Life During Wartime

    I hosted a dinner a few nights ago for a diverse group of people. I chose two salad dressings - one creamy and the other a vinaigrette. Not knowing which he would prefer, I offered both to one older gentleman. He replied, "It doesn't matter, either one is fine. I grew up during the war." He didn't say it, but seemed to imply that life during wartime had made him grateful for having salad dressing at all, or salad for that matter. The precise flavor, the accenting taste, simply made no difference to him.

   That made me wonder if our generation (and the younger ones, too) would someday remark: "It doesn't matter, either one is fine, we grew up during the wars." For, though it is mostly hard to tell, we are all growing up during wartime. No, it is not waged daily on our home soil, but American men and women are keeping the peace, fighting when they must, and making the ultimate sacrifice in an attempt to bring freedom and equality to fellow humans across the world. 

    What happened to the American psyche that we no longer feel empathy or responsibility for the peacekeepers or humans elsewhere? If it were simply that we are now a nation of pacifists who shun all mention of war, that might explain the lack of connection, but it is plain that is not the case. We now focus our lives on temporal achievements, racking up points, collecting toys, sating our every appetite and whim with nary a thought to sacrifice, loyalty, or connection to the bigger picture.

    While grocery shopping the other day, I noticed that all the new shopping carts now come with a cup holder beside the push bar. Since when have we become infants who must have liquid sustenance at all moments of the day? Can't we make it through a trip to the grocery without sips from our plastic containers of coffee, soda or nutrient-imbued specialty water? How would our society fare if faced with rationing of food, fuel or water? What would people do if we lived alongside landmines, nightly bombings or military raids? Past generations grew victory gardens and learned how to hunker down and be resourceful, but today, we wince at the slightest hint of want or temperance. Have we become weak or too strong to care?

    I guess you could say we are "fortunate" to have lives of stability, plenty and safety, but it makes me wonder whether it is good fortune or whether it is the almighty dollar that keeps us safe and insulated. I wouldn't want to wish upon a single enemy the horrors of war, even though I have not lived it myself, but I would love it if our society could learn from all this that freedom isn't free, and that sometimes sacrifice is the ingredient that brings us closer together.

Don't Mega-size Me

    My co-workers have a long-standing tradition of splurging on some intensely unhealthy breakfast goodies once a week. Both are slim and evidently have lightning-fast metabolisms. So, when I started working with them about a year and a half ago, I would come in to work and there, on my desk, on a sheet of wax paper would sit an enormous donut. They were mostly partial to the raised-and-glazed variety, slathered in chocolate and smothered in handfuls of candy sprinkles.
    Now, I'm not against the occasional indulgence, nor am I one to turn down a sweet treat, but the sheer size of this gargantuan was making my teeth ache. One magnanimous day, it was the same donut - only it was filled with a gooey vanilla custard. O.M.G. I had to speak out. 
    At lunch that day, I proffered a suggestion that perhaps they could make mine a "healthier" alternative instead. The following week, on my desk sat a muffin that was the equivalent of half a loaf pan! Not only was it blueberry, but the demon bakers had decided to dub this one "Blueberry pancake" which only meant that copious amounts of sugary candy syrup had been applied to the top and dripped down onto the muffin liner, so much so that even licking your fingers after peeling off the wrapper could throw you into a diabetic coma. Of course, I ate it. Well, half.
    After a couple weeks of this, I would pick at about a half of the monster muffin, and quietly wrap the rest in a napkin and toss in the garbage. Still, I felt a little guilty about 1) throwing away food that was perfectly good, if not too luxuriant and 2) not having more appreciation for my co-workers' kind gesture. The weeks went by and I found myself unable to eat more than a third before I felt the sugar giving me the jitters.
    So, I asked if, in the future, they could bring me a nice sesame bagel instead. I imagined the petite Montreal bagels that I had fallen in love with the summer before - chewy and toasted, loaded with seeds and slathered with half-fat European cream cheese.
    The next week, my bagel arrived, but instead of a trim little morsel of golden baked goodness, the bagel was the size of a frying pan and about as heavy as one. I was reminded, gently, that a bagel that size was basically the same as eating four slices of bread. Me, the one who won't even buy bread unless it is fiber-packed, 9-grain, whole wheat, sliced that white-bread giant in half and spread on some cream cheese. Again, I became accustomed to having half, or a third, and jettisoning the rest in hopes that no one would discover my wimpyness in the face of bad food.
    How would I tell them that I would prefer a diminutive pastry, lightly sweetened, buttery, preferably French? I probed the matter a little and was informed that the shop only carried ginormous baked goods that could basically feed an entire family.
    I'm sure I can hear you saying: ask them to stop bringing you these things, or: don't eat them - throw them away! or: just give up and stick to your yogurt, but the truth is that I appreciated their thoughtfulness very much, and to be even more honest, I loved the indulgence of a sweet treat. I just wished they didn't have to be so danged big! I wondered at which point in time did the size of the average baked good (or soda, or sandwich) in the United States become so whopping big?
    These days, they still bring me a donut from a local shop. The small sour cream kind that isn't too sugary but still packs a high-caloric-punch. I stop when I've eaten half. It's the least I could do, in the name of team camaraderie, supporting the local donut shop, in step with the American Way. Still, I dream of a future where a donut is small enough to balance on the saucer of my tea cup, and doesn't lead to gastric bypass. God help us!

