A Christmas Story

She loved coffee shops, especially in December. The cheerful red cups. The holiday music. And on rare occasion when a square table and wooden chair were available, it felt like Christmas came early.

“Why did they take out all the comfy seating and put in high tables with skinny-butt stools?” she once complained to a friend. “Nobody likes those seats—they’re always empty.”

“I like them,” her skinny butt friend grinned.

Today she arrived alone. “Lucky me,” she said to herself, quickly claiming a corner spot by the window. Settling in, she took a sip of iced mocha, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t really a coffee drinker—she just loved the aroma of roasted coffee beans infused into the air around her. Once she’d tried to be a grownup and join the java club, but it was a brief love affair that ended badly. It didn’t matter. As much as she enjoyed her low octane drink, what she was really paying for in her favorite franchised coffee shop was the atmosphere.

No one else seemed to understand that. Especially skinny butt people.

Beginning to relax, she stared off across the room, mocha in hand, lost in thought. Absentmindedly, she swirled the contents of her drink while she wondered whatever had happened to Christmas. She missed the decorations that used to fill this place, back when wishing someone a Merry Christmas wasn’t offensive, insensitive or politically incorrect. Once upon a time.

It was such a reflection of her own life. The disillusionment she often felt at the way the world looked now was nothing compared to the disappointment she felt in those around her who had let her down. How long had it been since she first realized she could only count on herself? People were flesh and blood, after all, and true love was only a lyric in a song. She’d never seen it displayed without strings and never believed she was worthy of the real thing, if it even existed.

Brooding into her brew, she didn’t notice the old man who walked past her table, his computer bag slipping off his shoulder while he reached for the door beside her. But as his heavy satchel did a freefall, it banged into her arm and knocked her cup of contemplation to the ground.

“Oh, my goodness,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She grabbed the few napkins from off the table and wiped up drops of chocolate that splashed on her shoes. “No worries,” she told him in thinly veiled irritation. “I was almost finished with it anyway.”

“Let me buy you another one,” he offered, retrieving the crestfallen cup from the cement floor.

“That’s really not necessary . . .” she began, but he wasn’t listening. Turning to the barista who arrived with a bucket and mop, the stranger gave him the marked cup. “I’ll pay for its replacement,” he said.

“Seriously,” she told the old man. “It was just an accident.” Now she felt irritated and guilty. Why wouldn’t this guy just go away and let her feelings alone?

“I insist,” he said. “Mind if I sit here while we wait for your new drink?”

“Would it matter if I did?” she wanted to say but motioned weakly to the chair he was already claiming. She didn’t know this man, and she wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. As he settled in, she sized him up with full-on radar. She never shared a table with strangers, but what could she do? Hopefully this would be all right. It was broad daylight, after all. In a public place. Where nobody knew her and probably wouldn’t care if she was victimized anyway. She sighed. Nope. She was on her own here.

Maybe it was as innocent as it looked. But what if it wasn’t? What if this was some kind of old-guy scam where he bumped into distracted women in coffee shops, aimed at their decaf with the precision of a big-league pitcher, and knocked their drinks on the ground?  That didn’t explain what he was after though. If he was trying to rob her, shouldn’t he have knocked her purse on the floor instead?

She could feel her pulse amp up. If only she could shoot off a text message to somebody. Help, it might read, I’m being held hostage at the corner coffee shop by a man who bought me an iced mocha. Nobody would believe that. They’d all know what a sucker she was for a bargain.

“I’m Josh,” the stranger said, extending his hand across the table.

“I’m not,” she was tempted to respond. Aware it was her turn to answer, she ignored the gesture and wiped some liquid off the table. “Nice to meet you. Josh,” she said, with emphasis if not sincerity.

He didn’t press the issue of her unoffered name. She didn’t revise her comment. She just crossed her arms, waiting for the barista to call her drink and the stranger to get back to wherever it was he was going.

“You looked a million miles away there—just before we met by accident,” the man said with a smile.

Aha, she thought, narrowing her eyes as she analyzed his words. So, you were watching me. Stalking me. I knew it—you ruined my mocha on purpose.

Hands clasped, he leaned on the table and stared out the window. “Well, it’s a good place to come and think your thoughts.”

Rolling her eyes, she tapped on her phone to check the time and let out a sigh. Come on, you traitor, she accused it in silence. Ring, so I can get away from here.

“I come here every day,” he went on, “just to sit.”

“And think your thoughts?”

He smiled. “That’s right. Sometimes I even write them down,” he added, tapping his computer bag. The holiday track in the background had changed to a rock rhythm, its resonating bass shattering whatever peace was left to her in the once-reclusive corner where she’d tried to be invisible for the last half hour.

“Do you like this song?” Josh asked, as if reading her mind.

“Not exactly.”

“I like Country & Western myself,” he offered.

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re in the wrong place. They don’t play much of that here.”

Tilting his head, he grinned. “I suppose not. Somebody might get offended if they had to listen to Loretta Lynn do that one song of hers.”

“Which one? She had quite a few.”

“You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.”

Forgetting herself, she laughed out loud. “I must have missed that one.”

He grinned. “Yeah, well, I don’t think it was a huge hit.”

“Too insensitive?”

It was the man’s turn to laugh. “Among other things.” The music track changed again as piano and violin swelled in duet with the haunting strains of a familiar Christmas carol.

“What Child Is This,” she said. “One of my favorites.”

“Or Greensleeves,” the man offered. “One of my favorites.”

“Well, that way no one is offended, are they?” she said. “I can hear the Christmas story in the strains of the violin while you can imagine a lover’s lament.”

