Happy Birthday, Matthew!

When we decided to create a simpler, more peaceful life, one of our goals was to make a list of priorities and learn how to maintain them. At the top of the list was “People over Things.” And our most important people are family, so that is why this year (as you may have noticed), on birthdays of our wonderful family members, I am posting a little entry celebrating what they mean to us.

On March 28, 1983, I gave birth to a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy. As mentioned back a couple of months ago, had he been a girl, his name would have been Sarah Elizabeth, but he was indeed a boy, and we named him Matthew Ensley, Matthew meaning “gift from God,” and Ensley after my late father. Matt was born into life with a big sister about 5 years older, but he took it in stride. In fact, he took everything in stride. Nothing ever seemed to bother him. He was creative, generous, imaginative, intelligent, loving, and spiritual.

He was also....well, different. Unless you think dressing up in a 3-piece suit with a valise in your hand is the right way to go to kindergarten, then yes, you might agree he was a little strange - in a good way, of course.

Here are two entries from a series of letters I wrote to him when he was growing up:

You are 3 years old now. It’s spring and you love to play out in the dirt with a spoon under the sprinkler. In fact, Sunday we looked around and found you naked in the front yard. We asked why you took your shorts off, and you said,”Because I want to sprinkle my whole body!”

I have decided to work with you on your alphabet recognition. We studied a workbook the other day which showed various letters and pictures of things that start with each letter. We were studying the letter V. It showed a picture of a violin. I asked you if you recognized it, and you said, “Guitar.” I reminded you that you had seen a boy at church play a violin and I pantomimed someone playing a violin. You repeated the word “violin” and seemed to have understood our little lesson. The next day you were humming away at the same time you were pantomiming the violin just as I had showed you. I was so pleased you seemed interested, but I want to see if you remembered the word violin. So I said, “Matt, that’s great! Now what are you playing?” You smiled broadly and replied, “Joy To the World!”

When Matthew turned 5, he did an extraordinary act. To this day, it amazes us when we think about it. He had fallen when he was 4 and chipped a front tooth, and at that time, the dentist wanted to watch it for signs of infection. For a long time, nothing happened, but then it got darker than the rest of Matt’s teeth, and the dentist indicated that the gum around it was tender. Finally, the dentist said that either the tooth should be pulled or a pulpectomy be done (similar to a root canal). He said the reason baby teeth fall out is that as the child gets older, the roots of those teeth decrease until finally, when the roots disappear, the teeth have nothing to keep them adhered, so they detach. Actually physically pulling one of these baby teeth before the root has dissolved is an arduous, painful process, because the root is still long. We had just decided to have the tooth in question pulled when one night Matt fell at church and busted his lip, also hitting that tooth. The gum line around the tooth started to bleed, and we were getting worried. We took him to the dentist, and the tooth was pulled. It took 2 shots of Novocain to numb the area sufficiently. Matt never cried, not even once!

As amazing as that was, what followed was totally unexpected. The night before the painful procedure, I heard Matt talking to his big sister about wanting to share his Tooth Fairy money with her, no matter how much it was. Of course, after hearing this, Ed and I needed to up the ante, and after all the pain Matt was going to be enduring, we figured he deserved at least $3, so the Tooth Fairy ended up giving him $6. Sure enough, the next morning, Matt gave Rachel $3.

The whole thing just floored us. To think that a 5-year-old little boy would give half the Tooth Fairy money to his sister was hard to believe anyway. But to know that he had gone through so much pain, so bravely, at the dentist’s office and still felt like sharing the reward was incredible. To this day, we repeat this story with awe and wonder.

Because that’s really the story of Matthew. He has an innate sense of compassion, affection, forgiveness, and grace. When you combine that with a hilarious sense of humor, first-rate intelligence and creativity, an eye for detail and a yearn for perfection in his work, then and only then can you see the complexities of our Matthew. He has entertained me when I had had a bad day, encouraged me when I was down, advised me when I didn’t know what to do, taught me patiently about computers, asked for advice when he thought I could give him some input, and grimaces but gives in when we tell embarrassing stories about his childhood. (See, Matt, in honor of your birthday, I’m not even posting the “I just pass gas” story!)

We are so blessed to have Matt in our lives. We have always been so proud of him, and I am honored that he got so much of his computer training by crashing our various computers in days gone by, as this means we have contributed greatly to his technological career.

Happy 25th birthday to our son! We love you!

Versatile Kate

Seventeen years ago this week, I decided it was time to join the video revolution and buy a video recorder. I remember the day well. My brother-in-law was a professional videographer for a Memphis TV station, so I dragged him along to a store near the hospital, where he graciously helped me choose the perfect camera for my purpose. And what was that purpose? The birth of a very special lady - my older niece, Kate.

So I got to record her first diaper change by her Daddy, and then someone else took a video of Kate in my arms as I sat in a rocking chair in the hospital room. It's strange to hold a new baby and wonder what the future holds. We always immediately try to figure out which relative the baby looks like, and as child get older, what personality she will exhibit. But there in that Memphis hospital room 17 years ago, all I could think of was this precious bundle in my arms, the first child of my only sibling, born into a close, loving family. All I could think of was what a lucky baby she was, and what a lucky aunt I was.

The years have flown by. Kate is now a beautiful young adult, just as comfortable on a soccer field as she is playing the piano - and also comfortable being a camp counselor and being active in her church, and yes, her skills extend all the way to cleaning out the dog kennel where she works part-time! Unfortunately, we already had started moving around in the ministry by the time Kate was born, so I didn't get to be there as often as I would have wished. Every time we visit Memphis again, we are amazed at the talented, intelligent, charming young woman she has become.

That baby now is touring college campuses to make her higher education choice. That VHS video is old now in technological years. But every once in a while, I get it out and reminisce about the beginning of what I know will be a remarkable life. We are so proud of you, Kate! Happy birthday!

One Hour

Ah, Daylight Saving Time - the annual spring ritual when the United States government flexes its muscles to display its power over the solar system. Not to be outdone by God, who in Genesis separated the dark from the light, and not to be outdone by Joshua, who asked God to make the sun stand still, the federal government proclaims the dark to move to the morning, and the light to move to the evening, and it is Good. Or is it?

To accomplish this, the government has to take a major step. It has to “steal” one hour from our lives every spring. One minute it’s 2 a.m., and then next minute it’s 3 a.m. - just like that - and a full hour is gone, vanished, at the direction of the Feds. What might you have accomplished in that hour? It was an hour of unlimited possibilities - disappearing in an instant! At first glance, this seems immoral. But not to worry, they say. The government is just “borrowing” that hour from you. You will get that hour back in the fall, and it all balances out. So it all makes sense. Or does it?

There are people who actually believe that Daylight Saving Time can really “save” daylight and move it around, and undoubtedly these people have superior intellect, so to them I present this intriguing question: What happens to the people who die between the beginning of Daylight Saving Time in the spring and the end of Daylight Saving Time in the fall? Through no fault of their own, those unfortunate souls have really been thrown into a predicament. They’ve lost an hour of their lives - never to get it back! In their case, that hour has not been borrowed - it has been stolen!

Here’s an idea: What if we filed a class action suit against the United States government on behalf of all those people whose hour was stolen - yes, stolen - in the spring, people who died before the government could return to them their rightful 60 minutes? Surely their families must be compensated. What price can one put on an hour of life - the most precious of commodities? A lawsuit like this asking for exorbitant damages could bankrupt the whole country! And no doubt in this litigious nation, there are more than a few lawyers who will line up eagerly to prosecute such a case.

I just love logical reasoning - and then there's the other kind. Maybe the government will think twice before ever instituting such a law in the future. When will we ever learn that you just can’t fool Mother Nature?

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig

This week I want to share part of a newspaper article that I have been saving for a few weeks. It is written by Jeff Opdyke, who covers personal finance for the Wall Street Journal.
He and his wife, Amy, moved back to South Louisiana, where they both grew up, but are considering moving again, and in the article he is ruminating over the reasons why things didn’t turn out as planned back “home.” The article's title is "There's No Place Like Home. Including Home."

...Then there’s the biggest reason: Home isn’t what it used to be.

People regularly dream of returning to the place where they grew up, where memories of family and friends are strongest, where they came of age. Or they dream of returning to that place where they first made it on their own - where they had their first job, where they first met their future spouse.
What we’ve learned over the past three years, though, is that home isn’t really about the place. It’s about a time. And for many people, going home again is an impossible quest to return to a life forged as a kid or a teen or a young adult. It is like one of those dreams where everything looks familiar, but nothing seems right.
...Amy also imagined our Louisiana life would be slower, because that’s how life was when she was here last, or when we visited. But, of course, our life - and the lives of our friends - are different than they were 20 years ago...Our older relatives need our help. To state the obvious: Life is different in your 30s and 40s than it was in your teens and 20s, no matter where you live.
“The Baton Rouge I left is a different world from what we have returned to,” Amy says...Perhaps most unsettling to Amy is that she envisioned our kids would know the childhood she and I had growing up in Baton Rouge, when we could ride our bikes all over the city or hang out in the street after dark playing with friends.
“That was really naive,” she says.... “I don’t know what I was thinking. We can’t let our son ride his bike around town like we did, and there’s no way I’m letting him run around the streets after dark with his friends.”

