When the light found me.

A long long time ago, I had this...vision of what my life would look like. As if I were clairvoyant. Somewhere along the way, I got derailed. I watched those dreams extinguish, not in a puff of wispy smoke, but in that slow way a flame dies as a candle's wax is used up, shrinking smaller and smaller, until it is nothing but a glowing ember at the tip of a spent wick, and then it simply fades to dark, giving up its final hope of regaining life. I floundered. I spun in slow motion. I was directionless, as I watched new characters play the role I'd thought was mine. It was disorienting. The path I had put myself on had crumbled beneath my feet. I gave myself up for lost. I felt spent, used up. I wish I could say I wandered, but I couldn't even manage that.

I felt inferior. Cast aside. Yanked back by words that played on a loop in my mind, words probably meant harmlessly but that mocked me, chanting quietly, making me feel "less than." I hurt in a way I couldn't even properly identify. I masked it in anger but I knew otherwise. When you love deeply, you feel deeply, all of it. And most especially the hurt. I allowed it to carry me into places I never should have ventured. Places even darker. Places even more hopeless.

But even in that darkest of places, my happy ending was flickering to life. I just didn't know it yet.

There have been four significant relationships in my life, and if the first was my heartbreak, then the second was the unfortunate rebound, the one that deserved better and that, in hindsight, I would feel a sense of horrifying remorse and defeat over the way I acted. The third was my undoing. And the final is my final, the one that put my back together, piece by piece. The one that makes me light and grateful and wide-eyed with amazement. The one that is my greatest triumph over every dark place I've ever been. But if not for the three before it, maybe I wouldn't have this profound appreciation for this gift I've been given, this amazing grace of being wholly loved, despite my scars and my insecurities. If I didn't know how it felt to hurt in that way that makes it difficult to breathe, if I didn't know how it felt to cause pain and then live with it on my conscience, if I didn't know how it felt to be lost, well, then, perhaps I wouldn't see clearly how it is to feel my heart healed, to be aware of the privilege of being entrusted with the fragile heart of another, to know how it feels to be found.

Gratitude is a funny thing. It surfaces in the most unlikely places in our stories. The things you think might just kill you -- your spirit, if not your body -- become the teachers of precious lessons. We're told "without darkness there can be no light." I grappled with that for a small eternity. But it wasn't until the light flooded back in that I was able to see its meaning. It is not lost on me that my husband lists as his favorite quote: "When darkness is at its darkest, that is the beginning of all light." (Lao-Tzu) Indeed and how appropriate, because at the darkest of my darkness, he arrived, the beginning of all my light.

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Preserves.

There are a lot of things you take for granted during your growing up years. Some of it is youthful ignorance, born simply that you don't have any way, yet, of knowing that these things won't last forever, that they aren't everyone's experience, that their mundane and expected existence will one day be the cornerstone of nostalgia.

It's no secret that I grew up on an idyllic plot of paradise. A lush little piece of property from which my industrious grandparents coaxed forth all manner of produce. I ran wild in the cool grasses, climbed the low limbs of apple trees decades older than me, spun around under the sort of blue skies that only exist during the long days of summer until my dizzy self collapsed to the ground to gaze at the cotton ball clouds while the world slowly stopped that delicious wobbly whirling.

I didn't know any better that, as the first sun-warm harvests began piling up, a summer rite of passage wouldn't just always take place, sure as the seasons marched across calendar after calendar. We don't know and we never know, not until we grow old enough to look behind us at the trail of days, full to the brim of memories we cherish now, because we don't think they will ever be "just memories." We never think we'll kick ourselves for not having taken the opportunity for Gram's careful, patient instruction, grasping it greedily in both hands, soaking in the wisdom of a life so well spent, so rich with treasures. Because who thinks of that kind of thing as opportunity when you're a child and a teenager? Those aren't the "what if"-s we've considered at such tender ages. Without her gentle guidance to teach me the ways of the generations that long preceded me, I am intimidated. There are a thousand books and tutorials, but none able to provide the confidence that her knowledge would have imparted, and so I don't venture down this road, even in a small-scale attempt at recreating a shadow of my own Days Long Gone.

Gram would take all that abundance and fill jar after jar, sanitizing and sealing, canning and cooling. Glass jars with their metal rings, preserving the summer bounty and the sun-up-to-sun-down work of hands in the soil. Those jars of green beans and bread-and-butter pickles and a dozen varieties of jams and jellies and relishes would line rough-built but sturdy wooden shelves in the cellar, waiting to fill us full through the colder days ahead.

I can close my eyes and still hear the pop of the lids sealing. Some sounds are so deeply woven into the fabric of our being that they are time machines. And still those jars are filling me, this time my soul instead of my stomach. I know that I could learn on my own, these ways of my ancestors, but even the satisfaction of self-taught achievement wouldn't bottle what I'm really wishing to preserve: days I'll never get back, lessons I'll never be taught, stories that I didn't record, and minutes spent in the kitchen with a lady I miss every day.

