Category: Life

Life

To Stay or Not Stay on the Trail

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I’m housesitting for my daughter while she and her new husband are off on their honeymoon. Their home is surrounded by trees, and somewhere back on the property there’s a small cemetery where loved ones were laid to rest in 1800s. The realtor had to disclose that when they purchased the house, but I think it only added to the charm.

I thought about wandering back to find it this afternoon. The cool rainy morning gave way to a breezy pleasant almost-summer day. I knew it would be damp back there, but that’s not what kept me from walking into the woods. It’s poison ivy. I know that’s back there, too. And I know don’t really know the trails.

Where are the trails? Where’s the poison ivy?

Instead, this morning, I tried to drive to the mall. I got part way and the police were detouring cars off the main route. SIRI didn’t like that. Frankly, I didn’t like it either. Especially when the detour signs just stopped and I was heading north instead of south. I figure the last detour sign that was supposed to get me back to the route had either blown away or been swiped by some smart aleck. Either way, it was more trial than trail, so I changed my plans.

I went back to the house and my daughter happened to call. All the way from Iceland. She and her husband had gone for a hike up a volcano.

“I’m so glad we had a guide to take us up the volcano. At one point, he pointed to a trail and said that’s where most tourists go, but it doesn’t take them to the lava fields,” she told me. She had sent me pictures from the hike.

Then she said, “It was so cool walking on the lava field. Our guide also knew when we needed to turn back because of the gases.”

On the volcano

Yes, I was glad, too, that she had a guide who took them off the trail but still kept them safe.

Life is so like that, isn’t it? We need to find that balance between blazing new trails and following old ones.

Sometimes, it’s important to have a guide.

It’s also helpful to be able to identify poison ivy — or poison gases.

This post is in response to Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt trail/trial.

family · Life

Children: the Gift I Didn’t Know I Needed

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This weekend I was getting some things ready for a bridal shower for my oldest daughter and came across a notebook in which I had written this quote: “This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be.” ~~ William Willimon

I looked up the source of the quote and read through the whole article which you can find here: From a God We Hardly Knew. In short, it is a Christmas message about Isaiah 9:6 — “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” — in which Willimon makes the point that Ahaz, in the original context, was looking for an army and instead God promised a child.

A bridal shower and Mother’s Day seem appropriate days for me to think about my children. I heard from all eight this weekend. Plus all three daughters-in-law. I am rich indeed.

And I never could have imagined this.

Ever.

There was a point in time when I had been told that I wouldn’t have children without using fertility drugs.

Okay, I thought, a family is not in my future.

One of my favorite professors in college had encouraged me more than once to pursue medical school. “I don’t usually do this,” she had said. “I’m usually trying to dissuade students who think they want to be doctors.”

But I got married two weeks after graduating college. I supported my husband while he finished his schooling and began his first job. Once he was settled in, I began thinking about medical school and figuring out which classes I still needed — Calculus and Organic Chemistry. I contacted the nearest university to find out how to enroll.

Then I found out I was pregnant.

When you’re in high school, the guidance counselor never suggests motherhood as a career track. When you’re in college, the career office doesn’t suggest it either. Honestly, it wasn’t even a blip on my life radar.

Yet here I am today to tell you that being a mother — a full-time stay-at-home mother, who decorated funny-looking birthday cakes and washed-dried-and-folded mountains of laundry, who read the same books over and over until I could “read” them with my eyes closed, who played road-sign spelling games to entertain on long road trips and refused to get an entertainment system in our minivan because I WAS the entertainment system, who shopped at yard sales and thrift stores and sorted through bags of hand-me-down clothing because living on one income isn’t easy — being a mother was, and IS, the absolute best thing in the whole world.

Children are the gift I didn’t know I needed.

In addition to all the dandelion bouquets and crayon artwork, I received from them the very best lessons in patience, kindness, forgiveness, generosity, understanding, perseverance, creativity, humor — and that list could go on and on.

There’s a part of me that feels like I need to apologize. I know that not everyone has this opportunity. Not everyone can have children. Not everyone can afford to stay home. Life happens in different ways to each of us.

