Dinner at Panciuto's

These are two of my best friends from long, long ago. I will not reveal their names for fear of starting a stampede, but let us just say, the three of us are not Peter, Paul and Mary.

We all grew up in what is now Knoxville, Tennessee, and after high school, went our separate ways. We had completely lost track of one another. But because of another friend in Knoxville, who planned some wonderful reunions for our class, we found each other and got together for a meal last Saturday night.

It's amazing, when your earliest memories of a person are of a little girl or boy, to meet with them in their seventh decade and start talking just as if all that time had never passed.

We toasted absent friends and one another's health, and we had a wonderful relaxing dinner. What could be a better gift for the holiday season than the opportunity of renewing friendships grown ever more golden with the years?

Taking the holidays easy

So far this Christmas season has been a mixed bag. There have been great days and not-so-great days. Sometimes I think it's all about expectations, and we should definitely lower our expectations if we don't want to get all frustrated.

What I wanted this year was some time to reflect, but I only got it after making a complete fool of myself at a conference on, of all things, lovingkindness and meditation. I had signed up for the conference months ago and paid my fee, which was a bit exorbitant, to start with, for a day-and-a-half with Sharon Salzburg. The event was a big disappointment. Like many New Age speakers, Sharon Salzburg spends a lot of the time when she's supposed to be teaching something just talking about herself. She does a lot of name-dropping: "The other day, I said to Ram Dass, I said... ." That sort of thing. I kept thinking, "For this, I paid $75?"

The worst thing about the conference was the venue, a local UU fellowship (I can't bring myself to call it a "church.") They set up the check-in tables and locked all the doors but one. Then after participants checked in at the check-in table, they had to be checked in again at the door of the meeting room. So I felt from the get-go that this event was all about money, and it really made me mad.

Anger is a natural part of Christmas. People make each other mad. If you don't believe me, try driving at the rush hour to any destination in the Triangle. People get mad in the stores. They get mad in the restaurants. There is no peace, because every one has so much to do, and everyone is rushing.

Everyone except the blessed Bea, who was photographed recently taking a break in a recliner from her work and play. She is such a great role model. I want to be just like her when I grow up. I want to put on my stripey socks and just chill out for a little while. Thank you, Bea, for shining the light of your three-year-old wisdom on your frazzled old Grammy. (And may all of us be free from suffering, just as soon as possible!)

A ride on the Santa train

Here is Bea taking a ride on the Santa train that runs from a station in New Hill, NC. A girl always wears her nicest hairbow on the Santa train and takes along a cookie or two to enjoy as she looks out the window. What an ideal way to spend a cold, frosty Sunday afternoon in December. She is living a very sensible and imaginative life. Santa is nice, but he's not the main event. Bea doesn't know yet about how Christmas has been commercialized beyond recognition, and therefore she is able to approach the season with great joy and enthusiasm. She inspires me to the core!

Breaking news: My clothes dryer went on the blink last night. I was upstairs watching disc 5 of the Civil War and seeing the paintings of Lee's surrender to Grant. I loved that Grant had on his old mudsplattered clothing because he had not wanted to keep Lee waiting while he changed out of his work clothes. That's so real!

When the film came to a stopping point, I went down the stairs to put the wet clothes into the dryer. I then pressed the start button. NNNNNNNN said the naughty dryer. Then I held the start button down for a very long time. NNNNNNNNNN said the naughty dryer, and this time white smoke began to waft from its innards. If I could have figured out how to open the thing up, I would have put out the fire. But I just had to stand there and hope it would go out on its own. (It did.)

So today I begin trying to either get it fixed or replace it. So much for living simply. I cannot see drying my clothes on a clothes rack and having to iron everything.