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Words for Gram

Gram's birthday was on February 4. I kept waiting for the inspiration for a birthday tribute post to hit me. I started and stopped, typed and deleted. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt "enough" for this lovely lady who played such a key role in my life. Sometimes it's difficult to find words worthy of someone so special. They all seem so very inadequate, especially if you weren't lucky enough to have actually known her, able to know what I fail to convey.

Recently, I read these words on The Pioneer Woman's blog as she shared her grief over losing her beloved grandmother. Words, strikingly beautiful and filled with raw emotion, with which I identified.

The tears I’ve cried have been a combination of grief over losing her and gratitude for having been her granddaughter.

Most of the time, I can’t distinguish between the two.

(The Pioneer Woman, "Things I've Learned")

I think I was trying too hard.

It's no secret that I don't have my grandparents' natural ability with plants. I've had to give up on more sad, unsalvageable former green things than I wish to count. Not Gram. She could coax life from a dry stick. Her gardens overflowed with vibrant blooms, from the first brave bluebells and snowdrops that poked through the lingering snow crust in the shady spots to autumn's final triumph of  warm-hued mums as they echoed the fiery leaves above, on the trees, and scattered in crunchy drifts on the ground. I am sure the butterflies and honeybees and hummingbirds felt her flowerbeds were a slice of Heaven.

Since we bought the house, I've kept telling myself that I wanted to learn. What to plant where and how to keep them from turning into shriveled brown piles of plant death. It took me nine months (and a husband who matter-of-factly stated we were going to get some plants) to find the nerve to start. It doesn't seem like it should be such a big deal, but my soft heart feels guilty for killing defenseless vegetation. But you can't learn if you don't start, and I resigned myself to more failures.

A full three months after gracing the edges of the landscaping around our house, all six plants, mums in a variety of colors, are still doing this:

My shock is palpable. I stare at them openly at least three times a week. (I'm sure my neighbors think I am crazy, but my flowerbeds look better than theirs, so I'm ok with their judgment.)

I have watched them grow. I have deadheaded them from spent blooms to make room for new growth. I have observed in utter amazement how new buds appear and then blossom, again and again. I water and tend. I trim and fertilize. I am learning. I actually felt confident enough to add more.



I am even proud to report that these same herbs

are STILL ALIVE. Since July. The parsley just keeps sending out new shoots and the basil needs to be scrapped and started fresh, not because I've driven the life from its stems, but because basil stems simply get tough and woody over time, especially in a climate that doesn't freeze, and it stops being as productive. (It's also kind of outgrowing its home anyway.) But the fact remains that a plant has actually grown too much and for too long in my care.

I won't make any claims about knowing what I'm doing. It's all a giant experiment. But I can say for certain that I'm learning. And as I move, ever more comfortably, among my plants, I feel my Gram there. I feel closer to her there, yet feel her absence more poignantly, than any other place. Perhaps, in addition to carrying her in my memories, she continues to be present, tending my gardens through me, their quiet guardian angel.

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Small.

This past December, I visited my friends, Nichole and Daniel, in California between Christmas and New Year. They took me to Sequoia National Forest to see the trees. And while you might not think there is anything truly noteworthy about trees on a mountain, it's taken me nearly four months to put it into words.

We spend a lot of time worrying about things we can't control, things that feel overwhelming. We spend a lot of time rushing around, making mountains out of molehills. We spend a lot of time focused on self, but not really looking inward, not really seeing ourselves. Our priorities often get skewed. Our thoughts often get sidetracked. We feel like these moments we live in are enormous and pivotal, and we whirl through our days, not taking the time to see more than the blur rushing past.

Here in this forest, even with many people present, it is hushed. There is a stillness. And with the stillness, comes peace. Because when you stand at the base of these giants, gazing up and up...and up even more, you can't stop the quiet gasp of awe. It happened to me each time I stopped and looked heavenward, to the faraway tops of trees that seemed to touch the sky. I took hundreds of photos, attempting to capture the feeling, but I've come to believe it just isn't possible, because a photo, no matter how large you make it, is never going to duplicate the largeness, and it is in the largeness that the secret lies. Even the trees who have fallen, victim to time and the elements, still tower over heads, the trunk bases and roots with wide circumference, long trunks stretching away into the woods for hundreds of feet.

We started out on the General Sherman Trail.  General Sherman is the largest volume living tree on Earth. That statement means very little in print, mostly because I just don't believe it is possible to imagine the reality without standing beneath it. What gave me even more pause, though, was coming to the realization that I was standing in the shadow of a tree that was already between 300 and 700 years old when Christ was born, and still thriving. It humbled me. I keep trying to elaborate on it, but the truth is as simple and pure as that. It humbled me.

We continued wandering among these regal giants along the Congress Trail. There is no racing among the sequoias. The altitude steals your breath, forces a slower, more deliberate pace.

So I walked, taking it all in. Marveling as I passed beneath a fallen tree. Stopping to enjoy a handful of snow. Taking in the sight of The Congress and The Senate. Standing solitary or in dignified clusters, these trees are magnificent and astoundingly beautiful.

