A Change Of Heart

 

^ One of the medics and the nurse. My new friend is already inside the truck. I hope she is warm.

It's Valentine's Day.

I'm driving home from a few early errands and my mind excitedly turns over the trimmings of the day.

Hand-drawn cards.

Foil-wrapped chocolates.

Heart-shaped meatloaf.

I've laid careful plans and I'm prepared to celebrate in fine style. I'm a big believer that Valentine's Day is all about expressing love to friends and family, and my heart buzzes with a happy excitement for the festivities to come. 

As I turn from the highway onto a residential street, I see several cars ahead of me swerving to avoid something in the road.  My reverie shatters.

What's this? It's a woman.

An older woman. Well, older than me.

In a second, I assess the situation. She's clearly been walking down the sidewalk along the highway, pulling a nylon covered shopping cart but here, where the sidewalk gives way to a dirt path along the residential road, several sections of rough and tumble pavement make for some serious tripping hazards, and this poor woman has apparently taken a header.

She's literally lying in the street, struggling to get up.

Three or four cars ahead of me zip past her, literally swerving around her, pausing only so slightly in their rush to get to wherever they're going. 

I'm horrified.

By reflex, I carefully inch around this poor woman and park my car on the shoulder nearby. I rush over to her - she's still struggling to stand up or even squirm her way off the road. My first objective is to help her to safety.

I say hello.

I ask her if she'd like me to help her up.

I don't really wait for an answer. 

Drawing on the lessons I learned when helping my mother stand up, during her hard times, I step into  position, clasp her hands, and gently pull up.

Our first attempt fails and she sits back down. I realize she is more dazed that I first thought.

"Let's try again," I encourage.

And this time, as I pull and she struggles to stand, a miracle happens.

Out of nowhere, a younger woman wearing a rainbow-striped puffer vest and a beanie materializes out of the ether, and positions herself behind the woman, lifting her as I pull. In a heartbeat, the woman is standing.

"I'm a nurse," our new friend informs me. I cannot possibly be more delighted.

We talk, the three of us. The fallen woman is terribly confused. She has a strong eastern European accent, a small scrape on her chin, and absolutely no idea where she is or what has happened. 

Bless her heart.

The nurse speaks aside to me. "She's concussed. I'm calling 911. Can you hold her steady?" 

Yes. I can do that.

So we stand in the cutting wind, under steely skies. I listen to the nurse talk in medical acronyms and abbreviations to the medic dispatcher. I see her stealthily take the woman's pulse, peer at her pupils, and ask the woman over and over, "Did you hit your head?"

In the meantime, I hold onto the woman for dear life as she trembles, twitches, shakes like a leaf. She looks up and down the street, twisting and turning in my grasp to look around behind her, wondering over and over again, "But how did I get here?' I brush some stray bits of bark and mud from her white fleece vest and lilac ear band. I try to imagine what I could possibly say to comfort her, and do my best to stumble through.

The medics pull up. More angels. They're smiling and kind and endlessly reassuring. The poor woman is still confused, and now begins to apologize for her accent. We ascertain that Polish is her first language, and as the medics promise to call for a translator right away, I keep holding her arm and whispering encouragements to her: "Don't worry. We can understand you. Your English is just fine."

Now the medics are ready to move her to their truck for a full assessment. She's scared, especially when their gurney makes an appearance and they ask her to sit down. "No," she says. "Don't take me to the hospital." But these folks are prepared for her resistance and promise that right now, all they're going to do is take her to truck so she can sit inside where it's warmer.

She sits down..

They belt her in and move her off. The nurse walks with them, still dispensing information and swapping medical data.

There's nothing more for me to do.

So I get in my car and drive home.

Along the way, I gradually recall my Valentine's Day plans. My pretty red hearts and chocolate candy don't seem quite so important now. Yes, I still believe in Valentine's Day as an opportunity to shower my nearest and dearest with tokens of my love. But maybe it's something much bigger than that.

Maybe this holiday is well celebrated by standing on the side of the road, shivering in the wind, holding up a confused, concussed woman and wondering what she will remember of this adventure with me. 

Probably nothing.

But I will remember her forever. 

Happy Valentine's Day.

You Belong With Me

^ I mean, wearing stuffed animals on your feet isn't exactly Bright and Shiny behavior, 

but I found a guy who appreciates me for exactly who I am.

I'm standing in the pasta aisle at the grocery store, mulling over my gluten-free shape options and tapping my toe to the catchy beat playing overhead when I suddenly realize tears are streaming down my face and dripping off my chin. 

What the actual heck is going on here?

And then the correct synapses snap into place and I put the pieces together.

