Metaphysics fatigue

My mind lately is a rather pointless and wearying metaphysics hamster wheel. In December we dealt with two deaths, neither someone we were very close to, but close enough for sadness.  One young and expected, after a long fight, and one seemingly out-of-nowhere suicide that really flummoxed me.

Stuff has kept piling on as the new year gets underway, and we're kind of battle weary.

I keep coming back to my great great grandmother, Georgia.  I wrote here about my discovery of her apparently lifelong chilliness toward her granddaughter.

But I've got this kind of cognitive dissonance about her because every other clue I have says really good things.  Starting just after the Civil War, she had a passel of kids, eventually including Iola, my great grandmother. This was a hazardous era for even genetically lucky babies.  All her kids lived to grow up.  Luck certainly played its part but it still tells me something good about their mother.

Keeping the kids fed and clean and healthy doesn't necessarily mean you've nurtured their spirits, but Georgia's children were all good people, not just well-respected but well-liked.  Some I know only through anecdotes and scraps of letters and inscriptions.  A couple, I knew personally.  Their descendants are a funny and nice, sometimes charmingly weird, generally terrific bunch of cousins I see every spring at a big gathering, and some I see regularly in daily life.

Georgia disliked Iola's firstborn, but none of Georgia's children seems to have emulated it.  Iola's siblings were warm and loving toward their niece, my grandmother.   Much that was nurturing and good for Gran had to be Georgia's legacy as well. If she had a weird prejudice, her children still seem to have been able to think for themselves. What was this woman about?  Of course, what is any of us about? and the answer is complex beyond imagining.

On the metaphysical side, I want and hope, so much, to meet her.  Want and hope that in 1984, when that granddaughter, whose feelings she hurt so deeply, left this life, they were united again in a dawn of understanding and a mended love they couldn't seem to get to while they were on earth.

I guess those of us who believe in an afterlife, or crave one, see no way that any kind of balance within this universe can be achieved without that chance for reconciliation.  But call it wish fulfillment if you want to.  My comprehension of the issue is too weak and muddled to offer anything except few observations, some postulations, and maybe a shrug.   If I ever get any answers, it won't be in this life.

But when I try to focus instead on good examples of living this life, I can't avoid Georgia.  I loved my grandmother dearly, yet I can't help but feel that Gran would be glad I consider Georgia's to be a life well lived.   Life has sort of forced on me awareness of how there's a whole mysterious universe inside every person. If we flower and fade in cosmic seconds, like time-lapse photography, we are still complicated and mysterious and, I can't help but think, eternal, in a way that defies explanation.

Yeah, yeah, isn't that special. But i'm examining what others made of their lives in part because my own confounds me.  My life is easier than that of 99% of people on earth, but I am SO tired and so discouraged with how little I can do to fight the entropy, not only in Haiti or Thailand, but for those I love, or those sitting across from me.

I can sit and banter about our Hondas with a guy and not have a clue that he's weeks away from putting a gun in his mouth. I'm not down on myself about that -- he successfully hid it from his nearest loved ones -- I'm more down on the UNintelligence of this Design in which we care and are all Oh So Spiritually Interconnected but that fellowship of all creation does these massive system-fails.

I can say prayers till I'm blue in the face but a 25 year old will still lose her fight with leukemia.  Somewhere someone wakes up to a day in which their family has been wiped out in a single fire or plane crash or tsunami, yet I have the audacity to feel like crawling under the blankets and saying "I can't face another goddam Christmas dinner."  Even though I suk it up and smile and do the celebratory thing, and end the day both glad I did it, and glad it's over.

I know, it's all a reminder that none of these other peoples' lives are in my hands, and God knows, I don't want them to be.  My AA program says "Let go. Turn it over."  My own life is all I've been given to handle, but the swear words keep welling up, as in, like, Who the  %@#!  is handling things, then?

I understand those who say there's no Big Guy In Charge, this life is our responsibility, we're the ones in charge.