Most poignant for me were the trees scarred by fires. The trunks are blackened, some with spaces burned clear through, large enough for a man to pass through with ease. They stand tall, strong, defying the fury of fires. Fires which ravage nearly everything. And yet these trees, they survive. They go on as if it didn't happen, more of their mass unaffected and alive than the parts that bear evidence, even when those very parts dwarf a grown person. What's more, these trees *need* the fires. Without them, they would eventually cease to exist. Only the heat of the fires is capable of opening the cones, releasing the tiny seeds from which these giants grow. It's a lot to ponder. Not being consumed by the events assumed to devour you. Holding yourself proud, head held high, even as the scars show what's been endured. Seeing that being held to ferocious heat can be the key to growth and new life, that sometimes that is the only way these may come about.

So many lessons lie among these rich, red trunks, their green branches a serene canopy overhead. Lessons to be learned in the hushed stillness, surrounded by important reminders of how fleeting our lives, what specks we are within the scope of a much grander world, spanning space and time.

There is much to be gained from feeling small.

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I am not.

I am not a fan of the color yellow, even though it makes me smile, because it was Gram's favorite color and it makes me think of her.

I am not unable to make decisions. I am unable to make "unimportant" decisions. Like where to eat. What movie to watch. Which pair of shoes to buy. Put a big decision in front of me, though, and I know exactly what I need to do.

I am not a pushover just because I am quiet.

I am not able to tolerate people who laugh at me condescendingly. Don't get me wrong. I can and do laugh at myself. Often. And I invite you to join the chuckle. But if your laugh implies you are somehow putting me down? I'm moving on. Because mean isn't funny.

I am not going to shop at Walmart again, if I can help it. I loathe that store for so many reasons.

I am not "just a receptionist." If I were, I would just be answering phones and directing traffic. I wish that was the scope of my responsibilities every time I hear someone call me "just the receptionist."

I am not going to root for "the local team." No matter how long I live here.My body changed location, my loyalty did not.

I am not above the silent treatment. Chalk it up as me practicing the adage "If you don't have anything nice to say..."

I am not ever going to stop believing in Santa Claus, watching Charlie Brown holiday specials or getting excited over going to a Disney Park. My inner child is alive and well. It's one piece of the secret to my happiness.

I am not perfect. But every day, I try harder to be a better person than I was yesterday.

I am not the sad stories from my past, but the sum of each passing phase of my life, composed of the minutes filled with the sunshine and blessings of laughter and love. These, which far outweigh the storm clouds and fill the once shadowed spaces with light, are what define me. A faint scar is not who I am, but what I have overcome.

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Where I'm From.

I am from clotheslines hung with freshly washed laundry blowing in the breeze, from half-gallons of Hood ice cream and Chevrolets.

I am from the white house on "The Hill," from the blue-and-yellow kitchen filled with sunshine and the scent of apple pie, from Sunday dinner after church and chocolate milk in the mornings and the scratchy red living room carpet and the yellow bedroom looking down over the backyard.

I am from the Mountain Laurel and the White Oak, the lilacs and the snowbells in Spring, the black-eyed Susans and the clover-studded fields of Summer, the generations-old apple trees and the fiery foliage of a New England Autumn, and the spruces and the evergreens with their Winter ermine wraps.

I am from annual road trips to Cooperstown and Christmas Eves at Aunt El's and two previous generations of Red Sox fans, from Steven and Mary and Mildred and Walter. From those who gave me life and those who taught me how to live it.

I am from the stubborn and the hard-working and the close-knit and the belief that homemade is always best.

From you'll crack your head open and come inside before the jackyls get you and if you take care of your things, they will last longer and say your prayers.

I am from the Lutheran Church. From confirmation classes and Christmas Eve Candelight services at midnight and Good Friday Tenebrae with the slamming of the Bible in a pitch-black sanctuary. From The Lord's Prayer and the twenty-third Psalm and the Apostles' Creed. From stern looks for whispering in church and sitting in the balcony with Heather M, feeling grown up.

I'm from the Old Country with roots so ambiguous they seem untraceable, from kielbasa and sauerkraut, from a country corner of the Northeast United States and a cellar full of home-canned jams, jellies, relishes and pickles.

From the Halloween when Dad made us laugh by wearing a fuzzy orange tail as he escorted us from door to door, the time Josh gave me chicken pox and he had only a few spots over a long weekend but I was covered from head to toe and missed two weeks of school, and the way we would pester Gram starting on December first until she dug the boxes full of Christmas decorations from deep in a closet.

I am from photos nearly a hundred years old now, cracked and faded and peeling, handed down to me with their shaky script on the backsides. From family stories that should have been recorded when the opportunity still existed. From comfortable traditions and a large extended family and real honest-to-God love. I am from their past and my past and memories that are priceless treasures.

I have seen this prompt circulating for years. I've always been drawn to it, but was too afraid to try one of my own, telling myself it would never measure up to those I read in the words of others. But then I realized that this is *my* story and one I cherish, one worth remembering and capturing and sharing. I think I could compose this post a thousand times, and each time it would be different. And each time it would be beautiful. It is where I am from.