Love and Lunch

    He brought me lunch. He loves me. He brought me a root beer. He loves me. He brought my favorite jalapeno kettle chips. He loves me. 

    When you’ve been married as long as we have – more than half our lives – it is the little things that count. Yesterday, my husband of 24 years brought me lunch. He could have brought me a hundred pink roses and it would have the same effect. We sat in the warm sunlight on the back patio and ate this luxurious repast, which was a roast beef sandwich from Roger’s Market. It may as well have been ambrosia and nectar for how it made me feel.
    We married one July afternoon, in Southern California, too young to buy alcohol but old enough to vote. Idealistic and romantic, we tied the knot so that it would never get untied again. We held fast to each other in times of stress and the kinds of difficulties that you can’t escape, even with a full tank of gas. If you think children only add joy to a marriage, try having one or two. Children take the equation of one plus one and put in some exponents and square roots until your simple sum looks like quantum physics. Still, we survived the pressures of parenthood, endured lost jobs and career changes, persisted through remodeling projects and remained steady in our relationship.
    If only I knew of some secret – a nugget of marital wisdom to pass along and offer as proof, but alas there is no mysterious ingredient to being in love and staying that way. But if you’ll think backwards and forward to the thing that brought you together, therein will lie the key to longevity in a relationship. For us it is the “date”, the special moment in time when you are in the middle of it all, and even the very sun appears to revolve around you.
    For us it is taking periods out of the ordinary time and making them special occasions – like the time we went away to a quaint German-influenced town in Texas and lived for two days in a guest house with nothing on our minds or agendas but each other. Or the time we took a cruise to the Bahamas and ran down the ship’s gangplank at eight in the morning to sit on a deserted white-sand beach, feeling the rays of the sun cross the water, and wanting only to preserve that very moment. Or having a surprisingly simple lunch on the sun-warmed patio.
    These are the moments we will remember when we are just an old couple, with white hair and wrinkly faces, wearing tennis shoes with dress socks, and walking down the street holding hands. Love is a funny thing. If the intoxication doesn’t drown you, the ecstasy might.

This piece "Love and Lunch" originally appeared as part of my weekly column in the Hamilton/Morrisville Tribune in 2006. 