But we're not.  See, that's the thing.  We can get a lot better at reducing intolerance and killer pollutants, we can do vastly more to heal disease, and make the world safer and kinder, and we'll be overjoyed that we've increased humanity's health-and-happiness rate from .... whatever, the 20% that it is now, to 60-70%.  Heck, make it 90% if you want to get real optimistic, but millions will always remain at the mercy of random miseries, pain and loss too horrible to bear thinking of.

That.  Will.  Not.  Change.  Ever.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't demand of ourselves that we shoot for that 90% rate;  only that too much will always be beyond human power.  We can't make Paradise on earth, even at our very very best.  More than the "how" of coping, I keep wondering why we all have to be so powerless and why we're so interconnected when it doesn't, and can't, solve much.

When I read Candide for a class in 1975, I adored it instantly.  It just might be my favorite banned book.   I know, opinions by literary experts abound, and it has been 30+ years since that class, but I swear, the book stopped way short of claiming any final answers about a metaphysical realm and admitted that premature claims of understanding are simply .... premature.  Voltaire himself, I dunno, but the book stopped short.

There's a kind of wonder in realizing that all of our explanations of The Meaning of Life are the equivalent of toys.  Screw self-help books, Candide is the best depression-buster I've read.  Oh and it does it with delicious sarcasm.  That didn't hurt, either.

Depression for me is mired in craving Big Answers, and I'm thinking that I need to stop needing big answers.  If we tend our gardens, we've confined our hopes to the possible. There's nothing wrong with caring about and contemplating big answers, wanting is fine, but needing them -- though I may never disable that need -- can be paralyzing.

I think Georgia tended her garden, and that's more important than whether she screwed up in one, even a hard and unjust, way.   I have to more than accept, to actually take comfort in my limitations and say, "I can't take responsibility for this. I'm depleted, ask somebody else."  And maybe I need to reread Candide for fun.

Faith is for the things that take a while.

Meanwhile, I saved the best thing I got for Valentine's Day, for this post, though i really wish the whole sentence could show in one photo. But I need to keep this in sight, because letting it take time is something I need to remember to do.

OK, Christian conservatives. Why hasn't Santorum teed you off?

There are a couple things I usually try not to do on my blog.  One is: state the obvious.  A big news story about something (stupid / dangerous / terrible) comes out, and every writer everywhere has to do an entry about how, Yes, it really is (stupid / dangerous / terrible).  Waste of time.

I also try not to give attention to fringe people with only niche influence.  While Rick Santorum is certainly a fairly major candidate for the GOP nomination, he's too extreme -- whether you like his stances or not -- to get elected.  He's a news byte and unlikely to be more, though I guess stranger things have happened.

I'm making an exception.  Not that I have read all the response to his comments about education, so it's likely that I have nothing new to say about it, but...

Never mind his diss of educated liberals -- why aren't conservative Christians themselves outraged and insulted by his sneer at education??

For a man who has earned three degrees in three major universities to tell the rest of us that higher education is screwing up peoples' minds and values, is both absurd and one of the most noxious examples of "I deserve it;  you and your children are too stupid to use it properly."

Because that is exactly what he's saying.  His complaint that increasing opportunites for higher education makes "snobs" and Obama clones is insulting to conservatives as well as to liberals.

He -- with his 3 degrees -- would claim that post-secondary learning is a tremendous danger because the kid, who's over 18, and you, as a parent, aren't quite up to the task of navigating a place like Penn State and coming out with your values intact.

He managed to, but I guess he's much smarter than you are, which is why he thinks you not only will fail to use critical judgment in what you read and hear, but that your/your child's access to a lot of careers, like computers and business and medical technology, is best limited, to keep you from finding out that some professor doesn't believe in God.

He also thinks that you're so stupid that you can't find educational institutions aside from them Godless places.

Never mind that the list of accredited colleges is huge.  Has the Rickster even looked at the size of any college guide??

1739 pages. Six pounds.