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Memory Lane: April 22, 2010

I'm five years old and it's getting cold
I've got my big coat on
I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you
I run and run
Past the pumpkin patch and the tractor rides
Look now the sky is gold
I hug your legs and fall asleep on the way home

I don't know why all the trees change in the fall
I know you're not scared of anything at all
Don't know if Snow White's house is near or far away
But I know I had the best day with you today

I'm thirteen now and don't know how my friends could be so mean
I come home crying and you hug me tight and grab the keys
And we drive and drive until we find a town far enough away
And we talk and window shop till I've forgotten all their names
I don't know who I'm gonna talk to now at school
But I know I'm laughing on the car ride home with you
Don't know how long it's gonna take to feel okay
But I know I had the best day with you today

I have an excellent father
His strength is making me stronger
God smiles on my little brother
Inside and out he's better than I am

I grew up in a pretty house and I had space to run
And I had the best days with you

There is a video I found from back when I was three
You set up a paint set in the kitchen and you're talking to me
It's the age of princesses and pirate ships and the seven dwarfs
Daddy's smart and you're the prettiest lady in the whole wide world

Now I know why all the trees change in the fall
I know you were on my side even when I was wrong
And I love you for giving me your eyes
Standing back and watching me shine
And I didn't know if you knew
So I'm taking this chance to say that I had the best day with you today


lyrics "The Best Day," by Taylor Swift

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Action Series: March 19, 2010

Realizing.

The last few years have taught me many things. Some, I suppose, I already knew, but needed to relearn. When you've forgotten something for so long, though, being struck with the realization still feels new, somehow. Anyway, suffice to say that I discovered and rediscovered so much about myself that had been lost, shuffled, neglected or left unnoticed for a long time.

I finally understood just *how* going to church truly benefits *me*, how it makes me a better person, one that I like and respect. I began to see myself as a worthwhile person, someone worth knowing, someone who deserved to be respected. I discovered my own sense of confidence, and a voice to ask for what I need. Or want. Or expect. I learned how to master the art of compromise, so that both parties find common ground, without it translating into compromising myself, again and again. I have seen that all the little things that made you fall short in the eyes of the wrong person are the very same little things that make you perfect for the right one.

I learned a lot of self-taught, hard-earned life lessons. And I realized, fairly recently, actually, that I kinda really like me. Not in an egotistical, self-absorbed way. But rather that I feel genuine and stable and happy, way down deep in my very core, at last. At long last.

I've finally dropped so much insecurity and come to the conclusion that not everyone will like me. Not everyone will respectfully disagree (respectfully being the operative word there) with me. Not everyone has something nice to say. And you know what? Who cares? I get to say who I share my time with. I get to determine the qualities that are deal-breakers, the actions I won't tolerate, and how I expect to be treated. And if someone values me so little that they would rather treat me in a hurtful way, then they don't need to clutter up my life with their negativity and toxicity.

For the longest time, I didn't think I was worth it. I didn't think it was ok to say "please don't treat me that way." I didn't want to risk hurting the feelings of...who? People who thought it was acceptable to hurt mine, intentionally and repeatedly?

I've realized. I've realized that I *am* worth it. That I do deserve to be treated well. That I cannot compromise in areas which hold immense value to me, and that anyone who would expect me to is not the right person to be in my life.

Realizing. Like a light coming on somewhere deep inside me. And with that realization comes a peace and a lightness, a feeling of deep contentment and positivity I had all but thought couldn't exist, from the other side of a dark tangle of uncertainty and self-doubt.

But now, now I see.

--------------------------------------------
When I was contemplating the framework for The Broken Road, Version 2010, I decided to challenge myself with approaching my posts from a couple of new angles. Monday's Stream of Consciousness theme was one; Friday's "Action Series" was another. I created a long list of action words (I am open to suggestions if anyone has any!) and my plan was to choose one each week & see where my thoughts took me. I honestly have no idea how this will play out--maybe I'll hate it, maybe it will be a raging success, maybe it will flop--but I'm going to give it my best shot & see what happens with it.

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Memory Lane: March 18, 2010

I am.

I am her cooking and baking.

I am her sense of organization, each task with its own day.
I am her joy in decorating for each season and holiday.

I am his blue eyes, that he passed to his son, who passed them to me.

I am his appreciation for the miracle of the amazing world around me.
I am his quietness, sometimes with nothing to say, because I don't believe in talking just for the sake of breaking the silence.

I am his love of Autumn days, Red Sox baseball, taking photos, and hot apple cider.

I am the shape of his face and the smile lines around his mouth.
I am his need for everything to have a place, even when it occasionally isn't in its place, just to know that it has a home.

I am her facial features.

I am the sound of her voice.
I am her creativity

I am bits & pieces.
Parts of each of them.
Constructed into a whole.

I see them looking back at me, reflected in so many ways.

I am daughter.
Granddaughter.
Descendant.

I am me.

I am.