Years ago when we lived in Wendell, NC, I knew an elderly woman whom we called Miss Nellie. Miss Nellie showed me a pair of lacy fingerless gloves that her mother had knitted from tobacco twine. The gloves were to be worn by Miss Nellie's sister as she pinned clothing to the clothesline in the wintertime.When Miss Nellie showed me the little ivory-colored gloves, it made me think of back when I was a little girl, before my family had a clothes dryer, when I helped my mother bring in damp clothes at the end of a winter's day--armfuls of shirts and pants and towels, not quite dry and sparkling with ice crystals. We would hang the clothes to finish drying on a rack next to the Warm Morning heater in the middle of the living room. But now I have lost my innocence. I have to have a dryer. Woe is me! Santa, are you listening?

The Bliss of Being Centered

Yes, T-ball is a very good example of ultra-centeredness. He started as a kitty named Oliver, had his name changed to Baal (after the Old Testament idol) and then--when Bea was born and adopted him as her special companion, she renamed him T-ball, which suits him just fine.

Equanimity--that's the word I'm looking for. All the world is fine with T-ball. He has a full bowl of food, a warm couch to steal a nap on, and a loving compadre who keeps him alert and makes sure his face is looking into the camera when his photo is being taken. Would that all of us had such a friend!

I must mention Bea's pajamas, which are handmedowns from a boy friend. She loves the trucks! This is a girl who doesn't even know from Disney's "Princess" line and would run shrieking out of the house if we tried to dress her in that awful bright pink stuff. We don't "do" Disney at our house. We are raising Coco Chanel, not Brittany Spears.

We have high aspirations for this little girl. She will eat no foods that aren't organic. She will wear clothes appropriate for a little child, not a mini-hooker. She will grow up to be a balanced, well-rounded, richly intellectual being with a lovely heart and mind. She will have good taste! And she will drink no wine before its time, because she will be able to differentiate between good, better and best. And she will know--just as T-ball knows this very minute--that she is a beloved child of the Universe and all that happens will be for her highest good. Let it be so!

What does the future hold?

So my daughter sends me this photo taken last August of my little granddaughter Bea. Her questioning face seems to ask: What does my future hold?
Bea, this is how it is:
We inherit the foundations of our existence, but we alone are responsible for our future. We begin by living with what our parents achieved, and we arrive at old age with what we have worked toward all our days, whether that's peace of mind or a big bank account or a wall full of diplomas or a cave in the woods. We begin with the world our grandparents and great-grandparents left to us, and we go on to create the world we want to live in and leave to our children and grandchildren.
I've just finished watching the first disc of Ken Burns' Civil War, the 1990s television series that has now been remastered and released on DVD. I remember when it was on TV; I remember that I didn't watch it. Back then I was busy raising my daughters. I didn't want to think about slavery and killing, however it might be glorified. The Civil War made me queasy to think about. I hate violence and racism and everything related to them.
More recently, though, with my children grown, I've started to think about the history of our nation. In the mail yesterday I received a pack of poems from the other participants in a writing workshop that I'm planning to attend in January. The workshop is to be held in Kentucky, that "dark and bloody ground." I sat down this morning at 5 a.m. to read through the poems and was immediately noticed that all of them, or nearly all, are about death. We all write dead grandma poems, dead grandpa poems, dead parent poems, etc. when we're starting out to write poetry. Very few beginning poets write happy poems. That comes long afterward, when all the sorrow inside us has been put into its place. It doesn't go away; we just learn to accommodate it.
So here is the story of American history: We slew the Indians; we enslaved the Africans; we then turned on our brothers and neighbors and killed as many of them as possible. That's the history we have to live with. The media and the advertisers and the big corporations and the military industrial complex try to keep us distracted so that we don't even realize who or what we are. We have to fight to find a peaceful moment--a silent, peaceful moment--to reflect.
But the future that we make is another story. We can work for peace. We can spread kindness around us. We can take a stand against poverty and persecution. We can vote our consciences. We can hope for a day when children can grow up safe and healthy, whatever their country, whatever their race or religion. We can give, as God has blessed us to be able to give.
We can keep open minds. We can keep learning.
Bea, I hope the future holds nothing but happiness for you. Just know that wherever I am, I will be doing my best to make that happen.

