Category Archives: Slice of Life – Two Writing Teachers

Say “When”? Nope.

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I pride myself on my verbal rapier wit and bon mots voiced with a skill set comparable to the precision of how Venus and Serena Williams serve tennis balls. However, my written voice, while loquacious once its engine starts, will on occasion ride shotgun, take a backseat or sometimes even hide out in the trunk when it should at the ignition.

In spite of it all, , as wonderful regular followers of this blog know, I participate in various poetry and flash fiction challenges each week. Add to that I am a regular -I won’t lie and say weekly- participant in each Tuesday’s Slice of Life Writing Challenge. And because I simply glutton, I am also a part of #52Essays2017 where I submit –you guessed it- an essay each week. Clearly, I must be a closet masochist for personal writing.

Thus when I saw the email reminder earlier today that tomorrow is March 1st and Day 1 of the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, it gave me pause. 31 consecutive days of writing personal vignettes of my life, when I can barely remember to participate weekly. 2016 was my third year in a row participating, and my best year as I only missed posting three days, but I did miss three days. Can I do better this year? As I take into consideration, my considerably more than two cents, in all the other challenges I have a toe in, do I even want to go for it?

Oddly enough a classic Kenny Rogers song is what pops into my head as I ponder:

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em…

Is it a sign that this song popped in my head and became an earworm? I mean, sometimes you have to know when to say ‘When”, before you wind up saying “Uncle!”, right?

…Know when to walk away
And know when to run

Oh Kenny, I hear you, but I will not heed your words of wisdom here. I really am a masochist for writing after all.

See you guys tomorrow…
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Let’s see how others are slicing it up this fine Tuesday:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

You Can’t See The Condition Of My Condition From There

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For the past few years, photographer, activist and friend, Substantia Jones, has celebrated love from February 1st thru Valentine’s Day by posting pictures of couples in love.What makes her work different than the many other photographs of loving couples is that her couples are fat ― and often in various states of undress.  For those first fourteen days of each February Substania shows the world something most rarely see depicted in mainstream imagery – that fat people are in love and are very much loved in turn. That’s the good news…

Each year more and more other media outlets take notice of her work with glowing accolades.   And without fail, whenever she receives these well-deserved accolades for her work in other media, especially social which will often reprint her photos, there is a backlash. Even when an article is overall positive or at least enlightening, as we erstwhile and current models of her Valentine’s Day series, Adipositivity.com, Uppity Fatty and Fat People Flipping You Off  series know…

Now seems like as good a time as any for an important reminder: Never read the comments.

Because, in spite of that good advice, every now and then I forget where I am, the internet, and it will start off with praise and commentary for the article, then someone post that first bad comment. And once that first negative comment appears – from that point on it snowballs into a downhill shitstorm. And that’s the bad news…

For just as inevitably, the negative comments swing from how someone looks around to those who will start spouting their unasked for two cents regarding someone’s “health.”  This is when those, who from a mere photograph can and will spout, near chapter and verse, of the presumed physical, and sometimes emotional, ills of someone, especially the fat someone. Often they do not even bother to be nice about it by wrapping it in the sandpaper of “can” and “may”.

Look at her, you know she has hypertension or diabetes at that size.

I can see his ribs, he’s got to be anorexic.

I just don’t understand how people don’t see the double standard. There could be totally average size people pictured and you don’t question their “health”, because it is the “standard.” Average, thin or athletic looking people could have heart disease, diabetes or liver disease, but no one makes definitive presumptions about their “health”. Give him a salad, get her a cheeseburger.

And for God’s sakes some arm chair Dr. Oz-es out there, really need to stop acting like your judgment is somehow based on some noble concern for our health. Especially when you are basing the things you spew upon a double standard.

Because you simply cannot judge someone’s heath based on a photograph. Unless, you’re Sherlock Holmes, but since he does not exist and even if he did Dr, Watson would tell him to zip it any way, you’re not him, but I digress. You know nothing about the people in the photographs or their background. They may have health issues that prevent them from losing weight, they may have depression or any number of things that would cause weight gain. You do not know if they’re trying to lose the weight and frankly it is none of your damned business whether they are or not. If I have a salad for lunch today, it for the same reason I will have a cheeseburger for dinner tonight, I like the taste. My food consumption is not up for public discussion, especially from a perfect stranger – because there is nothing perfect about them if they are commenting on my food choices–, and especially while I am actually eating.

