Tuesday, December 22, 2015

What a dope! Really!

As I get older, one thing I notice is that I'm not good at doing things in a reasonable order.

Big Example: I always write something for Bern for Christmas and she makes me something--usually paintings but once a table shaped like West Virginia! I'd finished what I wrote for her this year and went down stairs to wrap it in the dining room, Saturday night. On Sunday morning, I came downstairs to be greeted by a kiss and a "Thank  you for my Christmas present!"

I had no idea what she meant and said so.

"Well, you left it for me here," touching a tall table beside the dishwasher, "it said, 'for Bern' right on it."

I was half-way to church when I remembered I'd come down to wrap it and saw the dishwasher was finished and emptied it....Then went on to do something, having forgotten why I came downstairs in the first place and not noticing the box with the writings that said 'for Bern' on it.

What a dope. Really.

I need to have a list with me at all times.

I used to blame being an off-the-scale "Intuitive" on the Meyers/Briggs test. Intuitives are notoriously bad at doing things in the right order.

Bern is an intuitive too, though not nearly to my degree, and we once arrived at the beach for three weeks with two kids but no swim suits or towels! Intuitives need lists.

But I'm getting worse than I used to be--staring into the refrigerator not knowing why I opened the door, finding myself upstairs without knowing what I was on the way to do. Looking for my glasses long enough to sort of forget what I'm looking for...stuff like that...stuff like going to wrap a present and emptying the dishwasher instead and forgetting about wrapping the gift. Stuff like that. Going to the grocery store to buy olives and dog food and spending $40 and coming home without olives. Go figure!  What a dope doesn't go far enough.

So if you see me with a little notebook in my hand and a pen behind my ear, it's because I'm having to keep a list with me to avoid giving a Christmas present 5 days early....

Alas, poor Bern, having to live with me....


Monday, December 21, 2015

Mimi's home

Which is always good. She is my love. I love Josh too, terribly much, but Mimi just slips into our lives and barely makes a wave and is so welcomed.

I probably did before, but I'll share again, a poem I wrote about her on her birthday when she was in Japan with the American Ballet Theater.



                          PHOTOS OF MIMI

The house is full of pictures of her.
In some of them, she is a tiny, chubby baby.
In others, she is a little girl possessed.
In one she gains speed, running
down a hill in front of my father's house,
her tongue out, her blonde hair flying,
her small arms churning
like the wind.
In another, taken the same day,
she is solemn, not looking at the camera,
considering something out of the frame,
unsmiling, gazing at the future, perhaps.

She grows through the pictures—though they are random
on the walls and shelves, so she doesn't grow evenly.
A beautiful, awkward teen, smiling in spite of braces,
her jeans decorated in ink, a hole at the knees,
her shoes half-tied, embarrassed, I think, by the camera.
There is a sagging Jack-O-Lantern at her side,
smiling a smile as crooked as her own.

A whole group pictures when she was finishing
high school—a lovely, wistful, long-haired girl
exploding gracefully into life and what comes next.

I love the photo from her college graduation,
the four of us, this little family, her brother posing,
Mimi—short-hair and sun-glasses—smiling.
Just the four of us, a tiny clan, so different and distinct,
frozen in time on a mountain in Vermont, timeless, eternal.

I walked around the house today, looking for her visage--
bride's maid at Josh's wedding, clowning in a hotel doorway,
holding one niece or another with her boyfriend
(she natural, laughing, Morgan content on her lap,
Tim is a bit anxious and Emma is pulling away from him),
sitting on our back deck at an age I can't remember
when her hair was a color not found in nature,
and she is, as always glancing away from the camera,
playing on the beach as a toddler, sandy, nude,
hands in the sand, staring backward through her legs
(a photo a camera shy person would hate later on!)

I made my circuit, stopping before each photograph,
amazed at the memories that leaped out of the frames
and enthralled me.
Amazed more that such a beautiful child and woman
could have lived with me so long
and left imprints on my heart so deep.

She is half-a-world away.
In a land I can only faintly imagine.
I will not talk with her today—her nativity day.
I cannot even remember, as I gaze at photos,
if it is today or tomorrow in Japan.
Or yesterday.

Then there is the photo I love most.
It is pinned to the cork board beside my desk,
where I sit and write.

She is framed in a glass doorway. Her hair is long.
I can't remember how old she way—in college, perhaps--
and beyond the door you see, fully lit, dunes of Nantucket.
Mimi is in shadow, almost a silhouette cut from dark paper,
in full profile. Only the back of her hair is in sunlight,
shining, translucent, moving in the wind.

I love that picture because it is Mimi stepping through the
Door of Life, moving away from the infant shots,
the little girl, the teenaged child,
moving into life beyond me...half a world away.
All grown and still, all new....

jgb/July 21, 2008


Walking Man

There's a man I see walking most every day, no matter what the weather.

He could be 75 or 80. He walks from wherever he comes from all the way up Cornwall Avenue's hill, which is very steep and down to Route 10 and back. He also walks on the Canal--I've seen him coming from down toward Hamden and going the other way.

I usually see him when I take the dog on his first walk--9 or 9:30. We have a wave and nod acquaintance. He always wears ear phones, so we don't speak.

I'd love to know more about him, but he walks fast and doesn't stop for anything, so, I'm not sure how to engage him.