Never mind that this hefty volume includes loads of conservative and / or parochial colleges that also offer valuable programs.

And never mind that  "college education"  is a term that envelops a big spectrum of programs, from advanced esoteric subjects to career education certification at tech college level.   Public 2-year colleges need most of their time for teaching things that get you jobs, and don't have a lot left over for advancing the atheist agenda, and are a lynchpin of the opportunity that putting education in reach is all about.

I'm not bothering with arguments as to whether there are major universities pushing a liberal agenda, because it doesn't matter how much or how little truth there is to that.  Let's grant it,  just for argument's sake.

Alternatives to such institutions abound, from smaller schools, to faith-based schools of all sizes, to 2-year colleges that are letting hardworking and highly motivated people gain careers and be part of the dream.


Perhaps he would find comfort in discovering that liberals and Democrats will not select your college for you.

From the National Center for Education Statistics comes an important thing to ponder:

 From 1998–99 to 2008–09, the number of associate's degrees earned by Hispanics more than doubled (increasing by 101 percent), and the number earned by Black students increased by 77 percent, while the number earned by White students increased by 28 percent.

These are people who want a life for their families and the chance to make a difference in the community.  People whose parents work long hours and collect aluminum cans by the roadside to build tuition money and a better life for their kids.  But even with multiple jobs, tuition is getting beyond the reach of the many of the best, most valuable people who could contribute vastly more to this country with developed skills.

If he thinks that faith depends on keeping education levels low, what Christian wouldn't find that insulting in the extreme?

Elitism?  He patronizes people of faith this way, and has the gall to complain about elitism?

Every Christian conservative who has a college education, or wants one for their kid, who has spent 18 years teaching that child values, who thinks he or his child, or both, is bright enough to make choices, should be up in arms about this attack on their ability to think and discern.

Don't cry

When you go to any Twelve-Step group meeting, you notice something.  The room has a box of Klee--  oops, sorry, shouldn't use trademark as generic term -- a box of Facial Tissues located in some sort of central spot.  And if someone bursts into tears, which has been known to happen, they go grab a handful.  Nobody gets up or hands it to them or comes over to hug and pat and say "There there."

The idea is both that the person needs to cry, and that the rest of us need to not impede it by rushing over and "helping them" get back under control faster.  That's not as harsh as it sounds, since sympathy and empathy are fine in 12-step, but comforting can too often be a way to get you to stop crying before you're ready.

12-step is absolutely not comfort-less.  A lot of good "I understand" and "I've been there" happens and it helps you get your mind and heart working together instead of at cross-purposes.  But breaking that traditional rush to console is one of the many lessons in living and thinking differently, which 12-step programs are trying to teach.   There are things normal people can do that alcoholics/addicts just cannot, however unfair that is and however much that sux.  Things like: have a really hard gut-wrenching day and say "I wanna tie one on."  Or, indulge in self-pity.

And say, or expect to hear, "Don't cry."

The program can occasionally sound absurd, like, is every freakin' ordinary little thing wrong now?!  One friend actually felt guilty about doing crossword puzzles because she was using them to "avoid her issues."  Sheesh.  I mean, come on.  But the thing about this new way of thinking is that it asks only that you look at your coping mechanisms, not that you dump them entire.  You see plenty of people smoking multiple packs a day to stay off the sauce.  It's only about how some overuse of innocuous comforts can slow your progress.

What we learn is that a lot of us have done too much of the not-crying thing, under parental or cultural pressure to not express sadness, to not grieve, to Man Up, stop being childish, etc etc.

So one of the 12-step things you hear is that "Don't cry" can be part of that, and is awfully tempting to say as a false show of caring and support,  when somebody's crying makes you squirm and want to bolt.

True.  True true true,  I have to acknowledge this before I complain about it, because dismissing 12-step wisdom (or saying a teaching doesn't apply in this or that situation) is like a writer breaking grammar rules.  You have to master the wisdom and work it awhile before you have the discernment in place to legitimately discard it.