Average, thin or athletic looking people could have heart disease, diabetes or liver disease, but no one thinks about their health.  No one would comment that she or he could be a contributor to the high cost of insurance. Yet, one look at a fat person and it is almost considered a given. Commenting that a fat is a contributor and that it is something we all have to be concerned is pure sizest bullshit. By making this presumption it bears the extrapolation that some think all fat people are poor and/or do not have insurance. Unless you personally are footing that fat person’s insurance premium, it is just an opinion, an erroneous one at that, and I believe most of us are familiar with the adage regarding opinions and sphincters.

No one should voice an opinion on the healthy or non-healthy status of someone else’s body, whether they are fat, skinny or in between; not even a random someone in the medical profession.  The only person who can voice a definitive opinion on someone’s health without impunity is that person’s private doctor.

You are not attracted to fat people/skinny people, that is fine, beauty is… after all. Do you have a right to that opinion? Absolutely. Do you have the right to voice that opinion? Yes, you do. However, is voicing that opinion germane to the conversation at hand? If not, then please keep that opinion to yourself and avoid potentially derailing a conversation that was not about you and your opinion.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 8
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

Name Me

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Before I begin this I concede that I am a prurient ass, and while I hope I am not the only person for whom the following would be such a point of contention as to blog about it, but it does irk me to that degree.

I have a confession to make: I, a writer, am at a loss for a word. Not words, for this is not a post on writer’s block, but a word. A single word -and speaking of single let me roll this back a bit and make my conundrum clear.

My spouse – the person I am married to.
My fiancé/fiancée – the male/female identifier with whom I am engaged to marry.
My betrothed – the gender neutral term for the person I am engaged to.
My intended** – the very informal use of betrothed.
My lover – the person I am having sexual relations with, but who is not necessarily my betrothed or my spouse.
My paramour – the pretentious and/or facetious use of lover, but indicative that the other person’s holy matrimony is the stumbling block between the two of us.
My friend – the person whose company I enjoy, but I have no romantic feelings for.

I’m guessing at this point you have figured out the missing rung.  So I say this to you: When I enter into a monogamous relationship with a person I am dating, but not necessarily have engaged physical relations. I do not desire to state it so baldly by using the term lover, or any indicative thereof, especially if we have yet to engage in the more physical aspects of such. How do I introduce that person to others? Please note I am not referring to terms of endearment, the romantic nouns with which we would call each other, but a clear-cut specific term when you are past saying my date, because as a grown woman of 53 years of age, I would feel utterly ridiculous being introduced as someone’s girlfriend. Thusly, I would not want to introduce a male of my peerage as my boyfriend. So what are the alternatives for the mature dating couple?

My woman/My man sounds like someone is trying a buy a couple seconds while desperately trying to remember the other person’s name while not insulting their maturity by addressing them as my boy or my girl.

My lady, while acceptable enough, sounds so stuffy as though bowing of some sort is expected. My gentleman caller evokes, well, peals of laughter, and expectations of bows, curtsies and polite kissing of said lady’s knuckles (*press play on hurl.mp3 here*).

Granted there is the classic sweetheart, but seriously. For those who know me, I can already hear their snort at my attempt to say such with tenderness except maternal and I haven’t done that when addressing my sons since they were in grade school.  Saying sweetheart with derision or utter sarcasm? -oh in a heartbeat. Saying it with affection? -never gonna happen. And honestly, could you see me with a man who would call me such, except smartastically? Great the old standard Let Me Call You Sweetheart is now running in the background of my mind as I type this. Ugh!

That leaves the ubiquitous my guy/my gal. The former immediately brings the classic Mary Wells tune to mind, while the latter conjures Judy Garland & Gene Kelly hoofing it. So again, I really would prefer a term that did not engage my already natural tendency to drop a song lyric at any given prompt more chances to run rampant. And cripes – now Bon Jovi’s Runaway is in my head- I really can’t stand myself sometimes.

