I read, journalled, exercised, and played my new Irish flute today.
I’ll hit “Publish” here, then read a short story.
A good start, yes?
Category: Life
Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp
Strawberry-rhubarb crisp for breakfast.
I can easily rationalize it. There’s oatmeal in the topping, fruit (strawberries) as a mainstay, and rhubarb — whatever food category that fits into — in there too. Surely it’s healthy, right?
The truth is my appetite has been off. My whole everything has been off. When my son’s girlfriend made peanut butter blossoms — those peanut butter cookies with a Hershey’s kiss pressed in the top — I politely declined. Oh, I eventually ate a few, trust me — later. They are hard to resist. But I didn’t woof down six at a time which I might have done had things been different.
Last weekend, or maybe it was last Friday, I started feeling achy. My back hurt. I thought I had slept on it wrong. It was my left scapula, and it was weird. Not the ordinary I-slept-on-something-wrong feeling.
Before the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning, I left for a flight to Roanoke. I was picking up one of my daughters from school. As I was getting dressed, I noticed a small rash just below my left breast. That’s weird, I thought.
Got to Roanoke. Got the rental car. Got together with my daughter, but I was exhausted. I left her mid-afternoon to go nap in my hotel room. The rash had grown, too, and was itchy-painful.
Maybe you can see where I’m going with this.
It was either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning that it hit me that I had shingles. No, I hadn’t gotten the vaccine.
I contacted my primary care provider, but, as it turns out, they can’t do a tele-health visit with me if I’m out of state at the time. Ridiculous, right?
Initially, shingles was (were?) just annoying. “I don’t have time for this,” I said more than once to more than one person. I mean, it’s the holidays. Sheesh.
But, by Thursday, I felt like excrement. You know what I mean, right? I did a tele-health appointment, was prescribed an antiviral, and stayed in my room all day. Mostly.
The next day, same thing.
My appetite has been way off with this.
Last night, my son’s girlfriend was making strawberry-rhubarb crisp. “Do you want some?” they both asked.
I politely declined. I didn’t like strawberry-rhubarb crisp on a good day. My mom used to make it and it was not my favorite.
However, this morning when I went down for coffee, there was the baked crisp on the counter. I could see the oatmeal in the topping. Breakfast food, for sure.
I dished out a small bowl, and it was, literally, just what the doctor ordered. (She’s a doctor.)
It was so good that I went back for more.
Maybe rhubarb has healing qualities.
One can always hope, right?
The Color of Peace
“What are you struggling with?” my friend/spiritual director asked me.
I didn’t have to think hard on that one. “Peace,” I said. “It’s always hard to find peace this time of year.”
She nodded knowingly, then asked, “What does peace look like?”
I stared at the candle’s flame and the assortment of little knick-knacks she had placed on the table. I thought and thought, but couldn’t come up with an answer. One of the things that I love about her is that she allows silence.
What does peace look like? I rolled the words around and around in my head.
She interrupted the silence with another question. “What color is peace?” she asked.
Immediately, I went to watery colors, my absolute favorite. Water is my go-to. For me, water is place that allows me to be supported, and held, and still move and exercise and be me.
What color is peace?
I thought of a night not long ago when I had gone for a walk with a friend. We had walked and walked in the cemetery. Now, there’s a peaceful place for you.
As the sun set, and the temperature dropped, we walked down toward the lake to a bench that overlooked the water.
The water was dark and still, with a crescent moon reflecting on it.
Occasional ripples appeared from who-knows-what. The tiny breath of a breeze? A fish beneath the surface who didn’t know winter was approaching? A night bird I hadn’t noticed?
Suddenly, I knew exactly what color peace is — it’s the color of a moonlight lake. Dark and light at the same time. Calm and rippled at the same time. A friend next to me. Crisp air around me.
Is that a color?
To me it is.
