I Am Remembering the Last Night

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The beauty of a silhouette.  Dark.  Moonlight.  The sudden splash of lake water.  An owl or a lark.  Swoop of wings close to my head.

Swing high. It is only the street lights.  Swing your legs harder!  Screaming laughter and I can’t make it any higher!

Beautiful Miranda.  A girl only.  Saved by Merlin, who held a triton.  Love will always fall in love.  It was the first Adam who walked on an island.  To declare it occupied.  And conquered.

Millions are a lot.  Cars drive by the bump.  Oblivious to the true meaning of electricity.  Orange cones and red stop signs held by gloved hands, hiding skin.

Who are you?  You stare as if I am naked.  It is icy and colder than you think.  Ice and water both break…….  There may be no end to the long wait.

I remember the look of love.  It is ice and smouldering masquera.  A cigar with attitude.  And an accent.  I follow it with a sense of vanilla.  This is the other room.

I am of Michaelangelo.  My bones are marble and my skin of ivory.  People will miss the target.  Mice and men will always be about the lost one left out.  It is more than a smell.  The candle wax is drying on my fingers.  It is warm.

The chance is sung in an all-about-all-people song.  We are led to follow this tantalizing hope.  A home smell of chocolate chip cookies.  Ready to crumble if touched.

Time is going by.  Time is mesmerizing.  Time is slow.  We will fail to notice the time.  I will be home by the time it is dark…….   Because when I am outside, the sun will tell the time.

Happiness is a smile.  Beauty is a circle.  Laughter is contagious.  The purple flag blows in the wind.  The fan is on.  Red.  Orange.  Green.  And Purple.  And Papa Smurf wore the red hat to match with his blue skin.

Today is late.  There are too many minutes.  The clock runs fast.  The staring is like an animal preying.  The song is beautiful.  Have a run on the Hawaiian beach.

I would like you.  The tallness dwarfs me.  Hold on to the rock.  Wind, Rain, and Waves cannot change this place.  We will stand forever.  Face of the music.

Train of tracks and fire, running on steam.  It is good to be dressed.  Keep the doors and windows open.  You may need to jump!  And watch out for guns.  I would want to be close to the engine.

The first street is truly shallow.  Fish beach themselves on the wet sand.  Waves bury the corpses with silt from the bottom of the ocean.  My feet follow and I cringe my toes into the shallow depth.

It doesn’t get salty until you reach the edges.  And then, go far.  The wind will desiccate your eyes and your mouth.  Don’t swallow!  And stand, dry bone, with sandy, brittle hair.

The male chest is smooth muscle.  Take it in black and white.  The grey picture reminds of young birthday parties where laughter and screams drown the fun with  happiness.  Sweet drinks that make me burp, and pizza and hot dogs fresh from open fires.

We wonder about the matter of time.  It must be doing something.  It can bend the universe of nothing so that the sun pulls the planets toward the centre.  The circling pull of gravity is from a black hole.  Nothingness bending to the call of time passing.

Is there a limit?  Can we get lost in space?  Or, is being inside the universe just the easiest existence?  I wonder if I will breathe faster, feel warmer, or see the love of God if I were to fly out there?

Do we see loneliness in the dark of space?  Or do  we see the scaffolding of God’s structure holding earth, the planets, and the moon, close to the centre of the sun?

Beauty is always remembered more beautiful when it is alone.  Quiet.  Sweet.  Standing.  Quiet. Full of hope, and dropping all stares for closed eyes and sighs.  Let us hum and intone the beauty and the moment.

I was there.  The fresh landscape with pine and log cabin.  Cracking of stepped-on-sticks.  Surrounded by woodland animals.  Majestic.  Clean.  Bloodless.  Free from rodents.  and litter.

This is the last night I was somewhere.  The drive took one day.  We were never there before, and have not been there again.  The beautiful smell.  The easy sight.

The Last Holidays of the Year

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It always happens, but I always forget.  The night of Halloween starts the cold, and it continues until there is snow on the first night of the new year.  The ice is black and is so dark that it is invisible until the flurries of snow coat it, making skid marks visible.  The only way to travel is to go slowly and carefully, even the buses and the cyclists.  The hard part is  the flying ice pellets because the lake water rose and froze so quickly to become bullets of ice water.

I am counting down the days, and suspiciously guessing that a deep snowfall will happen before Christmas morning, making work fill our holiday.  In some ways I anticipate this, eager to see the men in the shovel machines–the small ones as well as the giant ones.  It is almost as if the snow melts and galls down the sewers just from the weight of the tires.  I feel more hopeful seeing that the city has not died on  Christmas Day.

The Christmas Time means that I see familiar people in a different way.  Sometimes my behavior changes, but I don’t always know what I am doing.  Sometimes if I just promise to make my money useful, helpful, I start seeing opportunity.  Then comes the work of budgeting appropriately as well as saving enough for the things I like.  I try not to act as if I am in Las Vegas, as there is no benefit in that.  Do I want to win hearts, or do I want to win money?  Feeling at home where I am before the new year is sometimes dependent on the feat of promise.

