my oyster coming soon

                               Surprised by Joy

When I heard that phrase a moment or so ago the day wobbled a bit. 

Awareness catching me off guard, I was in truth, surprised by joy.  Not

like C. Lewis’s religious conversion nor Wordsworth’s tipover into grief, 

just a simple flash of knowing. Yes, knowing. In the midst of an ordinary

day doing ordinary things, feeding the dog I think, a flash of joy 

unattached to anything -- by itself, pure, sweet, ephemeral.  No trumpets

 fanfare  no fainting like some medieval saint I simply leaned against the

 table top for balance and placed the dog’s breakfast  on the floor where

 she could gobble it up, experiencing her joy.

The moment lengthened, stretched along a path of sunlight on the 

kitchen floor and faded slowly into a warmth I felt in my fingertips.

Living in the moment, that kingpin of Eastern thought I presumed to

understand, to search for and very occasionally achieve had suddenly

found me! I believe now that that is the way it does happen.

Understanding, searching for, achieving are words for actions that

 preclude an object or a place, a thing with a name.  Joy comes out of a

 moment like the “crack” of Jim Talone’s baseball bat, a feeling so far 

above the physical experience that let it happen.

Maybe it is a gift we give ourselves. Happiness, pleasure come from

achievement or awareness but joy splits our lives for a moment and lets

 the light stream in, cosseting, warming, not blinding but letting us SEE.

.                         

The Book of 90

A primer:

     First of all, of course, you have to get here. I’ve spent a lot of time and literally thousands of words chronicling that endeavor in the last few years. What a full, rich, adventurous journey it has been but a journey it is and so has a beginning and an end. In the beginning we stumble, stagger and flop about learning how to be, to handle what we call life. It comes without a primer so we write it as we go along. Unfortunately there is no Spell Check and some of us, find punctuation to be a thorny path.

     For those of us who do make it here, shouldn’t we be able to take charge a bit, as experts in the field? This time, couldn’t we write the instructions ahead of time, the How-tos?  Shouldn’t we?

                      I think I will.

1.      Have fun with it.

     “Next year, in six months, in a month and a half, next June 21^st I will be 90 years old!” 

  “No, I can’t believe it! I wouldn’t have thought – you don’t look it – wow,” turning to the next person in line, “Did you hear, look at her, she’s going to be 90!”

     It’s fun to shake up the Weight Watchers line, to come up with my overworked response, “People say I should ask for a recount!” Chuckle, chuckle.

       It is easier over the phone, “Next year, in six months, June 21^st ----       “Oh no. can’t be – you sound so young, so __”, and we are off again.

     I‘m embarrassed, yes, but we have to play the humor card when it comes, there’s not a lot of them of late, the deck is slimmer now.

2.     Show off.

This can be a perk.  People expect a certain amount of slippage in one at ninety:

Memory.  “I can’t remember, when was that, what do you mean, I don’t know which way to go.“  Brushing aside a momentary lapse or two, I can dazzle anyone with the really large supply of trivia I’ve collected over the years.  I even wow my children occasionally with some erudite bit of ‘knowing’.

Word finding difficulty.  Hem and haw a little, that’s natural at any age, but try a diversionary tactic, look across the room expectantly, “Oh, there’s Dottie – oops, sorry, she’s gone,” this as they turn their heads to see an old friend, “maybe it wasn’t her, anyway. Now, what were we talking about?” By this time you have recalled the word or if not, no problem, they have probably forgotten too.

 Tricks of the trade, tricks of the trade.  

      

3.     Be physical

This is more difficult, however, if you are lucky, like me there’s still a lot you can do. Skip quickly over those activities that no longer seem so easy, natural, like sprinting quickly, gracefully, up and down stairs. Show them instead how you can still sit cross-legged on the floor! Okay, at this point you can’t get up without help, but for a minute they are in awe. 

4.     Be eccentric

It goes without saying that having reached this lofty goal we are certainly entitled to be ourselves, unique, silly, noisy, messy free of constraints. Not as a protest, not a negative freedom, a positive, glowing acceptance of every used-to-be hidden aspect of our selves.  Surprise yourself with how bold, how scary and out of the box you can be!