I have read somewhere that other places, such as in the Chinese language, there are several distinct terms for love. These words define, romantic love, from familial loves, from humanitarian love etc. Whereas English only the generic love which encompasses everything, versus in love, which is solely the providence of romantic relationships. If the English language, which has no qualms in blatantly stealing phrases from every other language in existence to make its point when needed, has such a dearth of more appropriate terms for the varying intricacies of love itself, is it really surprising we are so lacking in terminology for the extended ladder rungs leading to it?

I imagine part of the reason for this lexiconic lacking is a mix of history, tradition and longevity. History in that from the days of yore the human life expectancy was a much shorter one than now. Tradition in that a hundred or so years ago, it was pretty much a given that anyone over the age of 25 was likely either married or widowed, unless the person was a spinster or confirmed bachelor. While it was possible for a widow in antebellum south to reenter the courting pool, she retained her late-husband’s surname if/until she remarried. There was no need, read time, to establish more dating/courting terms for the mature single person beyond the genteel gentleman caller. Longevity in that it is still the relative norm to presume a person will date, became engaged, get married and at some point widowed, and as we’re talking this day and age –  possibly divorced. However, as we are living much longer and by extrapolation, dating longer, and/or returning to the dating pool at later ages, the strictures of old-fashioned courting are as outdated the as term gentlemen callers. As such we find ourselves in a bit of linguistic conundrum.

So here I am a week from Valentine’s Day, throwing out a net into the linguistic waters in search of a word in English that is equivalent to the immediate understanding of girlfriend/boyfriend yet does not immediately bring to mind the days of high school. Any takers?

**While intended as a romantic term is used interchangeably with betrothed, I personally have considered it a step down on the romance ladder because of the classic definition of the word intend. Betrothed, brooks no question, two people are definitely going to get married. John Watson proposes to Mary Mortenson in the traditional way with a ring and everything (Yes, I am a huge fan of BBC’s Sherlock – just zip it – would you do that for me please?). There is no question they are a devoted couple and John is going to marry Mary, thus they are betrothed to each other.
When a spontaneous proposal happens, but there is no ring on hand to seal that part of the deal, I think intended should be used. In a moment of passion (not that type of passion – geesh people!) Pat pops the question to Leslie. However, because Pat has more love than moolah at the moment, it takes a bit before an engagement ring is placed on Leslie’s fingers. Until the rings show up, they intend to become engaged/married.
And going back to 221B Baker Street as temporary analogy (I said zip it), in the case of Sherlock flashing an engagement ring at Janine, Sherlock would have introduced her as his betrothed for we would see the evidence of such on her left hand ring finger. However, as she would have been the sole ring wearer, she could introduce him as her intended. After all Sherlock bought the engagement ring because he intended to propose (<– see what I did there?). Intended – you can all but hear the comma, space, but and ellipses immediately following that sentence can’t you? This is why I place intended as a romantic term a rung down on the ladder.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 6
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

I Hope

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To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.
— “The Book of Joy” by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu  

I love this quote. The case for pessimism is hard to refute when we live in a very imperfect world, with various struggles and strife.

There has been this undercurrent of fear for many since November 8th. The tensions and animosities that marked the marked the election have only increased in the days between Election Day and Inauguration Day.  With January 20th only a few days behind us there is this sense for many that life is going to be faced with arduous trials, but that doesn’t mean we need to live in despair. We have to have optimism, to have hope.

Hope.

It is such an elusive word. How do you describe hope?

We all know what wrong is when we see it. We may not even have an exact name for it. Sometimes it is nothing more than gut feeling, but we know it. The same is true of the expectation that comes with hope, the trust the comes with optimism. We just know it.

Like pessimism, optimism is a feeling. Hope, however, is a conscious choice. It’s far too easy to wallow in the woe is me. We have to actively choose to have hope.

Hope makes us believe that things will be okay. It is a great support which makes us not give up easily, because it makes us believe that situations will eventually get better and can be solved. Hope finds out bright lines even in utmost darkness. It lets one to think miracles even in impossible situations. Someone who has hope will usually continue hoping. Hope makes our life have more motivation to continue and carry on in hard situations.