That article struck a chord with me. As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s with the perfect childhood. Our mother still lives in the same house in which my sister and I grew up - with the exact same phone number I learned to memorize as a little girl. Now I live in Maine, but I get to go back to Memphis every couple of years or so, and every time reinforces in my mind how change is inevitable in life, not always for the better, and that, as Thomas Wolfe wrote, “you can’t go home again.”

I now stand on that porch on Josephine Street and look next door at an overgrown empty lot, which used to hold the house where the Danny Whitley (my first crush) and his annoying little brother, Chuck, used to live. Our backyard, which used to be so full of green grass and shady trees and a clothesline full of billowing sheets just right for a makeshift tent, is now just dirt, thanks to the destruction of a series of energetic dogs through the years. Some of the trees have been cut down because of age or disease. It’s impossible to explain to my kids or grandkids that in that corner of the front yard was the old mimosa tree, and on one side of the driveway grew the honeysuckle bushes and and on the other side next to the house grew the lovely rosebushes, our first stop on Mother’s Day, where we each picked a fresh red rosebud to wear to church. There was the sidewalk where we played hopscotch and roller-skated, over there was the area we played impromptu “softball” or badminton games, back there was the place our family cat was buried. Inside the house are more memories. This is the window someone always had to climb in when our parents accidently locked the family out of the house. Over there is where the piano stood; over here is where Santa used to leave his stash. And look - that tiny bathroom! Can you imagine a house with one bathroom?! For four people?! How did we ever manage?

Now Memphis is a high-crime city and Mother lives in that house by herself, where she has been burglarized and robbed and has to be home before dark.

It’s not just the familiar places and things, of course. The most gut-wrenching reality is that our loved ones are either going fast or are already gone. Our dad has been dead since 1980 (age 64) but I still tear up when I think that never again will I see him crouched in the front yard battling with the crabgrass, or sitting at the dining room table working on his stamp collection, or getting excited about seeing the latest batch of home movies, or checking our arithmetic homework, or getting out the AAA book to plan our annual family vacation. When I visit Memphis, I won’t get to see our grandfather, Paw-Paw, throw his cane up in the air and catch it. I won’t ever again get to listen to Aunt Bessie tell her story about her dog with his eye...well, I won’t go into that here. Never again will the five cousins get together and have fun, now that the youngest, Mike, passed away last year. My best friend, Bernie, died at age 49, so no more duets for us. Never mind that our childhood church burned down years ago - the people with whom we have forged friendships and shared our lives there are leaving us every year. Our mother’s best friend (and therefore a close family friend to us all our lives) has been hospitalized for several weeks and may never get to return to her house to live independently. The only neighbor on Josephine Street left from “the old days” is now mentally impaired, and our mom has become almost like a caretaker for her. Mother, who avoids talking about death at all times, even mentioned she is going to more and more funerals these days.

As much as I cry and long for those lost times and people and places, I can’t wish that time had stopped at a certain point. If I were 10 years old again, there wouldn’t be an Ed or Rachel or Matthew or Caroline or Charlotte in my life. There wouldn’t be a Sarah to make me weep with her generosity or a Chris to make me laugh with his stories. My sister and I have done what we were supposed to do - grow up and forge new lives. Life has never been so sweet and yet so full of loss. Yes, I can’t really go home. But home is in my heart, with its beloved buildings and pets and games, and most of all, the people I love, both here and gone, who have made my time on earth rich and sweet. Life will always carry its dual offering of celebration and grief. The inability to feel the loss would come with a heavy price - the inability to remember the happiness. And that’s not a price I’m willing to pay.

Still blowing bubbles...

If you hadn’t noticed, it’s political season. You can hardly turn on the TV without seeing another debate or press conference. Even if I hate everything a given candidate stands for, there’s something about a press conference that still arouses a little sympathy from me. I can’t imagine what it’s like to submit your life, opinions, record, intelligence or lack thereof, wisdom or lack thereof, to the press and therefore the public, willing (usually) to answer whatever questions that are submitted to you. All eyes are on you, every nuance in your speech is analyzed, every facial expression is scrutinized. If it’s an honest debate or press conference, you never know what embarrassing question is lurking around the next corner. You realize that a great many people are cheering you on, but maybe even more people are hoping you fall flat on your face, make some kind of grave gaffe, or be otherwise humiliated. It must be a very tough situation.

Given my reaction, it is all the more surprising that last night I dreamed I was holding a press conference of some sort - about my life. I was in a church somewhere and had been asked to give some kind of autobiographical lecture, then open myself to questions from the public. I was asked to bring along whatever scrapbooks or pictures or meaningful objects I had that might shed light on my life.

I even had a prop for this press conference. I had brought a toy “smoking” pipe that blew soap bubbles, and I had planned on saying, “I know this is a church, so I’m keeping my act clean,” then blowing a few bubbles. (Well, in my dream I thought it would relax my audience with a few laughs.)

In preparation for this great press conference, I had assembled my scrapbooks, etc., and had started to go over them to choose things of interest. I dreamed that I kept tearing out pages and pages, thinking, “No one would be interested in that.” “What’s so great about that?” “Nope, that’s only meaningful to me.” What had originally looked like a full and eventful life was reduced little by little into not much of anything.

When I awoke, I relived the dream vividly in my mind. I understood the frustration involved, the fear, the self-evaluation, but I couldn’t figure out the significance of the bubble pipe. It wasn’t there just for some kind of soap joke - I knew it had meaning and I wanted to discover it, because I learn a lot from my dreams (maybe more than in my waking moments) and I knew the pipe was the key to the whole thing.

Then I realized what I think my subconscious was trying to say. For 53 years, I’ve blown bubbles with my life. The bubbles have appeared as if by magic; some have taken time and patience to get to a gigantic, incredible size, some have been an average diameter but they may have been able to float through a beam of sunlight and capture just the right rainbow of colors, some have been small but have congregated in a strikingly lovely pattern, some have appeared promising but have popped before they reach potential, and some fizzled right at their initiation and failed to materialize at all. We all are blowing bubbles. When we take that breath and exhale into the pipe, we never know quite sure what will come out. Yet we all keep trying, keep blowing, doing the best we can, enjoying one bubble for its short life before it becomes just a memory, until finally the bottle is empty. Even when it’s officially empty, sometimes we can squeeze out just a final few bubbles. Each bubble is a surprise, each is unique, but each has a fragile, limited life span - and oh, we are certainly aware of that most of all.

Some employees at my hospital are trying to drum up interest for a talent show to bring some fun into this long, snowy, dreary winter. I said I’d sing a couple of arias, so in preparation I brought out my book, “Famous Soprano Arias.” For the first time, I noticed the graphic on the front. It is a full-page peacock, sporting its bright jewel-tone colors of royal blue, gold, and neon green. Then I laughed. That peacock, of course, is a male! Why did they put a male on the cover of arias for females? Did they think no one would notice the discrepancy? We’re so used to female divas in the operatic world showing off their talents that we forget the drab peahen is actually the female of the peacock world, not the dramatic male.

As I look over my life so far, I see these two striking metaphors. I’ve blown all sorts of bubbles with the mixed results described above. There were times I was the flashy, colorful peacock, but most of the time I was the dull, uninspiring peahen. Yes, a lot of it would be boring to most people, but I have to admit that some of it makes me a more interesting person for having experienced it. Take away any of the bubbles, big or little, grand or insignificant, and I would not be the person I am today.

One of the characteristics of humans that sets us apart from our animal friends is our ability to self-evaluate, to try to find meaning in our lives, and the innate desire to make the rest of our lives better, “improved” with each passing year (e.g., the annual New Year’s Resolution lists). Sometimes I worry that I evaluate myself way too much - but then, that very observation is a self-evaluation! Ha ha! I don’t need to hold a press conference to get peppered with questions. I ask the questions myself to myself - and believe me, I don’t spare any feelings. I ask the tough questions, the deep questions, and it can be a grueling process. But I feel somehow I come through the process more aware, less judgmental of others, and more excited about the rest of my life. My bubble bottle may be more empty than full, but I’m thrilled to be able to keep puffing away! And who knows - in a few years, those last bubbles may be the most spectacular of all!

The Big House

In my home church in Memphis, Harris Memorial United Methodist, we had what at one time was a slave balcony. Ever since I could remember, it had been long boarded up, and was not even used as a balcony anymore. There was a short set of stairs in the foyer that led up to that balcony, but as I never had a reason for going up there, the balcony remained an unknown, vaguely unsettling area of the church to me.