If you could see that I'm the one who understands you

Been here all along so why can't you see

You belong with me

Standing by and waiting at your back door

All this time, how could you not know, baby

You belong with me, you belong with me.

Uh oh. Taylor Swift's angsty teenage love song is making me cry. 

Which is weird because I'm not a Swiftie. And I'm not a crier.

So what's going on here?

This song has always tapped deep into the heart of my teenage emotions. I was that girl who was friends with the boys, and while I knew what we had was genuine and true, there were times when I wished that one or another of them would see how perfect we were together, and take our friendship to a different level.

But I realized at a very tender age that many men - many many men - suffer from what I call Bright and Shiny Syndrome. They are attracted to females who use shakes and shimmies, peals of laughter, hair flips, and a not-so-subtle blend of flirting and fawning to draw these men in. And sadly, these men are so dazzled by the Bright and Shiny ladies that they often overlook the other women in their lives who may actually be a much better fit for them in the long run. 

To be fair, I really don't blame the Bright and Shiny girls for doing what they do. Unarguably, their strategies work. And I can hardly blame the men - especially the teenage man-boys - because they really have no idea how effortlessly their attention can be shifted away from all the other girls to the irresistible forces of the Bright and Shiny types. 

But it was heartbreakingly hard for me to be that often-overlooked teenage girl who cried her own version of You Belong To Me out to the night skies over her fair share of distracted teenage boys. 

Still, those days were a long, long time ago. It's been decades since I learned how to put just enough tinsel on the tree to attract the right kind of attention. So why was Taylor making me cry?

There's another layer to this story. 

* * * * *

Last week, I went for a walk with neighbor of mine. Let's call her Betsy. Betsy was struggling with a devastating decision. She'd gone out for coffee that morning, and caught a glimpse of her sister Jenny's husband Todd, who was sitting across the room in the same coffee shop with a woman who was most definitely not Jenny. This woman looked to be about college age, as opposed to Todd's mid-forties, and they were giggling, nuzzling, holding hands. They were not behaving as any platonic friends would behave. Stunned and sickened, Betsy slipped out the door and bought her coffee elsewhere. But not without snapping an incriminating photo. 

Now, as we walked through the morning's snow flurries, Betsy was trying to decide what to do with her newfound knowledge. She could show and tell Jenny what she saw, and almost certainly blow up their otherwise happy and functional marriage. Or Betsy could keep her mouth shut, allow Jenny to live in the bliss of ignorance, and trust that sooner or later, Todd would either confess, get caught (again), or stop his idiotic behavior. White flakes filled the sky as Betsy cycled endlessly through the pros and cons, imagining what she would want if this were happening to her, and bemoaning the fact that she'd come to witness this folly in the first place. 

As I listened to Betsy talk, I watched the soft clusters of snowflakes drift onto my red ski jacket only to be blown off by the gentle winds swirling around us. And this is what I was thinking.

Todd had fallen under the spell of a Bright and Shiny lady. Shoot, this young woman didn't even have to make an effort to be Bright and Shiny; she's likely less than half his age; probably free, unencumbered, and filled with the lively spirit of youth; apparently lit up by his practiced wit and the tousle of his only slightly grayed hair. I've known Todd for longer than I've known Betsy and Jenny, and it's only fair to say that he's otherwise a stand-up human being and an all-around good guy. I had not seen this coming. 

But all the same, it was happening. Jenny, poor Jenny, was perhaps about to be thrust into the role of the overlooked woman. For almost two decades, she'd been there for Todd, steady and reliable, and her heart would surely break to hear that her husband was, at least temporarily, turning his back on her steadfast love.

And this is why my heart broke when, standing with a box of large elbows in my hand, I heard Taylor sing.

Dreaming 'bout the day when you wake up and find

That what you're looking for has been here the whole time. 

* * * * *

I don't have any neat way to wrap this story up.

I'm not sure what Betsy, Jenny or Todd will do next.

Don't know if there will be a happy ending for them or not. 

I also have serious doubts that most teenage boys will ever learn to look beyond the Bright and Shiny ladies of the world and notice the wonderful girls who are already standing right in front of them, hoping to be noticed for who they are. 

Seriously doubt that that will ever happen,.

And that's why we need music, music that speaks to the tender places of our souls, to help us remember the truth about this life we live together. 

Even when we're standing in the pasta aisle. 

* * * * *

Go here to watch the music video for Taylor's You Belong To Me.

Gracie's Birthday Banquet

"Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts." -Aldous Huxley 

^ From the top, clockwise: 

kibble and sardines, 

fresh blueberries, 

fresh bell pepper, 

roasted chicken, 

frozen blackberries, 

and in the middle, Gracie's favorite, hard boiled eggs. 