If one cuts off hope, it ultimately cuts off life. The desire to get involved in making the world a better place is not a bad instinct, it’s a necessary one.  It’s how we have survived. It’s how we will survive.

Having hope is an active, decisive mindset etched into every single moment. No matter the haze and fog that clouds our vision, hope cuts through, never losing sight of the stars behind the clouds.

Hope is not the promise that it will be easy, but the faith that we will get through it.

And we will.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 4
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

And A House Is Not A Home…

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“But a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home…”
– Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Also with a respectful nod to both Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross of course, I have to say – yes.

Until the age of twenty-three when I moved-out for good, I lived with my parents, more or less – that’s a very long story that can be summed up in a poem I wrote here.  It was my parents’ home yes, but not mine. I lived there as a child as all children do because, I had no choice.  Until I could afford to be on my own, I had no choice.  Most parents, at some point, will explain the finer points of home ownership. It almost always comes first in some form of My house. My Rules.  I had my bedroom, yes, but I never felt at home in my parents’ house. A stanza from the  above referenced poem…

Where do I go
This was my shelter
It was all I’ve ever known
I’m taught never to be where I’m not wanted
But what do I do when I’m a child
And where I’m not wanted is home

It was an intangible difference, but one I innately, if not completely, understood even as a young child.

“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”
― Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

When I moved out of my parent’s house, I moved into Bill’s parent’s house. They were both retired and aging, still for the first couple of years very much with us. Yes, it was technically the parents’ house and there was definite clashing of heads twixt all four of us adults from time-to-time, but there was a mutual respect companionship and love throughout those walls.  As his step-father’s health rapidly declining and his mother was showing the very first hints of Alzheimer’s I found myself in the role of partial caretaker of the elderly parents. Living with them taught me that home and family is are relative terms less defined by blood, more defined by relationships. Bill has cousins, the family of his mother’s best friend. People he was not related to by blood, but were very much his family. That was the first place I felt at home.

“When I think of home I think of a place where there’s love overflowing…”
Home – The Wiz Soundtrack

Whether in an apartment, but especially when we actually owned our own house I learned home was more than my four walls and the roof over my head. Home is an environment. It was my dog I could hear happily barking and doing what we dubbed the happy-happy-joy-joy dance as soon she sensed my approach to the door. It was the feeling that greeted me when I walked through the door. It was my sons and husband who waited for me to get home. It extended out of the walls and windows of my actual abode to those we welcomed within. My sons’ friends who knew they better “greet an adult first when coming through my door” before going to play video games in their bedroom. Our friends and family coming over for barbecue and the annual Superbowl party.   At long last I had found home.

And then I lost it.

“Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project

Through a series of events I’m not going into here, when my husband died I was no longer able to keep living in our home and long story-short I wound up moving in with the one person who always had my back, and opened her home to me when I needed one, my best friend. Coming from a life of being an only child, living with Bill who was estranged from his living sibling and myself having the two boys, I had lived in relatively quiet homes. The realities of living with a large family was foreign to me. It was one thing to know, or rather know of, a string of siblings and nieces and nephews of her family, but I had very little interaction with them over the years. I understood them in the Hallmark card concept of everyone was around for Thanksgiving dinner in which we showed up for an hour or so and then left to visit elsewhere. Still very much walking the Path of Grieving at the time, plus a series of other mayhem that befell, I was grateful, to have a roof over my head. I was grateful it was with my best friend, whom I love dearly. After a twenty years of finally having a true feeling of home in my life, being in a home not my own again was especially stinging. The day-to-day of always having people who were not my family, always around, and as I felt in my business, was something to which I had much trouble adjusting. I quickly understood that none of them would ever really understand how I could be in my room, reading a book not wanting any interaction just as I would never understand the sound and fury and a constant stream of people coming and going that was their norm. Over time I was definitely more at home there. A couple of her siblings have claimed me as I have claimed her as my sister on all legal forms. Still, for all of that, I could never really make the apartment we shared feel like my home. Because I knew from the onset, no matter how long I stayed there, it was always a temporary thing and she would likely be the only person to miss my presence when I finally left.