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Grace in Small Things 278:365

for the last 277 Grace posts, i've made a list of five. tonight, it is one single item but the number five still bears relevance.

five years ago, tonight, the 2004 Red Sox won the World Series. it's a moment i won't ever forget. a night that will always have an extra dose of meaning in it. i watched my lifelong baseball team, the same one my Gramp watched his entire life, do the one thing he never got to witness. i remember pausing, taking it in for him too, thinking how happy he would have been, hearing in my mind, his booming "HA! HA! HA!" of pleasure.

at the start of this baseball season, way back when pitchers & catchers first straggled into Fort Myers, i decided to read Faithful (Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King) alongside the season, marking the days & games off as closely matched as i could. things didn't go as planned in 2009, so when this year's Sox gave way to the Angels, i had to continue reading without them, a little more each night before i switched off my bedside lamp to settle down for sleep.

by sheer coincidence--and i swear, not by design--i settled in to read tonight, a little earlier than typical & couldn't put down the book. i was in the final chapter, "The Possible Dream." and as i took in each word, each thought & memory & emotion, pages turning beneath my fingers, i was reliving that glorious season as the minutes ticked down toward the bottom of the 11 o'clock hour. i finished the book on the very anniversary of their victory & i couldn't have orchestrated it better myself, if i had been savvy enough to actually plan for it.

i can't lie. as my eyes passed over the words in the book, they blinked back tears, for just a moment, remembering...

"Stabbed by Foulke!" crowed longtime Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione. "He underhands to first! The Red Sox are World Champions! Can you believe it?"

I hardly could, and I wasn't the only one. A hundred miles away, my son woke up his five-year-old son to see the end. When it was over and the Red Sox were mobbing each other on the infield, Ethan asked his father, "Is this a dream or are we living real life?"

and that's just it. reading those words, i am transported back, in the blink of an eye, to everything i felt. that season cannot be eclipsed. commiseration that spanned generations was now jubilation & i've never forgotten that. we celebrated with those who watched in amazement with us, and we celebrated for those who remained faithful for entire lifetimes & never got the chance to see. not in five years has a single ounce that joy diminished. that team i live & die by from February through October (while some of you chuckle & others roll your eyes) is a thread that has woven itself from my Gramp through my dad to me & hopefully beyond to possibly my own future offspring. it's something that was bred into me, a passion i share with those i came from & a torch i hope to pass on into the future.

and so today's Grace is one of joy that i've felt for five years. and all the glowing memories of brilliant Summer afternoons, perfect for baseball, and long late nights with Boston home whites glowing under the Fenway lights. it's for long discussions with those i hold near & dear on a topic that never grows old for us. it's for pastimes & games yet to be played that we will share. it's for something honest & wholesome when it seems the entire world has grown dim with anger & worry. it's for that which a baseball fan cannot articulate to someone who isn't. and it's for one night in October, a shining conclusion to a season that still seems a little surreal, that can still move me to the point of brushing away tears, and feeling so lucky that it's a part of who i am.


Visit Grace in Small Things

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anatomy of a post season

it happens to me every year. i bottom out. i'm not talking about the games that strike fear in me over the course of a season, because c'mon, the likes of guys like Roy Halladay and CC Sabathia demand the respect of fear. i'm talking about the dwindling days of a baseball season, when the end is imminent. i hit rock bottom. it's something of a rite of passage for me, each season, and i have to say it just once. "the season is coming to an end." i have to say it out loud, feel the sadness that it brings, just for a moment.

maybe it seems as though, with a 3-1 deficit and every remaining ALCS contest an elimination game, i am giving up. maybe that seems unforgivable, after what we witnessed as Red Sox fans in 2004. and again in 2007. maybe it seems as though my faith in the inconceivable is subpar. but hear me out.

i *need* to do this. i have been watching baseball--and specifically Red Sox baseball--since before i have memory. it is so deeply entrenched in who i am that i can't remember a time without it. in fact, i was hearing these games in utero. from the moment i had eardrums & could register sound, i have had the vibrations of Red Sox baseball in my head. and what came before 2004 is something that i don't *want* to forget. i don't want to forget what it is to lose, to not be in contention year after year. i don't want to expect it. or worse, become complacent. because with remembrance comes appreciation for what can be accomplished, and how hard-fought that battle can be. and so every season, just once, i have to feel that crushing defeat one more time.

and then? then, i bounce back. i am refreshed from the singular act of releasing the demon from my gut. i have faced, in my mind, the worst that can happen. and now i can sit back & enjoy again. perhaps i will be enjoying the amazing feat of a Red Sox team that can come back from a huge deficit when they are pinned to the wall, not once, not twice, but three times. the fact that 2004 happened at all is reason enough to believe until the final out is recorded in Boston's season. but if they can't? if they can't rally back? i want to have faced the sadness and be able to enjoy the last game. i want to soak in the sounds of a ball cracking off a bat and the THWACK! of a ball slapping into a glove. i want to see the Green Monster and hear the last strains of Sweet Caroline as we come back from commercial. i want clap along to the "let's go Red Sox" chants rising up from Fenway Park and call YOOOOOUK as he steps to the plate. i want to savor the communion between pitcher & catcher as the signs are flashed & the pitcher winds up. i want to capture a mental snapshot of a diving catch, a crisply turned double play and a wall-ball double. because i just cannot get enough of this.