The old balcony could also be reached from an adjoining second-floor classroom behind a curtain - at least that’s what someone told me. One night the church hosted a Halloween party for the youth. My sister and I knew the adults involved who were trying to scare us, as the congregation was relatively small, but that didn’t stop us from feeling frightened. During the “haunted” part of the tour, someone took us up to the old slave balcony, where in the dark we looked down upon the sanctuary, and watched as the organ played ghostly music, apparently by itself. The fact that we had an idea that Zuleika was crouched on the pedals, playing where we couldn’t see her hands, didn’t make us feel any better. It was truly a scary night, in a scary “room,” with scary things happening around us.

I dream about rooms all the time. Some are in my old church, but most are in a certain house. It’s a big house, bigger than our old 3-story Victorian. It’s not a house I can recognize from real life, but I know enough dream interpretation to realize that the house represents myself, and the rooms represent all the facets of my life. The strange thing is that I’m always “finding” new rooms in that house. Each time in my dreams when I come across a new room, I’m surprised that I didn’t realize it had been there all this time. How could I have lived in this house and never known of this room’s existence? What a waste! I immediately start making plans on what I want to do with the room, how to decorate it, how to use it. Sometimes I’m rather surprised to wake up and find myself in our little 3-bedroom ranch.

As I age, I am discovering more and more about myself, who I am, what I want out of the years I have left. Some of these discoveries truly astound me. I am realizing that my mind is capable of so much more than I give it credit for. I have only scratched the surface of using all my time and energy and mental capacity. I still have gifts and purposes yet to be discovered, just waiting for me to open the doors and start working.

Other discoveries are not so pleasant. I go through a curtain and find myself in a scary place. One of these discoveries is that my body just won’t function the way it used to. I’m making a valiant and largely successful effort to exercise every day, but one day this week I pulled a shoulder muscle, and the very next day I pulled something in the back of my right knee, which required me to hobble around for the rest of the evening. Sometimes after typing all day at work, I come home with shoulders that will hardly move, much less stretch and perform repetitious things with weights.

But it’s all one house, and it’s my house. Some rooms are enlightening, some are peaceful, some are creative, some are energizing, some just draining (I really need to spend less time there) and one or two of them even look like an old abandoned church balcony. It is up to me to sort out the best way to use these rooms in ways that will make the most out of my life. This is one of the hardest parts of aging for me - the acceptance of my “house” and acknowledgment of its strengths and weaknesses, for these are all I have to work with. I will, however, say that on the whole, as I open more and more doors, I continue to find more laughter than tears, more delight than apprehension, and more hope than fear.

My mother used to sing a refrain from a popular song, “Is that all there is?” I thank God every day that I can answer a resounding no. The best is yet to come! And by George, I will try to meet it head on - even if I’m limping all the way!

My second home...a second time

One can tell our daughter, Rachel, loves books. The books (mostly children’s books, of course) are everywhere around her house - everything from the hard board books for babies and toddlers up to the chapter books for 3rd graders, up to award-winning fiction books for 6th graders. I can hardly move around their house without sitting on or stepping on a book. I remember I once counted all the children’s books, and it was - what? 600 or so? And that was not including the ones I keep here at our house! These books are the results of years and years of buying a few at a time by the parents, and the kids receiving them as gifts on birthdays and Christmas and other non-special occasions. Before we tried to pare down expenses, I used to bring a book to Caroline every time I visited her.

When my sister, Joy, and I were growing up, we also lived in a household that loved books. The only difference is that our family couldn’t afford to buy them. Our children’s collection consisted of a few volumes of a series called Best in Children’s Books, a book of poetry, and an old dictionary that fascinated me because it had a rhyming section in the back (I was prone to writing silly poems as an adolescent). So how did we manage to be reading constantly during our formative years? The public library.

I honestly don’t know why I didn’t end up a librarian. The public library, along with the church, was our second home. Back in the days when child abduction was unheard of, our parents used to leave us at the library (when we were old enough) when they ran Saturday errands, as such as going to the grocery store. The Highland branch, a smaller neighborhood library, was our usual destination, and we knew every nook and cranny of that place. I could have told any patron where any book was. The larger Main Library was truly a place of wonders. I felt as if I barely scratched its surface, but I knew my way around. It was there I met Carl Sandburg and his Lincoln books, Agatha Christie, and the Bronte sisters. I scoured the history section incessantly. I even loved to read etiquette books to marvel at instructions for place settings at dinner parties (who ever heard of having more than one fork at at dinner??). I found addresses of famous people in Who's Who in America, and I wrote letters to them, many times receiving letters in response. I was known for my interest in “weird” books - like a cultural history of bowel movements. Well, I try to be a well-rounded person and be able to hold up my end of a conversation. You never know when obscure facts might come in handy.

Our dad adored reading, but rarely had time. On nights when our mother hosted her Bunco parties, Dad took us girls to the Main Library for a rare night out with him. I remember seeing him standing in between the tall shelves, browsing book after book. It looked so odd to see him in a library, and I began to realize how much sacrifice he had made in his life to take care of his family, his in-laws, be active in his church and other community activities. He just didn’t have time to go to the library himself - but he darn well made sure we did. He knew the library expanded our world many times over - learning about the history of places we’d never be able to see in person, reading fiction from a time long gone. He smiled as I rented records of symphonies and concertos. He was pleased when I borrowed music books - where else would I have learned how to play Cole Porter and Duke Ellington? Our dad gave us everything it was in his power to give, and what he couldn’t give, he made sure the library gave it to us.

When I got to be an adult, I still used the Memphis libraries on a regular basis for many years. Ed and I even rented paintings for a while. When we were first married, we stuck a heavy nail in the wall of our townhouse, and every month we’d rent a painting from the library and hang it on the nail. We borrowed famous ones and less famous ones. For a couple of dollars a month, we’d have a new painting to enjoy for a few weeks.

Alas, as we grew busier and more financially stable, we stopped going to the library and instead frequented the book store, where we actually bought books. If you have read my blog from the beginning, you remember that getting rid of many of those books was one of our first painful steps at downsizing.

When we moved to Ellsworth, Maine, I visited the very small library, but it was such a disappointment from the big extensive Memphis libraries, that I quit going. We were still reading extensively, but still buying the books we wanted.

Now after more than a year of cutting expenses and getting by on less, I decided it was time to get reacquainted with the Ellsworth Library. After 10 years or so, my card had to be renewed, of course. Now every weekend, I immerse myself in the wonders of the public library. These days I bring home not only books but movies as well. Ed and I have just finished watching a few movies from the 1930s that you can’t even rent in the video stores around here. And it was all free!

Even with all their books at home, our grandchildren Caroline and Charlotte still visit their community library. They know the pleasure and power of “borrowing the world” for a few weeks, as well as the responsibility of taking care of someone else’s books and returning them on time.

In my life, I have only been to a handful of dinners with more than one fork - but at least I was prepared. When I finally visited Lincoln’s home in Springfield, I had Carl Sandburg’s narratives in my head. When I met Duke Ellington and got his autograph, I was confident I could play a lot of his music.

The public library is one of those places we tend to take for granted, and making fun of librarians seems to be one of our national pastimes. But I consider that the public library gave me an even greater education than the school system, and I am so thankful our parents made sure we had that opportunity to learn and grow and be entertained. I am so excited that I am renewing that relationship again. Thanks, Dad.

Putting a face to a name

It’s an old story, but always worth retelling: When I was pregnant with Matthew back in 1982-83, for the first part of the pregnancy Ed and I did not know the gender of our baby (before we accidentally discovered it on ultrasound). So we made it a point to choose two viable names, one for each gender, well ahead of time. For a boy, we chose Matthew Ensley (the middle name after my late father), and for a girl, we chose Sarah Elizabeth, to our ears a beautiful name. For a few months, we referred to the baby as “Matthew or Sarah” until the day of that ultrasound, where we learned that we had a Matthew Ensley, and our alternative beautiful name “Sarah Elizabeth” would be confined to the annals of “what might have been” - or so we thought.

Fast forward many years. Matt had grown up to be a mature, witty, intelligent, affectionate young man who was making his way through the university. He had never had a serious girlfriend before. Then one day we heard of a special friend, a young lady who made him laugh a lot, who brought out the best in life, someone he missed when she was not around, and someone who brought that glow to his face when he talked about her. When the relationship turned to love, we knew it was the real thing. Her name, of course, was Sarah Elizabeth, and she and Matt were married in 2005.

We had always hoped that our children would make good choices in their lives, and finding a partner is one of those decisions that one hopes for the best. In our case, I am so grateful that both our children married people who bring love and laughter to our lives.

