all of the selves we Have ever been
I collect beautiful words like others collect exquisite jewelry. A pen is always handy so that I can acquire moving and delightful phrases wherever I find them. I like to study my gems, holding them up to the light, examining their many facets. I memorize them so that I can be properly attired when an occasion calls for jewels. I look through my treasure chest often, mining the contents for comfort, hope, inspiration, and motivation. Somewhere in the box I always find what I need to go on. Today is such a day, the last day of a difficult year. In 2020 there were few occasions to dress up and step out, but there were many days to mine the treasures of my word chest. A jewel I wore each day came from the Book of Lamentations, the Bible’s book of sorrow from a time of suffering. The page in my prayer book is marked by a Kleenex tissue, but I do not need to turn the page. The tissue reminds me of the words I know by heart: “The Lord’s love never ends; his mercies never stop. They are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22-23 NCV) There were days in 2020 when those mercies found me, and days when I had to remind myself to open my eyes and look harder. Every morning there was a cup of steaming spiced tea. I sipped the tea while cozy under warm covers as I prayed for the world, my country, and the people I love. There were bitter cold mornings when the old battery in my car turned over and the engine started. There were phone calls from friends and plenty of laughter. There were hot showers and enough to eat. There was yet another day without COVID in my home or in my family. God’s mercies were new every morning; promise fulfilled. In my treasure chest are words written on a paper napkin. I heard them on the radio while driving. A woman was being interviewed. She had survived 9/11 in New York City and was there again trying to survive COVID-19. The interviewer asked the woman how she kept going. “There are seeds under the ground,” she said. On a dreary and bitter cold morning at the end of a terrible year, there are seeds under the ground. The world will blossom with life again. The seeds are patiently waiting to fulfill their promise. An older gem in my collection came from a greeting card I purchased when a friend had a baby. The front of the card contained a quote from Charles Dickens: “It is no small thing that they, who are so fresh from God, love us.” Ah, something bigger and more important than the coronavirus…This jewel reminds me of another. When my own children were still so fresh from God and learning to speak, they thought the traditional greeting for the start of a new year was “Happy You Near.” I have always treasured those words, and now as we leave 2020 behind and enter into a new season of uncertainty, those words have never been more meaningful or appropriate. That gem rests in the same crown with the Irish proverb: “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” I do not know what the next year will bring. I do know that I will continue to add to my treasure chest and to look for the words that comfort, inspire, and motivate. May you have your own deep mine of diamonds. Whatever else happens in 2021, may you find shelter in that palace of people you love, and may fresh mercies find you each and every morning. Happy You Near!
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My sweet nephew went off to kindergarten a true believer. It didn’t take long for the “big kids” to shake his faith. That first Christmas after entering school, my nephew launched his own inquiry: Is there a Santa Claus? After weighing the evidence and talking to experts such as his grandmother, Tony concluded that, to stop believing, was just too big a chance to take. Many years later, my son Sam, went off to grade school. It wasn’t long before he began to ask questions suggesting that he was having doubts of his own. Then, on Christmas morning, with tissue paper flying, flashbulbs flashing, and the video-camera recording, the action came to a sudden halt. “Santa must be a thief!” Sam announced to the room. “There are tags on these things!” Stung and surprised, I recovered quickly and came up with an explanation—something about the size of Santa’s sleigh, and helping local businesses. Sam accepted my words. We were back in action with the camera rolling. Eventually, Tony and Sam each became one of the big kids with the holiday scoop. They seemed to accept their changing understanding of reality and how the world works, but it was the parents who grieved the loss. It has been a very difficult year. Many are wondering, will there still be Christmas? More than ever, I want to believe. Fighting the gloom, I decorated the Christmas tree and hung up the lights. In the process, I realized something: no matter what the big kids say, children do not give up on magic. They trust in a successful transfer of power. Our children let go of Santa because they believe in us. There will still be Christmas. As my nephew Tony concluded, it is too big of a chance to take. Keep believing. There is magic in each of us. The show must go on because someone believes in you. Dear Mr. Santa Claus: It has come to my attention that many people are planning to submit their Christmas wish lists on paper via the U.S. Postal Service this year. That can’t happen. It will be a total disaster. Don’t be fooled by claims that people need to submit their wishes in this manner just because of a little worldwide pandemic. People are making too much of this Chinese virus, or the Kung flu, as I like to call it. We need more focus on the economy and on me. Therefore, I insist that any individual who wants a present this year come to a crowded department store and make his or her request in person. Feel free to give each person a MAGA hat for stopping by—that’s on me because I am the most generous President that’s ever lived, and Christmas is a red holiday. Please be aware that I am onto those letter-dumping schemes. Millions and millions of people all over the United States are filling Santa mailboxes with multiple letters using different names, even the names of dead people. This is especially true in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I will not stand for this. We will be sending pole watchers to read every letter and cross-check every address and signature. We don’t care if it takes all year or even four