Shock people? Disillusion some? Can’t be helped. No longer what they think or hope we are -- content with what we’ve learned, happy for the tattered bits and pieces of life we’ve carried with us. Let’s hear it for 90!

5.     Pontificate

Ah, this is the glory of being 90.  You can be the Sage, the giver of wisdom, the Pontificator. No one can argue, they haven’t been here yet!  A few of your age-compatriots will poke you in the ribs, sneak a knowing laugh and play the game with you! You deserve a little adulation, a few ooooooo’s and ahhhhhhh’s. You’ve worked hard to get where you are, put up with the pseudo-patience of people who whisper behind your back, “She’s really slipping, can’t remember, getting feeble….”.

Make grand pronouncements, tell how it is, revel in the age brings wisdom  game. 

This brings us back to the beginning --- Have fun with it!

6.     Celebrate

Make a great cake out of your favorite memories, big enough to hold all 90 candles. Ice it with the splendid years of being you, cut yourself a slice, a big one, taste it, lick your fingers to get every last sweet morsel.  There’s still more to come but, just now at this lovely pivot point; review, remember, treasure and enjoy.

A Primer should always have a summary and perhaps suggestions for “what comes next.”

Life

 Live it always to the fullest --- then just throw it away. It was a hoot, a roller coaster ride on a summer night, a long, lovely moment that you held in your hand, a drama, a comedy, a cliff-hanger that did not disappoint. There was always something else, down the road, around the corner. You’ve lived it, you’ve loved it -- now let it go…

        Empty,

       empty,

       empty…

so when it’s time to go the autumn breeze will just blow you away,

a leaf, crisp and full of color to lie in sweet surrender  on the cooling grass.

O Danny Boy

                                   O Danny Boy

Okay! OKAY,   I’m pushing,     leave me ALONE!     I’m busy,    I’m pushing       ooooooooh!        HERE WE GO AGAIN!

It’s a boy!

Hot, wet, someone lays him on my stomach just within reach of my fingertips -- my son, my sweet baby boy.

“I told you, I knew all along.”

Grinning, exhausted, I’m remembering that long ride to the Delivery Room on the stretcher. The nurse, noticing my pink slippers commenting, “You’re looking for a girl.’

“No, it’s a boy, I know!” I’d been making him, nurturing him, trying to get comfortable with him for nine whole months, don’t you think I would know?”

Flat on my back, feet still up in the stirrups, laughing and weeping all at once, beside myself with joy. The doctor turns to the nurse, “She’s awake! Call downstairs to the waiting room. Let her talk to her husband.” They’re not used to wide awake, natural-childbirth mothers.

Phone up to my ear, Ray’s worried ”Yes -- ?”

“Oh, Danny Boy…the pipes, the pipes are calling….”

Later, downstairs in my room, washed, in a warm clean hospital gown,  tucked up in bed I relaxed after all that hard work, but also HUNGRY! Kitchen closed, it’s after 10:00, poor Ray goes out and gets me the most unforgettable, delicious coffee milk shake ever made!

September 21, 1962. Passaic General Hospital, Passaic New Jersey where my first two children were born. Actually, I was born there too!

It is fifty-five years later and my tiny Danny Boy is a man. Like everyone his life has had excitement, sorrow, disappointments, dreams found and lost, a divorce, a precious daughter, success and failure --

But I write about him as he is NOW, today, living in the moment, because that is exactly what he is doing -- and doing it so well. He is walking, hiking the Appalachian Trail, 10, 12, even 17 miles a day. 280 miles in just 27 days, over rough, rocky ground, up thousands of feet to one mountain-top after another, slipping, sliding down again clutching his hiking poles for dear life in rain, even snow in Georgia in April!

When he takes a ‘zero day’ in one of the small towns close on the Trail to rest and stock up on food he calls me and we talk for an hour. His voice is so strong, excited. 

Today, he is recounting a horrendous trek over the last of the Smokey Mountains a day ago. There were hurricane force winds, snow pellets scoring his face, unsure footing. Almost desparate when his trail buddy grabbed his shoulder, shouting against the roar of the wind, “Man, we are fuckin’ ALIVE!”