One of the qualities I appreciate in Sarah is her willingness to do just about anything that would be helpful or fun - or just for the experience. As I scroll through my collection of almost 900 photographs in which Sarah appears, I see this attribute frequently. In one picture, she is in Memphis, ready to eat her first Krystal hamburger (she didn’t like it). In another picture, she is trying on all sorts of silly hats. In another picture, she is shoveling dirt, trying to help us “create” our new yard. In another one, she is helping with our wood pile. In another, she is carrying boxes in the cold rain while we moved from our Victorian house to the storage unit, then out of the storage unit to the new house. I even have a picture of her giggling as she tried out the bathtub in a model home (fully clothed, of course!). I have countless pictures of her interacting intently with Caroline and Charlotte. When I had to go to the photographer’s studio for my magazine photographs, it was Sarah who agreed to keep me company during what turned out to be (and I'm sure she would agree) an extraordinarily unusual afternoon.

She is artistic, too. She taught herself to quilt. She does scrapbooking. She makes a remarkably intricate gingerbread house for Caroline and Charlotte every Christmas. She bakes delicious cookies and muffins and other yummy things.

She is generous with her time and talents, and puts great thought into giving gifts. As one example, my dad was a philatelist. We still have his stamp collection many years after his death, but, alas, no one in the family has shown a real interest in continuing with it. When Matt was younger, my mom would send him a handful of loose stamps from the collection, trying to gently nudge his interest, and, surprisingly, Matt actually kept up with them. A couple of years ago, Sarah took those stamps and made a collage for me, which she framed. Now they’re out of a drawer and on my wall, and every time I see them, I think of Daddy. Likewise, when my sister scanned a bunch of old family slides of us when we were little and sent them via e-mail, I forwarded them to the kids. Sarah quietly kept them for over a year. She presented them to me this past Christmas in a gorgeous scrapbook filled with decorations and poems and such. When Ed wanted a stupid sign for our new yard, Sarah didn’t blink an eye - she made it just like he wanted it - to say “Beyond this point, there be dragons and grumpy old trolls.”

Finally, and most importantly, she takes care of our Matthew, being a supportive, encouraging, loving wife. She tolerates his obsessions with his latest technology and pet projects and she tries to get him to eat his vegetables. She even graciously puts up with Ed (for that alone, she gets a gold star, don’t you think?).

Today is Sarah’s 25th birthday. I am so grateful that she has come into Matt’s life, and with that, into our lives. We’ve only known her now for a few years, but, after all, Sarah Elizabeth has in essence been in this family for over 25 years. Happy birthday, sweet Sarah - with many more to come! We love you!

No Strings for Me

When we sold our old Victorian house to the ladies from Arizona, we left them a box of things they might need, plus a few little gifts. One of these gifts was a bottle of wine. As we toured the house with them one last time right before closing, one of the ladies noticed the wine, and, a little flustered, said something about not being able to drink it because she was a recovering alcoholic. Ed laughed and said he was one too, so they would just have to find someone else who would enjoy it. Thank goodness there are recovering alcoholics wise enough to know the sensible course of action.

Well, I’m Carol Tiffin James and I’m a recovering consumer. For many years I let spending get the better of me. I have had the acquisition fever, with its never-ending wants and out-of-control accumulation. Three years ago I started on the journey to simplicity, trying to curb my consumer’s appetite for stuff, concentrating more on downsizing, frugality, people over things, all the goals that I list to the right of this post. On the journey, I have learned how to appreciate the present moment and achieve a sense of peace and contentment.

Then what happens? The federal government wants to send Ed and me several hundred dollars in a massive rebate package.

Now, this would ordinarily please me, as you might imagine. We are paying extraordinary bills for heating in Maine these days, high prices for gasoline, food, and every other necessity of life. We have debts like everyone else; we’re feeling the pinch with the rest of the middle class. Now, I’m not going into the financial pros and cons about the decision to issue the rebate. That’s not my point here. What greatly disturbs me about the whole thing, however, is that those in power are urging us to spend this money. Not on necessities, but on “stuff” or luxuries. They don't want us to pay the oil bill; they want us to buy things or services that we wouldn't have bought otherwise. “By a new big screen TV, take a trip to Disneyland” are two of the pieces of advice I read. “Spend and acquire! Go shopping! You know how to be a consumer par excellence - now go out and be one - for the good of the economy, for the good of the country!” They are waving the flag with one hand and dispensing wads of bills with the other.

OK, I can understand their reasoning. But I just can’t do it. Call me unpatriotic, but right now I must tend to the needs of myself and my family. I will consider that money (if it ever comes!) as a gift, no strings attached, and I will do with it what I consider prudent in our circumstances, whether it is paying a bill or putting it in savings. As much as I would love to spend it all at Amazon.com for books and DVDs or go to the quilt store (my personal consumer heaven), I will have to restrain myself.

Consumer restraint is not something the government and businesses want to hear. I already messed up my piece of the economy during Christmas by making most of my gifts instead of buying them. I have spent the last few years learning to curb spending in order to enjoy life more fully, and I’m not about to let the federal government undo all my hard work.

So I hereby sincerely apologize for my unpatriotic behavior. I won’t refuse the bottle of wine, as I would enjoy being able to buy a couple of books, but I won’t get "drunk," either. I have to be sober to walk the road to simplicity, else I take a wrong turn and forget where I was going altogether.

Drugs

I’ve been thinking about drugs this week. Actually, in my line of work, the subject of drugs comes up quite frequently. A drug/alcohol profile is part of every patient’s history and physical. Every clinic patient on narcotics is monitored carefully after signing a narcotics contract, promising, among other things, to get refills at one and only one designated pharmacy. Patients admitted to the hospital who have been known or suspected to be regular moderate to heavy alcohol users are monitored for signs of withdrawal. ER providers as well as clinic providers are always on the lookout for drug-seeking behavior. Oh yes, drugs are a big part of a medical transcriptionist’s life.

Once I get home, though, I’m faced with them again through the news. Maine is known for a low crime rate, but one of our rising statistics is illegal drug use and illegal sale of prescription narcotics. I often wonder how people know where to go to buy drugs “on the street.” If, for instance, I had a hankering to get some OxyContin, I would have no idea whom to approach. How do you tell someone is selling drugs? Do you just happen to have a friend who is addicted, and he gives you a seller’s name? Do you go by your nearest cheap motel and ask around? This under-the-radar (to me) social networking seems so complicated, it is a wonder it thrives at all. But thrive it does.

I have never been a black-and-white person; I am usually in the “gray” area. By that I mean, I am smart enough to realize that society has complicated problems that are not easily solved, and any politician who promises to quickly and easily solve them is either lying or naive. The drug culture is one of those complex problems with no simple answer. I have wondered, however, about two things.

I realize that law enforcement is trying to go after the “big” people - the pushers, the growers, the providers. All well and good. However, in any society, there is a law of supply and demand. If there were not a demand, the drug pushers would have to change their line of work. I only hear about jail times, methadone clinics, and undercover arrests. I have heard few people ask, “Why are so many people hurting?” That’s the root of the problem. As long as people need relief from emotional pain, illegal drugs will be in demand. If you have thousands of people in the United States who need relief from emotional pain, you will have thousands of growers in South America and elsewhere who see an opportunity.

Many folks have asked Ed through the years how he stopped drinking cold turkey and how he managed to stay sober since 1984. In a nutshell, he always says, “God hit me upside the head with a 2 x 4 and told me to wake up to who I really was. Once I learned why I was hurting and the inner pain was healed, I didn’t need the anesthetic any more.” He said he could have been a drug addict instead of an alcoholic, but alcohol was "my anesthetic of choice." It is interesting that he always uses the term “anesthetic” for alcohol. After all, in the old days they used to have patients get drunk so they could operate with less pain. Anesthetic numbs feelings - physical and emotional. Of course, it’s only temporary, the feelings come back, then you must re-consume the anesthetic agent. Why are our young people and adults hurting so much that they have to anesthetize themselves with drugs and alcohol? Why do they think their lives are so despairing that they don’t want to feel anymore? I’m sure it’s a combination of things, especially in Maine. It’s hard to find a good job that gives a decent wage, for instance. Families are hurting financially, and that continues on for generations who feel hopeless and helpless about their situation. And the beat goes on, unrelenting. The drug lords realize this. They know a good thing when they see it. They know hurt and pain and desperation. They have a addictive product to sell, and plenty of hurting people who want to be numb. If only we could heal all that pain in a more constructive way! Take away the market - the need - and the drug pushers would have to find some other way to make a living, and these victims can’t “just say no,” when they don’t see any other viable alternative.

My second question is short. Why do we insist on separating alcohol from other drugs? It is just as addicting, just as powerful, just as deadly (more so in driving), but it is legal and sold in every grocery store. What’s up with that? Why is it acceptable and heroin not? I have personally seen the devastating effects of alcohol in our family and others. They use the acronym DUI for “driving under the influence” instead of the old DWI for “driving while intoxicated,” but in 99% of cases, that influence is booze. I’m not saying to make drugs legal or alcohol illegal. I’m just confused.