“Maybe it’s the same story.”

She looked confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

He leaned back against his chair. “Well, Greensleeves is about a wealthy lover who falls desperately in love with a beautiful woman who spurns his advances. He offers her everything she could possibly want, but she turns it all down. She doesn’t want him.”

Her replacement mocha materialized in front of her and she reached for it, absentmindedly taking a sip while she considered what he said. Forgetting her desire to see the stranger leave, she leaned back against her chair. “Sounds like he was lucky to be rid of her,” she commented.

“He didn’t think so.”

“Then maybe she was lucky to be rid of him. Stalkers are scary,” she said pointedly.

Josh laughed. “She was definitely a hard sell. No, he offered her his heart and all he possessed, and waited.”

“Well, why wouldn’t she want someone like that? She’d be a fool to walk away from such a generous love.”

“People are often fools.”

“So, he decides to cut her off, I suppose?”

“Just the opposite. He gave her the freedom to choose, even though he knew she’d reject him.”

She stared at him, frowning. “That’s so strange. I guess I never paid attention to the lyrics before.”

He looked at her intently. “Most people don’t.”

She had to admit she felt confused. “You said both songs tell the same story. Are you saying Christmas is about God loving fools?”

“There’s an interesting thought.”

“Wouldn’t that make God foolish, too?”

“Would it?”

She expected him to laugh at her point of view or try to reframe it for the sake of conformity. That’s what most people did. But he wasn’t laughing. He was looking at her with . . . kindness? Gentleness? Blinking, she shifted her gaze away from his. This conversation had become . . . uncomfortable.

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he said.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, meeting his eyes as she searched his expression again.

“Why do I make you feel uncomfortable?” 

“No, I mean, well, it’s . . . it’s like you can read my thoughts.”

His smile was natural. “Oh. Well, they’re not hard to read.”

There was something very unusual about Josh. He seemed so young to be walking around in an old man’s body. And conversation with him was, well, mostly it was startling. She tried to remember if she’d seen him somewhere before.

“Remind me of some of the lyrics,” she said, steering the conversation back to safer ground.

“Oh, let’s see,” he answered, looking at the ceiling like the words were written there. “Your vows you’ve broken, like my heart, Oh, why did you so enrapture me, Now I remain in a world apart but my heart remains in captivity.”

“That’s so sad,” she murmured. “A lover in captivity.” This was heaven’s story?

“Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady Greensleeves.”

His delight, she thought, pausing on the word. A wealthy lover who delights in someone because of who they are. Well, that doesn’t happen every day, now does it, she thought with cynicism. She didn’t know if anyone had ever seen her as delightful. Maybe the lady, Greensleeves, didn’t know what to do with genuine affection either.

Caught up in the stanzas, Josh broke into a velvety baritone as he finished, singing the last verse.

“Greensleeves, now farewell, adieu, to God I pray to prosper thee, For I am still thy lover true, come once again and love me.”

She was spellbound. Was it her imagination, or had the entire coffee shop gone silent, too? The words almost echoed in the cavernous room. “Come once again and love me.”

“That’s all any of us really wants, isn’t it?” she posed, more to herself than to the stranger. Josh smiled but said nothing.

“He never stopped loving her then?”

He shook his head slowly.

“And he wasn’t bitter at her rejection. He just kept hoping she’d return his love one day?”

His eyes twinkled but this time he didn’t answer. Her misty eyes betrayed her, and she blinked hard to hide the evidence. “Well, if someone loved me like that, it would be so irresistible it wouldn’t matter if they had money or not.”

He tilted his head to the side before speaking again. “Irresistible,” he repeated. “I like that. But it’s not really love if the other person isn’t free to reject it, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that would be coercion. Nobody wants to be loved out of obligation, do they?”

She had the sense that everyone else in the room had blurred into the periphery while a spotlight shone on their little table and this unexpected conversation. She thought she should have felt pressured by the stranger’s questions, but instead she felt illuminated by them.

“You mean God wants to be loved by us?”

“What do you think?” he asked, his expression warm.

She thought about words he’d quoted, reframing them as though dictated by God to some ancient scribe. For I Am still thy lover true, come once again and love Me.

It was simple. Honest. Earth shattering.

“That’s the Gospel?” she asked, as though the old man with the young eyes was an expert on the heart of God.

“I’d say that’s love. And if God is love, then that’s the Gospel.”

It wasn’t the message she’d been used to hearing in church—usually one of grace smeared thinly between thick layers of judgment, like a condemnation sandwich. How many times had she visited houses of worship and been met with commands, demands, and reprimands? She took a deep breath. If the stranger was right, if this was really what love looked like, this changed everything.

“It changes everything, doesn’t it?” he asked, his eyes laughing again at her look of surprise.

Smiling, she said, “Well, it helps me understand why the people of Bethlehem asked, what child is this?”

He seemed pleased with her answer and stood up to gather his computer bag and push in his chair. “Time for me to go,” he said, holding out his hand to her. As she returned the gesture, he held her hand warmly and said, “Merry Christmas, my friend.” Then he opened the door and disappeared.

She sat at the table for a few more minutes, her forehead wrinkled while she drummed her fingers against the side of her mocha. She wanted to discuss this with him some more. Hadn’t he said he stopped in here every day? She picked up her purse and started for the door where a barista stood beside a large, metallic trash can.

“Have a nice day,” he said as she dropped her empty red cup into the trash bag he held open for her.

“I already did,” she told him. “That man at my table was so interesting.”

The barista looked puzzled and glanced at the corner by the window. “I guess I didn’t see him.”

“Oh, he was an old guy with a computer. He comes here all the time.”