“Church -- hell,” Dan tells me, “God lives in the mountain storms!”

Totally alive in that moment, that freezing, bitter, painful, moment -- every part of him stretched almost beyond measure -- gloriously aware of what being alive is all about!

He talks, too, of the quieter moments. “Mom, when I get to the shelter at the end of a day it’s good to meet up with other hikers, some I’ve met before, others are new, it changes a lot, but what I really like best is the walking alone --  mile after mile, my head’s down watching where to make the next careful step. I have stuff to eat tucked in every pocket so I don’t have to stop. I probably eat every hour that way. Sometimes I do stop when there’s an awesome view across the mountains. You know, mom, it is really like meditating. My mind is empty, happy just to be, I’m not regretting the past, I’m not thinking about the future, worrying, planning  -- I’m just resting, aware of the moment. It feels good. Maybe when I get back I’ll write a book, ‘The Appalachian Trail, Modern Man’s Path to Enlightment’ .”

Did I forget to mention that within the last five years Dan (‘boy’ no longer) has had two heart attacks, four stents in that rather important organ? If I did it’s because he does not identify himself that way. He has not talked to me about the journey from the way-things-were-to-now those rather abrupt occasions caused. I have watched him from mother-distance deal with and accept reality. Deciding to stop living a put-off existence he recently resigned from the job he had held for 27 years, gave up his treasured apartment, put just a few things in a 5 X 5 storage unit, came east from Seattle and in one happy moment decided to put – forgive that hackneyed phrase – mind, body and spirit smack-dab in a total experience on the Appalachian Trail

He is learning, that the only time any of us are alive is this moment, the past is mind-memory, tomorrow does not exist yet. Most of us live in a series of empty, tomorrow will be great, I’ll do something then, wasn’t that fun yesterday, where should we go on vacation next year  and the oh so potential gift of actually doing, experiencing now slides, unnoticed by.

Challenged every day, tricky right ankle, blister at the base of his thumb from clutching those poles, favoring his left knee, face forward, munching on a candy bar -- totally alive, Dan, my Danny Boy, lives in each moment forever.

“ -- from glen to glen and down the mountain side ……”

I have paid my dues

I’ve Paid My Dues

What a thought!

In 2 months and 3 days I shall be 90. I’ve been a little conflicted about that.  I have always liked the beginning of each decade, 40, 50, 60 -- because there is a good feeling of ten years ahead. I could almost see them stretching out, blooming, filled with living! Knowing, of course, there might be sadness, grief, fear but right there at the zero, top of the slide, the possibilities for growth and joy were always endless. They are there at all the turnings, 3s, 7s, 9s, on the age staircase but, for me, the naughts were always the most magical. 

Suddenly, here in my living room, drinking a small bare-bones side car, there was only ¾ of an ounce of brandy left, the thought came, all of whole, not in pieces, fully formed – I have paid my dues! 

Perhaps not ten this time but regardless of how many years ahead, I know I have done the best I could. After a lifetime of thinking I really didn’t measure up, I should have done more of this or less of that,  I could everyday have been a better person, kinder, more loving, less self-centered I suddenly know none of that is true.  I have done only what I am capable of and done it well.  Good or bad I have always stretched to fill the limits of what I am.

I took on living, made a promise with my first breath that grateful for the gift I would live it to the full. Years ago when I was young I wrote “out of the seed of my becoming I grew in my own image.” I’ve always wondered about that, why did I say that at the beginning of my life, what did I mean, why did it float through all my years just at the edge of knowing? Now I see that that is what happens with all of us, aware or unaware, we grow and fulfill the innate promise of who we are.

So grateful for the promise, free of judgement, accepting, honoring what was possible, drinking my side car ---  I HAVE PAID MY DUES.

buy hyacinths

                                                      Buy hyacinths…

                                           If thou of fortune be bereft

                                 but in thy store two loaves are left,

                                 sell one and with the dole

                                buy hyacinths to feed the soul.

  …at last, after so many years I have finally found out who wrote those simple words that in no small way have framed my life…John Greemleaf Whittier.