“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.” – Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate

Twice times I rode the train and went back to my old block, to “casually” pass by my old home. The first time was maybe a year or so after the boys and I left. The house was empty of tenants, the fence needed repair, the yard was overrun with weeds.  The second time was perhaps around the third year mark when I saw it in passing from a train.  The yard was cut, a car was in the driveway, the house was occupied by a family not my own. Both times I was still in grief, so all I saw in my heart were how the Christmas decorations would hang from the awning. The football shaped balloons we attached to the fence for Superbowl, where the grill stood in the yard. I saw it while passing by in a car a couple of summers ago. The building was almost out of my sight before I even realized where we were. I understood I would have been immediately in tune with it before, it did not register because it was no longer home to me anymore.

If there is one thing we humans all have in common, it is that we all want a place to call home.

After several years of living with my best friend I am under my own roof again. I am on totally on my own, no children, no romantic partners, just me, but I feel it. I still have some furniture I need to purchase, some décor I need to work out, deal with a host of other changes, big and small, in my life because of it, but I feel it. The views are very different than before, how I move around is very different than before, it is a very different feeling than before, but I feel it nonetheless.  And oh when I climb the stair and turn the key in the front door at the end of the day, yeah I feel it…

“Home is where the heart is.”
– Gaius Plinius Secundus

HOME.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 3
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

 

You Must Remember This

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I find myself the owner of treasures of value to no one, but history and as the unofficial family historian – me.

My late-husband was a semi-hoarder, a trait well earned from his mother as I came to learn over the years. In a series of happenings in the two years after his passing that I will not go into here, things were put into storage for what I hoped would be for a few short years. Eight years later I in turn have inherited all of these things and have finally begun the arduous process of sorting through them.

Some things were easy to decide what to do with, such as the receipt from Sears & Roebuck. Think about it, I said Sears & Roebuck. The receipt is so faded, I could barely make out the date (06/01/68) and the cost ($27.00), but not the purchase item itself. I’m reasonably sure -were she alive now- Laura, my late mother-in-law, would not be too put out that I tossed it. Reasonably sure – I think. $27 was a hefty amount for a S&R purchase back then. A part of me sincerely feels that she could likely recall what the purchase was for – with the steel trap that was her mind before Alzheimer’s took its toll.

The birth certificate of a brother-in-law, deceased long before I met my husband, is another story. From the 1940s, I can still feel the raised seal of its stamp, letting me know it is official if not the true original. Marriage certificates, note the plural on that. My erstwhile mother-in-law was quite the dish, let me tell you! Old dog tags, family photos, more documents, family letters etc. were also unearthed. Two letters showing some serious animosity between sisters-in-law, shed a light on tensions I had sensed, but could never put name to back then. Letters from my late-husband to his mother while he was in the army nearly made me cry.  I am the only living person who can be the bearer of these captures in time for these specific people.  At least for the moment.

Bill was estranged from nearly every single person he was related to by blood. I know he has, (or knew he had?) a brother in San Diego. A falling out over twenty-five years ago has sealed the deal on my wanting to find him now. Some physical wounds heal, but the emotional scars can still fester. Somewhere out there is a niece with whom I did get along. Regrettably, as life has a way of doing, in with Bill’s passing I am ashamed to say we are no longer in contact. Her father’s birth certificate, among other items are things are rightfully hers and I would love to give them to her. Thus, I simply cannot let them go for I have hopes of finding her and being able to do such someday. But what do I do with this treasure trove now? Had I a private home with the ever useful basement or attic, there would be no question as where to put these in the meantime. However, the reality of living in an apartment where storage space is at a premium I find myself at a personal cross road.  For I also have my own treasures to add to the mix.

In a bin from storage I found the tops Bill and I wore for at our wedding. My best friend presented Bill and I with an heirloom clock. It has the traditional marriage vows printed on it, with our names and wedding date on a plaque attached to it. It is too obvious what it is, and after ten years of being a widow, now living in an apartment he is not a part of, I could not hang it on the wall. So it, the tops and a few other things I’ve deemed a part of “that time” yet feel should not be thrown away, has been stored up on a shelf in a closet. Out of sight, if not entirely out of mind.