“No kidding,” the young man said. “Well, I’m the manager and pretty much know all our regulars. I didn’t see anyone sitting with you.”

Her eyebrows gathered in confusion. “But you cleaned up my mocha when it fell on the floor over there. He even bought me another one!”

The barista shook his head. “I’m sorry. I guess we’ve been busy this morning.”

“But you did see me sitting there for the last hour, right?”

“Sure,” he answered, tying off the large plastic bag. Smiling, his eyes full of a kindness unusual for one so young, he told her, “I’ve got to get this outside. Enjoy your day.”

She stepped out of his way, shaken as she recognized a now familiar gentleness in the barista’s expression. That’s impossible, she thought. I’m sure I’m mistaken. Suddenly, she didn’t know what to think. Maybe she should text someone after all. Help, it might read, there was something weird in my decaf and now I’m hallucinating.  Nobody would believe that. They knew she was much too cautious to be delusional.

She’d never be able to explain this to anyone. She didn’t even understand it herself. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she fell asleep in the corner and dreamed the whole thing. Or maybe she’d been the victim of a beautiful visitation and it wouldn’t matter whether anyone believed it or not.

 Just as long as she did.

A faint melody floated up from the recesses of her heart, a sweet accompaniment to the freedom sweeping across her soul. “Greensleeves was all My joy, Greensleeves was My delight.” Suddenly she saw it. The Christmas story. It wasn’t something that could be contained by red cups or expressed in seasonal greetings. It wasn’t restricted to one month a year or limited to the pages of an ancient book. The story of Christmas was as unrestrained and shocking as a love that gives without taking.
As scandalous as a peasant girl two millennium earlier who became the lead character in an immaculate drama. As miraculous as when the young girl’s sweat-drenched face looked into the eyes of that newborn in her arms while she questioned, what child is this?

The answer then was the same as the answer today. It saturated the air around her like the aroma in the coffee shop. Love was always there. Ready when she was. Patiently waiting. For her.

“I am still thy Lover true,” the lyrics echoed in her heart as the café’s door closed silently behind her, “come once again and love Me.”














With appreciation to Mike Chaput for permission to use the photo above. The original photo can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/427/2142255029/in/photolist-4giBMx-qjh92R-q9PNU6-iz82zZ-iuytNn-2aDCnqL-92urD6-q8GceX-vDD5L-dV7ArB-dBy9m6-iuAPX5-5SHesX-dASwJH-5LtWXx-iG19E3-7nhqGp-qE2zNK-9uwwiK-qf3jGF-939Y1M-dp2qfg-7pwbND-pBbnRe-BtQfX1-rgKQix-izz4ej-9dzX5U-iCqkrk-2TWLWf-qBBup4-ppKWQB-pWn73N-7sLKY9-aZAevv-4cDKwh-dHQuAz-r97oE9-iyYAqM-jder13-qnSvKi-izDSqW-7pPH6E-vEaDf-7ku1CK-8UYbT9-7rNLdi-dwAXVr-8XgKgm-iz8gjH

Bucket Lists

I never heard of bucket lists until Hollywood made a movie about two old men with a death wish. Okay, they were already dying, so it was more like a what-do-I-have-to-lose wish, but still. Some of their ideas were pretty gutsy (drive a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China), while other challenges only required them to step out of their box a little. Like helping a stranger. Laughing til they cried. And skydiving. Freefalling from fourteen thousand feet is way out of the box for somebody like me, but those two old guys were up for it. It would have been a good idea to combine some stuff on their lists. You know, try a little multi-tasking, like helping a stranger out of the airplane while they laughed til they cried. It would have sped things up a little bit—they didn’t have a lot of time.

I don’t really have what I’d call a bucket list, but there are a couple of little things I’ve always wanted to do. I’d like to see a tornado. In person. I don’t want to see a funnel cloud tear up a town or a farm or threaten anyone’s life, especially mine. I just want to see a colossal, concise, dark twister far enough away that nobody’s in danger while it does a little floor show for me. It’s kind of a huge request when I put it like that—a dangerous cyclone that fizzles out before it can make history. It’s almost so big it needs its very own bucket. Don’t be a hater, now. I’m not the only person on the planet who’s fascinated by nature and secretly wishes they’d spent their life as a storm chaser. And I know if I’d grown up on the plains of Kansas I’d have seen more than enough tornados—probably so many I’d never want to see one again. But I grew up in the desert where the closest thing we have to a tornado are dust devils that filthy up my freshly washed truck. That’s not very satisfying.

I’d also like to see the Emerald Isle for myself to find out if it’s as green as everyone says it is. Now that I know the name of the county where my family ancestry was uprooted, a visit to Ireland is the one overseas trip that would be worth the hassle of dealing with the TSA.

That’s about it. Maybe buy a trailer with a king size bed in it so we could drag our own hotel around with us while we travel across America visiting relatives. That’s all. It’s a pretty short list. Something a little dangerous.  Something a little green. And the fifth-wheel thing. Come to think of it, it’s so short it’s more like a thimble list.

There was something else I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a kid. I’d even say it had the number two spot after Dorothy’s spin on a windstorm. But today, I crossed it off my list. Lightened my dream sheet. Cleared my agenda. Not because I accomplished that item, though. It’s more like there was a hole in my bucket, Eliza, Eliza, and the item fell out the bottom, never to be seen again. It was a sad day around here for a while afterwards. Losing something you once longed for is hard.