Better Times Are Coming

Bea is feeling much better and resuming her usual high-jinks. Here she is as a happy Halloween lion, all decked out for a luau. Who could be more enchanting?

I include this to illustrate my point that better times are coming, even when our lives seem at their lowest points. Goodness knows, there are times when we can't see a way out. But there always is a way out.

Today at work, I was unlucky enough to tune in to the breaking news about the shooting in Orlando. I was absolutely mesmerized by the fact that I was seeing an event in another state while it was still happening. I checked the front page of the New York Times. They were still going on and on about yesterday's shooting at Ft. Hood. We are really getting spoiled by the Internet. It's like brewing coffee. Any process that takes more than five minutes is just too slow for me.

Like back in the 60s, a girl could spend all evening just fixing her hair. Brushing it, washing it, rolling it, drying it. pin-curling it, putting on a sleeping cap. Morning she would have to take out the pins, brush it, tease it, spray it. And we thought we were so modern! Nowadays, I wear my hair cut short. I leap out of bed, grab my instant coffee, fly into the shower, wash/condition my hair out of the same bottle, jump out and blow it dry, and I'm out of the house in about 30 minutes.

Likewise, we used to get the afternoon paper, so we had to wait until suppertime to find out what happened in the world that day (or actually, the day before). Radio sped up the news, TV gave us pictures. But all that was so slow. We lived so slowly then. We had a lot of time to cook and sew and think. Now we just rush from one thing to another. It takes having a child like Bea around to recall to us that we need to stay right in the present. Kids resist being rushed. They hate it. Have you ever tried to rush a 3 year old? Have you ever tried to rush a cat?

Perhaps if someone somewhere along the line had taken the time to talk to Major Hasan he would not have had to express his anguish by killing fellow soldiers bound for Afghanistan. Perhaps if Mr. Rodrigez had taken a walk through the park this morning and fed the pigeons, he might have thought better of going to his former place of employment and blowing his former colleages into kingdom come.

William Tecumseh Sherman, who liked to be called "Cump," said, "War is hell." William Stafford, my favorite poet of all time, wrote a book entitled Every War Has Two Losers. I think they were right. I think the speed at which we live keeps us from reflecting on the wisdom of the past and the lessons of history. I call on the people of the world to slow down and dwell on the sweetness of the present moment. Look at your child--and smile. Look at your cat--and scratch him under his chin. Look at the Internet, but don't let its superspeed fool you. We are people living in human time, not machines living at the speed of light.

The Puking Pumpkin

Halloween was kind of a struggle this year. Bea was dealing with a rotovirus and it was no fun at all. Her daddy made her a sympathetic "puking pumpkin" so she would not have to suffer alone.

I can remember when Halloween was so, so different. There was no such thing as going out and buying a costume. You made a costume out of stuff from the ragbag. You could be a gypsy or a hobo.

You could only go trick-or-treating to close neighbors that you knew, and only right after dark. I always went to the neighbors who lived right across a field from us, a couple named Dotty and Woody. (Wow, those would be good cat names.) There was a path through the field from my house to theirs, and on their end of the path were two apple trees, one was a red apple tree and the other was a yellow apple tree. They would always have a treat for me, maybe a homemade popcorn ball, but in addition, they would invite me to help myself to apples from their trees. Now that was really neighborly.

Today Halloween is all about adults and drinking and sex, and I could just care less. The churches have tried to take up the slack with such festivities as a "Holy Ghost Weenie Roast." I am not kidding. I saw the sign outside a Baptist Church.

Even for a rational person like me, the very idea of a Holy Ghost Weenie Roast made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

So on to Thanksgiving, until some wretched fool somewhere finds a way to commercialize and Christianize that as well. I am definitely planning a vegan meal. I saw four wild turkeys crossing the road in front of my car last weekend and I pledged to them that I would not eat turkey flesh this year or probably ever again. I do thank the pilgrims for inviting the Native Americans to a feast and so beginning what I like to think of as the Democratic party. Let's all feast with peace in mind.