Goin' Down to Mama's

Hey, man, what's this "stress" thing I keep hearin' so much about?

Did you say something?

Sunday Morning Serenity

I love a little cold weather at Christmastime, but the minute I've opened my last present and we've sacked up all the wrecked wrapping paper and crushed boxes, I'm ready for spring. I guess I'm eager for renewal. When I was young, New Year's Eve used to depress the daylights out of me because I would watch Dick Clark and company celebrating in Times Square and think, "I can't believe another endless year has gone by and I'm still not__________." How I filled in the blank varied from year to year, depending on where I was in life. It could be anything from "dating Donny Osmond" to "sure about my major" to "on my way to New York to get famous." Now, New Year's comes around and I think, "How on earth did 12 whole months fly by so fast?"

New Year's is a strange time because our hopes for what lies ahead are mingling with whatever we feel about the year we just came through. Maybe we were thrilled with how it turned out. Maybe we were sadly disappointed. Most likely, there were moments of both. We're still sorting through all of that when the clock strikes midnight and BOOM! A new year, a clean slate, and a world of possibilities. Also a big question mark. How will this one turn out?

I think New Year's might be the moment when all of our humanness bubbles to the surface—our hopes for the future, our fear of the unknown, our desire to be renewed and to be somehow better than we were before. Every plea for forgiveness and healing in the Bible is, in a sense, a plea for renewal. The Apostle John sees the ultimate vision of it in Revelation:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"Now the dwelling of God is with men,
and he will live with them.
They will be his people, and God himself
will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death
or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away."
Revelation 21:1-4

 Lifting up a prayer for renewed hope, health, and joy for you this New Year.

Relationship Status: Oscar and I Got Back Together

 

I think I was still in high school when I got my first bottle of "serious" perfume for Christmas. I know I had big hair, so it must've been the late seventies or early eighties. After catching a whiff of it in a department store, I just had to have it—the original Oscar by Oscar de la Renta. Surely something that smelled so wonderful would have transformative powers, rendering me glamorous and mysterious. It would do for me what that sojourn in Paris did for Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (as if Audrey needed any help). Suddenly, my inner sophistication and hidden beauty would be evident to all. The William Holden types would sit up and take notice. Or, at the very least, I would smell really good.

This year, my parents bought me a watch for Christmas—and realized the weekend before Santa's arrival that I already had two. So they returned it, and Mama handed me her Visa card with instructions to buy myself a suitable replacement gift. I had been on the hunt for a new fragrance but couldn't find anything I really liked. Then it hit me. Maybe what I needed wasn't new at all—maybe it was time to reunite with my first love. I asked a friendly sales clerk if they carried my Oscar. They did indeed. I spritzed. I sniffed. I immediately remembered what I loved about that delicate floral scent and bought myself the whole gift set. Mama would want nothing less for me. I'm thoroughly enjoying this blast from my fragrance past. But I have an overwhelming urge to get a perm . . . and listen to Elton John and the Eagles . . .

Sounds Like Key West

Have you ever experienced such a strong connection to a place that you could feel it in your bones? Sometimes it comes from a sense of familiarity and belonging. Like my mother before me, I have always felt separated at birth from the Gulf Coast—I love Mississippi, she loves Alabama, and we're both sold on the Florida Panhandle. I am never more serene and content than when I'm walking along the water's edge—correction, THAT water's edge—watching the seagulls dive for fish and breathing salty air tinged with Hawaiian Tropic.

Sometimes you can connect with a place for the opposite reason—it's so unfamiliar, so unlike anyplace you've ever been before, that it speaks to you. You're a stranger in a strange land, and yet that land is communicating with you somehow. Key West was like that for me. I'm thinking about my first trip there because when I stepped outside early this morning, a blustery wind was blowing through the palm trees we planted in our garden—specifically to remind us of the coast. This time they reminded me of that faraway island, particularly an early evening walk when the sky was growing dark, and the palm trees were blowing in the night breeze, and I was surrounded by beautifully weathered old wood-frame houses with their tall, shuttered windows and deep porches. You walk through a place like that, and you just feel it—incredible people have lived here, dramatic events have unfolded here. For heaven's sake, PIRATES have hidden out here. 