     I was in my teens, dreamy, romantic, living half in and half out of the everyday, swept by emotions which never seemed to stay the same moment to moment. I loved poetry, particularly the exaggerated flowery writings of the 19^th century poets. I can still quote bits and pieces from “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, “Horatious at the Bridge”, “Invictus” and, of course, that lovely instruction on how to live quoted above. 

     In all the talk and lectures delivered to young people of my generation I had never come across this idea that life and living should be more than being good, listening to smart people, obeying the rules, following the ideas and aspirations of society, being just like everybody else. This little bit of almost doggerel was saying there is another way to be. You could and should explore the special, ephemeral, seemingly meaningless things that enrich your life, that perhaps are not productive, but that in some sweet way make you whole…hyacinths to feed the soul.

     Growing up takes so much time and energy…being someone changes almost every week with barely enough moments to take a picture or choose a favorite color or movie star!

     The seed of becoming unwraps slowly beneath the hectic days fostered by small bright things that touch your heart or bits of wisdom lying on the path. Society says, “don’t stop, you have such big things ahead, forget that little patch of whimsy, that useless treasure, that flower, you have worlds to conquer, money to make, success to achieve!

     For me at 13, finding this tiny poem in the pages of a woman’s magazine in a dentist’s office was a message, heaven-sent. I was off looking under, over, behind the everyday for small treasures to brighten and enlighten my life. I had found a map, a way to stretch, a bit of approval for the way I thought of things that didn’t seem to mesh with everyone elses.

     Still confused, stumbling in my style ordained scuffed saddle                shoes I began to spread a little into that “hyacinth world”, once spending my hard-earned baby-sitting money on a decorated wooden box much too small to hold anything but lovely to look at. I have it now – still useless, still beautiful.  It is my Award for taking a chance on being myself so long ago when that wasn’t the 1940’s norm. 

     Treasures, held-in-the-hand like that tiny box, or loved for the moment and gone, ephemeral, some way in the back of a drawer waiting to be rediscovered, memories of small unplanned turnings in the path, choices perhaps meaningless, foolish to others, but which have kept me true.

     Here now at the tippy end of the adventure, the top of the slide, old, I am still buying hyacinths that feed my soul. 

    

          

         

Soft

                          Soft

There is a subtle give to Time, a softening. Even the days have rounded edges and the moments melt a bit sliding easily into one another. The air is soft wrapping itself around me like a small plush blanket trimmed with teddy bears, holding me softly, gentle but sure against the sharp edged darkness of the night. I sleep and all my dreams are soft as well and full of love.

running

                                        Running

               I am running….David and Camille are 8000 years behind me in the Tomb of the Eagles high on a cliff in Orkney Scotland.  I was back there just a moment or two ago having crawled on my hands and knees into that ancient space, underground, exploring, breathing in the warm earth smells, feeling for a split second those oh so long ago people brushing by me, carefully bundling their love ones into the small forever niches in the walls.  I want to ask why they are also burying a magnificent Sea Eagles with the bones but thieving Time intervenes and I will never know.

The air is so clear and the rollicking, rolling North Sea far below is blue green and white with foam against the jagged stones that form the cliff base.  A long path reaches back to everyday, to the modest building that now houses the skulls and bones that once lay in the Tomb, to our car and to stable NOW.

The path slopes ever so slightly. The short, rough grass smooths down and as I begin to move the clutching pull of gravity lets go a bit. My feet begin to flow along the path…faster and faster.

Caught for a short time between the worlds, untethered, I am free… I am running…I am almost flying!

For five long minutes I am filled with an eager, youthful joy. Laughing aloud, knowing I will not fall I jump and twist a bit building a forever memory. 

It was the last time I ran.

Tea

(In response to a 'prompt' to write about 'tea'.)

                                                            Tea

 I don’t like tea.