I also like Christmas, just for the food that becomes available when usually food is not so rich.  I like the busy-ness that excuses my absence from the usual things and places, and the sudden filling of my schedule with functions of food and music.  I like that everyone becomes important, not just the people of power and the famous.  I like that my heart knows what all this Christmas is.  That there is time to find an ever-green-tree, time to decorate it, and time to just spend time in places that as close but different.  I like that there is joy, and peace, and merry-ment.  I like that there is happiness and sleeplessness on the new year eve.  I greeting Christmas as well as greeting that first of the year, as early as I can, which makes staying up until midnight on those two nights a treasure.  The excitement of the first minute is a pleasure an joy.

Only a week separates the two most important events of each year.  It is easy to be generous, grateful, and happy, in this continuous way.  The time of a week is just the perfect amount of time, and is a reminder of what the entire time has been about and what the coming of another year will become.  The entire world is aware of these holidays, regardless of creed, religion, ethnicity, or status.  Whether child or grandparent, age is no barrier, no limit, to participating and understanding the one-ness of the world as it looks at itself, and appraises the situation of marking this year-end and year-beginning, as it comes.  December and January are the months the entire world unites, knowing the meaning of these two months, in agreement of this meaning, without malice, disrespect, or dishonor.  And so, in this agreement, the world celebrates existence, and the evidence of this existence.  There is no doubt or hate of it all.

The awareness grows.  And knowing grows too.  Snow, and cold are Christmas staples, which prove that warm hearts will come out.  So, it has been a month, and another month more is here.  Halloween, Christmas and the New Year will have their run, and then, the usual rest of the twelve months will have their turn.  Being old enough to anticipate these events is definitely something I have grown into, and is something that I invest myself in.  I encounter it in other people too….  The need to celebrate what this world we live in has become.

Fromm witches and goblins to Santa Claus and the New Year kiss, it is a glorious time, a precious time, and I have hope for it, because it is where I first had hope and fun.  The last part of the year is always what we will remember, it we remember anything out of an entire twelve months.  Here is to what is, what will become, and what we will change.  A glass of champagne, will be how we hold on to it all, toasting the past, the present and the future.  I toast you, and whatever language it is you use to greet the holidays.  Good health, good fortune, and great wealth!

The Coming of Time

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I am feeling like I am running out of time, that time is passing, running very quickly, away.  I have been facing this situation for more than half my life now.  I have been watching time leave me, quickly, without apology or recourse since I successfully graduated high school.  As all my friends and even a boyfriend of mine, and I, went our different ways, to grow  into adults, so that we could build our careers, we accepted the nature of the situation.  It was a serious reason that made it seem justly logical despite the sadness of a world forcibly ending.

I am thinking of all the things I neglected, as if I made decisions only for something that would make me shiny and acceptable.  That if I could put all the grades I made and the high marks I received  to some sort of justified means and end.  This, I believed, could make me happy with myself.  That if I was acceptable to society, being an owner of a real estate and a vehicle, and even having relationships with people who would be inside the house I would live in and own, then, I would be happy.  So, now, what is the situation?  What is the verdict?  Still, all the things I have neglected are things that are still being neglected now.  However, I do miss those things, like I miss those high school friends, and that high school boyfriend, because I left them behind.  I wonder, sometimes, in that big “IF” question way: “What if we had been able to keep in touch, would I now be married to a doctor, instead of an engineer?”  Would I be happier that way?  Or, would the very psychiatric-bent of my husband drive me crazy?  His ability to needle and manipulate my emotions, becoming the bane of my existence?  Or, would this be one of the smarter things that I would value in my husband?

The actual situation is that I have married an engineer, who, I do not understand.  At any time we have our argument, we each take out our secret weapons.  He, his very mind-boggling understanding of the world as the size of a dice cube, and me, my very touchy-feely, sense that disproves his mathematically-cubist world.  At these times, I do not miss the neglect.  I am engaged and nothing else really is wrong.  Nothing else matters.

So, why is it that when I look at the clock, I miss more than just time slipping by?  Why is it that my mind wanders, and I start to wish about having other things, things that for some reason, I imagine are better?  Better than what I have, which I have earned justifiably and with justifiably hard work?

I feel that if I don’t have the time to participate in things I once cared about, then, I will be a part of the world that neglects and leaves those things that matter.  That there will a be worse world in the future than in the present.  And, I fear, then, that the world will become worse, because I participate in those things that are worse.  This is world that will grow, whenever people support those things that help it become real.  These things, like almost all things, take time, take investment, and take space….  The willingness to go there, with ingenuity and belief, and love.

So, I am running out of time, and I am calculating the time as it flits away.  I fear for my children’s world.  I fear that we will neglect things too much, beyond repair, beyond recompense.  That it will take double the time and effort to just restore goodness when the bad and evil has taken it over, filling all knowledge and sense.

The logical thing to do, is to find time to start.  And knowing this, it is like I am my own creator of stress.  How many books will I have time to read on top of the life I have now?  How much will I gain from reading books, from watching movies, and from taking care of things I neglect, even though I will not worry about all of it any more?  I am running out of time.  There will always be things I will never experience.  I wonder and I worry if this will make me less than an acceptable human being.  That I will be a loser and an unpopular person for all of my life.  But, from reality, every single person has a life that is limited, beyond their control.  Some people, grow up quickly, and choose the limits, the neglect, but most people, live with the limits imposed on them.  And, even I, so gallantly writing this essay, feel that I am missing things that would make me better. I wish often, for things that money cannot even buy.  I look at the clock again, and again, it is fast, and I am left behind, with what happens outside of time–nothing.

