You gotta suck that lozenge!

Life is short--I could fill this thing with cliches--grab life by the horns, live every day to the fullest, live up to your potential, go for it! How about some new ones that really say what you mean about all those just mentioned cliches? Play tennis like you're at Wimbledon. Smack that baseball like you mean it. Jog as if you already lost the extra pounds. Find joy in every missed opportunity. Find cherished moments in every over-packed closet. Find peace in every empty moment. Pray as if you were the only person in the world doing it. Converse as if you had twenty years of thoughts to catch up on. Read as if the book-burners are on the way to your house. Vote as if the decision were entirely up to you. Jump like a grasshopper on a hot sidewalk. Cook as if Emeril were coming to dinner. Celebrate Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo and Hanukkah and National Secretaries Week--because, man, there's so much to be thankful for. And while you're riding that wave, sucking that lozenge and sizzling like water droplets in hot grease, don't forget to soar like an albatross above a hurricane. Life is short.

Post Wedding Thoughts

I am now a mother-in-law. The whole wedding celebration is as dreamy a recollection as my own wedding thirty years ago. I recall walking down the aisle with my usher son, Patrick, to be seated. It didn't occur to me that others were watching me as the mother of the groom. My being seated was really the first thing to happen, the signal to go ahead as planned. Jack slid in next to me and before I knew it the procession was well underway. It was really a family affair, small, and intimate--all five of my children participated in some capacity. That left Jack and me alone in our pew. Almost as soon as it was too late to do anything about it, I wished that my extended family had all been seated closer. Although it was a joyful occasion, there were moments that I couldn't look different family members in the eye, for fear of causing either them or me to break down in tears. Change is hard. It is also often necessary and good.

Hurry Up and Wait

It's the day before my son's wedding, and I'm at home twiddling my thumbs. The house is clean, the flowers are freshly cut, my dress is hanging in the closet awaiting me. I even got caught up on the finances and cleared off my desk. Anticipation is such a sweet joy. There's a little anxiety mixed in with it, and a wondering amazement that it all pulled together. I know it's coming, but I can't visualize it in my mind. Somehow when I try I'm somewhere near the middle section of the church on the right side--the groom's side. I haven't put myself up front as the mother of the groom. I can't see myself being especially escorted down the aisle to be seated. I can't see my other son and daughter standing up with him, or the other brothers doing their parts. I'm always still picturing someone else's wedding. It is unreal, but coming, and good. And there's no hurrying it, so I'm trying to sit still at the moment, relax, and patiently wait.

The Unique Scents of Summer

freshly clipped grass
insect repellent
charcoal grilling barbecue
moist spaded soil
savory fresh herbs rubbed between your fingers
wilted petunias blossoms plucked from the hanging basket
geraniums
over-ripe cantaloupe
ballpark hot dogs
rotting compost on a hot day
grated cabbage becoming coleslaw
baseball glove leather
hot tar wafting up heat waves from the road
suntan lotion
acrid chemical whiff of fireworks
tomato plants
mildew on damp towels heaped up too long
chlorine soaked bathing suits

A New Day is Dawning

My son is getting married in three days. I'm gaining another daughter of whom I have become quite fond. It is a beginning and an ending. When two people get married they are a new family, but people tend to think of them as a couple until they have kids. That's how I felt when I got married. "Ah, we are a couple. Someday we will start a family..."

The change a marriage makes is really felt when the extended clan gets together and people need to take pictures. Distinctions are made: just the old nuclear family, now just the siblings, now the siblings with their spouses, now add the in-laws, now the kids with their children...

Eventually, if all the kids marry, you and your spouse are back to being a couple again. With an empty nest.

Life doesn't stop for you to adjust. You sit helplessly by while each child leaves, eager, excited to be on their own, and their empty room is full of past times never to return. You walk in it, look around, and walk out shocked at how quickly it was over. You wonder that anyone could celebrate the emptiness. Your heart aches. You wonder if the silence will kill you. Somehow that picture of the Waltons with all their kids and grandparents under one roof just will not die. As much as you love your spouse, the two of you created something together--and now your joint venture has become shrunken--withered like the skin on the back of your hand making veins pronounced and wriggly. You loved those withered, veined hands on your grandmother, but never expected to see them on yourself. You look at your spouse and hope that the two of you can fill your home and time with life in a new way.