A cozy bed. 

A squeaky toy.

Maybe a sweater. Or a raincoat.

It's hard to land on a great birthday present for a dog. 

Especially when your dog does not care one whit for such treasures.

Gracie cares for one thing and one thing alone. (Well. Besides me.)

Gracie cares about food.

So this week, as her birthday approached, I racked my brain, trying to think of a new way to give her all the delicious food we're already giving her, in some way that would feel novel and maybe even special. At least to us. And one of my daughters hit the nail on the head.

A scavenger hunt.

After ruling out several undesirable scenarios:

1) In which we hide food around the house, which would result in unsightly puddles of Gracie's drool left behind in every place where she found her treats, 

2) In which we hide food outdoors along the route of her walk, which would only encourage her to eat (more) garbage, a horrible habit of which I'm continually trying to break her,

we hit upon a winning idea. 

Once home from her walk, we'd serve Gracie up her usual dinner of kibble and sardines. As she was chomping that down, I would slip out from the house a series of other dog bowls, each full of some Gracie-approved tidbit which, considering she loves all food except raw mushrooms, would not be difficult to accomplish, and tuck said bowls here and there around the front patio where she would already be dining. Then, we imagined, our birthday girl would nose around the patio, finding one delicious treat after another, and snarfing them all down to her heart's content. 

And you know what? It worked perfectly. 

^ Kibble and sardines, down the hatch.

Interestingly, Gracie did not tear through her various dinner courses at quite the breakneck speed I'd imagined. She worked carefully, diligently, licking every trace of food out of each bowl before moving on to the next. Other than the hard boiled eggs, which she wolfed, she ate with much more careful deliberation than usual. It was a delight to see her move through her progressive supper with more curiosity and self-control than her usual chomp fest. 

In fact, the only downside of the entire feast was the disappointment she surely felt on the day after her birthday when we returned from her walk and she excitedly scanned the patio for more of the extra treats.

Sorry, Gracie. Those goodies are for celebration purposes only.

But don't worry. You'll get another birthday banquet in just 364 more days. 

* * * * *

Do you remember the crazy story in which Gracie came to be mine? Read this for the details.

Surprise!

Hello And Goodbye

"Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it." -Trey Parker

"I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello." -The Beatles

For the past five Saturdays, I've made a trip to the airport.

Five weeks.

In a row.

I've driven there and back.

Now it's a 74 mile round-trip journey. Forty-five minutes each way if the traffic is good. Goodness only knows what if it's not.

And - full disclosure - I have not been behind the wheel every inch of those trips. I've shared driving duties with my fourth born and my husband. But I've been there in the car, clocking the travel time, brainstorming alternative routes, and otherwise cheering on the entire enterprise. 

Some trips have been in daylight, others in the wee hours of night. 

But all of these trips - each and every one - have trafficked in the deep emotion that always surfaces during our hellos and goodbyes. 

Now, I am an experienced mom of adult children. I truly respect that they have built lives of their own that involve these comings and goings. Shoot, I moved away from my family of origin so I know from experience that there's nothing personal to these distances. Sometimes, life just beckons us to follow where it leads. I get that. And I'm good with that.

But there is a visceral pain that comes from squaring your shoulders, buttoning up your tears, and sending your daughter (or niece) off on a plane to live her own life. 

Yes, she's allowed. 

Yes, she's entirely capable. 

Yes, she'll be back.

Still, it's hard. 

So it gives me 

a certain solace, 

a comfort in numbers, 

a sense of feeling seen, 

when I visit the airport to watch the other families saying hello and goodbye, to know that we all carry a certain pain in our hearts, to accept that this process is very much a part of the human condition.

At least the postmodern human condition.

So here is my gift to you. When you find yourself in the process of saying goodbye - or hello! - to your adult children, I am with you. I will meet you at the airport and join you in all the emotions of these tender moments of hello and goodbye.

Owl Friend

Photo credit to one of my neighbors who snapped a pic of this owl and shared it in a neighborhood group. It looks exactly like the owl in the story I'm about to tell.

I had a feeling I'd see you today. As I strolled along the first bit of my walk, letting whatever thoughts might fly into my head build a nest there, I thought about you. I've seen you swooping through the woods along my path several times in the past few days, always at that same spot on the footbridge behind the high school. Powerful and silent, you glide through the trees and disappear into their branches. Just thinking about you triggered an echo of the shivers I always feel when I see you; you're majestic and mysterious and just a little bit creepy. You fascinate me and freak me out.