The warm soft rush of coffee puts the world in place for me each morning and keeps me upright for the rest of the day. I used to drink about nine cups from dawn to dusk.  This was in the days when everyone wasn’t so enamored of “healthy living,” you know, when we were all freer, shorter-lived I guess but probably happier. I smoked back then not realizing that that was not a good idea. Mild COPD established I quit cigarettes at last and the daily intake of coffee also dropped to about three luscious cups a day. Proud of having taken that step eighteen or so years ago I still miss the great conversations fueled by that enlivening, expanding catalyst of coffee and a smoke late into the night. What worlds we conquered, what weighty problems solved breathing smoke and sipping brown elixer. Oh yes, a purist, I always drink it black!

Unlike tea, grown in endless sheltered rows along protected mountain sides in India and China, picked by gentle female hands in the early morning, coffee was discovered by rough goatherds along wild hills in Ethiopia. Watching, intrigued by the way their herds, wearied by the long trek to pasture suddenly seem to come alive, playful, almost dancing, as they munched the low green berried plants that grew there, they, too began to nibble and chew. Word spread, experiments were tried and in time the lovely vibrant liquid became a favored brew among the sophisticated intelligentsia of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. Coffee houses popped up everywhere, home to exciting conversations lasting far into the night.  Revolutions were planned and aborted, gossip, rampant, made reputations and destroyed them between sips, books were planned and scientific theories probed and proved. Reaching eventually to the Americas, thank god, paired with the intoxicating leaves of the tobacco plant the wonderful addictive practice that I delighted in was born. Healthier now, of course, I may still indulge in half my passion and do so, tasting and toasting memory each time I lift the cup.

I do not like tea.

bestie

I am writing a new blog in my heart…trying to find the words to thank my wonderful sweet friend for all the fun and enjoyment he has brought into my life…..’bestie’ hardly covers the love and connection from this great person!  Nadeesh (that’s Tommy to you) is a treasure we all benefit from and share! When I find the words big enough to say a proper ‘thank you for being .who you are…I’ll write them down

Thanks

                                                Thanks

I say “thanks” a lot…the everyday kind I mean; when someone holds the door open for me even when they seem to be in a hurry, or moves their cart out of the way in crowded super market aisles. When a car stops to let me pass I wave a thanks. A post on Facebook that makes me think a new thought or a particularly lovely poem or short story or essay brings a grateful thanks. A phone call or a text reminding me of something important or just shares a moment out of a busy day,,,thanks.  Some might think it really silly that I always thank my dog when she brings me something she believes is a special treasure or curls up close to me, warm on a particularly cold night. A waiter who pulls out my chair for me, graciously or not, gets a thanks.

When I have walked around an uncrowded store and haven’t bought anything I smile and say thanks to the owner who frequently looks up, surprised, and grins in return.  I learned that one from a guide to getting along in France where customers Bonjour  the store owner upon entering and always merci when leaving.

There’s something that happens in the saying, something that changes what is viewed by some as an automatic, rote response into an ephemeral but very real touching of someone else. A tiny rush of recognition, of honoring another being, I see YOU and give you ME in just a very swift, quickly forgotten moment. Out of all the myriad contacts that happen each day a few are set aside and given extra value by that one word, thanks. It is as though we brush our fingertips in passing. I am enriched and grateful…Thanks.

P.S.  thanks for listening.

Ka-chink, Ka-chink

                    

[Southwark, the south side of the Thames was until recent times the ‘step sister’ of the more posh northern side of London.  In the middle ages it housed the theatres, the brothels, bear-baiting dens, and the infamous prison called The Clink. The Bishop of Winchester whose See it was protected the prostitutes for [a price.]

Ka-chink, ka-chink, it’s off to the Clink

cause I aint got no money!

I’m dead on my feet from walking the streets.

the Bishop, my pimp he takes what I got

and leaves me nary a shilling.

I’m willing to work, I want to be good,

I’m willing to sweep to scrub but nobody wants

and nobody pays

so where is the dosh that can get me a flat,

somewhere warm and dry.

…think of that!

a meal, a rum, a warm woolen hat!

“Hey Mister, want some?

I got”

“No thanks, honey.” so that’s that.

I finds me a corner out of the rain, chase off the rat.

“Scat!!”

But the ‘Bobby’ he come,

“On your way, Scum! You can’t stay here.” 

So what do I do, where do I go…there’s nothin’ now but That…

Ka-chink, ka-chink, it’s off to the Clink

cause I aint got no money!