As I am still sorting through the cache, currently all are boxed, taking up space on in front of a bookshelf in my living room. I fight the cleaning urge to just toss them and be done with it. It is treasures like these, mementos held onto and passed down are how people trace family. Not just the who someone was on the family tree, but who someone was as a person. The family tree can tell me Dorothy and Laura were sisters-in-law. Only finding those letters tells me that they were not fond of each other and how long that animosity ran between them. The letters tell me how much Bill loved his dogs. The family tree will tell you that Bill and I were married and when. Only the photos will give testament to the not exactly traditional aspects of the wedding itself.

In the interim, my not-so-immediate goal after the sort, is to scan and document everything I can. And perhaps laminate some of the older, more delicate paper items that are in danger of being lost forever. That is fine in and of itself, but while I can scan a photo of my three-year-old child wearing it, I cannot scan the “child-abuse” shirt itself.  Or scan the wedding clock, or the dog tags, or… or…

Most people can easily trace to their grandparents and perhaps back to at least one set of great-grandparents, but not much further.  One of the reasons sites like Ancestry.com and the television series “Who Do You Think You Are?” exist is because there are many who understand the importance of documenting these things, at least the paper things, while you can. In this throwaway society of new or nothing, it becomes harder and harder as people cannot or just don’t hold on to these pieces of the everyday anymore.

The thought that many years from now another family member will come across these previous timelines and enjoy these revelations as I have, fills me with joy. For while the photos and letters can be documented electronically, it is not the same feeling that raised seal or the texture of an old shirt under your fingertips. It is my wish that long after I’m gone, hopefully future great-grandchildren, will come across the old photos, the clock, the “child abuse t-shirt” and other treasures saved and smile just as fondly on them then as I am smiling now thinking of their stories.

That alone tells me I will be holding on to these treasures for a little while longer – throwaway society be damned.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 Challenge – Week 2

52essays2017

A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing it up this week:

sol

Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

As Long As You Believe…

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So this happened …

I am sitting on the train on my way to work, listening to my iPod, when a little hand pats me on the arm getting my attention.  I look to the adorable tyke standing in front me. I am bad at children’s ages because they are all so big now, but I was guessing about six years old. Colorful red and white barrettes peeking out from under a snow-white and purple knit hat that coordinated with the purple parka she wore.  The mother, fussing with a little boy in her lap -clearly her son- hadn’t realized her daughter had moved until the child in all her wide, pretty half-moon, long lashed, wonder filled brown eyes looks up at me and asks:

“Hi. Do you know Santa Claus? Is he real?”

I’ll take this moment to explain that, as I do each year the week or so before Christmas, weather permitting, I am wearing my bright red, double-breasted ¾ length wool coat with a wide black leather belt. I’m also wearing an off-white scarf wrapped around my neck and a bright red wool hat, with a nice snowy white fluffy pompom on top.  My nod to the holiday season as it were. Thus why she felt she could come to me with such a question.  The mother smiles apologetically, getting ready to tell her not to bother me, but I speak right over her in that voice we adults reserve for little children as I remove my ear buds.

“What in the candy canes makes you ask a question like that, sweetie?”  I smile.

Hey, dressed as I am, it does kind of require I toe the party line – don’t judge!

“Patty in my class says there’s no Santa Claus.” And I can see the plea in her eyes still wanting to believe.

“Oh honey, Santa Claus is magical. He’s only real to those who really believe he is. Someone mean probably told Patty that Santa isn’t real and she believes them.  And now because she really believes them, there is no Santa Claus for her anymore.  That doesn’t mean Santa won’t be there for you. And what do you believe?”

“I think he’s real, but now I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know?”

Because we are on the train, I didn’t want her to be in the way as people enter and exit, so I look at the mother and ask if it’s okay, before I pick the child up and put her on my knee.

I know. I know. But really, where else was I going to put her?

“Well, Patty says I don’t have to be good for Santa because there ain’t one…”

“Say there isn’t one, not there ain’t one” I interrupt, correcting her without thinking.