So, I will try to remember my own advice.  When I think that nothing matters, I will remember that I have worked, earned, and lived, my life.  Everything that I have is because of me, and is honorable.  As my Grandmother says, “When you have all the time in the world, you cannot be worth it, until you are running out of it, and it leaves you for dead.”  Thank you, Grandma.

The Perfect Dream

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One of the few things in life that are perfect, are dreams.  Another thing that is so, are fantasies, but these things are truly perfect and exciting only because they have a seedy temptation to them.  So, being pure of mind, body, and spirit, I turned to thinking about the perfection of dreams.  I found only one commonality to each and all, and that is that no answer can be made to the question of a dream.  They are perfect and the only answer is, “yes.”

Often, the best dreams don’t even need to come true to be valued and honored, and cherished for life.  They exist in a constant state of excitement, never becoming sullied, or soiled, or destroyed, or replaced (unless to great reason).  They will often also morph with time, keeping pace with our growing age.  I have often labelled my dreams, calling them code words or names, like love, honey, home, friend, trust, fun, and remember.  I know what I mean, and if I am speaking with someone, perhaps a friend, and I talk about these, the greatest things in my life, I will very willingly, describe to great detail what it is all about.

So, today, a day like most other days in my life, I had time to be inside of a coffee shop, with all the bustling business and the coming and going of clientel.  I had time to myself and started to make notes about a discussion that had gone on earlier in the week.  We were trying to create  something of perfection inside the home, specifically the living room.  And, the key word that came up was dream.  All things led to this central word: “home, perfection, marriage, love, longevity, money, children, history, war and peace, and care.”  Why this list of ten words?  It was the most inclusive way to explain how each and every single person can look at their living room, in their home, and understand, just by the central code word, “dream.”

A place to live in, a place to sleep in, a place to fall in love in, a place to have fun in.  These are easily the things that happen in this hallowed room of ages and ages.  People take care of their living rooms, knowing that strangers and lovers and everyone else in between show up here, to meet, to greet, to discuss, and to arrange and to make deals.  Everything from life to death is discussed here, and if someone were to try to destroy or sully the sanctity of this room, with, say, a mention of the cost of money, then may they be banished, permanently, from this hallowed place.

Children are easily welcomed here, on condition that they behave.  If someone under the age of eighteen wants to lounge on the furniture, or jump on it, say, then, these children will have to either choose the family room of the basement, where the rec room is.  It is from these strange and foreign rules that the first idea of the dream of the living room is born.  “What is it that happens in such a forbidden place?”

Sometimes, the living room is almost like a “hallowed” place.  There sometimes are strict unspoken rules about entering and using it.  All a mother has to say is, “Don’t go in,” and any son and any daughter will not venture in, until, say, they have proof that they are smart enough to enter.  A graduation of some sort, or the purchase of that first real coffee table book of some real, serious, substance, even though it is a coffee table book.  Sometimes, turning eighteen is all a son or daughter needs to enter the barred place.  They move out and when they come to visit, they will walk into the living room, to peer at the glass cabinet, the “corner filler” of the three panel screen filled with family photos, or plunk a few keys on the upright piano.  They become automatically allowed to walk in and sit on the furniture, until mom invites them to eat something and drink something for afternoon snack and tea.  And, in this way, the sanctity, the dream, is not demolished.

The living room is misnamed by most people.  “Sitting room, the guest room, the front room.”  In the past, it had the best fireplace that could warm the room quickly and keep it at a comfortable temperature.  It held things of importance and value.  It was the right size, the best size, to be of the most comfort.  The rest of the house was not built with these specifications, where the need for room and space for use were the only determinants of size and comfort.  Even in this day, often the “living room,” is just one of those less used rooms.  Perhaps for the location of the room.  Perhaps it is just that one additional room that no one really has a use for.  Perhaps it is because mother has put so much China and figurines and silver plated finery into the room that it is dangerous to even turn around.  Even the basement has more use.  Although it is cold, even freezing, for most of the year, the size of the basement makes it a fun, dark, and imaginative place.  If anything could get broken down there, it wouldn’t matter.

Now, I remember shopping for the first house I could own.  We attended all the new house developments first, which allowed us to see new designs in the reality of walking into model homes.  The houses were gorgeous.  Often, the architects moved the rooms around, into different places, sometimes in a very imaginative way.  I felt like I was walking into a life-size dollhouse.  Sometimes, I was able to be appreciative of these innovative changes, but most times, I felt like I was inside those games where blocks are moved randomly around until a picture emerges.

We ended up buying a sixty-year-old house that we renovated, updating the wiring, the plumbing, and removing some of the walls.  It was expensive, but it was worth the cost and the incredible  way it was comfortable.  Even though it was built more than half-a-century before, the time-tested, the first, the intuitive way, seemed much more likeable than the fancy sizes and innovative placement of any of the new living rooms we saw.

The next change is coming.  And, like a busy ant or busy bee, I am already thinking ten to twenty years ahead.  We will have to down-size.  My criteria?  That the apartment have a living room.  I dream about this perfect apartment, as I am excited by change and look forward to being in the next place.  I actually have very few of the details understood, but I am finding that I am attracted by the idea of retirement.  I feel that being in a bright, roomy, place with complete access to all areas of home is how I imagine retirement.  Perhaps this home will be one large, enormous, living room.  Now, that would be quite the golden gem, quite the perfect dream, to own!

