it is trying to push its way to the surface, to put the light of anticipation in my eyes and heart that are usually in evidence by now. Anticipation of the beautiful decorations I will place in my house. Anticipation of the treats and gifts I will share with the ones that I love and the fun we will have together. Anticipation of the beautiful cards I will receive and send, and of the church celebration of Christ’s birth. The lovely music, and telling of stories both old and new. I know that spirit lives in me, surely I would not have hung outside Christmas lights and hung greenery on my front door, and gone shopping for some Christmas gifts if the spirit were not there. I would not have put on a Christmas tee shirt and tacky Christmas tree earrings to attend a Christmas party if it were not awakening. No, if the spirit buried in me had died I would have done none of those things. It is there, it just needs some encouragement to rise and become stronger, putting the light of anticipation of joy in my eyes and in my heart.

Where Love Lives

 Since Valentine’s Day is upon us, I thought I would share a little story I wrote. It’s pure fiction, based on nobody in particular.  I wish you all to live in a house filled with love.

Where Love Lives

Sometimes you walk into a place and you just know love lives here. It’s an intangible thing, a sense of how things are, but nothing you can put your finger on. So it was inside the souvenir shop where I found my temporarily missing wife.

The bed and breakfast was located in a sleepy little town along an old state highway, left behind decades ago when the big interstate was built. We wanted someplace quiet to spend a week away from work and the New York City summer crowds, and we found it an hour away from home in of all places, New Jersey. There was a blues bar in the town center where we had danced the night before, along with a number of antique shops, post office, town hall, and a deli. Church bells rang every day at noon and six in the evening, old oak and maple trees lined the street and gave deep shade to the front of the inn. The Sleeping Swan boasted deep, comfortable furniture in the bedrooms and common room, and rocking chairs on the wrap around porch, as well as simple, delicious, home cooked meals. I had fallen asleep after a bountiful brunch and on awakening found that my wife left a note on the bedside table. “Gone shopping with Gayle” the note said. It took me a minute to remember who Gayle was, since we just met her and Raymond at breakfast that morning. Silence greeted me as I descended the stairs and passed through the parlor to the front door. A slight rhythmic creak alerted me to Raymond’s position in the last rocker at the other end of the porch. Nodding in recognition he continued his slow rocking as I perched on the edge of the chair one away from his.

“Our ladies are out spending our hard earned money,” he said with a wink, wiggling gray eyebrows over twinkling blue eyes. “I don’t know about Regina, but Gayle loves to hunt for treasures in these little towns we visit. She always seems to find the out of the way shops with handmade things that somehow we didn’t realize we need.” I didn’t answer, I was wondering how to politely get out of this conversation with the older man to search for Regina when he said, “If you want to go find your wife, they went up the street that way,” and pointed to the right toward the blues bar.

“What makes you think I want to go find her?” I asked.

“Son, I know the look of a man who feels lost when he wakes up and finds no wife where he expected to see one,” he answered and then put his head back and pulled his straw hat over his eyes.

I wondered at senior’s perceptiveness as I passed the bar and peeked into an antique shop which displayed tiffany style lamps and vases in its large picture window. How had he known what I was feeling, when I barely knew myself? It didn’t take long to glance in the four remaining shops on the street, and I stood indecisively in front of the post office before deciding to explore the rest of the town and headed down a side street. About halfway down the block I began to hear the tinkling of wind chimes along with a clicking sound. Following my ears I found a yard filled with wind chimes hanging from wrought iron shepherd’s hooks and a collection of colorful wooden whirligigs mounted on wooden

posts. A sign under the roadside mailbox read “Moving Air, handmade gifts”. Following the flagstone path, I was drawn to the craftsman style house and its red door. As I ducked through into the crowded space I took in a breath of the tantalizing scent of chocolate chip cookies, and saw Regina smiling at the clerk and paying for her purchase. As I stood there watching her, she turned her head and noticed me.

“Greg!” she exclaimed, “What are you doing here?” and forgetting her bag, rushed over to hug me. “Isn’t this place fabulous?” she asked, and proceeded to gush about all the wonderful things they had, and tell me how they were all hand made by the proprietors, a husband and wife named George and May. “Isn’t it great? George makes all the whirligigs and May makes the chimes, and the cookies. Here, have one, they’re on the house if you want to try one. I bought 2 dozen to take home with us tomorrow,” and she held one up to my lips. As I ate the cookie she introduced me to George and May who stood talking quietly to Gayle. There was something about the place, and the couple who owned it, a calmness, a sense of peace and the feeling that no matter what else happened in the world, everything would be all right. George and May stood side by side, without touching, yet seemed connected to each other in some cosmic way that most people aren’t. It was an oasis in a desert of negativity which the outside world had become. This was a house where love lived. Now we live in the love house. Ten years ago George and May sold the house to us when they decided to retire and move closer to their children. Raymond and Gayle passed away within days of each other a year ago right after their last visit to the Sleeping Swan where we met them every year since that first until we moved here to start a family. Our children knew them as Grandpa Ray and Grammy Gayle, and we will miss them. After all, if Gayle hadn’t befriended Regina that day and found the “Moving Air” shop, we wouldn’t have found the house where love lives.