So this week I am hurting in my own way - for society, for our apparent inability to get to the root of these problems and bring some kind of hope - tangible hope, not some rhetoric - that will help them wake up to who they really are, children of God, and as a result, help them discover that life is to be lived fully awake, not emotionally numbed in a haze of anesthesia. It would take the cooperation of the spiritual community, the psychologists, the psychiatrists, the counselors, the economy gurus, the corporate community, the teachers, the doctors, the social workers, and countless others to agree to address the root - not just legalities - of this complex problem. At least it would be a start.

It's the THOUGHT

A few weeks before Christmas, I got a call from our daughter, Rachel. I heard the sob in her voice immediately, and had to calm her down so she could tell me what was wrong.

“I’m making you a Christmas gift,” she sniffled.
“How sweet! What’s so upsetting?” asked.
“Because I’m screwing it all up!” she cried. “I don’t know what I’m doing!”
I smiled. “That’s OK, honey,” I said. "Don’t worry about it! It’s the thought that counts.”
“You don’t understand!” she wailed. “I’m having problems with it and you’re the only one who can help me, and I can’t ask you because I want it to be a surprise!”
I laughed a little. “Sorry, honey, wish I could help. Just forget about it.”
She was not about to do that, and she was not pacified, but she calmed down a little and we talked about other things.

Later, I wondered to myself what on earth she was trying to do. I had a vision of her back in high school, in her one and only year of Home Ec, when she made a pillow with a football player motif. I hope she’s not sewing, I thought. She’s probably making me a pillow. That pillow project frustrated her so much she said she hated sewing and never picked up a needle again. Surely she wouldn’t be sewing! She doesn’t even own a sewing machine!

A few days later, I received another call. An increasingly frustrated Rachel was on the line.
“It’s getting worse and worse! Each time I put it down I tell myself to throw it away because it’s hopeless!” she lamented.
“Don’t worry about it, Rachel,” I repeated. “It’s the thought that counts. Just put it up and tell me about it at Christmas.”
“But it’s so hard! It’s something I’ve never done before!” she sobbed.
We again changed the subject and she seemed to calm down a little.

My curiosity was aroused more and more. Something she’d never done before. Hmmm. There went my working hypothesis, since she had made that pillow back in high school. What on earth could she be doing?

The next day, ring, ring, and as soon as I heard her voice, I knew she was still trying to complete that darn gift.
“I’m determined to finish it, but I’m at my wits’ end!” she cried. “I wanted so much to make a gift for you, and it’s the perfect gift - the perfect gift! I was so excited!” She named off all the people she had talked to for advice, apparently unsuccessfully.
At this point, I said, “Look, Rachel. It’s no big deal. It’s the thought that counts, right? Just bring the unfinished gift to me on Christmas Eve, show it to me, and I’ll finish it myself, since apparently it’s something I know how to do. No big deal!”
She was unappeased. “No! Ask you to finish your own gift? That’s terrible! No! I’ve got to figure out how to do this!” She fought back tears again.
“Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” I replied resignedly. “It’s the thought that counts. Just bring the project, show it to me, I’ll be impressed, I’m sure, at whatever you’ve done, I’ll thank you from the heart, then I’ll finish it, and we’ll laugh about this in a few years!
Apparently I’m dense.
“You don’t understand!” she cried. “I’ve hardly done anything on it! You can’t even tell what it is!” I could sense that she was starting to get a little hysterical at this point. She continued as her voice rose in increments. “It’s...it’s....it’s as if I were building you a house, and brought you to a patch of land where I had shoveled a couple of scoops of dirt, pointed at the land and said, ‘There’s your present! Don’t you recognize it? It’s a HOUSE! NOW YOU FINISH IT! MERRY CHRISTMAS!’”

At this point, I had to laugh. My mantra, “It’s the thought that counts,” was obviously falling on deaf ears. This was the most intriguing puzzle I’ve had to solve in a long time.

Finally, Christmas Eve came, and the family all gathered here for chili and to exchange gifts. Rachel took me aside. “I gave up on your present,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it, it was driving me crazy, and I just had to give it up.”
I had to ask what it was, as I was dying to know.
“It was a cross-stitch project,” she replied. “I’ve never done cross-stitch in my life, but I know you have done lots of cross-stitch and would have really appreciated a homemade gift that was perfect for you. It said, ‘LIVE LIFE SIMPLY.’” She paused. “It was perfect for you,” she repeated.
I hugged her and expressed delight and told her that it indeed was the perfect gift, and the idea that she would tackle such a complicated project just for me - one picked out for its timely message that reflected our simplicity journey - made me very happy, whether it was finished or not.

Mystery solved, we got down to enjoying our family Christmas.

The whole thing reminded me of being in the grocery store with my parents when I was a child. Greeting cards are expensive today, but I guess relatively speaking they have always been expensive, at least for my family to splurge on, and I can remember my parents not wanting to waste money on a card that would be enjoyed but immediately thrown away. So they had a mutual agreement. When my dad’s birthday was approaching, for instance, Mother would spend some time in the card display picking out the perfect card. Then she would show it to him, he would laugh or smile, express appreciation, then Mother would return the card to its place. The underlying communication in this ritual was, “I can’t afford to buy you a fancy card, but if I could, this is the one I would have picked.” No money was spent, the card was enjoyed, and that was that. It was the thought that counted.

That still rings true. Rachel took our chosen lifestyle into consideration as she chose her pattern. Then, she spent an extraordinary amount of time struggling to master a skill that she had never even tried before, reaping only frustration and disappointment. That was indeed a labor of love. I love homemade gifts, and I especially love homemade gifts picked out just for me. Rachel kept thinking the cross-stitch project was the gift, when all along it was the THOUGHT and EFFORT that constituted the gift.

I still haven’t seen the project in question, but when I do, I may decide not to finish it. I may just frame it like it is, where “you can’t even tell what it is!” Then every time I look at it on the wall, it will make me smile with the memory of this special Christmas and my special daughter. Those “scoops of dirt” are full of love in every little stitch - and the gift of love is the most incredible gift of all.

Ladies and Gentleman...

As a medical transcriptionist and a lover of the nuances of language, I have been disconcerted recently over what I perceive to be the misuse of the word “gentleman.” Health providers are sometimes challenged when they try to describe patients. Usually it’s straight and to the point: “A 53-year-old female (or woman).” “A 42-year-old male (or man).” Sometimes they reference age with an adjective: “An 83-year-old elderly man.” “A 14-year-old adolescent female.” Often it is race: “A 30-year-old white male.” “A 72-year-old Hispanic female.” These are objective descriptions that anyone could agree with.

The challenge comes with abusive, drunk, stoned patients - the “bums,” the “losers,” as I have heard them called (it even pains me to type that). The provider certainly doesn’t want to come across as judgmental, and he/she, of course, cannot give his/her true opinion of the patient’s state. Sometimes the patient is just referred to as “unfortunate,” a catch-all umbrella word which covers cancer patients as well as alcoholics, and on that we can all readily agree. However, I have noticed a trend in these instances - and that is to call them “gentlemen.” “This 44-year-old gentleman” turns out to be an alcoholic who has been admitted umpteen times in the last year for detox, who gets sent home, set up with outpatient counseling, never goes, starts drinking, and comes back again for another week’s admission for detox. In an effort to avoid insulting these patients, the providers are making extraordinary attempts to be ridiculously complimentary. I don’t want to sound judgmental here, as I myself have lived with an alcoholic for many years and I understand the torture this disease inflicts. That patient would be unfortunate indeed, but I would not confer the title of “gentleman” on him.

The first definition of gentleman is “a chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man.” Unlike the stereotypical British gentleman with a pearl-handled walking stick, impeccable suit, hat, and gloves, the above definition of gentleman doesn’t mention wardrobe or outward appearance. It talks about attitude and character.

If I think back on my 53 years of life, I can name several men I have known that I would unhesitatingly call gentlemen. It’s not a distinction I would confer upon just anyone. My grandfather’s friend, Mr. Gordon, was a gentleman. He not only had the attitude and character, but the suit to go with it. He was not related to us, but he lent his presence to many a family holiday celebration. My high school French teacher, Mr. Knight, has always been a gentleman. My high school friend Mark Williamson was a gentleman. My cousin Mike McDonald was a gentleman. My father, Ensley Tiffin, was a gentleman. And the list goes on.

Some of these men were dressed to the nines; some were more casual. But gentlemen they will always be.

Now the word “lady” is different. Although its first definition is “a woman (used as a polite or old-fashioned form of reference),” its second definition is “an informal, often brusque, form of address to a woman.”