I really enjoy parades. And until today, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been my favorite thing to do on Thanksgiving morning. My dream was to spend this holiday in New York one day, blow a wad of money on those front row seats right outside Macy’s where VIPs—and hopefully tourists with enough cash—sit to watch the Rockettes do high kicks and Broadway dancers perform clips from their big shows, and cheer in person when Santa shows up.

But I live too far away to casually drive over to the Big Apple at two in the morning and wait in sub-zero wind child temperatures for eight hours for the parade to start. I’ve had to settle for a front row seat in my favorite chair in our living room and watch it broadcast in between commercials and cheesy announcer banter. It hasn’t been all bad. At least I wasn’t cold, and the bathroom was nearby. Today I had the whole event carefully planned out. I was organized. I was rested. I was prepared. If I played my cards right, I might even get to watch the whole thing before it was time to heat up the oven and get the big meal ready.

With the DVR set up, the turkey pre-cooked and carved the night before, the fridge filled with potatoes and stuffing and cranberry relish, we made a yummy breakfast and settled in to watch as much of the spectacle as I wanted. Truer words were never spoken.

About twenty minutes into the big event, Broadway and Macy’s and NBC made a calculated move that no one but the announcers and dancers knew anything about. Calling the moment historic, the television giant and department store linked arms with the platform of the LGBT agenda and took it upon themselves to destroy another piece of innocence in homes across America.

That is nothing anyone should be thankful for.

In my daughter’s living room, her three young children sat watching the Pillsbury Doughboy balloon float at eye level while bands warmed up, waiting enthusiastically while the rest of the procession gathered momentum for the morning they’d anticipated for weeks. They’d even invited my husband and me to come over and join in the pajama-clad event and watch the parade together, but I had to reluctantly pass. I was in charge of the meal this Turkey Day and couldn’t fit it in. No one knew what a spectacle it would turn out to be, though, as suddenly, without their parents’ consent, our young grandchildren were exposed to the first lesbian kiss ever on Macy’s televised Thanksgiving Day Parade. A kiss that the network and the department store’s CEOs were thrilled to call “historic.”

Yes, it was. But it was so much more than that. It was tragic.

While the announcers did provide a brief description of the story of the new musical, The Prom, they gave no warning that an act that once earned movies an R rating would be the whole point of promoting the show. Let me be very clear in case I haven’t been so far. This is not about tolerance. This is about respecting the rights of parents to protect the innocence of their children, especially in their own homes.

Under no circumstances should any child sitting in their living room have been subjected to a confusing scene like watching two lesbian women engage in a prolonged kiss when they were supposed to have been treated to clowns leading the Snoopy balloon. Instead, their naivete was stolen, their safety hijacked, all by a shocking disregard for the right of all families to decide when the time is right to explain to their children values they may not be mature enough to handle.

I don’t know if this even qualifies as a bucket list debacle. I think my bucket was just blown to smithereens and, while it happened on home soil, I’m not sure it qualifies as friendly fire. I think it was a massive betrayal.

So, thanks a lot, Macy’s, for shortening my bucket list. Thanks for making it clear to parents that they can’t even trust a parade anymore. You just made their jobs even harder. There’s not a chance in Manhattan that I’ll ever again watch your Thanksgiving Day Parade, let alone make any effort to come see it in person. I guess that’s not so bad, come to think of it. I just saved a bucket load of money for a dream you destroyed just as carelessly as the innocence of my grandchildren.

Come to think of it, you pretty much wiped out my whole list in less than twenty minutes. Way to multi-task. You set loose a tornado with no warning to observers, swallowed up all my illusions of how green was my valley, and made me wish I lived in a fifth wheel right now somewhere so far off the grid that neither myself or anyone else in my family will ever have your political agenda shoved down our throats again on Turkey Day.

You certainly outdid yourself today. I guess even corporations have a list, though this one wound up in the wrong container. Next time, aim for the circular file.

This idea should have kicked the bucket.

Thanks to Chris Drackett for permission to use the above photo in this piece. The original photo can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/drackett/188553809/in/photolist-hEotK-i8URL-bk3wkW-4nsMFs-bjPtN9-2kUovq-75xSUQ-spHN6-8nDyzy-cwnj6o-9nFan2-MiH5w-C5Aqyi-CSwix-kQqSUH-4PaFqX-pMJLox-yv4N-P8b3z8-gBMqwt-WcPLvT-W5dqTk-oXFfou-8MBttz-6cWiQo-X7qP1R-2kPnCA-dbonqc-2NbbND-81Ta8C-9bkZZR-qwDoES-3g5pZ8-fQKg1m-5omaRb-dTJS6s-8nH4CG-dQ6JNV-97ikLR-oFp5aA-pqzsg2-brYQSd-95xMzb-29c3qN9-9RNamA-7uttDg-fLDZX-dshhi6-4m3gpP-4icemi

Traditional Zoo

It was a zoo. Not a very well supplied one, though. I’d even say, as zoos go, it was pretty embarrassing. The animals were there in mass—hungry hippos, roaring lions, and plenty of vultures—all of them hangry. The zoo keepers looked haggard, working since the crack of dawn without appreciation. Stalls were crowded, the place was out of water, the meat surplus was missing. I don’t know when I’ve seen worse conditions.

Oh. Now I remember. It was last Christmas. Honestly, grocery shopping during the holidays is a bear. And there’s still another week until Thanksgiving.

There’s so much to be thankful for that the celebration shouldn’t be eclipsed by its preparation. But expectations run high. Every tradition we cherish hangs in the balance while we run ourselves ragged so our families can make another memory together. I see you cringing—it’s like fingernails on chalkboard, isn’t it?