One of my favorite parents'-generation relatives ran a daycare when I was a teenager and hired me on as a classroom assistant, and I recall some of the lessons she was trying to teach kids about not getting hysterical over a scrape or bump or altercation with another kid.  I remember one little girl who was on the edge of a giant meltdown over a banged knee and my cousin talking her through it while she bandaged the scrape, distracting with sympathy and kindness until the wailing danger passed.

When does "Don't cry" prevent us from processing feelings, and when is it teaching us to shift into reasoned problem-solving mode?  To apply it takes that discernment.

But "Don't cry" becomes one of those Old Behaviors that I'm willing to say I miss.  I miss the days when collapsing in tears brought a heartfelt and caring "Don't cry."  I miss the comforting version, the one that means "It's going to be OK.  It's not a disaster.  You don't need to be so sad."  It's been tossed along with the "Stop sniveling" version.

Like wrecking my blood sugar with stress eating, or shrieking "Screw everything!" it's one of the old behaviors that I can't say is always bad, much less possible to completely overcome.  Nobody would expect that, but what I sometimes miss are the days when i didn't have to think about it.  There's something about the default "Don't cry" that I miss as much as I miss or embrace other comforts that range from unrealistic (and embarrassing) like J. D. Robb mysteries and Eight Is Enough, to downright harmful, like the days of being a young child on car trips without being trussed up in a car seat.

Tribute

An old acquaintance died yesterday.  John and I lived on the same street as kids, but he was way down the block, and the kids clustered at my own end of the street were more my daily companions.  He was also a year younger than I was so we weren't in classes together either.  A year ago he found me on facebook and I had an all-too-brief chance to discover that this person I'd known only as Generic Neighbor Kid was this kind, joyful, positive and giving person I wish I'd known better.

Another writer has written better about him than I could.  I really liked her tribute, so here it is.

In which I give appallingly short shrift to a lovely Valentine's Day, to rant about tofu

I had a delightful Valentine's Day, and really should spend this entry writing about it, but then again, a picture is worth a thousand words,

 
 ...and it is also Tuesday.  And it is a Tuesday that practically requires a Temperamental entry because I decided to eat a nice healthy dinner to make up for chocolate indulgence, and there, neatly hidden in my frozen dinner, unsought, was:

Tofu.

I hate tofu.

Lurking on line 4

It certainly ought to be declared a lot more clearly.  Like on the front of the box.  Sure, it's lurking in the back-panel ingredients list, but part of what's so deceptive about this is that, in some products by this same company, it is listed on the front.

So I naturally think, well then, these other products don't include it!  Right?

OK, OK, I should have read the entire ingredient label there in Kroger, but tofu is used for protein, and these are bean dishes. Who expects the stuff to be added to foods already full of black and pinto beans, not mention (in one of them) cheese?  Is it just a health-food icon?  Do they think the word "tofu" dings a little Pavlovian bell in shoppers' heads to make them chirp "healthy!" in a sort of autoresponse?

I don't know, but tofu is soy and soy disagrees with me, though mildly enough to let me eat the dish if I perform tofu removal.  I'm glad it's mild because soy seems to be in every freakin thing under the sun.  People who have serious reactions to it must have a difficult time.

But this is twice in a week ....

End of line 5

that I've found myself missing the murder on our dinnertime viewing of CSI: Miami while I tediously pick the unappealing fleshy little bits out of my bleepin' dinner.

I'm happy to say that I lucked into one of their products that's Tofu-Free.

Where were we....?  Oh, Valentine's Day!  It was wonderful.  I have a husband who knows me well.

Refusing it.

This is nobody's favorite subject and I apologize, but when I'm angry and frustrated, I have to rant in my blog, so today, I'm afraid I have to explain why I oppose almost all routine precautionary radiation, and to do that I have to talk about melanoma.

There's high risk for melanoma. There's very high risk.  And then there's me.
 
I am Celtic fair-skinned.

Despite that, at age 14 I got UV acne treatments.