Moon photo reflecting on the road — but not from that night and certainly not the same as the moon reflecting on water:
This is in response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Prompt: “To me“
Life-Change
Some years ago — more years than I care to say — my life changed forever on this date. My first child was born.
Some people embark on careers, starting their first job in a profession they have studied long and hard for. They can look back a lifetime later with satisfaction at their accomplishments and accolades.
Me? I fell into a life.
It involved minimal sleep for some periods, cleaning up bodily fluids and/or solids that gushed forth out of bodies in ways I never imagined.
It involved laundry — mountains and mountains of laundry — think Adirondacks in the form of onesies, and t-shirts, and grass-stained pants, and little Osh-Kosh overalls, and socks, many of which lost their life partner in the depths of the dryer, only to find new partners who looked slightly different.
It involved reading the same books over and over and over, and making up voices for the characters, and then forgetting the voice and being corrected by a small child — “Wait — I thought that was Toad talking, not Frog.”
It involved kissing boo-boos, and seeing that mother’s kisses really do have magical healing power. It also involved band-aids and ice packs and doctor’s visits and bearing witness to stitches and casts, when mother’s kisses couldn’t heal alone. It involved Chicken Pox — because that was thing then — and strep throat and maladies without names and bedside throw-up buckets and vast amounts of kleenex.
It involved baking cookies. Lots and lots of cookies — some for family consumption and some to sell to help with special purchases. Our first computer — a Gateway 2000 — was purchased with cookie money.
I daresay that there are times I miss the respectability of a “real” profession — but I would never exchange it for any of this past lifetime.
When I held my oldest son for the first time and studied his face, I had no idea what I was in for. I marveled that little person had been inside my body just a short time before — but I had no idea what a gift he was to me.
My oldest daughter is now expecting her first child (my 5th grandchild). I keep thinking what life-changing treat she is in for.
Kick the Tires
Walk about Zion, go around her,
Psalm 48:12-14 (ESV)
number her towers,
Consider well her ramparts,
go through her citadels,
that you may tell the next generation
that this is God,
our God forever and ever.
He will guide us forever.
I read three Psalms every morning. Since there are 150 Psalms, I read through them all every 50 days — then I start again. I’ve been doing this for years so the words are more and more like old friends.
This Psalm, however — Psalm 48 — is one of my favorites. I arrive at it, and my mind immediately says, “It’s the ‘kick the tires’ Psalm!” I read it, and I picture the people walking around Zion, looking at critically, like someone would if they were buying a used car.
It’s that go-ahead-and-check-it-out mindset that I love.
Walk around her.
Count her towers.
Consider her ramparts.
Walk through her citadels.
Kick the tires.
Anything that’s true stands up to scrutiny.
And even if scrutiny reveals flaws, it’s all good. I’ve done that walk around a rental car before and after taking it out — noting scratches and dings. Yep, let’s be aware. Let’s take note.
It’s true of God. It’s true of other relationships. It’s true of life itself.
Take note of strengths and appreciate them.
Take note of weaknesses, and make a mental note to keep an eye on that.
Go ahead. Kick the tires. Find out what’s really there.
Life Choices
“There’s an awful lot of sighing going on over there,” said my pew-mate at church yesterday.
She was right.
I carry my cares in my shoulders and my breathing. Multiple times during the worship service I had realized my shoulders were tight and that I was holding my breath. I would force my shoulders down in faux-relaxation and exhale slowly. Apparently it didn’t go unnoticed.
We talked for a few minutes afterwards and her words were so helpful. To have the right person with the right words show up at the right moment is truly a gift.
Then I made a great life choice — carve pumpkins with my granddaughter.
Sometimes a life choice is something big — where to go to college, who to spend my life with, where to settle down and live.
More often it’s something small — what do I do this month, this week, this day, this moment.
Carving pumpkins, eating roasted pumpkins — sometimes that is the very best life choice.