Startled!

     I went to the supermarket today for just a few things (which by the way translates to 3 bags and over $100.00) and I was engrossed in my thoughts as I approached my car with the cart and remotely unlocked it and opened the trunk.  I found a box of wipes there that I forgot to take inside the other day, slid them aside and turned to put the bags in the trunk and just about had a heart attack because there stood a tall young man! He had a friendly face under a pea cap and sunglasses, he was wearing a reflective safety vest with the supermarket's logo on it over his winter coat and warm gloves and was reaching for my bags. I caught my breath, chuckled and said that he had scared me as I neither saw nor heard him coming. He apologized and put my bags in the car for me, then took the empty cart and continued collecting them from the parking lot as he pushed them toward the building.   I giggled to myself all the way home thinking about that and it got me remembering other times when someone has startled me.

    The first instance that comes to mind is when I was maybe 10 years old and my eldest brother stood outside the bathroom door and jumped out at me yelling "Boo!" as I exited.  I remember screaming and grabbing the front of his shirt and shaking him, ripping the buttons off. Growing up with 3 brothers was an experience.  When I worked at the high school kitchen (a job I was forced to leave and never go back to because of the pandemic in 2020 and circumstances at home) there was a young man working there as well and he liked to scare us in a similar matter to my brother.  I, however, warned him not to do it to me and related the story about my brother and the ripped buttons saying that if I could do that at such a young age, imagine how much more damage I could do to someone now.  I guess my warning worked because he never did try to scare me.

    Another time that comes to mind was when my daughter was in the hospital for surgery and we were lucky enough to be moved to a room with no roommate for a few days (at my request due to  a roommate with a loud mother).  It was very quiet, she was sleeping, it was after 8:00 pm and the lights were low.  I was reading a Dean Koontz novel and was at a part in the story where a crazed rhesus monkey was getting ready to jump onto the protagonist when a voice said, "hello".  My heart just about beat out of my chest as I jumped and almost screamed.  It was the hospital chaplain come to see how we were doing and if we needed anything he could help with.  We both had a good laugh for a minute.

    We've all probably been startled awake by a ringing phone, loud clap of thunder, or sudden wind gust blowing something against the house in the middle of the night. Some people startle more readily than others, or maybe some of us just hide it better.  Who's to say, but I do think it's something everyone can relate to.

Well I know Thanksgiving is over, but wanted to share this here.  I hope everyone had a nice day filled with good food, people you love, and thankfulness for what you have.

Purple and White Clover

 

            One recent day I was out walking Hillary up and down the driveway, just to do something besides sit in the house, as our van was in for repairs so we couldn’t go anywhere.  It was a hot day, this being July, and I noticed that we have a lot of white clover growing wild all over the yard.  It reminded me of those slower paced days when my first daughter was nearly a year old and our summer days were spent with the little kiddie pool in the grass where she played and discovered the world, as toddlers do.  I remember watching the honeybees in the bright sun flying from clover to clover, collecting pollen while small white and yellow butterflies floated from flower to flower drinking the nectar they contained.  It’s a lovely memory of easier, happy days when my whole world was right there in my view, no matter what else may have been happening in the world at large. That was a serene time of life.

               When I was a kid our yard had white clover growing in it, too, and I remember making little chains from it, braiding the stems together to make bracelets and garlands to wear like a crown.  My mother said that you can eat clover, but it’s better to have the larger purple kind as it’s easier to pull the petals off and taste the sweet nectar inside them.  She was right!  They used to grow along a dirt road by our house that we always referred to (and still do) as the new road.  That road connected our street with the next one up a hill and was blocked off by phone poles lying across both ends as it wasn’t open for vehicles until the town paved it many years later.  On the sides of that road grew not just the purple clover, but Queen Anne’s lace, black eyed Susan, daisies and corn flower along with other weeds I can’t name.  We’d walk along that short stretch of road with the sun hot on our backs; gravel crunching under our feet whenever we walked to the grocery store or the post office.  Picking the Queen Anne’s lace on our way home and then putting them in little glasses with colored water was one of the best things to do, and exciting to check on them periodically all afternoon while the white flowers lined up on the kitchen windowsill changed to the color in the glass. I’m glad I had a mother who taught me about flowers and growing things.  Our yard had flower beds and a small vegetable patch where we grew radishes, carrots, scallions and leaf lettuce. It’s a nice feeling to grow some of your own food, we spent time together weeding and caring for the flowers and vegetables.  One year we planted marigold seeds in a sunny spot and that year we had monarch butterflies by the dozens, drawn there by the heady yellow blooms.

               It’s amazing how just noticing what is right in front of me can evoke so many pleasant memories.  It’s a little like time travel going back in my mind to things I have forgotten about.  I think it makes for a little bit of serenity in what is a stressful time for all.

The months of this year just seem to be flying by.  Each month brings a new beginning.

         I have no trellis for the clematis, it's just growing among the pachysandra.  Things got a little out of control this year!