I was called a lady once. I was taking my very first plane flight, had just made a will for the first time, had just bought a house in another state, and had just turned 40. Talk about a tumultuous year! Anyway, I was scared to death to be in that plane. The whole trip, even though the flight was smooth in beautiful weather, was a nightmare for me. Apparently it was also a nightmare for the man in front of me. As I sobbed, tried to sing opera under my breath, vocally displayed my angst - anything and everything to try to distract myself - the man in front of me finally turned around, looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “Lady - if you see me break this window and jump out and run, then you can get worried. Until then, just SHUT UP!” (I think he was using the second definition.)

It’s too bad the word “gentlewoman” has become archaic. I love the sound of that word, and I think that would be the perfect way to describe some ladies I have known. Mrs. Underwood was one. My friend Audrey May is another. My mother, of course, is one of the most “gentle-women” I have known. Again, too many to name here.

As there seems to be a shortage of common civility, kindness, and respect in society these days, it pleases me to think back on all the true ladies and gentlemen I have met. Their character will never go out of style, and I am honored to have been a part of their lives.

I still think about that poor man on the plane. Well, at least he called me a lady!

Flight Plan

Today’s my day off. I wanted to sleep late, but for some reason I woke up before it got light outside. I peered at the clock. 6:10 a.m. Too early. I closed my eyes, snuggled up, and decided to wait for the sun to come shining through the window.

That never happened of course. I mean, the sun eventually showed up, but by that time I had been up for an hour. The older I get, the harder time I have getting back to sleep once I’ve awakened. My brain just starts racing.

When medical practitioners assess patients, they sometimes dictate, “The patient has flight of ideas.” One definition of this is “streams of unrelated words and ideas occur to the patient at a rate that is impossible to vocalize despite a marked increase in the individual's overall output of words.” This is what happens to me, not verbally, but in my head. I have so many things I want to do, a limited amount of time, so many ideas, a limited amount of energy, so many quilts I want to make, a limited amount of money, etc. Sometimes I just can’t wait on the sun.

I was asked to write a few paragraphs about my professional highlight for 2007 for a Medical Records industry magazine called Advance. These days, when I have to write something, including this blog, I always extract every essence of what it has to teach me, and this assignment was no exception. The highlight, of course, was passing my CMT exam. As I typed out the details of the long year’s journey toward actually taking the test, the procrastination and excuses, I suddenly realized that passing that test was more momentous for me than it first appeared. Something I did initially only for my professional career expanded to touch every part of my life, a highly unexpected outcome! Because I passed this test, I became acutely aware that I can achieve much more than I think I’m capable of. I have been allowing financial or time constraints to restrict me in ways I don’t even think about. I, the one who has always joked about being a procrastinator and “unfinisher,” was able to set my mind and energy to doing something - and I actually did it! The question that inevitably follows is, “Hmm...what else do I think I can’t do but I really can?”

That’s really my only New Year’s resolution - to push myself, believe in myself, act as if there is nothing to prevent me from creating, quilting, cross-stitching, reading, playing the harp, writing, making gifts - even exercising - and that I possess right now the ability, time, money, and energy to accomplish all I desire. If I can keep that wonderful mindset, this year will certainly be a productive and satisfying one. I need to take my flight of ideas, put them all one one plane, make an amazing flight plan, and just take off.

I think it is true that more limits are placed on us by ourselves than are ever placed on us by the outside world. I was looking at a catalog yesterday from a store that sells distressed-looking country signs. One said simply, “What Are You Waiting For?”

What indeed? It’s a “Blank Slate for 2008.” I’m ready to fill it!

Purpose

Every year when I take down the tree decorations, I think about “Mrs. X," one of our former parishioners. Once on a visit to her home, Ed and I discovered that she loved Christmas ornaments. She told us that in fact she had every Hallmark Christmas ornament dating back years and years, all their special editions, and before I could express awe at this collection, wanting to ask whether she alternated various ornaments each year, or whether she used them all at once, or whether she had them displayed in a cabinet somewhere, she informed us with great satisfaction that she had every ornament in storage in its original box under her bed, never used. This increased the value, she assured us.

Mrs. X would probably be aghast at our motley collection of tree ornaments - things the kids made when they were little or inexpensive but meaningful ornaments given to us by friends. She would have been particularly disgusted by our poor little feather-bare birds, a few cardinals which have seen better days, and one seemingly drunk naked partridge who must think he’s a bat - he refuses to perch upright on the branch and maneuvers himself to hang upside down. I do have a few more expensive, fragile ornaments, such as a glass-blown head of Lincoln (with lipstick, it looks like), but I would never think of putting them in their boxes and never using them.

I believe things are made to be used for their intended purpose. I remember when I was a little girl that some women (maybe they still do) were given beautiful nightgowns as gifts, but put them away “in case I have to go to the hospital.” Some of those women died without ever even having tried on their pretty new gowns.

When I was a teenager, with several years of piano under my belt, my musical tastes were eclectic. I couldn’t afford much sheet music, but I enjoyed going to the library and borrowing everything from Chopin to Broadway to Strauss to Cole Porter. I would play anything. One day an older, wealthy, very genteel lady in our church named Mrs. Stacey gave me an large, old music book. I think it was from the 1800s, and I know it probably belonged in a museum somewhere, but she knew I enjoyed playing piano and she was generous enough to give it to me. It had that distinctive old-book smell. It never occurred to me that it might have been valuable.

It was an oversized book and as such was reluctant to sit upright on my piano, and it wouldn’t stay open on its own, so I was constantly having to stack heavy books on both sides as I played the music. The music was not easy, it was very challenging, but it was lovely and different, and best of all, it was mine. Soon the fragile pages started to tear. Some of them would crumble when I touched them. Other pages would just fall out of the binding, yet on and on I played. I played from that book until it was a crumbly, unidentifiable jumble of torn paper. I had played the very life out of it. Then I threw it away.

Every so often, I think about that old book, wishing that I had taken better care of it, wishing that I had not used it so much. It probably was valuable then, and 40 years later, I imagine even more valuable today. But do you know what? I used that book for the exact purpose for which it was published. I played its glorious music. Things that are well used don’t last forever.

As a quilter, I have frequently read that antique crib quilts are hard to find, because their very purpose ensured that they would be used - dragged, spit up on, washed, dragged some more - therefore, few antique crib quilts exist today, especially in good condition. It’s the same with toys. If you watch Antiques Roadshow or read about the antique toy market, you will soon learn that a toy that still has its original finish, no broken or missing parts, and - particularly - its original box, is one of the valuable ones. Every time I hear that, it saddens me. A toy that is in such pristine condition is usually one that hasn’t been deeply loved by a child, and that, after all, was its purpose, just as the crib quilts were meant to be used and loved. In their purpose lies their destruction, but in the process, the pleasure and joy they bestow upon their owner(s) is what determines their value, not how much they are worth monetarily.

My old music book, my Chatty Cathy doll without a string or her original clothes, our bedraggled Christmas ornaments - they are all testaments to a life of love, each broken piece or torn page evidence of the pleasure they gave. Oh sure, if I made a gorgeous quilt for my grandchild, a part of me would love to see it delicately preserved for generations to come. But on the other hand, if it’s dragged across the floor and spit up on and washed until the patches come undone, then spends the rest of its ragged life as a dog blanket, that’s fine by me. It was used completely and ultimately for its intended purpose.

Now if we could all discover what our purpose in life is (and we are each called to a life of love and service, I think) and steer our lives toward fulfilling that purpose, I think the world would be a happier place. The remarkable difference between humans and things is that the more love we give, the more we have to give, and though our bodies exhibit the wear and tear of lives well lived, our souls are still able to demonstrate purpose, generosity, and compassion. I want my quilts to be used, and I want my life to be used. That’s my prayer for 2008. I wish all my readers a Happy New Year, and thanks for being a part of my ongoing journey!

Chipping away

One of my favorite tasks involved with Christmas is unpacking my little Christmas village. It’s not one of those beautiful expensive ones (most of the shops were bought half price), but it is truly lovely, with each shop lit up from inside, the tiny Victorian people milling about, dogs and cats, horses, trees. I even have a boy skating on ice. The problem is, I’ve never found an object to use for the ice. I had a little square mirror, but it looked ridiculous.

Finally the other day, I opened a new roll of wrapping paper that I bought last year (at half price, of course!) and realized that it was unlike any other wrapping paper I was used to. It was like a thin foil, very silky - draping, not stiff - and I soon found out that it was very difficult to work with because it kept sliding around when I tried to cut it, fold it, and tape it. As I struggled with this paper, I noticed that the reverse side of it was reflective. It looked just like water. It was like a mirror in motion. I knew then that I had to cut a circular piece of that paper and use it for my “ice.”