The Water Softener
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “last thing that broke/you had to fix.” Think about the word that best describes the last thing that stopped working for you and use that word any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Linda G. Hill, The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 14, 2023
One of my children mentioned that the water smelled: sulfur-y, iron-y, not good. “Have you been adding salt to the water softener?” he asked.
I had, but the last time I had added salt, I was surprised to see salt still in the tank. “I’m not sure it’s working,” I said, and went down to our damp, dirt-floor basement to check.
Verdict: the water softener is not working.
The water softening system has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I don’t understand how it works. I dump salt in. It disappears, but I don’t hear anything that tells me something is kicking on and actually doing something.
Like the furnace, which did kick on this week as the temperatures dropped.
Everyone that walked through the door where I worked commented on the cold weather like it was a surprise. Seriously, this happens every year. Every. Single. Year. It’s hot in the summer, cold in the winter. This is not something new.
But I digress — the plague of Stream-of-Consciousness writing.
Water softener. I have no idea how old the system is, but it has worked its magic for many years.
I poked around at the mysterious water softener. Cobwebs. Corrosion. Dirt. They were all present. Probably not good for it. Tank with water and salt.
To be honest, I avoid the basement. It’s creepy.
I open the door once a year to let the furnace guy down to service the furnace — an appliance that makes far more sense to me. I go down periodically with bags of salt for the water softener. That’s about it.
One time I heard a noise in the basement and there were woodchucks. Seriously.
I can clean the dirt and the cobwebs, but the corrosion looks pretty unpromising. I think I need a whole new system.
Of course, I have to make a metaphor out this and ask the question(s) — where in my life do I have dirt and cobwebs that need to be cleaned? and, where is there so much corrosion that I just need to start new?
When I Grow Up (a blathery post)
Truth: I am 63. In the prime of my life, right?
I think most people my age are not doing what I do almost daily which is to ponder the question, what do I want to be when I grow up?
For crying out loud, I AM grown up! I have grown-up children. I have grandchildren marching towards grown-upness. (Well, at least marching towards double-digits, which is just a hop-skip-and -jump away from teenager years which are pretty darn close to being grown-up.)
Most of my peers are pondering how to spend the retirement years. I struggle to relate.
I have a love-hate relationship with my job. I moved from part-time to full-time two years ago. The last full time job I held before that was 1984.
I took a whole bunch of years off to bake cookies and have teas, as Hilary Clinton once said. Except I didn’t have teas. I played with Lego, read aloud, changed diapers, did laundry, read aloud some more, and went for walks to the library. We went for family swims, had skunk watches (just what it sounds like — watching a skunk make a daily trek outside our sliding door), played with math manipulatives, raked leaves, painted Christmas cookies, colored Easter eggs, hid birthday presents, etc. etc. etc.
Now, at work, I struggle with having a boss. I struggle with the politics of the work-place, with the certain amount of fakeness that is expected required, and I just can’t do it.
I love planning things. I love when an idea comes to fruition. That happened with events twice this week.
I hate any sort of spotlight.
I love listening to people. I love stories. I love making people feel welcome. I now know how to say “Good morning” in at least 6 languages — which I really do use to greet people. The Russian lady, especially, always smiles and laughs when I do. Sometimes the “r” rolls in dubro utro and sometimes my tongue gets stuck. Either way, we both laugh about it.
I hate pettiness. I hate micromanaging. These aspects of my job come from on high and drive me crazy. I want to scream,”Just let me do my job!”
Sometimes I think back to my horse riding days. Some horses needed a tight rein, but most were much happier and cooperative with a little slack. I rode bareback most of time, and could feel the horse, which is kind of strange to explain to someone who has never experienced it. Horses and I got along well.
I LOVE having a counterweight to my idea-ness. I have such a person in my life right now who can see the potential in my ideas and can either point out the flaws or move them forward. Idea people need that someone else. They don’t micromanage; they work alongside.