years because we know the result we are looking for, and we won’t give up until we get it. I want it clear that I will get everything I want for Christmas this year or the entire timeless holiday tradition is over. I will bury you in litigation and send angry mobs to your home to dismantle your workshop, terrorize your elves, slap the red nose off of Rudolph, and hang you out to dry like a string of blown Christmas lights. People will forget you ever lived. We’ll even do away sleighs and snow. One of my campaign promises was to bring back coal. It’s a beautiful thing, and I expect your full cooperation with this initiative. Since I am the one who determines who is naughty or nice this year, every person in each of the blue states, every registered Democrat, and every relative of a registered Democrat should receive a stocking full of coal this year. It’s my two–birds-with-one-stone policy. Believe you me, I am already searching for your replacement. Krampus is tops on the list should you let me down by becoming a stupid loser. No administration ever has had the record-setting turnover of this administration. No one. Ever. I’m not afraid to tweet, “You’re fired!” You’ll find out. You’ll see. Adamantly yours, A President of the United States *************** Dear Santa Claus, As you know, there is a world-wide pandemic this year. With just days until Christmas, we have no hope that this scourge will end in time for your annual visit. As an essential worker, you may ignore the stay-at-home orders and the curfews. Considering your traditional twelve-month quarantine, we have deemed you safe for travel, and we are providing you with this authorization. Continue to come when we are sleeping to avoid face-to-face contact. There will be no holding children on your lap this year. And please do not attempt to kiss mama underneath the mistletoe. I know you are a manufacturing genius, but can you please shop local this year? There is curbside pick-up so you won’t be slowed down. Food is a welcome present this year, and if you have some jobs to offer, there are many in need. Rent vouchers and gift cards are also appropriate. Please send as much PPE as you can spare and adequate vaccine for all of our citizens. Amenably yours, An American Governor *************** Dear Santa: People have been calling us health care heroes, but we don’t feel much like heroes. We cannot keep up with the need. We are exhausted and terrified. A microscopic Grinch is stealing Christmas this year. We don’t have much time for list-making, and the accumulation of stuff no longer matters. We won’t be home to open presents from under our trees. We now appreciate what it means to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. The entire world is falling ill. You know what it means to have everyone wanting something from you. We get it now, and we want to lighten your load and the weight of your sleigh. These are our most fervent wishes, and they will not take up much space: Bring us health. Bring us unity. We know that joy will follow. We need you this year, Santa. We are short on beds, short on staff, and short on strength. Desperately yours, An American Health Care Worker When my son was a preschooler and offended by someone’s remarks or behavior toward him he might say: “And I’m not thankful for you!” Ouch! We connect with those we appreciate. The unappreciated are discarded from our memory banks. Forgotten. We stop seeing them. And sometimes we forget to acknowledge those we do appreciate. We take them for granted, and they disappear from our lives. Hurt, they stop seeing us. The natural consequence of isolation and social distancing is to become self-focused. After all, we’re the only ones around. As a result, some of our fellow travelers have fallen below the radar, forgotten and unacknowledged. Many of them are carrying the weight of the pandemic load: nurses’ aides, truck drivers, funeral home attendants, janitors, grocery store stockers, and even old friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Everyone everywhere is doing more with less. Most are doing more alone. Last week during my daily walk, I stopped for a Fed Ex driver pulling his rig off of the adjacent four-lane highway. The trailer was as big as a building. The driver was trying to connect the rear end of the trailer with a tiny loading dock not much wider than the truck’s dashboard. Patiently and repeatedly, the driver moved the rig forward and backed it up. He seemed unperturbed by the traffic on the busy four-lane highway, the speeding cars, and the impatient pedestrians and bicyclists. The FedEx driver kept at it until it was delivery accomplished. As I waited for the path to clear, I thought that I would rather donate a kidney sans anesthesia than try to do what that driver had just done. Hey, truck driver! I am thankful for you. And so I began paying more attention and realized how much hard work is done each day that, in some way, serves me and the quality of my life. I realized how many tasks need completion that I have no talent, skill, education, or temperament to perform. And I am thankful for all of those individuals who do the things I cannot. Also, I have grown more attentive to the phone, the mail, the email, and the text messages. I am grateful for every routine contact that breaks the monotony of social isolation and forms a bridge in the social distance. In early February, as this pandemic was becoming a reality, I got on the web at alloftheselves.com and started this blog. It was much like my children’s art projects: a chance to try something new, to experiment with new materials, to create something. But it was also a chance to connect with others during what would become a very lengthy period of isolation. My keyboard became a kind of magic wand granting me admission to other times, other lives, and other worlds. People started reading and commenting and sharing. Each day, my mind danced in conversation with people I know and many I have never met and yet feel I know. Dear readers, this time with you has been the highlight of my pandemic experience. I see you. And I am thankful for you! Happy Thanksgiving! This morning, I received an email from a furniture store. The subject line promised deals for a cozy Thanksgiving. A cozy Thanksgiving? Hasn’t that been outlawed? Cozy is not an option this year. Close, intimate, snug are not words in our vocabulary this