But I’m not going to apologize. I’m simply going to be grateful.

From the bridal shower
family · Life

Who Knows?

Sally4 Comments

The other day someone called and asked, “Is it going to be busy in the bowling alley this afternoon?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I thought about making a snarky comment about my broken crystal ball.

I think it was the same day that some called and asked how far we were from Woodstock. “I suggest using Google maps for that,” I said.

That was the same caller who asked about what else there is to do in Cooperstown, NY, besides our sports center. “Most people come here for the Baseball Hall of Fame,” I told her.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” she replied.

How or where she got our number remains a mystery to me. Why someone would call a sports facility with questions like that also remain a mystery.

***************

“Where do you see yourself in ten years?” My friend who had asked me about my goals asked me that question yesterday.

Who knows? Literally, who freaking knows?

(Side note: my use of “freaking” indicates what a frustrating question that is, but that’s about as far as I go with “f”-words. Side-side note: I saw an story yesterday that the actor who plays Roy Kent on Ted Lasso had done a bit on Sesame Street about his favorite “f” word — which turned out to be “fairness.” Well done, Sesame Street.)

Where do I see myself in ten years? I started doing mental math on how old my children and grandchildren would be. Laurel, my youngest daughter, would be 28. Wilma, my youngest granddaughter, would be 12. My oldest grandson would be 17. My oldest son would be 47.

The more mental math I did, the more I realized how much I define myself by the people in my life.

So what about me? In ten years, I will be 72.

At the gym I see 72 year old women climbing the rock wall. Heck, I see a 92 year old woman who comes in nearly every day to swim and walk the track.

But if COVID has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that life is fragile and can’t be taken for granted. Health and life can be snatched away with little warning.

Where do I see myself in ten years? Phooey. I hate the question. It ranks right up there with “What’s your goal?”

As hokey as this saying is, I think it holds a lot of truth — “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

(This post is mostly Stream of Consciousness writing based on the Linda Hill’s prompt: nose/noes/knows for today.)

Life

Crying at Yoga

Sally4 Comments

“I’m terrible at yoga,” I told a friend a few years ago after I had tried some yoga. “I keep falling asleep in it.”

My friend had laughed. “I’d say you’re doing it right,” she said.

That was back in the day when my father was still alive and I was sleeping with one ear open in case he wandered in the middle of the night. It wasn’t much different from the perpetual tiredness of a young mother.

I tried yoga because I had heard it was good for de-stressing, but in yoga class, I would lay on the mat, close my eyes, and fall asleep.

I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the right way to do yoga.

In retrospect, however, I suppose it was de-stressing.

I also suppose that’s why I wanted to try it again. Life these days is pretty stressful. Suddenly my blood pressure, which has always run low, is in hypertension-land. Suddenly I can’t cry.

I take that back. I DID cry a few weeks ago. I was sitting, alone and upset about life, when my youngest daughter came in the room. I honestly don’t remember what was said or not said. All I know is that she came, sat on my lap, wrapped her arms around me and pulled my head to her chest. I sobbed and sobbed, with my little girl holding me. (Okay — she’s not so little — 18 years old and 3 or 4 inches taller than me.)

It was all wrong.

I’m the mom. She’s the kid trying to figure out life. But I’m a bit of a mess right now.

So, anyhow, I tried yoga again.

I asked an instructor that I enjoyed talking with at the front desk. I’ll call her Edna (because that’s her name). We chatted about this or that any number of times, one of them being a conversation about young people having old names. She’s young and vivacious. Whatever you picture an Edna to look like, she’s not it.

So I came up with the brilliant idea of having a private yoga session with Edna and inviting my daughters to join me. I talked to Edna about it and she was willing. I gave her my number so she could text me some dates.

Later that day, I got a text from an unknown number that began, “Hey, Beautiful – checking my calendar.” I almost deleted it, thinking it was sexy spam or something. A second message followed so I peeked at it and it was Edna. Yep, she calls me Beautiful. That’s how she is.