Well, there are so many things to consider. Will one turkey suffice, or should we buy two? Is it worth learning how to brine it Food Network style, or should I call State Farm to see if there’s a fire insurance rider for turkey fryers? Do I want help with the food this year? I’m pretty picky about my mashed potatoes. And stuffing. And cranberry relish. And pie. Especially the pie. It’s really no trouble if I do it all myself—that way, everything will taste the way I want it to and nobody will be disappointed. In the food. I think.

Every year, after the meal is finished and I'm left standing in the middle of the catastrophe I used to call my kitchen, I wonder why we do this to ourselves. I don't have to wait long for the answer.    

Tradition.

And a mild case of masochism.

But mostly, tradition. 

Sometimes I wonder if we should take a step back and reconsider our long-standing customs. Hey, I’m just like every other hangry hippo in that grocery store. This meal represents going over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house, bringing comforting memories along with it. And it’s not like we do this every day, so it’s worth all the exhaustion and stress, right? Hmmm. When I think about how frantic that store was today, it makes me wonder. And it makes my grown children wonder. Some of them have thrown out the turkey with the brining solution and opted instead to eat street tacos on Turkey Day so everyone including the woman of the house can relax and enjoy the day and being together.

It’s not traditional, but it’s so easy it leaves everyone feeling thankful.

I don’t think I’ve really touched on the most stressful part of our family holidays, though. It’s not the shopping or the cooking or the cleaning or the menu. It’s the family. As much as we love them, gathering everyone together for a much-cherished tradition like Thanksgiving has a tendency to bring out the worst in us. I don’t know of any other event in life that can so easily result in a terminal case of hives as this one. There’s always at least one relative in the bunch who can sink our carefully constructed ship and leave us worrying that family dynamics might blow the house apart faster than that turkey fryer.

If not for Hallmark movies and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I might lose my mind worrying about all the things that could go wrong while I try to make every celebration the Best Holiday Pageant Ever.

But, oh, honey, there’s more. Step away from the turkey and pour yourself some eggnog. This is just the warm-up to the main event—our very own Holly, Jolly Christmas. The worksheet for that one is longer than Santa’s naughty list. Buy the Christmas cards. Check. Stock up on wrapping paper. Check. Real tree or x-mas tree this year? Lights on the roof, candles on the mantle, presents all purchased, equity loan on the house applied for. Check, double check.

There is nothing simple about the holidays. Come to think of it, there’s not much that’s simple about anything in our lives anymore. All the conveniences that were supposed to make our lives better have, instead, complicated them. Smart phones are a good example. Did you know they keep our heads down so much chiropractors report a new injury they’ve dubbed Text Neck? Not only are we making less eye contact with other human beings, we’re picking up our portable internet devices on average fifteen hundred times a week and spending three and a quarter hours daily scrolling through Facebook, emails, text messages, and Words With Friends.

That hardly leaves any time for learning to brine a turkey.

And there’s something else. I really hate to admit this, but every year I start worrying about Christmas demands beginning in July. (Hard to believe I’d stress about a winter holiday when it’s a hundred and fifteen degrees outside.) There are all those presents to buy and wrap and mail—what if I fall behind? Why didn’t I figure out a better way to organize all the decorations when I stashed them all in the garage last year? Are the lights in the box on the bottom of the stack? Did I pack the stockings with the creche or are they on that shelf in my closet with all the other things I didn’t want to cook during our Arizona summers? Can we make that artificial tree last one more year or do we bring home a real one with its nostalgic scent and risk of a house fire?

The biggest stressor of all is that I’m not willing to scale down one single thing in order to simplify either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I want all the tradition. I want the cozy feelings. I want to make more memories. But once I pull all that Christmas stuff out of the garage and let it explode all over my house for the month of December, another countdown begins. In four weeks, I’ll have to gather it all back up and rearrange the house again so the neighbors don’t point and laugh at the last home on the block with the tree in the window. That’s when I want to convert to Catholicism and celebrate Epiphany along with Jesus’ birthday—the Christmas season doesn’t end for those guys until the middle of January.

Which one of you Protestants out there decided to cut Jesus out of His visit with the Magi just so you could get all those pine needles out of the carpet sooner?

Still, it’s worth the trouble. All it takes is time. A lot of time. It takes me a solid week to put all that stuff back in our garage again—the tree, the decorations, the lights, the stockings, the paintings on the wall, the manger scene on the front lawn, the Rudolph figurines on the piano, and the nativity set in the living room. Seriously. A solid week. And another two weeks after that to find and reassemble all the stuff I usually have around the house. When you throw in seven full days of turning my family room into our version of a Winter Wonderland, and another three weeks of baking and wrapping and buying and mailing, the amount of time I spend pulling off Christmas winds up at a grand total of about six weeks plus Thanksgiving, another ten pounds I’ll probably never lose, and a pinky promise I make to myself every January and break every November that I’m going to simplify my life and scale back.  

It’s so sad. I could have spent all those hours earning my very own Text Neck.

So, this afternoon I stood in line at the sixty-seven thousand square foot zoo where I buy groceries, and settled for the full-price frozen turkey instead of the free one they would have given me if I’d agree to buy an overpriced ham, too. I couldn’t do that, of course, because the vultures had already snatched up all the free poultry. There was no distilled water anywhere on the shelves because, I assume, one must stock up on the stuff to put out flames from exploding turkey fryers. It wasn't all failure, though. I beat out a little old lady for the last two bags of cranberries. But in the end I was lost among the menagerie for so long, as I waited in line I nearly had a panic attack trying to remember where I parked my car.

I unloaded my cart onto the conveyor belt and looked at the weary clerk behind the counter who began to ring and bag it all up.