Some of these very houses survived the devastating 1935 hurricane that destroyed Flagler's fabled railroad. Unbelievable—a marvel of modern engineering crumbled in the storm but these old houses made it through. My imagination went into overdrive. Who lived on this street back then? Where did they come from? How did they weather the great storm? Did they stay on the island afterward or leave here for good?

Key West is the only place I've ever been where I felt completely disconnected from The Real World. And it made me want to transform a bit myself. By my second day there, everything in my suitcase seemed all wrong. I went to a little shop on Duval Street and bought myself a sundress and a pair of sunglasses to complement the one article of clothing I had brought along that did suit Key West—flipflops.

And away I went—travelling alone, an island unto myself on an island out in the sea. And it all came back to me when a morning wind blew through the palm trees in my backyard and made them go to talking:)

[Image by Robert Goosney @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

In just a couple of days, Daddy will offer his annual reminder that Christmas "is not about material gifts"—right after he instructs me to hand him "that really big present" with his name on it:) But our holiday scene, unlike the one in all the Christmas movies, has no snow on the ground, no sleigh bells ringing. Right now, it's thundering and lightening. Within the next day or so, the temperature is supposed to dip into the 20s, but yesterday it climbed into the 70s. A good friend of ours came by with a gift of spring bulbs and convinced me that I needed to set aside the Christmas to-do list for a few hours and do something really important—garden.

Now all the window boxes and containers along our garden wall are filled with promise. Hidden beneath the earthy surface are bulbs and seeds that will take in the winter rains, the chill in the air, and the warmth of the sun and slowly transform into what they're meant to be—daffodils and crocus and hyacinths and wheat grass.

I usually associate renewal with Easter, not Christmas. But our brief Christmas spring reminded me that this season also marks a time of renewal—of renewed hope through the fulfillment of God's promise and the pathway of grace He created. We can fulfill our own promise because God kept His.

This spring, my garden will come to life with flowers planted at Christmastime. Just thinking about that has me humming an old Gaither tune. It's usually sung by children but still holds true for us oldsters:)

I am a promise
I am a possibility
I am a promise
With a capital "P"
I am a great big bundle of potentiality.
And I am learnin' to hear God's voice
And I am tryin' to make the right choice
I am a promise to be anything God wants me to be.

[from "I Am a Promise" by William J. and Gloria Gaither]

Sunday Morning Serenity

I'm thinking this morning about the ties that bind, the ones that can't be broken by time, distance, or circumstance. Dave and I have struggled this season to find any time to stop working and just be still and enjoy Christmas. This weekend, we finally strung a few lights and put up the Nativity that my mother gave me years ago. The picture propped in the window above it was taken before I was born. It's our church family at the groundbreaking for the "new church," which was built around 1960. The dark section on the left side is the choir. (My mother still has a beautiful alto voice, even though she says she can't sing "worth a flip" any more.) Some of the people in that picture are related by blood—my mother and quite a few aunts and uncles are standing there together. Others are friends and neighbors who have remained so for several generations.

I didn't put the Nativity and the church together intentionally. It just worked out that way. But I like looking at them together. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. Here's a group of people in a little town in Alabama, bound together in love and fellowship by a shared faith, a shared hope, born to a young Jewish couple more than 2000 years ago. Husbands and wives go through so much together, and each step of the journey binds them together more. Can you even begin to imagine taking the kind of step—the giant leap—that Mary and Joseph took together? They were forever bound, not just by their love for each other but by their extraordinary circumstances. 

Good and bad, the experiences that we share bind us together. So does love. So do memories. There are people I profoundly miss this Christmas season. But then part of me feels like they're still with me, just in a different way. They gave me so much of themselves while they were here that I carry them with me always, like the melody of a beautiful old hymn, like the comfort of knowing there's a place called home, like the story of a baby in a manger and the hope He gave us long ago.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,
To escape the pressures and stresses of my workaday life, I have decided to revert back to my childhood this Christmas. I do not know how far back I will need to go in order to achieve a sense of calm and well-being. Therefore, just to make sure we're covered, please leave the following under my tree:

Easy Bake Oven OR Suzy Homemaker Oven
(I'm not greedy. I don't need both.)