holiday season. Any subversive who tries to get cozy now and for the foreseeable future runs the risk of being outcast, fined, or terribly ill. Thanksgiving 2020 is the year of the distant and remote holiday celebration. With social distancing of six feet in my small apartment, I can have two guests. Each gets a separate room and an open window. If someone doesn’t mind sitting in the bathroom, I can make that three, but they will have to keep the fan running and promise to step into the bathtub and pull the shower curtain if someone needs to wash her hands. But these are minor inconveniences compared to the Pilgrims. By the time they stepped off the Mayflower 400 years ago, they were sick of cozy. The Mayflower was no Royal Caribbean or Norwegian Cruise Lines. For three months, a crew of 30 along with 102 future colonists crammed themselves into the cargo hold of a wooden merchant sailing ship. The ship was overloaded and running two months behind schedule with 3,000 miles of the Atlantic to cross as winter storms approached. Conditions were damp, cramped, and unclean. Imagine what it was like when massive storms caused widespread seasickness in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! They made it with only two deaths and one birth along the way. They arrived in the New World 200 miles off course and facing a harsh winter. They continued to live on the ship for another six months as parties surveyed the area for a place to settle. Two to three people died each day. Only half of the Mayflower’s passengers survived to celebrate that first Thanksgiving. In their desperate circumstances, the Pilgrims had to ward off a mutiny by the economic migrants on board and negotiate a treaty with the local Native Americans. Through cooperation and an exchange of skills, a small group of only fifty-two Pilgrims survived. Their descendants now number in the millions and include Humphrey Bogart and President Bush. According to the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, as many as 35 million people worldwide descended from those Pilgrims. As we celebrate this 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, we may be feeling like those seasick, wave-tossed Pilgrims. We’re on our way to a new world. No one is sure of the way. The ship is damaged and rickety, the crew is weary. And it stinks! Sometimes the officers spend too much time below deck drinking the Kool-Aid. The passengers argue over the life-jackets: they are uncomfortable, a violation of personal freedom, and they make us look fat….We’re sick of this trip. But longing for what we had reminds us of how much we’ve had. And a flawless adventure is no adventure at all. I am cozying up to the idea of a new national holiday. When this journey is over and we have hit dry land, lets stand six feet together, side by side, celebrating the cooperation, exchange of skills, and hope that brought us to a new, post-pandemic world. While we will mourn the loss of many, our numbers diminished, let it be a time of rebirth. Whatever flaws we have had, may the future remember us for our determination, and our bravery. Somewhere in my cousin’s excited description of the Thanksgiving menu, I heard it: Spatchcocked. What?! I ducked for cover. My mind and body went on red alert the way it did when I was a kid and heard one of my parents curse. It brought back the trauma of the one and only time I heard my father say the F-word. Spatchcocked? Surely, that is a term that belongs on the list of bona fide dirty words. But I thought dirty words came in four-letter packages. This is a twelve-letter word. There must be a much longer list of dirty words than I ever imagined. I am naïve. I need to work on my vocabulary. Spatchcocked. Sounds like something nasty. I am certain my parents would have required me to say “butterflied” should I ever be permitted to speak of such a thing. To utter the word spatchcocked may have led to a mouthful of soap instead of cranberries. Apparently, spatchcock means to split open the turkey and lay it flat in the roasting pan. According to Martha Stewart, the bird cooks faster, remains moist on the inside while becoming brown and crisp on the outside. It is considered a “nontraditional” presentation. As far as I can see, the meat might cook faster, but the Thanksgiving centerpiece does not look so regal with its back broken and legs spread across the plate. Forget the memorable family photos of granddad carving up the traditional turkey. Martha Stewart reports that spatchcocking has revolutionized turkey preparation. With all of the recent talk of revolution, I didn’t think we were talking turkeys, at least not Thanksgiving turkeys. Martha writes, “Whatever you do, don’t let the term intimidate you.” Easy for Martha to say, but face it, that woman has been to prison. There is no way that word will not intimidate me. Her cavalier attitude makes me uneasy about every bite of my meal. Should I be on the look-out for a file in the pumpkin pie? Razor blades in the yeast rolls? Martha says it is easy to spatchcock a turkey. But again, this is a woman who taught the home arts in prison. “All you need is kitchen shears and elbow grease.” Seems to me I ended up with some pretty bad haircuts the few times I combined kitchen shears and elbow grease. If it took six months to pay off the emergency room bill and grow out my bangs, I am not likely to go after a slippery 20 pound bird even if it is dead and doesn’t care about how it looks. Upon further research, I discovered thousands of websites discussing spatchcocking. I am very late to the revolution. Despite my parents often saying, “Pardon my French” before uttering a dirty word, spatchcocking was neither a cause nor an outcome of the French revolution. The practice, or at least the word, may be of Irish origin, yet I’ve never heard anyone say, “Pardon my Irish.” But maybe we just like to put down the French out of jealousy over their delicious cuisine and fine couture. In my studies on the subject of spatchcocking, I did find one saving grace, a cause worth fighting for. The spatchcocked bird takes less room in the oven leaving more room for sides. I don’t know about you, but while the bird gets all of the attention, I’m all about the sides, and that’s the side I’m taking in this revolution. |
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April 2024
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