because my real sadness is not in defeat. no, i am proud of my boys and i wouldn't get up & walk out of a baseball game in the sixth inning, nor would i boo any man in Boston whites, not for any reason. no matter what the outcome of their season, the fact that they make it to October is a gift to me, as a fan, every time it happens. my real sadness lies in the realization that even if things play out perfectly, even if they end their season spraying champagne and hoisting the trophy overhead, the fact is that the season is ending, sooner rather than later. the promise of Spring has long since passed into endless Summer, at which point time seems to speed up.

so each year when i say "their season is ending," in part i am mentally padding myself, just in case, but what i am really doing is mourning the end of another season and the coming of a long Winter. whether we go out as World Champions or having given it our best shot, the inevitable is fast approaching. there will be a four month lack of baseball and i will begin counting days until February, when my boys gather up their boxes of equipment and make the trek to Spring & sunshine.

even though i am sad, there is still one more day. and the hope of maybe one more day after that. one thing the Red Sox have taught me is that it isn't over until it's actually over. and always, there comes again the promise of Spring.

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deconstructing my past

some things live happily in our memory, so perfect, so deeply ingrained in our psyche, that we cannot fathom them any other way. we cannot imagine why they would ever change. they are almost sacred to our hearts so that when they are thrust into view, the image is like the proverbial knife twisting slowly in your gut.

to those who would not know otherwise, this image would seem benign.

and yet to me, it is a tragedy of sorts. a seemingly innocent image is horrifying and yet i cannot look away, such are my efforts to try to understand.

this is wrong. it's all wrong.

you see... that house belonged to my grandparents. that house is where the vast majority of my childhood was spent. that house was nothing short of perfect in my mind's eye.

but time marches on relentlessly. the circle of life stole away the people who dwelt there so that they live only in the hearts of those who knew them. and new people live inside those walls now. new people to whom i desperately want to ask why.

why would you cut down those two white birch trees that my Gram loved?
why would you cut down those two stately evergreens that stood like sentinels in front of the house, protecting it from the whipping Winter winds, the noise of cars travelling on the road, the fierce sunlight that wanted to pour into the eastern-facing windows of the master bedroom as the sun would rise?
why would you cut down that lovely giant ash tree that stood at the corner of the driveway, casting shade over the front yard in the heat of the Summer?

the house looks so vulnerable. so naked. the yard empty, stripped of those gorgeous old trees... and it makes me sad.

i came home, aching to see the house and the front yard as i remember it. lush and full of life. i wanted to strike that new image from my mind and replace it with the one that lives in my memories. and so i turned to hundreds upon hundreds of photos, arranged neatly in boxes. i found the right box & began flipping through photographs, slowly at first, but then with more urgency. surely i had one... *one* photo showing the house as it ought to be. and as my fingers brushed the last photo in the box, it hit me. there is not one. not from the angle i wish to see it. so many photos of the house from other directions, of the backyard, the orchard, the gardens. but not a single solitary photo in my whole collection of that house i love with its beautiful front yard...

though i could have cried at this realization, i didn't. i just felt a little hollow. because i can picture it perfectly but without an actual photo in my hands, that memory will not survive after me. i cannot show the people who have since come into my life, or who have yet to do so, how it was, how it no longer is nor can ever be again...

pick up your cameras. pick them up & use them. capture these details of your life, no matter how silly they seem, no matter how mundane or trivial. their value increases with time, in ways you can't begin to imagine. someone will come after you who will cherish those same images that you took for granted. they will look at them with a warm heart & damp eyes. you cannot place a price on a memory. there can never be enough. even as blessed as i am that my grandparents took so many photos, there are *still* pieces missing that i would give anything to look at with gentle reminiscence now. their wisdom in capturing these minute details was lost on my youthful naivete for so long but now i understand with a bittersweet smile. it makes me want to wrap my arms around my precious memories, gathering close that which is most dear to me.

i find myself grasping at the few "almost" photos that reveal glimpses of what i can when i close my eyes. they are imperfect... and yet they are perfect in their own right. perfect in that they have captured even a corner of my life that no longer exists. see for yourself how full of life that empty yard above once was...



as something in me twists at the sight of that beloved piece of my past, forever lost to the passage of time & the changing of hands, i cannot help but to hear inside my mind, Steve Martin's character in the movie "Father of the Bride Part Two", as he rescues the house he loves at the very last moment before the wrecking ball makes contact, the house he thought he wanted to be rid of, the words tumbling forth...

"Don't bulldoze my memories, man."