COLD

             Amazing word!

See how the first two full rounded letters fit right into your cupped palm…slip the third one around them, cap with the covering last and squeeze…..SNOWBALL!

Feel the letters creep between your toes, numbing, while you wait for the dog to poop so you can go back inside…

or wash up around your ankles with the tide on the first dip of the season and, shivering, “It’s not so bad!”

oh that icy coating on your tongue as Merry Cherry Berry or one of the other waiting-in-line Springer’s flavors slides sweetly down your throat…

that very special, prickly eerie smell just before it snows

or the refreshing feel of that folded wash cloth mom laid on your hot and fevered brow all those years ago

when someone doesn’t want to talk to you at the party and rudely turns—-shoulder

the wooshing touch of air conditioning just when you thought you might surely melt!

The Inuit have fifty words for snow BUT I have these and a hundred more for… 

      

                              COLD

 

  

Stone Harbor Point

                                             Stone Harbor Point

               Barrier Islands, what a stodgy, heavy-footed name for those slim strips of sand that almost dance along the gentle inward curve of the south New Jersey mainland. Nomads all, they love a home place but resist an anchor that tries to tie them only here!  Centuries, millennia perhaps they have wandered closer to the staid and stable shore running from hurricane winds but moving back and out into the waves again under summer skies. Seeds flown from otherewheres take hold growing into scruffy, rugged plants, even trees in quiet times. Shallow rooted they travel easily in the restless sands  back and forth along the coast. Until Man, loving these islands, doing what greedy Man seems to always do built roads that stapled the dancing place and push-pin houses that said “You’re not going anywhere!” Anchored, held tight, unable to move, the beaches are cliff-cut by winter storms, bay waters flood, sometimes splitting the fragile land forms into two.

Just two islands north of the open sea Seven Mile Beach has a small treasure. The southern end, beyond houses and streets, is a half a mile or more of unanchored sand and green shrubbed soil floating, almost primordial, back and forth.  Stapling roads,  push pin houses holding all in place are not allowed.  The lovely shoreline free, spreads itself one year way out into the sea, flat with small streams meandering filled with tiny shiny fishlets swimming. Another year the beach, higher, drier hugs the dunes but still fosters inlets for the sea water to meet and explore the land.  I love this place.  For fifty-eight years I have felt the cooling sweep of ocean wash my feet as I walk, entranced, the summer shore.  Even in winter, almost my favorite time, my feet are bare.  How else can I discover and pick up the beautiful whelk shells burrowing into small sand cliffs just beneath the waves.  One spring when the beach was wide and shallow I saw two skates swimming inland in waterways at least ten yards from the open sea! A million tiny, soft baby clams crunch beneath my toes washing back and forth within a coming tide. And birds, dippy terns, sanderlings, thrown like bits of confetti to race, manic along the shore,  plovers, laying their fragile eggs just above the tideline, trusting God and their acting skills to keep danger away, self-important black winged gulls, even the screechy laughing ones welcome me each year as I climb over the last jetty into this  special place drifting on the ocean floor. 

A Family Tree

A fork in the road

A)   B)  C) or None of the Above

A family Tree

Choices all but I think I will go with the tree…my Family Tree.

Too, too many greats back so let’s just refer to her as Grannyancestor and I’ll call her Molly. There she is, brown-eyed, almost tiny, four and half feet tall, but wiry, strong, securely upright, sure footed as she runs through the high rough savannah grasses with her cousin Lucy.  She turns to look back at the trees and for a moment remembers when her people lived in them and swung freely from branches.  What fun that must have been! Her tiny fists curl in memory but soon she spots an interesting looking stone nearby, sharp-edged that might be good for digging roots. This is a new idea! Stooping to pick it up she is suddenly swept by an urge and turns again and looks forward.

She cannot possibly understand what she sees there in the future but she is intriguied, curious, and makes the decision that will in eons of time lead to ME.  Choice after choice, “Oh, he looks strong and brave, let’s go with him,” or “God, he’s pushy, dragging me by my hair into his cave, but, you know I bet he’ll make strong babies!”