First thing to go is the memory

    I was about to leave my office for the afternoon when I heard a man's voice in the distance, moaning, "Oh nooo... Oh my god, awwwhhhh, oh no..." I ignored it at first, but then the voice returned, "Oh god, arrrwwwhhh... it happened again."
    Working as I do in an elder living facility, that kind of utterance doesn't usually end well. I walked out into the hallway and tried to listen for the direction the voice was coming from. Up the stairs and down the hall. I heard a baleful pronouncement once again, "Ohhhh nawww..."
    I walked rather slowly up the stairs. I probably should have bounded up but not knowing what was up there, I didn't really want to skid into some kind of real misfortune. Halfway down the hall stood Harold. He was standing up, not laying in a crumpled mess like he'd fallen. There was no sign of blood or other infirmity. He just stood there looking at his door. "Ahhhh... I'm locked out..." he said shaking his head. 
    After more than a year in "the biz" I never leave my office without my cell phone in one hand and my keys in the other. I quickly produced my Master Key - the one that can solve about a quarter of the problems that I encounter, and proceeded to unlock Harold's door for him. He clutched a bundle of mail that looked like he hadn't checked his mailbox in a while and pieces fluttered to the floor as he walked in and set them down on the table. He shook his head disconsolately and muttered under his breath about where he could possibly have left his keys.
    He apologized profusely and said it was his birthday. "I guess now that I'm seventy-five, I'm going to start forgetting things," he quipped, a bit sarcastically. Harold lives at Madison Lane Senior Living Community but the dude works nearly full time as a church caretaker, has a razor-sharp wit and a goofy smile. He is hardly the epitome of premature aging. 
    I began to think of the days I've had when nothing seems to work right, when I forget important things, and then that final straw serves to crush my spirit. I could tell that Harold was having one of those days. And it was his birthday. Though he lived alone, I knew that he had a few friends and family nearby. The kids at the church school had all drawn him little birthday cards, which he held carefully in his hand.
    A couple of minutes later, Harold passed by my office rattling his keys. He'd left them in the door of his mailbox, likely distracted by the bundle within. He had already laughed off the mishap and his feeling of dismay. The goofy smile was back.
    Each new day comes with a reset button. All that happened yesterday is in the past and there exists a new opportunity to improve upon what has gone before. Sometimes, you just keep walking and don't look back. Other times, you can smooth over the cracked bits and refuse to let them bring you down. Sometimes memory lapses aren't so bad, I guess.

    

Lucky Me!

    I. Just. Won. The. Lottery! Oh my goodness, I feel so lucky!
    Before you run to your phone and call me to remind me of the depths of our enduring friendship, I should divulge to you that I am now the fortunate finder of a whopping $3. Oh, yes. It was a winning scratch-off ticket that someone had discarded or inadvertently dropped near my car in the parking lot. Clutching my bags and purse, I screwed up my eyes and craned my neck sideways to see if it was a winner before I picked up the wet, muddy little card.
    My eyes got big as I stooped to retrieve it, wiping it ever-so-gingerly. You see, I have always said that if I won the lottery it would be a miracle. Because I never buy a ticket. No, not even a $1 scratch-off. Way back in the '80s when the lottery came to Texas, we committed to buying a few chances each week with the strategy that playing regularly would increase our odds. It didn't take long to realize that we would occasionally win a buck or two but that the big jackpots were probably not a reasonable investment. Now, I generally get one ticket a year because my father buys them at Christmas for stocking stuffers. The past few years, I didn't even score a dollar.
    So, considering my investment, (nothing), today's pick was a total windfall.
    My life to date has been a series of happy events having very little to do with lucky breaks and very much to do with hard work and perseverance. Every once in a while, life would throw some serendipity my way and make it look like luck. I won a fancy-dancy hair cut as a door prize once and enjoyed a fabulous haircut and an accompanying head massage. A fortunate thing for sure, but all it did was raise the bar such that I could no longer be satisfied with a cheap, imprecise 'do. Another time I won a lovely lounge chair painted by a local artist whom I admire (Leigh Yardley, if you're wondering). This win still graces my backyard and makes even the weedy flower beds look smart.
    But other than these few-and-far-between bonanzas, the rest has been largely devoid of miraculous strokes of luck. While luck is quite capricious, I find that my blessings are the true win. My children, above all that I have contributed to, remain the top of the heap of my blessings. They are two of the most interesting, kind, and thoughtful people I know. My husband of 30 years is still my best friend. We have weathered many storms but mostly end up dancing in the rain. My family is close-knit and we enjoy spending time together. My friends are gracious and good, and many are practically family. I am healthy and reasonably strong, live in a supportive community and a free country, do work that I enjoy and find rewarding, and have had a life experience that I find gratifying.
    Compared to these, today's lottery winning is simply chump change.