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there are places i remember

it's funny the little things that take you back.

i am sitting here at work with my window wide open because they are finishing up some painting in here (hello! stinky!) and i had almost forgotten the sounds of daytime Summer. see, while my windows can often be found open in the evenings, we don't really get a lot of opportunity for having them open during the day, unless you want to semi-dissolve with humidity. you wouldn't believe the difference in the sounds you can hear.

at night, there are leaves rustling, a soft sound that the daytime drowns out. birds singing their last lullabies. there are peepers & crickets. it's all very peaceful & hush, even with its noises.

during the day, though, the birds sing cheerfully & chirp as they search for a grub of some sort. lawnmowers whirr in the distance. people call to one another or share laughter. these sounds, so different from their evening counterparts, are as bright as the sunlight itself.

listening to the "soundtrack of a Summer day" (yes, still Spring, but in May, Florida feels like Summer to this New-England-born girl) reminds me of this past Saturday morning, and a blog post i started to compose in my head as i drove down windy back roads on my trek to get my hair cut.

the morning was so reminiscent of the Summers of my childhood. there was a slight damp chill to the air, not enough to be uncomfortable, but that invigorating freshness that comes with a new morning. instead of hermetically sealing myself in my car with the air conditioning, i lowered my windows a bit, letting the breeze ruffle my hair, and soaking in the "Summer-ness" with my senses.

the birds waking up with a twittering. the squirrels scampering & digging & re-hiding their stashes. a man edging his lawn, the smell of freshly cut grass drifting along on the breeze. children shouting to one another as they ran across a yard, one in pursuit of the other. the sights. the sounds. the smells. all uniquely Summer in the place that i grew up.

as i travelled along, my forward motion blurring the details of the homes & trees & fields i passed, i could easily mistake the fuzzy images in my peripheral vision for those i left behind in Connecticut. wandering winding roads through residential areas not confined by gates & walls, squashing neighborhoods into the isolation of designated cookie-cutter communities. roads shaded by stately trees with their leaves dancing ever so slightly, sunlight streaming through in little puddles & patches onto the ground.

until a palm tree would cut across the painting in my mind, incongruous with the reverie i was playing. and even though i've grown to like my transplanted location, something in me ached just a little for those roads from my Long Ago (or so it feels). is it really the roads, though, and the places that i miss? or is it the familiarity of my birthplace... and the days i can't go back to, even if i try?

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the importance of photographs

as i capture photo after photo, i often ask myself if they serve their only purpose as they bring me joy, if their only worth will be realized for as long as i travel in this world. tonight, as i sifted through piles of old family photos that my Gram made sure were placed in my care, i was reminded that this "fear" is not indeed fact. these photos are portals to both the past and the future. they connect us, across time, across space, across lifetimes.

as i flip slowly from one image to the next, i feel. i feel that heavy weight, on my chest and behind my eyes, of missing those who i can no longer reach out and hug. but that weight is tempered by seeing with my own eyes the places that my loved ones went, the people they saw, the experiences they had & wished to remember as they walked this earth, and then i also feel that warmth of their love as easily as if they sat by my side, telling me the stories within the photographs that i treasure. more than that, i have this precious gift. i am seeing places and times that i never could have without these pieces of paper in my hands. and even if i could have seen them, even if i follow the paths they took, i would not be able to see through their eyes like i can when i soak in this story book of their lives.

not only can i travel back in time, but i travel forward as well. i wonder if i will one day have that kind of love for my own, this love that they documented with decades' worth of cameras over almost a century. i wonder if my own memories will one day be viewed with this same silent awe by my own grandchildren. i wonder...and i allow myself to dream -- a luxury i rarely grant myself -- even as i am remembering and reliving moments gone by. i catch glimpses of laughter to be shared, love that will encircle me, memories made with friends & family, a future that makes me catch my breath just for a moment with a joyful anticipation i wasn't sure i was still able to feel.

i see these people, too long already removed from my current world, and i can hear their voices. i can recall in a heartbeat memories that might otherwise drift from my mind without notice. i am transported back to my Gram's dining room, to Christmas mornings, to the backyard i grew up in, to once in a lifetime events, and to every day simplicities that have more value than i ever could have believed possible.

it's too easy to disconnect from our personal histories. to wander our own paths, forgetting where we came from without visual reminders to bring us home in thought if not in body. to live in the now so much that we miss how we fit into the big picture, the moments that took place in the lives of those we cherish when we couldn't be present, in lifetimes that were lived long before we had even arrived. and yet, staring into these scenes and images, i am able to move both backward & forward, simultaneously, while sitting absolutely still.

time will roll forward. the days and months and years that i sit here wondering, perchance dreaming, about will become reality one by one, unfolding into my present, and slipping behind me like pages turned in a book. and if i have learned anything from my trip down memory lane, i will continue to tote around my camera, capturing scenes not unlike those in the piles on my coffee table, yet completely unique as only i will see them.