He sure walks a lot. And it seems like a task--he doesn't smile...just walks and walks....


Sunday, December 20, 2015

Afraid of the Dark

We all are, in some way, aren't we--afraid of the dark, I mean?

And the next too days are the darkest day's of the year.

We have two clocks in our bedroom that give off a little light. That works for me.

But walking my dog--even at 5 pm these days--brings a tad of anxiety. It is so dark by then that I'm looking at shadows as if they are threatening me in some way.

The Winter Solstice may be my favorite day of the year--because I know from then  for many months, there will be a little more light each day--a few seconds early for sunrise and a few seconds later for sunset. The Light will come more and more.

Conversely, the Summer Solstice may be the day of the year I hate most. Thought light will stay for months after that, every sunset is a few seconds sooner and ever sunrise a few seconds later. The Darkness gathers and gathers, until right now, nearing Christmas, until Darkness reigns supreme.

Leave a light on tonight. It's serious Dark these days.

But know this, the Light is about to come--little by little, to reclaim the days and we go forward.

You need not fear always.....

The light begins, very soon, to come back.


Saturday, December 19, 2015

Under a week

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday since both our kids and families come to us.

Easter is probably my second favorite since...like I just said, we get Tim and Mimi and Josh and Cathy and the girls.

Christmas--not so much family. Josh and Cathy always travel with the Chen family to Asia for Christmas. They're all in Japan right now. And Tim usually goes a few days earlier than Mimi to Florida to see his parents. Mimi comes to us but flies out on Christmas evening. She'll be here Monday so we get her for a few days.

All that said, Christmas is under a week away. The Winter Solstice is in a couple of days.

It seems like all this happened a lot faster than usual.

I'm doing Advent and Christmas at St. Andrew's, which has the latest Xmas Eve Service (by the way, the X in Xmas is for Xpistos...Greek for Christ. So ignore those who want to but "Christ back in Christmas"...X IS Christ....)

Then I'll go late to John Anderson's Christmas Eve party and meet up with Mimi and Bern.

Then John will come to Xmas dinner...or Xmas lunch, depending on Mimi's flight.

Very low key and lovely. Christmas is like that for us now...low key and lovely.

There's a lot to be said for that. A lot.


Friday, December 18, 2015

Cabbage rolls

Bern makes cabbage rolls every month or so.

Her mother--Emma Baccho Pisano--was Hungarian, so Bern comes by it honestly. Emma's cabbage rolls won me over back when I was much younger and Bern and I were dating.

First you have to blanch the cabbage, so the leaves are supple. Then you line them with sausage and ground beef--and I think Bern also does ground turkey (being health conscious and all--though I've never asked--and rice. Then she cooks them with tomatoes from a can for half-a-day or so.

And they are amazing! So good, though I have to add salt, given Bern's heart healthy ways.

But amazing.

If we hadn't already been married 45 years, her cabbage rolls would make me want to marry her. That and her beauty and wonder and sensibility and great good humor. And the little dances she does.

She has a cabbage roll dance that I love.

Just as I love her cabbage rolls....And her....

There are some frozen for Mimi when she comes on Monday for Christmas with us before flying to for Christmas with Tim's parents. Mimi and Josh love the cabbage rolls as well....



Thursday, December 17, 2015

OK, I'm trying to be calmer...

OK, let me start again. I just typed three lines, which took me a while because every time I click, like to start writing, I get a box with lots of options, none of which is 'close' and I have to try to get around it because I can't start typing while it's there.

I explained all that and then wrote that there is an HP Warranty Status box open on the right side of my screen which has (guess what?) no 'close option telling me my warranty expires a year from now. I misspelled 'warranty' the first time I typed this and when I tried to correct it everything on the screen where I'm typing now went away--just like last night when I wrote a lovely piece about still grilling in mid-December and lost it and ended up using *** to cover inappropriate language about this ***** computer.

Well, I did just figure out how to close the Warranty Status box--though I mis-typed warranty and was afraid I'd lose all this.

My problems with this new computer rival my dog's problems with rain.

Bela hates the rain. Luckily for us, he has super dog powers to hold back his poop and pee. Bern said the other day, "Bela would die before he went to the bathroom inside". Which may be true. Unlike Luke, our cat, who often poops on the floor even though his litter box is clean. He's 14 or so and I give him a break. Luke had a hard time recently and we thought he was dying. But he didn't. Bern said, "I liked him better when he was dying". That was honest but harsh.

Anyway, our dog hates the rain. He likes snow but hates rain.

And here's the thing--he's a Hungarian sheepdog...a Puli--who, if he was doing what he should be doing he'd be out in all weather taking care of the sheep in Hungary.

I told him that tonight when I went out on the porch to smoke and he had to come but leaned against the door the whole time.

Here's what I said (so, I talk to my dog, what of it?) "if you were back home in Hungary, you'd be out in the rain with the sheep. You'd be a wimp of the first degree to all the other Puli's."

As Bela is to rain am I to this computer. I just don't get it. I can't figure it out. I'd rather be dry and inside than fooling with it.

It's making me a tad crazy.

Maybe, Mimi, when she comes, or John Anderson can help me. But who knows?

It's rained all day and all day I've struggled with what I don't know.

So be it. Move on.

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About Me

some ponderings by an aging white man who is an Episcopal priest in Connecticut. Now retired but still working and still wondering what it all means...all of it.