“That’s what Miss Jackson says, too! But I keep forgetting.” She smiles, the veracity of her teacher now confirmed, as she keeps on going. “Patty says there isn’t one.  She says I have to be good and nice only because Mama won’t get me nothing if I don’t.”

I bite my lip, from correcting her again, but she’s a smart little cookie and sees my face.

“Oops! Mama won’t get me anything?”  She corrects herself unsure.  I grin giving her an approving squeeze.

“Well I can’t speak for your Mama. Mamas have their own rules separate from Santa’s that you should to listen to. I will say that you should be good, not just for Christmas or around your birthday, because you think you’re going to get a present.  You should try to be good always because it’s the right thing to do.  It makes everyone around feel nice when you do and don’t you feel nice when you do good things even when you know you’re not going to get a present for it?”

“Yes.”

“Well there you go!”

“But even nice to Nicky?” She whines, pointing at her younger brother still squirming in her mother’s lap.  I laugh.

“Nicky is going to get on your nerves a lot while you’re little, and you’re going to get on his. That’s what happens sometimes with siblings. I am sure he won’t seem quite so bad to you when you’re both much older.  Not even Santa expects kids to be perfect all the time. Still, you should do your very best to be good always, and be nice, even to him, okay? ”

“Okay,” She sighs reluctantly, “I’ll try.”

“Claudia, we have to go.” Her mother stands with Nicky, who starts whining loudly.

As she slides from my lap, Claudia looks at me as if to say See?

“I know little brothers can be such doo-doo heads sometimes, right?” I whisper making her giggle in surprise, winking as she returns to her mother.

“Say Merry Christmas to the nice lady, Claudia.” The mother also mouths a grateful thank you to me.

Claudia runs to back to me with her arms open, so I lean forward for the hug.

“Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas, Claudia.”  I give her a quick squeeze and send her to her mother.

Ladies and gentlemen that is my last good deed of this crazy year. I now aim to misbehave and reserve the right to be as much of a pain in the ass as I want to be for these last few days of 2016.

Merry! Happy! Joyous!

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up as we race toward Christmas and Hanukkah.

sol

Slice of Life Challenge – Two Writing Teachers

A Recipe for Hygge

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A large dose of merriment in the holidays that herald the coming of winter, regardless of hemisphere.

Delight in the dashes of Joy that are the a blanc beauty of fresh fallen snow.

Dollops of peace in enjoying the solitude of a good book or movie, new or old.

On a snowbound night – nothing re-hydrates like hot cocoa if cold; a chilled chardonnay if warm.

Dole heaps of compassion and goodwill for humanity’s less fortunate.

Whisk together friendship where the pot luck results in a smorgasbord of laughter and love.

Keep an extra roux of wisdom and strength on hand for rejuvenation to reduce the doldrums that may appear. Serve yourself and others liberally as needed in remembering it is only a season, and like all seasons, this too shall pass.

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What is Hygge? If you were to try to translate it, hygge (pronounced hoo-guh), like duende, it is more of a feeling than a word. It’s sort of a full-on embrace of all things toasty, cozy, and restorative to the soul, especially in wintertime.

Today at dVerse Michelle (Mish) tends the pub for Poetics and challenges us to create our own “recipe poem”, but not of the culinary kind. To instead, write about something more abstract such as “a recipe for love”.  Thus, for those of us, like myself – who are not major fans of cold weather –  I present my recipe for getting through the winter season quickly encroaching on the northern hemisphere.

dverse
dVerse ~Poets Pub | Poetics | Recipe Poems

 

We are in the first full week of December and several of my northern friends are already facing snow. It seemed a good time to get this recipe going.

 

sol

Slice of Life Tuesday Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

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Imaginary Garden – The Tuesday Platform

 

Decked Out

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After eight years of living with a roommate I am under my own roof again. It was a long hard climb to get myself back into a solid enough financial stability to do so and I am so happy! It was almost like Christmas as I unearthed the things from storage that I had not seen in all that time.

Some of it was bittersweet: The clock with the traditional wedding vows and our wedding date – a wedding gift from my best-friend. The shadow box containing last flowers and card he sent me, that were received after he was gone (you can read that story here). My late-husband’s folded flag in its wood case. Of those three items, only the flag is out to be seen. I decided other than a picture, it was the only other physical reminder of him that was needed – even the kitchen magnets agreed.