So the wedding is coming up. I'm very happy. I will probably cry for joy. But all the same, a change has come. A new family unit is carrying off my son, leaving me for now on the outside and hoping that he will cherish and love the gift of family that has been given to him for a time...

Shedding Some Light ...

He's shedding some light, blond fur. I just brushed my golden retriever. Although only an ounce or so of fur was collected, he looks ten pounds lighter. He's shedding so much I think more dog was in the wastebasket than was left standing on four paws in my basement. As I stroked his fur whole tufts of fluff floated off his body and drifted across the floor. I waved my brush at the escaping clouds, trying to catch them on the bristles, but that only sped them faster in flight. Every half minute or so I had to stop brushing to clean the wad of fur off the brush.

I can always tell when he needs brushing. He looks scruffy and his coat is uneven. Little cirrus clouds peek out from his tawny hide, waiting to slip off after the floor has been vacuumed. You can figure out where he is in the house by following his downy trail. Dust bunnies of fur have become dust sheep--whole herds wandering around the drafty floor. You sweep them up and an hour later new ones appear, timidly at first, and then a stampede of fluff begins. The whole floor appears in motion.

What is amazing to me is that he has golden brown fur, but everything that is brushed out is blond. It's all the stuff underneath--thick, cottony and dense--not like the coarse long hair on top. It takes some effort to soak this animal to the skin because of the insulating layers. It is also a wonder that it's coming out in July. You'd think he'd shed more in May--but perhaps the heat isn't intense enough then.

I always feel like I've done my dog a great kindness when I brush him. He seems to enjoy it if I let him lie down--but today I made him stand up so I could brush him sitting in a chair instead of sprawling on the floor myself. He felt ashamed somehow, and slunk off to his cage once I let him go. Why was that? While he was shedding a layer, was I shedding some irritation--scolding him silently with a brush for doing something he couldn't help? Were my strokes a little harder than they needed to be? Could I have been gentler? I don't remember being angry or irritated, but my act of kindness was in a spirit of merely getting the job done no matter how. I tell myself, "he's just a dog", but what better place to practice gentleness than with a dumb animal. It is not hard to shed fur. It is hard to shed habits. Being habitually brisk and efficiency-minded might get the job done, but it doesn't convey the intentions behind them.

Coming of Age

It is always a shock when you see the first liver-colored spot on your hands or face. Then one day you are looking at your arms and legs and you flex a muscle in dismay. The top layer of skin has a rippled look like wind gently blowing over water--wrinkles. You go to pluck your eyebrows and energetically pull the white hairs out--they were never there before. Somehow that streak of gray in your hair got wider without your even noticing it--until you brush your hair in a different direction and discover a whole layer of it underneath. You used sunblock faithfully but the crow's feet are getting more pronounced, and that frown wrinkle between your eyes has gotten deep enough it never entirely disappears, even when you're not frowning. You start flexing and stretching before exercising, because a strain or sprain has taught you that not doing so is foolish and injury likely if you don't. You go to the next room to get something and can't remember what it was by the time you arrive there. You stop, think through what you were doing, and why you might need something, and eventually it comes to you--ah, I'm in the pantry to get the ... honey!

But there is good news! You've wised up some. There are mistakes you don't repeat any more. There are things you get done, because time is more precious. There are lots of things you don't worry about any more, because you've come to see they aren't worth it. You have things to look back on and see what has been accomplished. It is good to see how far you've come. You've learned that experience is the best teacher--so you try to give less advice and pray more. You have more stories to tell and more to laugh about! And when things are not going well, you panic less. Things really do pass on. You realize there is always something to get riled up about, and when the current crisis is over another one will follow. We do live in a fallen world. You get riled up because you love many things in this world that is terminally ill. You view generations like people standing in line--one generation passes through the veil and you step up in the queue. Occasionally you are shocked when someone behind you takes cuts and steps through first, but your turn is coming. You try to grow in faith, to keep your fears in check, and keep your soul clean. Because the age is coming when what matters most is how you've lived and who you love most.