Set of Cake Mixes for Same

Suzy Homemaker Bonnet Hairdryer

Inch Worm
(It will be difficult to ride in our hilly neighborhood, but let's gave a go anyway, shall we?)

Big Wheel
(Can you get those gasoline powered because I'm not sure I can pedal any more?)

Fisher Price Parking Garage with Elevator
(I still enjoyed playing with my little cousin Grey's when I was a teenager, so I feel that this one is really an investment toy, as it has staying power.)

Fisher Price Telephone with Face and Pull Chord (because what child doesn't enjoy leading a telephone around the house?)

Skip the Stuffed Chimp
(My cousin Stanley had Skip, which I adored. Found out his mother gave Skip away. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I'm still not over it.)

Weebles

Slinky

Eight Ball

Simon

Barbie, Casey, Skipper, Midge, and Francie

Malibu Barbie Dreamhouse

White Faux Fur Coat with Silver Buttons

Bicycle with Banana Seat, Basket & Bell
(Please reference Marcia Brady's for guidance.)

Paper Dolls

Chrissy Doll

Chatty Kathy Doll
(I know. I have one already. But as you'll recall from that "knows when you've been bad or good" deal, I gave her a bath. Now she doesn't chat so much as gurgle. It's very disturbing.)

H.R. Pufnstuf Doll
(Did they make Witchiepoo, by any chance? Oranges, poranges!)

The following games: Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Sorry!, Mystery Date, Monopoly, and Clue

Love's Baby Soft Cologne and Bonnie Bell Lipsmackers Lip Gloss (for the early teen years)

Donny Osmond Records

Partridge Family Records

That should do for a start, Santa. If there isn't enough room in the sleigh, just skip over some of the other children. You can catch up with them next year.

Your friend,

Valerie

 

 

Hank's Book of Cat Philosophy: #29

On family project day, it's important that we all do our part. Take leaf-raking, for example. Note the clean space I've created for myself. One can only hope the others will do as fine a job with the rest of the yard. What can I say? I'm a giver.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Peace. That's number one on my Christmas list. I think I want it more than anything, and I want it on every scale—peace in the grand sense of "peace on earth" and peace in the much smaller, personal sense of peace in my heart and peace of mind. Mary-Chapin Carpenter had a hit (I think I had it on cassette, so that tells you something:) in which she lists all the things she wants and believes she has a right to. Included on her list are "pens that don't run out of ink and cool quiet and time to think." Cool quiet and time to think. Amen, sister. 

I took a look at our calendar the other day and found myself actually dreading Christmas—not the  holiday itself but everything that I have to do between now and then. And our holiday season is much simpler than it used to be. Still, there are work deadlines to meet, cards to address, gifts to buy, food to prepare. Manmade chaos. But all I really want is quiet time to think about what this season really means. And time to enjoy being with the people I love. 

To that end, I have decided the following:

*I gave our house a good cleaning yesterday. If it doesn't get another one till December 26, so be it.

*I will really, really try to send out Christmas cards. But if it doesn't happen, I will trust friends and loved ones to forgive me just this once.

*I will really, really try to make homemade mac and cheese for a dinner we're invited to. But it might have to be embellished Stouffers, which I will remove from the foil pan and put in my casserole dish like a wise aunt taught me.

*I will only put up the decorations I love best and will not strive to create a holiday extravaganza. I am not Martha Stewart. It's time I accepted that. 

*I will only go to the mall for fun with Mama and Daddy (or at strange hours when the stores are vacant). All other purchasing will be done at our friend Carole's lovely and peaceful gift shop or on my computer, in the Story Shack, while burning a yuletide scented candle from the aforementioned shop (which is called A Little Something, in case you, too, would like to escape the mall mayhem).

*I will reserve the predawn hours (which are often plentiful, now that I wake up with the chickens), for quiet time and reflection and my own creative writing.

*I will reread the Gospel of Luke so that I don't get distracted by things that don't matter.

*I will reread the promise in Isaiah and restore in my own heart and mind the awesome wonder of Christmas:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
Isaiah 9:6-7

A voice of one calling:
"In the desert prepare
the way for the Lord:
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all mankind together will see it.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
Isaiah 40: 3-5

 [Image by Chance Agrella @ Freerangestock.com]