And so it goes, on through  that long, difficult trek out of Africa, rounding the Mediteranean Sea, up through northern Europe ,becoming Celtic, eventually seasick in a frail boat Molly’s  Mollys sail the channel coming  home to what will be named far into the future, The British Isles. She’s taller now, she loves the words that form a language known and spoken by many, she understands a wider world beyond what she can see, she learns to read to write and communicate with others far from her small place in the scheme of things. But she is still brown-eyed and still making one good choice after another, picking not only what pleases her but which will lead unbroken to She/Me.

And now we have writing and records so I see for the first time the one of Molly’s sons that becomes my Grandpancester, William Clerich, fifth Chief of the Scottish Clan, MacLeod born in 1432.  There’s actually a book which shows the choices down the years leading to a last, so far, paragraph listing me and my children! 

Here’s an offshoot, one of many branches, that tells of Molly’s son, Richard Floyd of Wales, sailing to America (we are really getting around!), who boasts of his son William who is the thirty second signer of the Declaration of Independence from New York.

His daughter Catherine was wooed by James Madison who followed her on horseback halfway from Philadelphia to New York pleading for her hand.  Just thin if she had said ‘yes’ I would have the 5th  president of the United States in my family tree. But she spurned him in favor of a little known reverend, William Clarkson.  Poor choice, perhaps, but then I would not be Me would I?

Here’s another, Rutgers Clarkson, with his connection to Rutgers College. 

All  lovely people I’m sure but we begin to peter out some becoming more ordinary everyman/woman into the present but still carrying the genes, excitement, the courage the strength and the brown eyes of our own intrepid Molly. We’ve all been pretty much Anglo-Saxon, Scottish, Irish and Welsh, with just a minor infusion of Dutch and maybe a soupcon of French.  Decision time again, it’s up to me now to choose the next fork, the next branch of the tree to explore.  And I do.

We are all richer now, I have chosen an ancient proud, renaissance heritage that, along with green eyes  and great mathematical ability will send Molly forward again, brave and curious, as always into the future.  I have married an Italian!

             

Messy

                                                            Messy

I like messy. It’s warm and comfortable and sometimes beautiful like Gatsby tossing those perfect pastel shirts all over his lost, found love.             .

Fie on “a place for everything and everything in its place”!  How rigid, how boring, how frightened of life those thoughts betray. I wouldn’t live three days in that cramped and tiny space. 

Messy is divergent family members happy to see one another, throwing coats and hats and gloves all over my living room and shoving the furniture willy nilly with no regard for design or ordered placement. Wine glasses are left half filled and plates still hugging sandwich crusts. But oh the talk, the joy of happy disregard, stumbling over each other to hug or “give me five!”

Messy is open, its wide, it breaks rules and “Oh, what will people say?” shrivels into the mound of dog toys scattered in the corner. Its confident and sure and laughs a lot. Putting things back in order delights for the anticipation of throwing caution and order to the winds again tomorrow or next day…whenever.

Life is messy, love is messy, being fully alive is messy but I would not have it otherwise nor waste my days in ‘putting things to right. 

I’m not an ordered house, I’m not even an ordered life…I’m what comes?  What a simple, easy, welcoming wise way to be. I’ve learned at last so move over order and give me room to be whoever, whatever I may be.

  

Beginnings

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I touch the tiny dot on the smooth white paper with the tip of my finger. I taste it, it spreads rich and sweet along my tongue. What will I write today? How will I shape it into words that group and grow and become stories, opening doors, feeding the world with my ambled thoughts?

Beginnings are wonder full, scary opens the door that lets in excitement, a briny taste in the back of my mouth promises adventure and something NEW.

I watch the dot soften, wobble, stretch and split apart with tiny spaces in between…words, my words have begun! 

I write a kaleidoscope of images, living again my life, a myriad of phrases, memories.  I break them down, rebuild into patterns full of new vistas.   

I hear the vivid voices scrambling over one another, eager for first place. I choose the noisiest ones and temper them down with a soft whoosh of memory and love for all that has played in the past.

There is so much to come but now, the new, the ever, the fresh, the bursting, blooming beginning!

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