“How’s it going?” I asked her. “It seems pretty crazy around here.”

She smiled and ran my bags of sugar across the scanner. “I’m tired just like everybody else,” she answered. Then she leaned in conspiratorially. “But as long as we each keep our sense of humor, we might survive it all.” I smiled back, but she knew I wasn’t fooled for a minute by her little attempt at humor.

There’s a reason there are always monkeys in the zoo. They’re comic relief to the hangry hippos.











Thanks to Paris Buttfield-Addison for permission to use the photo above. The original can be viewed by following this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/parisba/

Rest

Read that again. Then close your eyes. And feel your breath. Inhale, exhale, slow down, pause. . .

Rest. Well, I feel better. I felt better. Until I opened my eyes and looked at this page and realized I have a lot of typing ahead of me this morning and the last thing I need to do is waste time closing my eyes and putting my hands in my lap. I can rest after I hit my word count. Well, actually I haven’t done the dishes yet so I’ll tackle them once I’m finished here, and then I’ll rest. That is after I gather the laundry, of course, because I only have this little window of time where I can concentrate uninterrupted and . . .

Hold on. The phone. Gotta get that even though I’m sure it’s not . . .

Important. Time is what matters. That’s what’s important. Squandering it means I’ll never be able to check anything off my list. I only have a little bit of time for this project, whatever that looks like at this moment, because five more chores are in the queue ready to slide into place the minute I finish this one thing, so I can’t dawdle or daydream or pause for even . . . 

Just a second. The kitchen timer’s going off and I’ll never get my focus back if I don’t turn it off because I need noisy reminders or I’ll mess up dinner and we’ll all be . . .

Sorry. What were you saying? You’d like to meet me for lunch some time? Sounds lovely. Let’s be sure to do that. When? Well, this week is out, I’m booked to the hilt. And next week is Thanksgiving and we all know how busy that’s going to be. Christmas plans are already filling the calendar, I’m sorry to say—bet you’re getting busy, too, right? You’re not that busy? Oh. Well, I’d really like to get with you—whatever happened to the days when homemakers dropped in on one another for a cup of coffee and conversation? The world is spinning faster, isn’t it? It’s not? Well, I’d love to drop everything and pretend I’m in charge of my life so you and I can spend a couple of irresponsible hours together catching up, but I’ve already given away that time slot to something else. I hope you understand. You’re important to me, though, and the last thing I’d want to do is hurt your feelings—it’s not in my DNA to say no to anyone who asks me to attend their event or help with their project or be another body at their bridal shower—I hate to let people down because they need me and I need them to know they’re important to me or they might not invite me the next time. That’s the reason there are no margins in my life, no spare time for spare time, and it breaks my heart to have to turn down your invitation for lunch, but it’s just that I’m already stretched so thin.

How does February look for you? Oh, you thought I meant this February? Hilarious! Oh, man, that cracked me up! Hoo boy. Got a little tear in my eye there. February 2020. Can I put you down?

Hello?

Well, that’s too bad. I really thought that sounded like fun. It’s just that I’m so . . . busy. And important. And the things I’m busy doing are important. Too important to create margins in my life where serendipity happens and people know they have my full attention at the moment we’re connecting. That busy.

Maybe I’m too busy. 

Busyiness: (biz-ee-nis)

—noun

1.     The quality or condition of being busy

2.     Lively but meaningless activity

—antonyms: neglect, ignorance, disregard 

It’s kind of depressing when I put it like that. Oh, I know what we’ve all been taught. “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” Which apparently means that if we don’t stay busy, we’ll find ourselves turning to a life of crime so we’ll have something to do. Well, that’s just ridiculous. I heard Wal-Mart is always hiring people who don’t have anything to do.

But when I’m worn out in my soul and it’s only mid-afternoon, I’ve got to ask myself—what’s wrong with “rest?” I think the problem with resting is that when we’re doing it, nothing else is happening. It’s like someone pointed a remote at us and paused us mid-sentence, leaving us frozen with that weird look on our faces that, if we were famous, some paparazzi guy could sell for a million bucks to the Enquirer and everyone would see how unattractive we look when we’re at rest.

Or maybe we have to prove that we’re not lazy. Or apathetic. “Back in my day,” even people my age have begun to say, “we knew how to work/keep a commitment/follow through/save a penny/blah blah blah.” First of all—when did I get so old? And secondly, people my age grew up in the drug culture/free love/avoid the draft/groovy era of the ‘60’s. That’s not exactly a decade anybody should hold up as a role model.

So maybe it’s our grandparents’ stories about how they became “The Greatest Generation” that have us so intimidated. They didn’t give themselves that nickname, by the way, but it’s still a tough act to follow. Turn any adjective into one with an -est ending and suddenly the competition is over. They were educated in one-room schoolhouses. They survived the Great Depression. They learned to cook without sugar during World War II.  They invented McDonalds. Finally. I knew they screwed up somewhere.

I know it’s important to have purpose in our lives. It’s also important to eat. We have to work or we starve. Houses don’t clean themselves. Children need adult supervision. Countries need governments. (Do they really?) Schools need teachers. Houses need plumbers. Grocers need farmers. I need Starbucks. We are needed. There’s no denying that. And we need to be needed.

But here’s my question. Am I omnipotent? Omnipresent? Can I meet every need at every moment, drawing on an endless supply of energy while I do it? Or am I restricted by the limitations of this one and only body which contains my one and only soul which needs . . . rest?

At the end of the day and the end of our lists and the end of our patience we come full circle back to that question where all of this began.

What about rest? Or more importantly, what does it look like?