Every time I laid the paper down with the mirror side up in order to wrap a present, I was required to look at my reflection. It made me smile, in spite of the older, lined, unfamiliar face peering back at me, because it reminded me that this is the time of year I reflect. Most of the year is filled with activities and pursuits and deadlines and mundane chores of paying bills and going to work, but in late December, I try to take some quiet time to think about the year that has passed. This reflective process is started when I write the annual Christmas letter, but that focuses mostly on outer things. Now it is time to focus on inner things. I’m actually taking next week off to do just that.

As a woman with a to-do list a mile long, my first impulse is to list my accomplishments. Yes, I got my CMT. Yes, I was honored to appear in a few magazines. Yes, I made a quilt square for organ donation in memory of my Dad. Yes, I made a few Christmas presents (with a few to go!). But these are not the things that weigh on my mind in late December.

I learned a lot about myself this year, and that’s a good thing. I learned how to work through deep grief. I learned how to appreciate simple things. I re-learned the value of family and friends, people over things. I reminisced about my own amazing grandfather (basically the only grandparent I knew who was in good mental and physical shape), and thought about my role as a grandparent and what I want to impart to Caroline and Charlotte. I thought about the friction with people where I work, and the lesson I learned when Ed kept telling me that the only person I could change was myself, so I did.

Organizations that specialize in goal direction and life coaching sooner or later get around to Michelangelo’s David, because the story of the great sculptor’s mindset has been repeated for generations. Here is one version:

The story has it that when Michelangelo was commissioned to do the sculpture of King David he looked at hundreds of blocks of marble before he decided on the "right" one. To most of us all those blocks shown to him would have looked more or less the same but for Michelangelo it needed to be a certain piece of marble - nothing else would do. Why was that?

It was because he knew exactly what he wanted his David to look like. He could see the end result in front of his eyes. When asked how he was going to create such a fine figure as King David out of such an enormous chunk of marble his answer was: "That's easy. All I have to do is chip away everything that isn't David."

The usual lesson these organizations glean from this story is that you have to know your goal before you start on your journey, and keep that goal at the forefront.

That’s fine, but the lesson I draw from it has a little different perspective. Instead of trying to discover who I want to be, I have to chip away to reveal “who I already know I am inside.” That’s what I’ve been trying to do this year.

I consider myself basically a good person. I know that deep inside me, I am honest, dependable, loving, compassionate, forgiving, patient, creative, nurturing, encouraging, accepting, grateful, intelligent, and generous. This is not a list of things to brag about - this is what my insight tells me is my true nature, the kind of person I not only want to be, but the kind of person God has already made me. Most of these attributes are probably in us all in different degrees, but we don’t realize it, so we don’t start chipping away to find them.

Many churches teach that humans are basically evil, owned by the devil, and accepted and tolerated by God because He sacrificed his son to pay their sin debt. We don’t believe that way. Ed and I believe that God loves us because we are the children of God, that most people are inherently good inside, but because of life circumstances or horrible treatment or even genetic problems, the good is squashed and the bad takes over and the person lives with hatred of self, hatred of others, and acts accordingly.

So at this time of reflection, I have to ask myself, looking back over various times of 2007: “If my true nature is kindness, why am I being unkind? If my true nature is generous, why I am being stingy? If my true nature is compassionate, why am I ignoring? If my true nature is forgiving, why am I holding a grudge? If my true nature is blessed with talents and gifts, why am I not making more use of them?” Then I review my priorities. "If my priority is family and friends, why am I wasting my time with things that don't matter? If my priority is simplicity, why am I buying more stuff? If my priority is health, why am I continuing bad health practices?"

As you can see, the list goes on. There’s a David in me somewhere, and all I have to do is chip away at everything that isn’t David. It’s a hard process, but it’s a necessary one. I believe we are most happy and fulfilled when our pattern of behavior and priorities match what we know is deep down inside of us. The best Christmas presents I can receive this year are a clear mirror and a good, sturdy chisel. Won’t you join me in your own sculpture of self-discovery? Who knows - in the process we might find a thing of beauty that was there all the time.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Signs of the Season

Everyone knows by now that I get extremely frustrated when I see signs with spelling or punctuation errors. It’s one thing if an error is in print; I read it once, groan loudly, and that’s that. It’s one thing if I hear it on TV; I hear it once, shout my disgust, and that’s that.

It’s quite another thing altogether if I see a mistake on a sign. For one thing, it’s bigger than life. If I see a sign outside a business, an unnecessary apostrophe might be bigger than my whole head, and on top of that, it’s usually lit up to shine its misspelled word for a mile. And as the most exasperating thing of all, I have to pass a sign day in and day out, enough times to raise my blood pressure.

Sometimes I try to rectify the situation. Wendy’s in Ellsworth, for instance, has a big sign out front containing the word CHEDDER. After I had shuddered innumerable times and tried not to look the rest of the time, I finally got an opportunity to go in.
“Do you know the word “cheddar” is misspelled on your sign out front?” I ventured. “It is AR, not ER.”
The clerk just said, “Huh?”
I repeated my question.
“Oh,” was the response I got. This was a couple of weeks ago. The word CHEDDER is still there. Nobody cares.

My only consolation is that it’s winter. In the summer, millions of tourists make their way to neighboring Acadia National Park, and the only way they can get there by land is through Ellsworth, and the only road that leads to the park boasts a lit-up sign right by the street that says CHEDDER. How embarrassing!

So yesterday we were going to Bangor and, right on the road into Ellsworth, I saw another sign. “WINDSHIELD WIPERS INSTALED FREE.”
I snorted, and Ed said his usual, “What now?”
“That sign,” I said. “It’s missing a letter.”
I pointed. Ed looked and rolled his eyes.
“But,” I said cheerily, “at least it’s in keeping with the season. We ought to go in there and thank them for their Christmas message.”
Ed was perplexed. “What Christmas message?” he asked.
I smiled. “NO L.”

It’s an old joke, but hey, whatever gets me to laugh at a misspelled word has something going for it!

The Short List

We had a girls’ day out yesterday. Our daughter, Rachel, and our daugher-in-law, Sarah, drove with me to Freeport in southern Maine for some outlet shopping. Since that popular area was crowded, we had to park in a distant lot which hadn’t been plowed well (Maine has just had up to 2 feet of snow in places), and we had to walk gingerly on slush and snow and ice up to the main street.

When we were in Gap, almost everything was on sale, so Rachel had her arms full. When she mentally added up the cost of her items, she was somewhat shocked and started to choose items to put back. I suggested to her that I pay for a few and call it part of her Christmas. She agreed, and I ended up with her pair of pants and shirt to add to my three purchases.

Everything went according to plan. We checked out, and then, deciding that we had spent enough for the day, walked back in the slush to the car. Since I had already sustained a bad fall once this week (which injured my tailbone), I tried to walk very carefully in the slippery parking lot. Back inside the car, Rachel asked me what the final price of the pants had been. She knew they had been on sale, but didn’t remember what the final discount was. I retrieved the receipt, intending to check the price of the pants, but was surprised to find that that particular item was not on the list.

“I don’t think they charged us for the pants,” I said. Rachel thought I might have missed it, so she took the receipt and checked it herself. We all agreed that the Gap cashier had put the pants in the bag, but had somehow failed to charge us for them.

A discussion ensued as to the next step. Ed and I have always been diligent when we have eaten out to make sure that the server had not omitted an item from the bill. In several cases, that indeed had happened, and we always called the server’s attention to the discrepancy, an act which always seemed to surprise them. Nobody wants to be ripped off by having to pay more than they should, but it seems fewer people mind ripping off the business. “Oh well, it’s their mistake, too bad for them,” is a common response.

But in this case, there were extenuating circumstances, or so the rationalization went. As we discussed it, we were making two distinct mental columns - should we go back and pay for the pants, or should we just forget it and accept their mistake in our favor?

The column of “Just Forget It” had a few key points.
1) I had already had a bad fall this week and was not enthralled with the idea of walking back out in the slush up the hill to the store. What if I fell again? If I broke a hand or arm, I might be out of work for weeks!
2) The store was extremely busy and I didn’t want to get back in a long line.
3) It was their mistake and not my fault.
4) It was already 1 p.m. and we had to find somewhere to eat lunch and head back before dark.

The second column of “Go back and pay” had only one key point.
1) It was the right thing to do.

Sigh. Sometimes the short list trumps the long list.

So Rachel drove the car back up to the shopping area and parked off the street in a “No Parking” zone, keeping the car running, while I went back into the store. I bypassed the long line and went straight to an employee who was folding clothes at the end of the counter. I explained the situation, showed her the pants, and she charged my credit card for it. She did say, “Thank you for coming back in. Not many people would do that.”

Of course, we didn’t get a reward for coming back. No coupons, no extra discounts - I paid the appropriate price for the pants and that was that.

Oh, wait - we did get a reward. It’s called Intact Integrity with a Clear Conscience. Sometimes it’s the only prize - but it’s the jackpot.