Yoga with Edna was fun. Three daughters and one daughter-in-law came for the private lesson and it was fun.

But I didn’t cry. Or fall asleep.

Edna gave me confidence, though, that I could try another class.

I went to Restorative Yoga this week. Katherine teaches that class. She’s quiet and gentle and soothing. The class was very meditative.

When she talked about going inside ourselves, I thought about the passage from Howard Thurman — “There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island…”

I pictured the sea.

I pictured the island.

I sat down on the beach of the island and stared at the sea.

I could feel the waves lapping at my toes, and the sand washing out from under them as the waves pulled back.

I started to cry.

In yoga class.

I can’t tell you why I cried, but it happened again the next time I took a class taught by Katherine.

I don’t think I’m doing yoga right.

I have a feeling, though, that Katherine might say that I am.

family · Grief · Life

Maggie

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Maggie would have loved the snow this morning.

Even in this, her 14th year, she would run out the door when she saw fresh snow, throw herself down into it, and roll on her back, like the snow was scratching some itch that she couldn’t otherwise reach. When she was on her feet again, she would shove her snout into the snow, bringing it up with a small white pile on her muzzle. She always liked to grab a few bites of snow on her way back in the house.

I’ve never seen another dog love snow like that. The joy of Maggie’s snow-love always brought a smile to my face.

This morning’s snow is pretty — but there’s no Maggie to revel in it. No Maggie to bound through the depths of the drifts. No Maggie to chase the snow thrown from the shovel as we clear the driveway. No Maggie to leave that odd dog-snow-angel print just off the deck.

Maggie had been my birthday gift 14 years ago. I had long wanted for a dog, but my husband was resistant to adding a furry member to our family. In 2008, I received a leash, a collar, a dog dish for my birthday — and I looked up at him and said, “What’s all this?”

“You can get a dog,” he said.

And thus Maggie was adopted into our family.

On my birthday this year, we had to put Maggie down.

I still haven’t even been able to cry about it — life is too full. If you’ve ever been in that place of not being able to cry, you’ll know the giant lump of ice resting in your chest that can only be melted by tears — and the tears won’t cooperate.

I looked at the snow morning and missed Maggie intensely.

Now she’s a real dog-snow-angel and I hope someone somewhere is throwing snowballs for her to chase.

Rest in peace, Maggie.

friendship · Life

On Seeing

Sally1 Comment

Dear Kim,

So much for writing every day for a month. See how I am? My last draft was January 21 and I called it “Catching Up.” I planned to cram all the missed prompts into one post. Meanwhile, prompts kept piling up like unopened mail. Sigh. I gave up.

It’s February — a new month. Time to try again, eh?

My morning reading is from five separate books. Does it ever happen to you that disparate readings coalesce into one concept? Yeah, well, that happened to me this morning.

I started a little project last year of writing down all the questions Jesus asked in the gospels. Then I moved on to the questions that people asked Jesus. Now I’m writing down all the questions — and who asked them — and what the reply was. Every morning, I write one question and the reply.

Today Nathanael asked Jesus, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered “I saw you under the fig tree.”

How do you know me?

I saw you.

Ponder that for a while.

I moved on to Brian Doyle. In a “proem” (which is what he called his combination of prose and poetry) titled The Shrew, he describes an encounter with — you guessed it — a shrew. He ends with these words:

For just an instant I paid attention with every shard and iota of my being.
Maybe we couldn’t survive if we were like all the time, I don’t know,
But when it happens we see that which none of us can find the words for.
Sometimes we are starving to see every bit of what is right in front of us.

Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song

I think we are starving to see.

And to be seen.

I had an unnerving conversation at work several weeks ago. Someone said something to me that both thrilled me and bothered me. I talked to Rachel, my therapist, about it. “You were seen,” she said — and she was a hundred percent right. I’m not used to being seen. For a brief moment someone saw behind my facades, and I’ll admit that it was slightly terrifying.

Perhaps that’s what Nathanael felt. Thrilled and terrified. How do you know me? I saw you.