Doing Puzzles

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I have seen and done many puzzles–not all at once, but one here and one there, and then many puzzles were done.  Puzzles have become so much more elaborate now that there are mobile phones, laptops, and hand-held computers.  The chance to just take out a puzzle to do it at any time transcends the old way of buying newspapers and puzzle books.  They type of puzzles I miss the most are the ones that come in 500 and 1000 pieces, and not only in pictures of animals and landscapes, but in painted pictures considered fine art.  Scenes of families in cramped kitchens around a table–perhaps celebrating a birthday party–or the real parties–that of the Fathers of Confederation in a room similar in color to that of the family at the birthday party.

These types of puzzles didn’t just take a couple of hours to finish–but up to a couple of months. The beautiful thing about it is that you can leave it at any time and come back and pick it up at any time too–progress never given up and only continued from the one time to the next, from one step to the next.

I have very little time now, with my schedule of one thing after one thing to do.  I am imagining when I retire and come close to sitting inside of a nursing home, that I can sit an afternoon or two in a week, just putting puzzles together.  I imagine the TV will be tuned into an afternoon Soap or TV Movie, and, if I am tired of hearing voices in argument all the time, I can turn on the radio and listen to Classical Music.  I see relaxation and happy times just sitting by myself.  (I am imagining that I will send my husband out of the house to go pursue one thing or another.  Just not me.)  My plans for the future tend to be simple, which makes my plans to make it happen, also, simple.  To do and to execute.  I will not attempt those complex things with sudden surprises or unforeseen ambush, as I am literally inviting those things to happen.

The beauty of a puzzle is the quietness of thought and easy concentration on solving the question–to find the answer.  Sometimes, when I am met with a mathematical puzzle, anywhere from solving the amount of tax I will be paying, to the answer to an algorithm in calculus, I start to panic and apply all methods I know of to find that final number…  And, I say, thank you, to all those calculators on mobile phones and on iPods for allowing me to be able to find the answer even if I am not at home, using my trusty calculator!

So, yes, there are some puzzles that are complete problems, that I will not be able to ever, solve.

I want to instill in my kids the ability to do puzzles.  The easy part is putting a puzzle in front of them.  When they were very young, they would usually play with the toy or puzzle for a little while, but, as many puzzles come in simple, I didn’t know what the next puzzle should be?  Now, that they are older, I often accompany them on their experience of puzzles by going to the “Science Center” or by helping out on homework.  Television has also become one of those quagmires to me.  Obviously, my kids are entertained by Disney, while I prefer those deep talking ones, of Reality Shows and fantasy shows of victor and victory.

Sometimes I worry that if my kids do not find something educational, as fun, that they will miss out on the fun.  So, I spend time explaining, as they do their homework.  I go crazy, scavenger hunting for the perfect toy that would helpt them learn puzzles.  But, at the end of the day, I often just give over to what I hear them try to tell me.  That they simply do not like those “Educational Toys” dressed up as “fun.”  So, my husband has introduced some card games, played with the 52-deck of cards for them to play.  We have stayed away from the all-out-hard-as-hard-liquor gambling games, by playing games with  technical ability involved, thus keeping my children’s attention.  So far, I do not smell any ill-begotten habits.  We still go to Disney Park every few years, and there is no disappointment.

I thank my own dad for giving me the joy of the puzzle. The simpler, the better.  It keeps me humming along to the songs on the radio, and I don’t get bored at looking at all the beautiful people on the Soaps or on Matinee Movies as they speak in endless circles about so-and-so and in how-to-do-it speak to demonstrate the technique.  The beauty is that once a puzzle is done, there is always just another one around the corner.  At the dollar store, they cost one or two dollars for endless fun.  I hope that this part of me doesn’t disappear or become obsolete.  I would hate never to buy another one of those One Thousand Piece Puzzles.  I think I will have to down-size and get a puzzle table.  One that fits in the living area.  And then, to have that space, and that comfort, all ready, to be used and enjoyed, I think I can do that.

A Reason

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Every day, the approaching holiday requires thinking.  It is Advent, and each day of this time we look at the calendar andn receive a piece of chocolate, just for looking at the day, and hopefully, understanding and knowing it.  It is about getting close to the end of the year, when just six days from New Year’s Eve, we celebrate, and, remember the birthday of the most glorious man to be born–Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

It is  not just to have an entire week of holidays, that we celebrate.  It is about a man who found a way to give the gift of life, every single day of his life.  Even if now, we cannot hear his voice, we can, still, have his words remembered and told to us from generation to generation, as all knew, even from the beginnings of time, that he was the One who would make the world a better place to be.  We have history books, and Catechism classes that recount, and retell, and make a real, all of Jesus’ teachings.  And, each day, each birth, there is carried on the glorious ability of Jesus to save and create, at the same time.

So, on Christmas Day, we remember the creation of Jesus, and by association, the creation of a new world–the Christian World.  From the beginning of time till now, we still wish to be as good as he is, finding within ourselves to give gifts, to pass on gifts, from person to person, from family member to family member, and ultimately, to instill in ourselves and our friends and family, the new gifts of life shown to us from Jesus Christ.