So as I come upon that little footbridge, I am looking for you. I call out to my dog in several unnecessary ways, just to give you a lil heads up that we are approaching your domain. I come upon your Doug fir growing in the little grove on the edge of the forest, sandwiched between the walkway and the parking lot, and look up.

There you are.

You're backlit by a tall light behind you, sitting on a branch maybe ten feet up. In a flash, I make out the unmistakable silhouette of your owl noggin. Deep in the shadows though you are, I catch a glimpse of the white and brown ruffled feathers that can only mean owl, and I feel the familiar tingles begin. 

I know it's you.

But just to be sure, I take a few more steps, so that I can look back up into the tree from the other side, with the angle of the street light shining fully upon you.

I see your face.

Your eyes, shining deep and alert, are staring into mine.

And hypnotized, for a full second, maybe two, I stare into yours. 

Now the goose bumps begin to zoom across every inch of my body, head to toe and back again, round and round. Dumbstruck by your imposing magnificence, I also somehow feel as if I'm invading your sacred owl privacy, trespassing into your secret owl life, crossing a line between our two separate lives that I should not be crossing.

I quickly turn, cast my eyes downward, and walk on. 

But you better believe that not a minute has passed since then that I have not relived our encounter. I see 

your dignified profile, 

your snowy feathers, 

your glossy black eyes, 

and I overflow with the magic of our encounter.

And you better believe that tomorrow, my dear little owl friend, I will be looking for you again. 

Watching | Postmodern Christmas Movies

Haul Out The Holly | Directed by Mclain Nelson

Meet Me Next Christmas | Directed by Rusty Cundieff

My Dad's Christmas Date | Directed by Mick Davis

All streaming on Netflix

Welcome to the world of holiday Hallmark movies. Somewhere around twenty years ago, in the early naughties, the greeting card powerhouse invented a trope of movies driven by predictable plots almost always involving high-powered yet brokenhearted women, small town settings, cozy Christmas vibes, and hot, very hot men. While this is not a genre that typically catches my fancy, here are three recent offerings that I've enjoyed. 

Mild spoilers ensue. 

^ Haul Out The Holly

Newly single Emily heads to her parents' snowy suburban home, hoping to cocoon through a cozy Christmas, only to discover that her parents are leaving for Florida and she's in charge of decorating the house up to colossal community expectations. Lo and behold, the neighbor and HOA president in charge of holding her to standards is her long lost childhood soul mate, he of steel blue eyes and the perfect sprinkle of freckles. Hilarity ensues as Emily resists and eventually celebrates their wacky cul de sac traditions, and maybe even falls in love. 

What makes this film stand out is that it carefully steps around the usual machinations of gooey romance and fills in all the resulting gaps with bits of quirky off-beat humor. References to Nickelback, Star Wars, It's a Wonderful Life, and Fresh Price of Bel Air pepper the plot which left this viewer snorting with laughter instead of rolling my eyes. 

^ Meet Me Next Christmas

Last Christmas Eve, Layla met her Prince Charming at snowed-in O'Hare, and this Christmas she's desperately seeking a ticket to a concert where he's promised to meet her. She hires a concierge to help her turn up just one highly coveted seat, and the two of them race around holiday-bedecked New York City in hot pursuit of various leads. In the end, Layla finds her ticket but learns that maybe her Prince is not who she thought.  

This movie is smarter than most. Yes, it stereotypically features a bestie who gives our female lead dubious relationship advice during cozy chats in their jammies, and a grandma-aged lady who offers plates of tasty holiday goodies and wraps everyone up in warm Christmas hugs. But the story takes place in a recognizable and romantic big city, rather than yet another Stars Hollow clone, and features a wee bit of a twist ending that we didn't see coming in, oh, let's say the first fifty seconds of the plot. 

Also, and maybe most importantly, this movie is cast with people of color. What a refreshing change. 

^ My Dad's Christmas Date

The title and the generic synopses of this film suggest it's about a teenage girl who tries to set her widowed dad up with a new lady, a la Billboard Dad.

But that's not it at all.

You see, Jules has a broken heart. So does David, her dad. They lost their beloved mom/wife in a car crash two years earlier, and both of them are still floundering in their grief, mostly by taking out their understandable pain and anger on one another. Jules' plan to land David a girlfriend is nothing more or less than her desperate attempt to help them both break this awful cycle and move on. But what we, her voyeuristic viewers understand, is that neither dad nor daughter can move on until they heal their relationship with each other.

This is not a sugary sweet, sexy, sappy Christmas movie. It's real and painful and though the ending is gently positive, the mood of the story is bittersweet at best. 

And that is exactly what makes it so very beautiful.

* * * * *

Christmas Schmistmas.