It means to Pause. Slow down. Recuperate. Replenish. Be present. Maybe even erase some stuff off your exhausted calendar.

If you’re a musician, you know that every piece of music has rests built into it. They’re there for emphasis, for pacing, or just for a chance to catch your breath or change position. The only band I know of that played on with no regard for breaks went down with the Titanic. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t recommend that.

We’ve already agreed that none of us are omnipotent. But I know of One Who is. He knows how to work—He created our universe and all the others we haven’t discovered yet. But six days in, He candidly surveyed all He’d done and decided it was not only good enough, it was simply and entirely good. And then He rested.

God. The One who never sleeps took time to rest. And by the time He bought us all back and made us His own, the only struggle He left for us might surprise you, as it did me.

“Let us strive to enter that (God’s) rest . . .” the New Testament reads in Hebrews 4:11. 

Strive to rest. Now there’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one.

When it’s time to work, let’s work. When it’s time to rest, baby, rest. And when you're replenished, give me a call—we’ll do lunch.

I’ve made room in the margins for you.

Sixteen Times Three And Then Some

I never thought I’d get old. 

Don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying I am old. But a few people in my life have been telling me I am for about the last ten years. People like my grandchildren. Well, of course, you say. Short people like that always think taller people with gray hair, saggy skin and wrinkles are old. Exactly! I mean, sometimes strangers treat me like I’m old, too, especially teenage clerks who call me “honey” and hope I don’t trip on my way out the door. But I just look at their purple hair and wonder what’s happened to the younger generation. I don’t think that makes me old. That makes me terrified. Or intolerant. Depends on your point of view. And whether you’re an old person or a teenager.

I remember my sixteenth birthday. Don’t be surprised. I’m still young enough to have a memory. Usually. Sometimes. Never mind. My sixteenth birthday. I wasn’t driving yet, but my best friend was. My family took us out to a pricey cowboy restaurant where there was sawdust all over the floor and a country band played live music. I didn’t have a boyfriend, but my best friend did. The waitress took our orders, found out it was my birthday, and sighed the way old people sigh. “Oh, I remember when I turned sixteen,” she said. “I wish I was sixteen again.” 

I just wished I could drive and had a boyfriend and that old people would stop saying they wished they were young like me. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Now that I’ve seen the age of sixteen three times and then some (stop doing the math—I already told you that people think I’m old), I don’t know why anyone would ever want to be sixteen again. It would mean going back to high school and homework and algebra and insecurity and pimples and hormones and allowances and house rules and SATs. And dreaming I was standing naked in the school gym on the first day of school, which was pretty much the same dream I had every August when a new school year rolled around.

Clearly, I was never one of the cool kids.

Do you really want to have to relive everything you went through to become the wise, experienced, intelligent person you are today? Everything? Me neither. It’d be a gift to be so young again I could take it for granted that I was immortal so I could enjoy doing stupid things without dying or worse. But eventually I discovered I do have an expiration date and, honestly, I don’t want to face that realization for the first time ever again.

There are advantages to having stayed alive this long. For example, I’m glad I’ve driven so many miles now that I can read another driver’s body language from a half a mile away and get off the freeway before I wind up in the middle of the accident they’re about to cause. But look how long it took me to gather all that experience! Sixteen times three and then some.

I’m glad I don’t have to relearn how to sacrifice a year or more of sleep because there’s a new infant living in my house and I misplaced the instruction manual they came with. Do you remember that learning curve? If not, don’t feel bad. There are entire months in my childrearing experience that are completely missing, too, probably misplaced with that phantom manual during a three a.m. feeding. I used to love going to baby showers until I had a baby. Now I feel genuine sympathy for the blushing, excited mom-to-be who has no idea that it’ll take six months before she figures out how to put on her makeup in sixty seconds or ignore the screaming baby in the other room because she has to pee and she’s going to take a minute for herself and do it.

I’m telling you, not only is sixteen not what it’s cracked up to be, but twenty-six isn’t either.

There are one or two things I miss about being younger, though. Energy and my body. I don’t know how I misplaced two important things like that when I could really use them at my age. My husband retired a few years ago and, saint that he is, decided to take on some of my home responsibilities so I could enjoy retirement, too. Now he does all the vacuuming, unloads the dishwasher, makes the bed, cooks whenever I relinquish the kitchen to him, and helps me do the laundry. Every once in a while he can’t be around to help, and then I have to do all that stuff by myself. I need to take a break every ten minutes just to catch my breath and pull it off. How did I turn into such a marshmallow so fast? I used to do all of that in one day plus make dinner, wrangle kids, volunteer with the PTA, and herd the family into the car for church meetings four times a week. On six hours of sleep and no caffeine.

I think my body was pre-programmed on a sliding scale and my younger self stole the lion’s share of my oomph. That’s another thing I don’t miss about being young. Boy, was I ever selfish.

And my body. I don’t want to be too hard on something that’s always been there for me, but every time I watch Dancing With The Stars I remember that I always wanted to learn to dance and now it’s pretty much too late. You need oomph for that, too. And stamina. And a room with no mirrors. Or other people watching. Like I said, not gonna happen. I should have taken it up when I was twenty-six, but I was too busy going to church and giving up sleep for children. And Baptists don’t believe in dancing anyway. That’s why I’m not a Baptist anymore. So I can watch Dancing With The Stars and dream of moving my hips like that so maybe I could take up vacuuming again.