Why am I so ardently talking of Jesus?  It is because I come from a background of Christianity.  It was going to school, to Private Catholic Schools, for my entire education that has taught me the value of life, of myself, and of caring.  I am more satisfied with myself, and some would say this is a self-righteous declaration made to justify the validity and worth of a quickly fading Christian World.  It is, and, yet, it is not.  Science and the Scientific Endeavor to discover and create is destroying the old facts of the world, and creating a new world of wealth and power.  Some would say we will one day defeat death and live forever without dying….  But again, that is just a pipe-dream of Science, and, even, of Christians, as well.

So, why not have Science Day, instead of Christmas Day?  Because we value our life, even our life as it exists in bones in the grave.  We are all the same, our DNA 99% of our being, all linked together, and shared in this common ancestry.  We are proud of who we are, of who we will become, and we want to have life, infinitely, forever.  And, this is done through history stories, through science stories, through cultural stories, and through the leadership of the Christian Church.  Am I justified in ranking Religion on par with Government?  No, but it does have almost the same power as the Government, and has just as much reaction from everyone, regardless if it is friendly or not a friendly statement made to the public.  Every nation on earth has a religion, even those who purport to be pure of such subjective leanings.  So, if such a declaration is what defines the modern nation, why is there no such thing as a Science Day?  Science runs on very strict rules of experimentation and mathematical methods of describing the world, and only the most rigorous work ever gets recognition, because, it is what will define the world.  So, where is our respect, to all this work?  It seems almost duplicitous that we have forgotten the wealth of Christianity.  Churches and Cathedrals abound in every nation, even in those who purport to be areligious.  There is a secret code and a secret brotherhood in Christianity, and the following of it, has made it rich, made the world rich, and made the Church rich.  So, does this observation make it necessary that we enshrine Science like Religion has enshrined Jesus and Christians?

I would miss Christmas Day and all the 60 days of Advent before the Day.  I love the richness of having , of feeling, of believing, and of sharing what I can.  The greatest reason to do this, is because of Jesus.  I feel like he does, and I lead, like he does, by example.  This opinion is truly yet another voice in the crowd that gathers to support December 25th.  I gladly throw my voice into the sea, to be part of that humanity, to hopefully live infinitely, forever.

It is apropos, as the Fall season has so many little holidays that just make Autumn fun and memorable, that in going into the stores, I already think of My List…  The Christmas Season List of things I have reason to do, and of things I want to do.  So, happiness comes in red, and gold, and silver, all hung on the evergreen, on the holly, and on the wreath.  I value the richness, and that it feels like the world shares in good faith.  So, just for that one day, we have a reason to live.

A Night of Wild Emotions

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Last night, I became depressed about my response to a red coat and purple-dyed bangs.  I felt like the loser of a hundred things.  Walking into a room, full of people, lights, and voices of talk, I brought the twilight.  To be very accurate, I brought the twilight zone.  It is the oddness of the difference, and on this day, I knew I was different.  I am accepting of difference, like a lot of people, but, also like a lot of people, I abhor rudeness, mean-ness, and just general, all-around attempts to put people in their place.  Everyone is born free, and everyone deserves equal opportunity.  So, on a day facing East, I became an outsider of my own making.  Just to keep the verbiage to a minimum, the issue that became the making of my depression was a momentary mean-ness I had for a fellow human being.  So, the euphemism is that I called her a lesbian–a dyke.  Like “niggard,” dyke is a loaded word.  To a more daring person, this becomes a challenge to prove the mettle of the word.  What is the accuracy; when facing the person, and when calling them something derogatory, in front of their face and in front of the world, is everything accurate and in the place it should be?

So, because I was mean… to be very accurate, because I purposely chose someone of a size who could not defend herself against my use of a derogatory word, I publicly humiliated myself–for not being myself… for not being the leader and the leading example.  So, last night, I lost.  My voice carries, so, I am sure the world (everyone in the room) heard the resounding crack of the fissure in the floor we were standing on.  The fissure has now become a wide chasm of limitless depth, much like an abyss.  We are standing on either side, not knowing what to do now.  We stare warily at each other, and, at the others who have gathered around, either to spectate or to become a player, a supporter.

I have hopes for a good ending.  Even if these are people we will have fleeting connection to, or some real tenuous relationship with.  It is good to have a phone book filled with acquaintances rather than a Facebook of hundreds.  I am imagining what this “good ending” will be.  Will it be about making amends, where things are patched?  But, which is obvious, the patch is just unsightly… ugly…  glaring.  The poor emotional responses live on this case, where the hurt feelings continue in life unabated.  Or, is a “good ending” more?  …  Something closer to “making amends” rather than just “patching” and “repairing?”  Can I offer an olive branch, as a sign of hope for a wellness?  That we, me and the person I so offended, can feel free to live on.

So, these are the two endings that are possible, given the fact that as a human being, I cannot, no matter how much I may think, that I can find ways of proving the points that the differences between human beings makes us, or, myself, better than other types of human beings.  I can probably cite multiple examples of those people who earn more money, or, are more creative, or, have easier times finding things, or, those, who, like the ads say, are just plain luckier–all the time.

These are just types of people.  And, I have had friends from even more different places than these four, roughly-drawn examples of places people come from.  I usually am very good with people, as socially, I’ve been gifted with word-power.  So, usually, I get along.  So, just “losing it” last night, I have confused myself.  I have worried about it all day, and now, I am rushing to type out this, my apology, as I do not like the feeling of guilt.  It is as if I have the devil’s blood coursing through my veins, and, unlike human blood, it burns.  It burns its way through my body, and my thought is of the wrong and the guilt.