My mother loved Christmas. But - although she couldn't articulate this is so many words - she felt let down by the holiday. Reality always fell short of her expectations for the love and warmth and genuine contentment she hoped to find on that special day, which led her to fall back on her short-hand expression of frustration: 

Christmas Schmistmas. 

And while my younger self didn't quite know how to respond to her pain and oft-repeated refrain, I get it now. 

As humans, as women, and especially as mothers, we deeply crave the connection that Christmas teases us to believe is possible. We yearn for it with all our being: 

Watching our young ones' faces open with delight over Christmas surprises.

Gathering all our grown babies back together so they can reconnect over their childhood joys.

Seeking to find not what divides us but bonding over the love we share.

Serving our family and friends food that feeds their stomachs and their souls. 

Feeling peace on earth, right at our very fingertips.

This is all a lovely dream. And I believe that one day, we will find all this and more in eternity.

In fact, I think it's the eternal nature of our souls that makes us crave this perfection while we are living our entirely imperfect lives here on earth.

And that's the rub. We ache for that cozy glow of contentment, that blazing fire of love that we believe is possible at Christmastime most of all.

But Christmas Schmistmas. Life just doesn't usually work out that way.

So enter the postmodern Christmas movies. They help us fill up this space between our dreams and reality. They build in us with the hope that somewhere, somehow, Christmas dreams really do come true and all is calm, all is bright. And you know, for many of us, it works. Reality is suspended for somewhere around 90 minutes, and we can live in the cozy glow of a beautiful, perfect, snow globe of a Christmas dream.

Which is lovely.

As long as we remind ourselves that perfection only happens in heaven and holiday rom coms, and take it all in stride when the kids cry, the adults bicker over politics, the dog licks the plum pudding, and we're tempted to lock ourselves in the bathroom and cry. 

Christmas Schmistmas

Life is a crazy dance.

All we can do is celebrate together and hope for the best. 

* * * * *

What I'm watching lately. 

Postmodern Christmas Movies

Formula 1: Drive To Survive

Masters Of The Air

Downton Abbey

Sirius' World

 

Sirus, back when he used to sleep on couches. 

I'm leaning at the kitchen sink and listening to a silent house. Gracie sleeps at my feet. My husband is tat-tap-tapping on his Excel spreadsheets behind a closed door. Upstairs, my fourth-born makes nary a peep.

When suddenly there erupts a symphony of crackling papers. 

Rustling.

Ripping.

Crumpling. 

I'm stunned for a single beat, but then I remember. And I smile.

* * * * *

A couple weeks ago, in pursuit of some free plastic bubble wrap, I hauled in my stash of recently received shipping boxes from the garage and set up shop in the dining room. As I sorted through the boxes, I extracted the bubble wrap and stacked it neatly on top of the table, and tossed the less desirable (for my current purposes anyway) paper wrappings under the table. Various weights of tissue paper and that weirdly sliced expandable paper - honeycomb packing paper, I've since learned it's called - were discarded in devil may care fashion onto the floor where I promptly forgot all about them.

Until an hour or two later, when I tracked back into the dining room to pick up my mess and found, lo and behold, my good cat, Sirius, sound asleep on top of the paper wrappings. 

Oh. So cute. I left the pile and the sleeping cat be, and figured I'd let him have his nap and gather up the mess later. 

Well.

One nap turned into another; days passed and still Sirius slept on the paper heap. 

Now Sirius has always been one to move around the house quite a bit during the day, choosing a couch here, a chair there, a sunny spot on the floor, and of course, free range on the beds upstairs. He's always been one to mix up his choice of sleeping spots every hour or so.

But I noticed that Sirius was spending an inordinate amount of time in the nest, as I came to call it. 

Oh, and he fights with it too.

At first I thought my kitten was simply rearranging the papers as I heard him thrashing around in his nest. But no, a few discreet peeps revealed that he was wrestling armloads of the papers; kicking and biting them in a full-on grudge match. Then, exhausted, he'd simply close his eyes in the spot where he lay, and drift off into another long, lovely nap.

* * * * *

By now, Sirius's nest has become a charming part of our household routine. I find him there many times each day. Every now and then, I zhuzh the papers back up into a pile for him, but I'm not sure he really cares. 

Is it:

the texture of the papers, 

the warmth of his body heat captured in the layers, 

or the satisfying crinkling that so satisfies his little kitty soul?

I don't know.

All I know for sure is that rustling noises from my dining room are a new normal for me. They tell me that my little Sirius is curled up in his nest, and all is well in his world. 

P.S. Sirius' brother, Luna, has discovered the nest and fallen in love with its magical soothing powers as well. I'm happy to report that they take turns nicely.