I can remember the first time I saw you at Church of the Redeemer. You were instantly someone I wanted to know. Why is that? Perhaps, I had a sense of our commonalities. I don’t know.

To see and to be seen. That’s what’s swirling in my thoughts today.

On a different note, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well again. I wish more people knew about the long-term effects of COVID. I wish more people understood that fighting a pandemic is a team sport, not an individual one. It’s like a massive round of Tug of War. The stakes are high. We need everyone to join in pulling on the rope.

You’re in my thoughts today.

Love,

Sally

My messy little reading space
Blogging Challenge · Life

Protocol

Sally1 Comment

or, Wilma’s Rules for Facing Life

Dear Kim,

It’s been a rough few days and I haven’t written. Again.

Last Thursday’s prompt was protocol. A protocol is a list of rules to be followed in specific formal situations. My life these days is anything but formal.

One evening, when I was at a low point, Mary sent me this video of my granddaughter. Wilma has a good protocol for facing challenges.

I wish you could hear her little voice. She’s so cute. But here’s what she is saying during the video and what her words represent to me:

“Don’t fall.”

Rule #1 Be aware of the risks.

Life isn’t easy — and sometimes we expect to be.

It’s dangerous. We COULD fall — but that shouldn’t stop us from moving ahead.

“Good job.
Good job.
Good job.
Good job.”

Rule #2 Offer words of affirmation to yourself and others.

Wilma repeats “Good job” four times. Words of affirmation are so important and often in short supply.

Mary told me about when she worked as a supervisor at one of her jobs. This involved training new employees. “I would go around and tell them they were doing a great job all the time. It probably sounded stupid,” she said.

“No,” I told her. “It probably was really nice for them to hear those words. Not everyone takes the time to say that.”

My granddaughter tells herself that — probably because she DOES hear it from her parents.

“Okay, baby.
Go down slide.”

Rule #3 Take your time.

It’s important to acknowledge how far we’ve come.

Then, we sometimes need to change gears.

We need to scooch around to get situated for the next thing. We need to take a few seconds instead of rushing headlong.

“Go down slide, Daddy.”
(Yep)
“Okay.”

Rule #4 Remember that you’ve got people that love you and are ready to help.

Between you and me, I’m lousy at this step. I hate feeling needy and insecure. I hate asking for help or support. Why is that? Why do we lose that ability to reach FOR help? I think I’m pretty good at offering help, just not so good at asking for myself.

Wilma: “Wheeeeeeee!”

Rule #5 Enjoy the moment.

In the midst of chaos, happy moments seem impossible. But in the midst of last week’s chaos, I had a group hug that made me laugh and cry and cry some more — in a good way. That moment will stick with me for a long time.

Next week will be better, right? I hope you’ve had a good week.

Love,

Sally

Blogging Challenge · Life

3 C’s: Clutter, Cosmopolitan, and Chocolate

Sally5 Comments

January 12, 2022

Dear Kim,

Today is One-Liner Wednesday and the prompt is clutter.

I find great comfort in clutter.

Love,

Sally

My cluttered desk in Greene (2011) The clutter has moved with me to Cooperstown.

January 11, 2022

Dear Kim,

I had to look up the definition of the word cosmopolitan today. It’s the word prompt for the day, and cosmopolitan is one of those words that people use — quite honestly, I don’t think I ever have — but I’m not 100% sure of the meaning.

For the record, dictionary.com says that cosmopolitan means “free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; at home all over the world.” It wasn’t quite what I expected.

Also for the record, I think I am NOT cosmopolitan. I’m quite provincial (dictionary.com definition: “belonging or peculiar to some particular province; local”). I have such deep roots here in upstate New York that I think if someone tried to uproot me, I would shrivel up and die.

That’s about all I’ve got for you today.

Love,

Sally

January 10, 2022

Dear Kim,

I looked up the benefits of chocolate today.

According to wizardingworld.com, “Chocolate is the perfect antidote for anyone who has been overcome in the presence of Dementors, which suck hope and happiness out of their surroundings.”

Please send chocolate.