So, I am publicly telling, and saying, to the person I wronged, “I am sorry.  Please accept my apology, as it is sincere and comes from a place of knowledge and experience.”  I may be very educated and capable of many things, but, still, I have those moments, those momentary mean thoughts swirling in a mess.

Making Short Bread Crumble

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On the holiday a couple of years ago, my parents had a Thanksgiving get-together that had not happened in several years–about four or five years–since the last of us had moved ourselves out of their grand old house.  The invites were sent a month hence, and this guaranteed that all of us could make it.  It was terrifying actually.  The reason?  My grandparents had moved into the nursing home only a couple of months before…  The reason?  They were incapable of taking care of themselves.

So, it was a Halloween scare we had for our Thanksgiving dinner.  With special guidance and help, we took them out to the house.  We, the kids, were all feeling that this would be the last time we were seeing our stalwarts.  My grand mother and my grandfather came from the old country, and we always saw them as part of a grand old past.  Great in their day, and great in their time.  So, watching these people face their possible end, on earth, to go, to… perhaps… heaven?…  we felt trepidation and concern and possibly, even, guilt about the whole situation.

Emails were shot out, back and forth, between all of us.  There is nothing to do, in all possibility, when faced with a certain end.  So, we bothered ourselves with industriousness.  None of it was going to benefit us in any monetary way, in fact, we were anticipating a great expenditure of time and space and money, just to get through it all.

I don’t know what was worse about that particular holiday:  all the things that we had to do that was involving us in death, or not knowing what would happen even when we did everything right…  everything that we knew how to do.  We could not have certainty, even if we did our utmost.  Our best.

Now, a couple of years later, our grandparents are still here, in the nursing home, idling (as we do to accuse them of enjoying their time in Club Med.)  And, we are celebrating the coming Thanksgiving on our own.  We will visit, since we are a short drive away, only, and bring them treats that are sweet and savory…  things that we purchase at the Farmers’ Market as we pass by several of these markets on our way in. I know that they like these little gifts and that even in their momentary enjoyment of it all, that they they truly enjoy it all, not regretting not leaving yet,  as we all know, that heaven is absolutely the best, the most perfect, place to ever be.  So, I doubt that they actually do not regret it.

That particular year, the year of the first Thanksgiving that my grandparents had to stay inside the nursing home, we brought everything, all the treats, all the gifts, that would come at Thanksgiving, as well as all of the that that would be had at Christmas.  And why do I remember this, so especially?  The Short Bread Cookies we bought at the Farmers’ Market got crushed and crumbled underneath some heavier groceries.  What could w e do with all this waste?  At that, it is our grandmother’s favorite savory.  Well, because I am not the only foody, I called the other best foody I know; my brother, and we concocted an apple crumble recipe that would have a topping of Short Bread.  It did work.  And now, with our grandmother’s very hard-won approval, we now have an annual tradition of Sort Bread Crumble.

Even if my grandmother will not be here to insist on it, Short Bread Crumble has become a family favorite at each and every fall and winter holiday.  Often, we take turns picking up the ingredients and baking it into the food that we will eat.  Part of the growing joy is giving these baked squares in pretty packages to everyone who is close.  We spend a weekend baking, and the gifts are done for the holidays.  How many toys and how many hundred dollar bills can actually be useful?  How much food will not be contributing to the weight-gain of the nation? Where we found such as tasty and satisfying gift as our Short Bread Crumble, we immediately stored it, filed it, away into our Secrecy File.  It is an official family tradition, and it is as if it is our official, institutionalized, treasure–of our family.

How will the growing joy, grow?  How will my grandchildren eat it?  Will they want more sugar, or, is the savory buttery, weight, satisfying enough?  Is it already perfection?  Or will there be a second recipe by the time my grandchildren are old and married?  As I am now, I cherish the greatness of our crumble, that it is right now.  As the months of the year go by, starting  from the start in January, I find my anticipation growing.  Will there be opportunity for another weekend of baking?  Will my grandmother do another surprising thing, and ask for rainbow sprinkles on the top of the Short Bread Crumble?  Will she insist on this suggestion, insisting that the crunch and the color of the sprinkles is what makes it Short Bread and not just butter and brown sugar?

The greatest value of this family recipe is the accident it was just before it was made into something to cherish.  Each time we remake it, each time we re-cherish it, taste it, , I enjoy it.  So, occupying my time, I feel I am not wasting any of it.

As for the coming holiday, I am wishing that everyone will have wonderful holidays.  That everyone will have joy and merriment.  So, with a bit of earliness, Happy Holidays!

Old Flames

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One of the strangest things happened to me back at the beginning of September.  I was at work in that big, massive place full of cogs like myself, when, walking through the main lobby (which I do, but not really), I thought I saw my high school sweetheart amongst a group of other suits, possibly on a tour of the cog establishment.

Obviously, he was very busy, and I did not interrupt.  I am not sure that he saw me, as I only had the quickest glimpse.  I spent the rest of the day, enamored and focused on thinking about this past fling.

That evening, back at home, I started to Google his name, as I knew it.  (Just to reveal the embarrassing… I have Googled myself, in an attempt to see if I could access everything about me from the Google.)  In any case, I found very little.  There was a long list of people who had the same name, and just glancing at the photo or the title and the location, I easily ignored more than half the list.  What I did find out from my snooping, is that he has become quite successful.  A nice title, a nice suit and haircut, and probably earning more than one hundred thousand a year.