My best friend is forever telling me that growing old isn’t for sissies. It’s kind of a confusing compliment. First of all, I’m now nearly a thousand words into whining about the lousy part of aging, so clearly I’m a sissy. Therefore, I don’t qualify for growing old. On the other hand, as Hallmark loves to point out on that redundant birthday card I get almost every year, growing old beats the heck out of the alternative. It’s kind of a lose-lose situation until I remember that thing about experience and then I feel better about myself.

Take childrearing, for example. My little brood of ankle biters grew up despite my inexperience as their mother and have gone on to live perfectly normal lives of their own where they are now raising their own ankle biters. I’ve heard it said that raising children is a career you’re not qualified for until the kids are grown, but by then you’re out of a job and unemployable. (See the *oomph paragraph above.) The whole time I was mothering my tiny herd, I felt like I was winging it from one catastrophe to the next. Even though that baby manual had been MIA for at least fifteen years, I knew if it ever turned up and I leafed through it there would have been no chapter on how to handle the unique challenges I was supposed to guide my kiddos through. Just as soon as we figured out one solution, a whole new situation would surface and there I’d be, lost in the dark and back on my knees again with no manual.

But once they left home, and especially when they became parents, I discovered something remarkable about myself. I was wise. I don’t know how it happened or when, but good things would come out of my mouth that surprised even me. All that pressure and confusion and frustration and joy and heartache and victory that happened day after day for fifty years had transformed itself and now I was, at some level, wise. Sometimes my kids think so, too, but it’s okay if we’re not on the same page about that all the time. Suddenly I realized that I graduated from Childrearing 101 not only with most of my gray hair, but with some life skills and insights I didn’t know I was gaining. It’s not particularly useful to anyone most of the time, but it’s incredibly surprising to me. I just wish I’d understood then what I understand now.

True, timing has turned out to be way off, but that’s not really my problem. Once in a while when my kids bounce things off of me, I get the chance to contribute something helpful for them to consider. And in that moment when we’re all adults and they help me with their point of view as much as I am able to offer mine, it doesn’t matter who has the most energy or the most wrinkles. We’re in this game together and it’s a relief that we don’t have to do it alone.

It’s true that if I had it to do all over again (which is something old people say), I’d do a lot of things differently. I think. I don’t really know because that little matter of energy and the yet-undiscussed issue of patience is still a game changer in the world of immature children and inexperienced parents. It’s easy, even though I’m supposedly wise, to forget the utter exhaustion parents live with day in and day out until one day they’re out of a job and the kids are busy with their own lives and they, like us, have more than enough time to sit around and ponder regrets.

The thing is, I learned some stuff while I grew old alongside my growing children and it’s valuable to me. I used to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm when I was sixteen but was sadly lacking in much sense. When I was twenty-six I had more sense and still a lot of energy, but the enthusiasm was ebbing away with the kind of hits life continually lobs at our hearts. Now that I am sixteen times three and then some, I’ve made a little more sense out of life and enthusiastically applaud those who have energy. It’s the best I can do.

So, cheers to purple hair and youthfulness. They’ll be in charge before they know it, earning their own wisdom the hard way while somebody else calls them “honey” and hopes they don’t trip on their way out the door. It’s the circle of life.

I’ve earned these wrinkles and a tiny amount of wisdom. It’s about time I started appreciating the compliment, “you’re kind of old,” and started responding the right way.

“Thank you.”







With thanks to my inspirational friend from Tucson who gave me permission to use any photo of her that I chose. She's younger than me and still learning wisdom. ;)

Respect

The flags have flown at half-mast for the last two thousand miles. I’ve watched them wave in front of school yards and post offices and fast food stores. In Missouri, five steel poles stood at stoic attention beside the sixth, as even an amusement park outside St. Louis paid respect to the senator from Arizona. It stood out like a missing man formation. 

The senator from Arizona was gone.

I don’t follow politics very much. It usually makes my blood pressure go up when people who should be enjoying a nice Thanksgiving dinner bring out their political opinions in public and ruin everyone’s appetite. I don’t like arguing. I don’t like posturing. I don’t like debating. I’m not a black and white person. I see and hear many shades of gray on many issues. So many, in fact, that I fear giving my opinion to anyone lest I’m never invited to their Thanksgiving meals again.  

But I do have opinions. And now and then I can’t help myself. So, if you’ve hung in here this long, here’s what I think.

When a national leader dies, the tradition here in this country is to lower the flag to half-mast in his honor—especially in Washington, D.C. Not just for the required forty-eight hours, but all the way until sundown on the day he is buried. It’s not a political thing. It’s a matter of respect. If elementary schools in tiny towns in Kentucky know how to honor a man who gave sixty years of his life in service to his country, it only stands to reason that our president should know the proper thing to do, too, regardless of his personal feelings.

If I lived in the White House, it wouldn’t matter if I hated the politics of a Republican leader who passed away, the flag should still be flown at half-mast until sunset the night of his funeral. If I refused to play nice with Democrats but one of their own died while in office, same thing—half-mast until sundown after the funeral. This isn’t hard. It’s just what it means to behave like an adult.

Like I said, I don’t follow politics. I don’t listen to the evening news if I can help it. I don’t trust the media’s perspective and I don’t put my faith in politicians. But I’ve been reading up on the senator from my home state of Arizona, and I’m impressed not only by what he endured as a POW, but also by the way he handled himself in Washington’s pressure cooker.

For over a week, as we drove east across America, in every town and city every flag we saw flew in honor of John McCain. It impressed me every single time I saw it. I didn’t know so many people even knew about our Lion in the Senate, and maybe they didn’t. But what they did know was how to do the right thing.

I want you to know I’m proud of you, America, all your red states and your blue states. You put partisanship aside to show compassion to the family of one of our own in their time of grief.

That’s what makes America great.