All this is to get to the concept of Ikigai which I stumbled upon yesterday in my struggle to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I found a Venn diagram — and I love Venn diagrams — that illustrated it:
The more I read, though, about Ikigai — defined by Wikipedia as “a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living.” — I realized that this is one of those foreign words that doesn’t translate well. Even the Venn diagram — and I DO love Venn diagrams — sort of makes it formulaic, and it isn’t.
So — prime of life or not, I’ll still ponder what to be when I grow up. Maybe someday I’ll figure it.
But can someone just get rid of these darn micromanagers??!
This way-too-wordy post is brought to you by Linda Hill’s Stream of Conscious Saturday prompt: prime
Bookmark Appreciation
I will not dog-ear a page.
Instead, I use one of these:
* A random scrap of paper
* A love note from one of my
children that says, “I
love you, Mom” or “I know that
I can always go to you.”
* A piece of pretty cardstock
* Bookstore ad — “Book No Further”
* Used envelope sans the mail
* Cross-stitched cats on hardanger
* Index card scribbled with notes
And quotes from the book it’s in
* A tucked-in book jacket flap
* A grocery store receipt
* Slip from an online bookstore
that says “Thank you for your order!”
* A printed prayer, * a ribbon
* A postcard, * an old letter
* Class handout folded in half
* Tattered newspaper clippings
* Business card from an artist
That I met at a craft show
* Page from a day calendar –
2002 Far Side cows
* An unused tissue because
A used one would be quite gross
* A decades old photograph
of my kids in a leaf pile
* A Reeses candy wrapper
You have to admit there is
always something close at hand
to neatly keep your place for
when you return to reading
Many apologies. I’m not feeling terribly creative 
However, the W3 prompt this week was to write an ode to an everyday object. This may not be an ode, but I do appreciate all the little items that rise to the challenge of holding my place in a book.
Mom’s Wedding Dress
Man, it has been a week. I’ve had a cold (not COVID) and, for whatever reason, struggled to write much.
Kudos to those of you who crank out quality posts every single day, sometimes multiple in one day. I spew forth something occasionally, nonsense most of the time, but this week the well has been fairly dry.
The W3 prompt this week was a quote:
Honestly, I had no idea. When have I ever felt infinite? Pretty much never.
I tried writing something about swimming, because there’s something about stretching out in the water, and reaching towards the far wall that’s very Zen, but not infinite. That poem went into the trash.
On one of the days when I was home sick, I decided to tackle some of the sorting that needs to happen in this house. I live in my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, and it is chock FULL of stuff.
I found the remnants of my mother’s wedding dress. She had given it to me so the lace could be used for my wedding dress. For whatever reason, those remnants were saved. In a box. Under a bed.
The remaining lace was quite yellowed. The heavy satin that the lace had been layered over was spotted and almost brown.
“I should throw this away,” I said out loud. I resolved to do just that.
But I couldn’t.
Kudos to those of you who can or could.
It’s just beyond me.
I closed the box.
But I went back to it multiple times, wrestling internally with what should be done.
That’s when I decided that I would ask one of my sons to help me bury it. Somehow, allowing that satin and lace to become one with the earth again seemed fitting for my mother’s dress.
She always loved a garden.
Finite? Infinite? I’m not sure.
But I did crank out a poem if you care to read it at the bottom.
My mother gave her wedding dress
To me so I
Could use the lace for my gown.
I frown, I sigh
As I find the remains of that
Dress so many
Years later. A wreck of a thing –
Fitting, any
Joy I might have had now replaced
With a heartache.
The box holds scraps of what once was –
I pause – head-shake —
What do I do? “Throw it away,”
Says one voice in
My mind. “It’s just garbage now.”
Somehow the bin
Is not the proper place for it.
It is a wreck –
Like my life – but I simply will
Not kill that speck
Of what – Love? Hope? Truth? Connection?
It is a dress!
Nothing more and yet so much more –
But for my yes
My own promise — oh, how I grieve!
I will bury
The scraps. My heart is still not free
To be merry
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 