You've got mail

In most ways, the family I grew up in was a traditional post World War II family. Our dad worked as a bank teller, and our mom stayed home and took care of the house. We didn’t have a lot of possessions, but what we did have was appreciated, and we lived a life of true abundance in the areas that mattered.

There was one aspect to our life, however, that differed from other families we knew. Our dad was the one who chose, signed, and addressed the Christmas cards. In most families, this task usually fell to the woman of the household, but not in ours. This was not a chore to him; it was pure pleasure. It started with picking out the card he wanted. Now, this seems like it should be a relatively easy task. Most Christmas cards are functional, decorative, and suitable for the occasion. But Daddy had to have an extraordinary card. It had to be extra-special, because it had to have A MESSAGE. It just had to. No “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” for him - oh, no. His cards were more like little booklets, several pages long, with some sort of story reminding everyone of the true meaning of Christmas. He liked stories that gave the recipients pause in the busy holiday season, a story that they could read and meditate on. These cards, as you can image, usually had to be mail-ordered. You could not find these cards in Walgreen’s.

I always thought his choice was kind of strange. After all, what was wrong with regular Christmas cards? We got lots of regular type cards in the mail at our house, lovely cards with sparkles on them, or shiny foil, with pictures of heavily adorned Christmas trees and yummy candy canes and whimsical snowmen. Their messages were terse - “Happy Holidays From Our House to Yours,” for instance - and they were perfectly wonderful cards.

My sister and I were usually the first to get the mail if we were home, and we would always go through the Christmas cards with anticipation. It was the unspoken rule in our house that we could open cards addressed to our parents if it also had “and Family” or “and Girls,” or, sometimes, our actual names. If the envelope was just addressed to our parents, it waited until Daddy got home from work. As each card was opened and oohed and ahed over, we taped it up to a door to join the others. We had to hang all the cards at an angle so they would stay closed until we decided to open them again.

Fortunately, we hardly ever received a booklet card like the ones Daddy sent. They would have been very hard to tape to the door.

I never could understand why Daddy had to make a big fuss over sending a drab card without sparkles, without candy canes, and filled up with a lot of boring printing. Now that I am grown, however, I can appreciate his insistence. Sitting down with pen and cards and stamps, he himself found the time in his busy life to write to friends and relatives, sending his personal messages on his spiritually provocative booklet cards, and therein he knew lay the true Christmas spirit. He knew he was giving a great gift - an opportunity for the recipients to reflect on the birth of Jesus, not as a one-time historical event, but as a continual presence in their lives, offering its wisdom and tolerance and compassion.

I’m creating our Christmas letters and addressing envelopes and buying stamps this week. As I go through each name, I see them in my mind’s eye, wondering how they are doing, thinking of our shared memories, both joyful and sad, and as I enclose our current family Christmas picture, I feel I am sending some Christmas love their way. I don’t have a booklet card, and my envelopes are printed on the computer, but I’m sending out Christmas spirit and love in every envelope. After all, I learned from the master.

From Dry to Sober

As most of you know, my husband, Ed, is a recovering alcoholic (sober since 1984). When I married him, I had no experience with alcoholics, and I just thought if he had a stable, happy home life, he wouldn’t need alcohol anymore. Well, the next 10 years taught me otherwise, and during that time I learned almost everything there was to know about alcoholism (and so did he). One of his favorite lessons to cite is the difference between being “dry” and being “sober.” “People mistakenly use these word interchangeably,” he notes. “Being dry,” he says, “is truly hell on earth. When you’re dry, you are abstinent from alcohol, but you wake up every morning wanting it. When you’re sober, you’re still not drinking, but you're at peace because you’ve totally lost the desire for alcohol.” His empathy is reserved most for those poor, unfortunate folks for whom every day without alcohol is a struggle.

When Ed was a few years into sobriety, Rachel would position herself in front of the TV whenever a beer commercial came on so her dad wouldn’t be tempted. Ed would just laugh. He tried to explain to her that there was no internal fight anymore - no temptation, no craving, no desire. He had learned that he had been using alcohol to numb emotional pain, and after he learned how to heal, he didn’t need it or want it anymore. He will be forever labeled as as a “recovering” alcoholic, not a “recovered” alcoholic; hence, his license plate says “HEALING,” not “HEALED.” But the hold alcohol had on him for all his adult life until 1984 had virtually and completely disappeared. He was not dry; he was truly sober.

That wisdom has lain heavily on my mind this week, the week of Black Friday, the first official week of the frantic Christmas-shopping season of 2007. I don’t even need to consult a calendar to know what week this is; the flyers in the newspaper and the mountain of catalogs in the mail serve as inescapable clues. Two Christmas-shopping seasons ago, we were desperately trying to sell our house. Last Christmas-shopping season, we were in the middle of building this house and living out of town with Rachel and her family. This is actually the first Christmas-shopping season that we have been unencumbered with house-selling anxiety or house-building anxiety. It is the first time we have been able to calmly reflect on where we are in our simplicity journey and where we want to be - and even how far we have come - in the midst of all the advertising, sales, priority topplers, and financial hazards inherent in this season.

We don’t watch much TV anymore, so we’re immune to those commercials, but we do get a daily newspaper and a few magazines, and, of course, that aforementioned mail avalanche of catalogs, and we do go to the mall occasionally and the grocery store every few days, so we know it’s Christmas-shopping season and we are aware of what’s out there, what’s new, what’s enticing, so we are not wholly unaffected. I have found myself drooling over the new digital cameras, amazed at how inexpensive they are (for many more megapixels than my current camera has), and there are a few DVDs I would enjoy owning, and quilt paraphernalia is always tempting, but even as I let these feelings pass over me, I note awareness of them and let them go. I then put the paper down and head back to my office/sewing room, where I am attempting to make most of my gifts this year - a time-consuming and frequently anxiety-ridden process for those of us who are both procrastinators and perfectionists - that deadly personality combination.

My conclusion is that it may be a long stretch of time for me to travel the simplicity journey from “dry” to “sober,” and that’s OK. It’s impossible to put blinders on with this surrounding consumerism furor, and it’s just the truth to acknowledge that certain things would be enjoyable to have or be useful in my work and hobbies.

Meditation techniques usually instruct the practitioner that, when thoughts intrude during the relaxation time, the best course of action is to silently acknowledge them, then let them go. In the simplicity journey, I am trying to acknowledge these tempting ways to spend money and let them go, looking forward to the time when I move from “dry” to “sober,” knowing that it’s a long trip with many stages. It is one thing to state your priorities, yet wake up every morning desperately wishing you could buy the latest gadget. It is another thing to state your priorities, and actually feel more content and happy without so much “stuff.” I’m sure that day will come.

In the meantime, back to my homemade gifts. Hey - no peeking!

Pasta Buffet

My mother astounded me the other night. She said that in her 84 years of life, she had never heard of throwing spaghetti noodles on the wall to determine whether or not they were al dente. She almost didn’t believe that such a technique existed. Surely most of you have heard of it. You cook the noodles for a certain length of time, then to check if they are ready, you throw one onto the wall (or ceiling, in some cases!) and if it sticks, then all the noodles in the pot have reached the perfect texture. There are people who swear by this method and other people who scoff at it. I personally don’t care about its efficacy, but since Mom and I weren’t really talking about cooking techniques, it didn’t matter. We were discussing my looming Certified Medical Transcriptionist exam, and I was using the pasta as a metaphor.

I told my mother that after months of intensive studying, which got more concentrated as the date of the exam neared, I finally felt that my brain was no longer holding onto any more information. Especially the day before the test, I felt as if I were throwing spaghetti noodles on the wall in a desperate attempt to “learn” as much as I could as fast as I could, and even as I knew most of the noodles were falling immediately, I was hoping fervently that some of them would stick, at least for another 24 hours.

Well, my test is over, and I am happy to report that I passed. However, in retrospect, I was studying spaghetti and ended up being tested on macaroni. You may not think that would make much of a difference. After all, they are both pasta. Yes, that’s true, but they have different uses and go with different sauces. I found it quite intriguing that nothing I studied the day before the exam was on the test. None of it. Zip. I did indeed have some of the spaghetti adhere to the wall of my brain, but the meal was, alas, macaroni, very little of which I had prepared.

Nonetheless, I did pass, although I think that victory was due more to my 11 years of experience as a transcriptionist than my rigorous study. And I have reasserted my belief that, given the test’s authority to ask any question related to the medical field - in addition to grammar and medicolegal issues - I was lucky the test was just macaroni and not something from a separate food group altogether. It does give another meaning, though, to “using one’s noodle.”

Oh, well. I’m very excited with the result, and, with my time and energy now freed, my focus on the journey to simplicity can resume once again. By the way, I am now in the process of emptying all the information I temporarily stored. If anybody needs a great way to memorize medication suffixes, I’m your lady. Maybe you’ll get more use out of it than I did. Everyone pass your plate - there’s enough here for all of us!