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letting go

sometimes you stand on the threshold of change... that pivotal moment when you are standing precariously close to the edge, about to let go of "what was" & fall into the unknown of "what will be"... but before you do, you turn around & look back at where you came from.

you look behind you & see things from an entirely different perspective & wonder how you could have led yourself so far from reality. you see with a new clarity... and you wish you had been awarded that clarity before you accomplished making such a great big mess of the road winding backward from where you now stand.

you stare as far back into the past as you can see. back to that place along the horizon where the land & the sky meet in a tiny pinpoint... and you see that things you thought were good or worth having were nothing more than illusions you created for yourself. things you dressed up to hide their ugliness. things you told yourself were so much more than they ever could have hoped to be. things you clung to that turned to dust in your hands because they were never what they pretended they were. and you realize that you knew this all along but held onto them anyway, like cheap plastic toys from vending machines, that you, in childlike foolishness, thought were somehow valuable if you tried hard enough to believe that they were.

you look into the past & see nothing but a vast emptiness, clouded only by wisps of smoke as they rise from the remains of what you thought were, at the very least, memories worth tucking away.

something in you clenches & twists, wanting to finally release that which never should have held your attention at all, things you held onto for reasons that are no longer clear... and you take the tiny pieces that are left. you hold them in your hands like so many grains of sand. you look at them for a few moments, wondering why you thought you could fool yourself into believing they were ever something you wanted. then, one by one, you let them slip through your fingers, falling away from you & being carried on the wind to be mixed with all the other grains of sand that exist, indiscernible, unremarkable, meaningless, hardly worth even the tiny space they occupy in the great scheme of things.

you watch them fall away & suddenly your hands are empty. they are clean & open to new possibilty, no longer dusty from the past, ready to finally hold a treasure of infinite value. and instead of looking at the ruins that lay behind you, you turn your gaze forward again...

to promise. to hope. to beauty too precious to even envision.

and all at once...

you let go...

and fall...

realizing that the past is forever gone from your view...

that you have carried none of it with you...

and you wonder what will be there when you land...

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in my life

the photo above is my computer desktop at home. "so what?" you ask. (and if you have Windows XP you might even recognize that it is one of the sample photos that comes with that O/S) there is something about that photo though that takes me back to a simpler place & time in my life. back to when i was a child.

every weekday morning, my father would load my brother & i up in the car & drive us up to his parents' house before he left for work. a quick 10 minute drive from downtown to the outer edge of Bristol. "the Hill" we called it. we would drive up busy Route 6 to make a turn onto Matthews Street where we would slowly wind our way up & around, curving off onto Perkins Street, further & further into "the country". as we'd crest the top of Chippens Hill, off to the left side of the car was a scene that looked almost exactly like this. green grass folding out. an old country fence. a wide open horizon softly painted the pastel hues of morning (though minus the actual sunrise as the real life view was toward the west). everything serene & undisturbed. the earth waking up to another day. winter. spring. summer. autumn. from new life springing forth to rich summer bounty. bright fall foliage to pristine untouched snowdrifts. each new day brought its very own unique beauty.

sure some mornings it was rainy. or snowing. or foggy. or still dark. but the mornings i remember look just like that photo. and as a result that photo brings me peace. it's kind of like life in that aspect i guess: sometimes rainy...or cold...or foggy. but it's the good memories that we keep close to the surface that keep us warm & bring us comfort when more dark days pass through as they inevitably do.

i've toyed around with changing it, as it has been my desktop for almost 2 years now, but every time i consider doing so, i just as quickly realize that i can't tear myself away from that view. i've already left the real thing behind by moving to FL...and now with my grandparents passed on, there wouldn't be much cause for me to relive that little journey much anyway. but it lives on in my heart & when that photo greets me every time i sit down at the computer, it takes me back to a place i love. to a time when i felt safe & innocent & like the world held immeasureable possibility.

There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

("In My Life" by The Beatles)

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Remembering Gramp...

October 1993

Everyone should have had the chance to know my Grandpa. He was a big man, not just in stature, but in spirit. He stood at over 6 feet tall but his presence was of quiet strength. He was a man of few words. A hard worker, at home with his hands in the dirt. As strong in faith as he was in body. A soft spot for his wife--my Grandma--"his sweetheart" he would call her. This is the man I choose to remember. The memories that warm my heart on this day are of the man from my childhood, the way he would want to be remembered. The man I want to believe he was restored to as he crossed through those pearly gates to once again take his sweetheart's hand in his own. I can't believe it's been 2 years today since he slipped from this world's tentative grasp & claimed the rich reward his life here had earned him. He was a good man...no, a GREAT man & I miss him daily. I wish I had taken the time more often to thank him for all that he did for me...but as a man of few words, I like to believe that he knew what I was too young & selfish to articulate. And though he doesn't know it, there is another man in my life, not as large in physical presence as my Gramp, but a source of quiet strength none the less...also a man of few words but whose actions speak volumes...a man with a good heart, a warm smile, a gentle touch. He can't replace my Gramp, no one ever could, but he fills a void in my soul. Much like I didn't thank my Grandpa for all he did for me, I don't know how to thank this man either, although the inability to articulate my gratitude now comes not from youthful selfishness so much as from not having the words to express how thankful I truly am to have him in my life. Like my Grandpa though, I think he knows & understands. Men of few words, truly good men like these...they know what we fail to say...but our worlds are so much better for having them there & I'm glad they somehow know it.

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