I had feelings that I did not feel since then, suddenly come to memory.  The sight I remembered that he looked like.  It is strange to me that I did not develop a distaste for the situation.  I guess that the both of us have not moved very far from where we started.  We still live in the same city–in a good neighborhood–and we both have families we are raising.  (I cheated and read a few posts on the Facebook page.)

We both have done well, in my estimation.  We were part of a tight-knit group at school, and we are now all with degrees from the Professional Schools.  And the funny thing, all of us have lost tough with each other. Is high school a big place?  Have we moved ourselves into smaller existences?  Is this how life always happens?

If I hadn’t seen him in such a dislocated place, a place so different than what we knew of each other to be like, I would’ve just dismissed it, disregarded it.  I would’ve left it till the next day at school, between classes, to talk to him, or drop him a note.  Now, all the  thoughts that came flying through my mind was, “Could I afford to carry on a relationship based on a past, fleeting, fling?”  Unfortunately, I was left in the place where I had no answer.

I do feel uneasy, now, at work.  Thinking that I will meet him again.  Depending on the circumstances, I have thought to myself, that I may just ignore him.  The situation?  So, that we don’t have to do that “Dance with the Devil by the moonlight.”  It is funny, with old boyfriends and even just quickie flings, that there is much more ill ease than falling in love.  Even, now, at least ten years later.

So, I now wander the halls of our “Cog Establishment” with apprehension, for the next little while at least, as what I gues to be the project that might employ someone like him.  I have run the gamut from ignoring him completely, to being best friends at work.  Apparently, we both have exceeded each other’s appraisal of the other, otherwise we’d be married with children.  Sometimes, in daydreams, I imagine that we could celebrate fifty and seventy-five year marriage anniversaries, if we did, in fact, marry each other as high school sweethearts.

Just once, since September, I contemplated in a real way, about including him in my list of friends and family that I send Christmas Cards to.  But, in a real way, as well, I thought it would just look like a political move.  Meaning that I could not see any redemptive, non-calculating reason for this action.  So, just as quickly, I crossed that thought out of my mind as well.

Now, I am thinking we a have a situation, without presence.  There is a life born out of this “encounter” that goes beyond the present… we do not have contact, and yet we have existence inside our new aquarium.  I am wondering if everything is the same with him.

I have thought…. more, again…  That if we truly do not make contact with each other, that my one new year’s resolution will be to cross out his name and think no more about it at all.  We all seem to have those problems…  Problems of dangling friends.  Those “holder’s-on” that are politically useful, but, really, just suck life and time out of everyone.  I am hoping not to enter into a second “dangle-on” situation.

The useful thing that has come out of seeing something old in a new place, is that I have gone through my memory box (Year Book included) and relived, and then purged, those ideas, thoughts, sights, and smells, from encroaching on the useful and livable parts of my life.  I have strengthened the ties that I have withe the things that I have now, and I have said, “Goodbye,” after the time I should have said it.  I am probably quite complacent with myself now, but it is justified.

And so, I wish everyone that I will not see in December, a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!”

Castle

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Just the other day, I was walking back to around my old stomping grounds, where, finally having only four years between me and a real life, a real career, and owning some real estate, was very imminent.  I could spend those four years partying and celebrating my imminent status, or, I could spend my time, studying, and eventually, buying my way into some status.

The truth is, no student is every the “perfect student.”  As soon as you get the letter in the mail, you immediately start ranking the courses, and the classes.  There will be those that I will spend an hour a week on, outside of the three hour lecture, and there are those, where, I will go to every lecture, do every essay, write every exam, and even send my Professor email about.  Which is of course the equivalent to waiting, preying, and pouncing on the poor Professor at the end of lecture.

Well, this is how it starts, and it is, I guess, a plan that should work, but then, facing reality, I never really attended every lecture, I only listened to what I wanted to listen to, and I only wrote what I thought was the truth, or, should be the truth.  Why?  Because I was “partying for four years” my just accepted, imminent status.  To this day, I am unsure what it is that should come from a four-year-degree.  I am appreciative of my status, as it is a sieve and a sorting machine to everyone, including those who do not attend college and university.  How true?  Maybe true.

As long as I am not dependent on the public to garnish my wages, which is dependant on my ability to look beautiful to the general public, then , I consider myself lucky.  Having people who are the educated, the qualified, to hire and fire me, makes me assured, and confident, that “yes” I do have a job, I do, have talent and enough brains, and smarts, to be worthy of it all.

So, back to the other day.  I just happened to have to meet a client near the University, just off-campus.  As I was leaving and walking back to my car, I happened to notice a new cafe lounge. I was in the place where a cheap dive was.  This place used to attract students in the area almost every night of the week.  Lots of bands, and sometimes just a DJ, so, Rave-like, anyone could spend $5 and dance the entire night.  Well, now, there was a place called “Castle.”  On the sign, was the “subtitle,” Board Game Cafe and Lounge.  It seemed to me that some student, like me, who used to hang out at the students’ lounge on campus, like me, thought it would be cooler to walk off the grounds and visit a place that could offer board games.  My question, immediately, is … “I can play a board game while drunk?”