Winter Surprises

After the relative warmth of last weekend, this week's frosty temperatures are a reminder of how capricious and unforgiving winter can be. The following is adapted from a column I wrote back in 2006, with a few small changes.

Today is the first official day of winter as far as I’m concerned. Yesterday was the last day I could leave the house without taking my gloves and hat. By the time I walked home in the late afternoon, my fingers were stiffened like icicles and a cruel wind whipped around my hatless head. I can’t say I haven’t been warned – the leaves have been dropping hints for me for several weeks now, settling in piles around my yard. The gentle flowering plants have collapsed with cold exhaustion and only the evergreens are looking cheerful.

For someone raised in a warm climate, winter is no trifling season. It is a season that requires gear. To say gloves are essential is like saying plants need water. Unless you’re one of those people who won’t miss the use of their fingers for four or five months, I recommend a pair with weight – how about 40 grams of Thinsulate™? Winter isn’t a season that you can slip sideways into like spring melts into summer or summer congeals into autumn. Winter announces itself one afternoon, when you are least prepared, ready to give your left big toe to get a cup of steaming cocoa. Oh, wait – the left big toe is a little frostbitten, would the right one work? I’ve long believed that a real northeastern winter is not for the faint-hearted, like growing old isn’t for sissies.

The cold season is about long naps on grey skied afternoons, cauldrons of hearty soups bubbling like witches brew, and tumbling pell-mell down powdery hills wondering what happened to the bits of wood, aluminum and fiberglass that were once strapped to the bottoms of my boots. Winter demands respect, expects you to be man and woman enough to take it, shoving forward through gusts of wind that could snap the trunks of trees and keeping a stiff upper lip through days upon days of no sunshine.

Winter and I share a special kinship, we are the same color. Having been graded by the Color Me Beautiful cosmetic company as a “winter”, I can confidently wear navy and jet black, pure white or cherry red. When I learned of this propensity that seasons had towards color, I was deep in the 1980s, those days of NFL-like shoulder pads and feathered hair. I also lived in a warm climate. I felt about as alienated with a season as I have ever felt. Winter and I didn’t know one another.

I didn’t know the wonderment of being outdoors when the first snowflakes begin to fall, turning adults into children and children into puppies. I didn’t have an appreciation for the timeless black wool beret my brother gave me twenty years ago, or the way that even plain outfits can look like L.L. Bean if you have a great colorful scarf to wrap jauntily around your neck.

Now, I appreciate the warmth of a roaring fire as if it were melted gold and cherish those hushed silent days when everything is quiet, muffled by a trillion mounds of snow blanketing everything – even the old pile of rubbish that you forgot to throw out. There is nothing like a good all-night snow fall to cover all manner of sins committed by man or nature. It is nature’s way of saying, “hey, I’m beautiful too.”

I am happy to report that after more than nine years in the snowy white north of central New York, I am well acquainted with winter and it seems to know me as well, although every once in a while, it does give me a chilly surprise. And I hate surprises like that.