My eldest was placing kitchen magnets of our astrological signs on the new refrigerator the way they were on the old one. When he placed Aquarius, Bill’s sign, on the door it fell to the floor and broke. He looked crestfallen showing it to me, worried about my reaction. I shrugged and explained, it’s been ten years and this is a new space. He was not supposed to be here prominently like this. My sign and my sons’ respective signs were the only ones needed.

Most of the unpacking was long, but happy: getting my king-sized bed back after years of sleeping on a full-size. My barely used pots & pans before everything happened just soap and water away from use again. Seeing my favorite books back on shelves and seeing the artwork I loved displayed again – squeeeee! What brought a huge smile to my face was uncovering all of my holiday decorations. I now have a closet that is full of nothing but holiday cheer. I was determined that my place would be free of any unnecessary boxes by Thanksgiving so I can spread that cheer.

For being back on my own meant I could return to doing what I could not do for eight years. My annual tradition of putting up the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving was back and I could not wait! I have a lot of decor. Enough that I can do color various themes. Oh, what to choose! I literally opened boxes and whatever three colors captured my eyes first were what went up.

Now, I am not going to lie, 2016 has been one doozey of year. Still, with journeys to Dubai & Abu Dhabi, Cuba and Italy now under my belt, I cannot claim it was all bad when I can walk in MY door and for the next few weeks I get see this:

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!! Happy Holidays !!

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sol

Slice of Life Tuesday Writing Challenge  – Two Writing Teachers

A Mile In… 

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It has been a couple of days now since we’ve made Donald Trump the new president-elect. Between the various camps of who voted for whom or berating/thanking those who did not vote at all and what it all means,it has been a shit storm of a week. In the midst of it are those saying it won’t be as bad as others are making it out to be. And that is the thing that has probably bugged me the most.

The majority of those who have touted unity, to pull ourselves together, have predominantly been white cis and yes, male. Now,to a point they are correct. It won’t be bad for them with Trump as preident, for it was not bad for most of them to begin with regardless of who held the title of POTUS. Their privilege comes with rose colored glasses that not nearly enough have chosen to at least lower them enough to view how things are for others whose shoes walk a different path. And those shoes coverd many different paths during the campaign – Blacks, Hispanics, women, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gays..

Muslim women who have had their hajibs snatched from their heads. American born Mexican children being tauted by classmates they will be deported. A black man being called nigger and spat upon. A gay man being told he will soon be executed straight or to death. All of these events, perpetrated by whites, happened within the first 48 hours of Trump being elected. This is not to say any of these could not have happened at any other time, it could, and likely has, many times before. But it has ratched up considerably in just three days. This daily fear and unfortunate reality for many of us -for as a black woman in America I do feel those  crosshairs- is not going to be abated because many chose to push those rose colored glasses higher to hide the ugly.

Anyone denying that the climate has changed enough that the more hateful among us feel not just free, but justified, to behave this way since Trump’s election are accessories to the perpetrators, for silence is consent. Armchair tut-tutting after the fact is empty lip service to those who hurt. For while I do not believe the entire country will completely fall into the dark ages racially and socially, if the past couple of days have proven nothing else, I do believe the day to day social climate is going to be a rougher path to travel. 

In all honesty, I have no idea what kind of president Trump will be. I have no idea how a Republican led House, Senate and presidency will effect this nation as a whole. They may yet shock us all. Not holding my breath on it,  though. I have lived through several presidents now in my adult life. Some were given my vote and I lived through them, some were not and I lived through them. Like it or not, and I don’t, the nation has elected Donald J Trump, President of the United States of America and I am an American. I will respect the Office of the President of the United States, for I know it is bigger than the man who serves in it, and I will live through this president as well.

As I explained to an erstwhile colleague I ran into on the subway, just because it’s not your reality doesn’t mean the reasons for my fear are not real. Telling me it won’t be that bad is in fact saying it will be bad. Don’t you dare then belittle and dismiss my fears as unjustified.