Love,

Sally

p.s. You don’t really have to send chocolate. In fact, please don’t. I want to be a reasonable size for Helen’s wedding.

And dementors aren’t real.

But there are plenty of real things which suck hope and happiness out of their surroundings.

Blogging Challenge · Life

Tempest

Sally3 Comments

Dear Kim,

Speaking of Brian Doyle (again), have you ever read any of his work? He’s from Oregon! Maybe you were the one who sent me the copy of A Book of Uncommon Prayer that I found when I was cleaning our family room in preparation for Christmas. I’m pretty sure someone sent it to me but I can’t remember who. Was it you?

Today’s prompt is tempest.

I’m reading Brian Doyle’s book, The Plover, and it is SO GOOD. I’m only about a third of the way through, but, one scene early on has the main character in the midst of a terrible storm trying to shout survival strategies to a friend on his boat.

We can’t run away fast enough. The only thing to do is face into it. If we try to run we’ll get pitchpoled for sure. The chute holds us facing into it. If we go sideways we sink. If we get rolled we sink. This is a serious bitch and we basically have to endure it. The boat will float if we stay facing the storm.

Brian Doyle, The Plover

I love that — facing life’s storm instead of running. “The boat will float if we stay facing the storm.” Also, Sally will float if she stays facing the storm. Kim will float if she stays facing the storm.

All this tempest stuff is wearying. But there’s also a calm that follows — a time of drying out and making repairs, of deciding what’s salvageable and what isn’t, of rest, of looking ahead.

You might like The Plover, if you hadn’t read it yet.

You might also like A Book of Uncommon Prayer — which may be a kind of silly statement if you’re the person who gave it to me. In that case, it is an amazing book — so up my alley — thank you!

I hope this letter finds you in a calm. But if you’re in a storm, face into it. I’ll be doing the same.

Love,

Sally

Blogging Challenge · Faith · family · Life

Anticipation

Sally5 Comments

Dear Kim,

When I was trying to choose a word for 2022, I confess that anticipation didn’t make the list. It’s cousin, expectancy, did. (For the record, I ended up choosing aware and I’ll explain it another time.)

Anticipation (today’s prompt word) walks a little too closely with anxiety. To anticipate what’s coming next may feel thrilling, but it may also shift into dread.

I nixed expectancy for similar reasons. Expectancy sounded too much like expectation — and you and I both know that expectations from others can feel like a heavy thumb pressing down on us.

But, you know, I have been an expectant mother nine times over (if you count my one miscarriage) and that kind of expectancy is pretty wonderful. Each time, though, I remember in the early days holding the secret close and not telling anyone because I needed to get used to the idea of my life changing — again. I’ve loved being a mom. I truly have.

About that miscarriage, he or she would have been child #2. I hadn’t even told my husband about the positive pregnancy test. He was going away to a class and was going to be gone for a week or more. I wanted to think of a special way to break the news. I remember spending that short period of time whispering secrets to the little person inside me, with my hand on my abdomen, while I lay in bed at night alone. My first son was sleeping in the next room and he had already been such a joy.

Anyway, the night before Bud was to come home, I started bleeding. This was back before cell phones and I think he was already at the airport for his first flight. I had no way to reach him. I called my closest friend and she came to take care of my son while I went to the hospital.

I was alone when they did the ultrasound and then the laparoscopy. I was alone when they gave me the news — an ectopic pregnancy. Honestly, it was probably one of the loneliest times in my life.

But I had a son who needed me and a husband, home again, who had picked up a virus somewhere in his travels and wasn’t feeling well.

You know how we women do it. We get up and we start the next day and the next day and the next day. We make breakfast and do laundry. We change diapers and go to the grocery store. We press on — because what is the alternative?

I think back then was when I first chose to live in hope. Hope is also a cousin to anticipation and expectancy. They’re all good words. It’s that looking ahead that keeps me going.

Why does God allow us to go through awful things? I don’t know except that our experiences in the hard places build compassion and hope — and for that I am grateful.

Sorry for such a heavy letter.

Love,

Sally

the sign I painted and put on our barn