Different but the same

    Last Sunday, the lector at our church was a 15-year-old young man with no arms and no legs. A special lectern had been set up that was height-appropriate and the mic adjusted properly. Ordinarily, he would be the sort of person that you couldn't stop staring at. Trying to make sense of how on earth his hands (normal looking) could possibly be coming straight out of his shoulders and how his feet (also normal-sized) were inches below his hips.
    No one stared awkwardly at him, though, because we had already seen him so many times. We knew more than his name, we knew his family, knew his favorite sports teams, knew by heart the sound of the resonant voice that was already deep into adolescence. Knew that he was a fiend for jelly doughnuts and personally spearheaded the Coffee Hour signup sheet to ensure that said confections were close at hand. Knew him for more than the outward signs that made us different. We knew him for all the little things that made us the same.
    At what point, I wondered, did I begin to view him for who he was and look beyond the outward features? How many of us have differences that aren't so neatly visible and how do we treat those we perceive as different?
    What kind of courage did it take to stand in front of a congregation that might stare and tsk-tsk at his misfortune? Unless the kind of courage he exhibited was that he trusted us to take him as he was, without judgment or analysis.
    As I watched this young man's mother translate all that was said and sung into American Sign Language to another child of hers - a daughter who was an altar server and also hearing-impaired, I knew that this was church. This was the way that a spiritual community should be: every person is valued, every person is needed. There may have been a time when an altar server who couldn't hear the sermon or speak the prayers was unheard of, a time when if you couldn't reach the lectern you were not needed. But I am glad to live in a time when bit by bit, people are beginning to accept differences as incidental and our sameness as essential.
    I feel at peace to live among people who recognize that you can't always control who you love and that we all dance to different drumbeats. I am content to have friends from all walks of life, friends who accept me as I am, and friends that love as fiercely as family.
    It would be a shame to waste even a moment slicing and dicing our differences when there is so much living to do.

Family - Puts the FUN back in "dysFUNctional"

    Over the holidays, we were fortunate to spend time with both sides of our family. Separated by just a few hours drive, my husband's brother and my brother both live in two ends of one state, along with their extended families.
    A hallmark of our family time is sharing food. Not the peanut-butter-sandwiches of sustenance but the redolent feasts of roast turkey, tamales, and buttermilk pies. We ate. A lot. We played games, we cuddled our sweet two-month-old grand-nephew, we were eccentric aunt and uncle to our older nephew and niece who are growing into clever and thoughtful kids.
    An otherwise ideal holiday was marred by the fact that our daughter, while advancing in her career, drew the short end of the holiday coverage stick and couldn't get time off enough to travel to be with us. It was our first Christmas without her and it felt weird. It didn't help that we had just seen her a couple weeks before and exchanged gifts with her and her boyfriend. Seeing her face in a Christmas morning video call on my cell phone was like a consolation prize. 
    Many of us grew up in the Brady Bunch generation. Even Hollywood's idea of a nontraditional family may have left much to desire in our own. The Brady kids were mischievous but respectful, and the parents were fair and respectful. Even the live-in maid (what, you didn't have one, either?) was efficient and respectful. No temper tantrums in the grocery store over cereal; no month-long groundings for sneaking out of the house to toilet paper a rival; and subsequently, no great embarrassing stories to bring out at future family gatherings.
    The Bradys gave us a benchmark that was impossible to achieve. Perky mom Carol with her cute little beauty mark seems eerily content in retrospect... wonder if she had a Mother's Little Helper prescription tucked away in the pantry behind the cupcakes. When work-from-home dad Mike invited a recalcitrant teen into his office for a "big talk," he was preternaturally calm when you expected to witness a grand-scale whupping.
    While we struggled with real-life problems and heartaches, the Brady Fam happily whistled their way through picture-perfect situations. Ones that had real solutions. It was a high bar to reach and I doubt that many of us achieved it.
    I recently spotted a game on a friend's FB page that sounded intriguing - Dysfunctional Family Bingo. Played like the usual senior center parlor game, instead of numbers and letters, you gain points by identifying family situations that are a tad strange or generally inappropriate. You score points for "unsolicited advice" and for "sibling rivalry" or "inappropriate attire" and "story repetition". All in good fun, for a change you can win if you have the goofiest or most annoying family. Not that I could ever play this game and actually WIN because my own family is without flaw and beyond reproach... (whew, dodged that one!)
    Unlike the Brady Bunch, real families don't always agree, don't have to be carbon copies of each other. All that's necessary is a combination of somewhat-flexible tradition, filial love and a wee bit of respect. And really great food.