As I was in a hurry that day, I did not open the door and walk in.  But, in my imagination, is that two possible things can happen…..  The interior could be completely quiet, much like a library, where gamers will play with each other on the board games, whispering all their moves, muffling their cries of victory, or there could be nice “lounge music,” a darkened interior, and a sea of voices, a clink of glasses, and the sounds of gamers playing with each other at a board game.  Both can fact the same result: not enough of either type of student.  I am not sure I can make it off-campus in, let’s say, the extra two or three hours I have between classes.  And Saturdays, back in my day, were the best day to rush my homework, so that I could drink myself drunk that evening and sleep in the next day.  There were times I even consistently invested in Sunday Brunch for a semester with one of my other classmates. So, in any case, I feel “Castle” is caught in between two groups of students.  Those who are quiet and those who want to get drunk doing something different, like cow-tipping while drunk, if you’re in the country.  The people who truly have the time and money to just “drop by” Castle, are those who are newly graduated.  Those, perhaps, not quite into the starter-job, yet, but still have some money, and time, and are sill keen on that student-single-fun lifestyle.

As for myself, I saw this store front, and felt nostalgia for that two-storey dance pad.  I loved leaving all the books, all the paper, the computer, and the laptop at home, in my rented room.  The thing I would love to go to Castle for, is any drink I can’t have at home.  But, nowadays, this place has come too late for me.  I am owning a car that I cart my kids and husband around in.  All those extra hundreds that could be spent if I were more frugal?  I buy trinkets–jewellery, cute-toy hangars, a chocolate bar, appetizers, desert, and the prettier body wash and body lotion.

I wonder, when there will be no more babies born, what will happen to these “Board Game Cafe and Lounges?”  I have curiosity to go in, but i also have the experiences to know that these novelty, niche, experiences, tend to disappear.  It is too quiet or too much activity.  I move slowly now, and even in my middle age, I will only move at any speed, if I am not distracted by silence.  It’s funny.  I have yelled at my kids so often, to be quiet, and here I am admitting that I don’t work, that I don’t do anything, if all I have is silence.  The radio will always be on.  The typing from the next cubicle keeps up pace.  The phone rings.  And what I call silence falls in between.  This is a world I work in, and I have found, it is a world that I love.  So, kids and husband!  Keep it down!!

Foosball

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I am having an existential moment.  I now like playing foosball more than reading a book, even if it is on an e-Reader–the coolest thing ever.  Its is in our basement–because when my husband determinedly refused to return the purchase–I made him compromise–either in the garage or in the basement.  My first reaction goes back to the days of sitting in dorm, when I wasn’t supposed to be, and was among the pool table, the TV, the Foosball, and the pinball machine. At the right time, all four machines would be on, and anyone would have to wait for a turn.

It was during these times that the most “epic” conversations would take place.  “Epic” is the term because we would venture to use words and ideas that we were in fact just beginning to study in our classes.  We would discuss, as in the salons of Paris, France, as if we were the Professional Wordsmiths and Ideologues that drove the invisible machine of thought and taste and popularity.  We would bet each other, upping the ante, to try to find the proof of our ideas and our favorite things.  If everything turned out true, and truly, we would have enough riches from the day to get a free pizza and a pop from the others.

Once, someone brought in the movie starring Robin Williams.  And, when we convinced the Lords of the TV to let us use it… even if they weren’t invited to watch, we immediately began the two-hour marathon, titled, “Dead Poets Society.”  There were few of us who had not yet seen it, and for the other couple of us who had seen it, it was considered “gold enough” to re-view.  The beauty of the movie is its very unconventional approach to being young and immortal.  No Professor of any type is ever sexy… And, for Williams’ students to fall in love with their Professor, is very unheard of.  This is not a Woody Allen movie where the nerdy, intelligent, and anxious intellectual courts his students and many other younger ladies.  This is a boy’s film… a man’s film, if you will.  The boys at the boarding school where Professor Williams  teaches, is ripe for intense drama and the bravery that leads to the bravery facing death.  It is, like the Classic Plays of William Shakespeare, a great tragedy.  The students may as well bathe in the blood of their brothers, as we all know, that secret societies are like this.

So, as the viewing ended, we sat quietly, now a late hour, and those of us who did not live in dorm, were, in fact broaching the rules.  But, we sat there, contented with the movie, and with the quiet all around us, we began to wonder…  “Was that ending necessary?”  Like all tragedies.. something always feels unjustified, after great effort, and great expenditure, should there not be a life worth living come from it?  Why does the victor die?  And, why, is it that we know, even after the death, that nothing truly is changed… Another hero will come, and this hero, too, will die, unjustified.  There is no life, in these Classical Plays that is worth living.  All lives are lost, and sacrificed, and given up.  And, of course, the secret is kept…  How many will go to hell…  and, How many will go to heaven?

Even recently, that I have caught, movies like “Gladiator,” and “Troy,” and “Armageddon” all have that classic hero myth that makes the hero a dead guy.  And yet, we love them!  So, thank you to the foosball table, which allowed me to hang around the room in dorm.  I made friends who shared their wealth of knowledge and talent with me.  I would never go to the movies by myself, but I wouldn’t mind mooching a couple of hours from others.  To even the score between the moochers and the givers, we could play a game of foosball and yell out our frustrations… making a night in the dorm room more fun and cheaper than going to the student lounge or one of the bars just off campus.

Now, being quite an expert Foosball player, I do challenge my son AND daughter, to the games.  But, I excuse myself…  I am trying to justify my husband’s crazy purchase!