Also, despite the pale Celtic-ness, I tried repeatedly to tan when I was 12-16 or so, and had more scarlet, blistering, skin-peels-off-in-sheets, fever and woozy-head, sun burns than most people ever have.  They say even one of these deep burns skyrockets your risk.  I literally can't count my moderate -to-severe burns.

Also, three generations of my family have developed melanoma. NONE of whom ever had as much burn history as I've had.  My grandmother had 2 of them 30 years apart.  My mother had 2 of them, about 5 years apart.  My brother has had one, 12 years ago.

When my dermatologist recommended the UV acne treatments to 14-year-old me, only one of those cases -- my grandmother's first case -- had occurred and I'm not sure he even asked about that.  It was 1968.  I was miserable over my complexion and I did adore that gentle rosy glow I got every other week(!).

That I haven't had any skin cancers yet is practically a miracle.  It certainly defies science.  I take a lot of vitamins.

But I also avoid any more stupid radiation, especially on my face.

And for a long stretch, that meant no dental care at all.

It is possibly because of damnable insurance companies who create a one-size rule and demand that dentists perform endless dental x-raying to protect the profession from lawsuits.  Beats me.

But in the case of my dentist -- let's call him Dr. Z -- it seems to be an infuriating, yet genuine belief on his part that yearly x-rays are more vital than any mitigating circumstance .... well, mitigates.

It wasn't the case with dentists I saw 20 years ago.  They wanted the x-rays, you bet, and I had to endure the patronizing lectures about  What A Teeny-Tiny Amount!  of radiation it involves, and about How Vital It Was For My Oral Health!  to which I would listen politely, because that was my role in the negotiation.  I understood the bind they were in.  I understand that x-rays can reveal some hidden problem in early stages, a problem that would be much worse when it finally grew big enough to make itself known. 

I'd listen to the requisite lecture. Then they would have me sign a disclaimer absolving them from all culpability and they'd clean my teeth, and I'd pay them and everybody went home happy.

Apparently, now I may not make this decision for myself.  No matter how seriously I have thought it out.  No matter how entitled I am to make my own health decisions.  Dr. Z, who, I repeat, is a truly good and conscientious guy, seems to think that forcing my hand by refusing me as a patient is kosher.  It's so important to him, that the fact that having no dental care at all is hazardous to the health of my entire body doesn't seem to have any pull.

A year ago, because of that hazard, I gave in.  He took a set. I became his patient, and think highly of him, and decided that a one-off set of x-rays was a good trade-off, and we could argue about it again in 5 years or so.

That's where I discovered that something else has changed in the dental profession, because not only did I get to refuse x-rays 20-15 years ago, but my old dentist requested them only at intervals of several years.  Today, ONE year later, Dr.Z demanded more x-rays.  And he and his tech are telling me all the dentists do this now.  It seems that I will have nowhere to turn.

When I gave in a year ago, I had not been to dentist in 8 years.

If that seems incredible, I can only, sheepishly, confess that God gave me the Rolls Royce of teeth.  It's one genetic luck of the draw that I got.  Apparently from my grandmother.  I've had 6 cavities in my life; at ages 14 (4 of them. Bad eating, I guess), 23 (one cavity), and one last one, sometime in my 30's.  One of the 4 1968 fillings was replaced about 10 years ago, the others are all original.  Even without dentistry for those 8 years, I had no problems at all, and those x-rays he forced on me last year revealed .... not a gallblasted thing.

But here I am again.  I refused them today. 

If he denies me care on this basis, I 'll have to hunt and phone and research and try to find someone who will honor my wishes.  It's still an "if" because he let it go today.  Apparently we will discuss it in 6 months, and I pray that all my excellent reasons, especially my family history and personal cancer risk, will allow me to keep seeing him, because he is absolutely wonderful, and is doing it to out of (in my opinion, bizarrely rigid) conviction, not for revenue or any other sleazy reason.  That's the thing.  Finding another one would be a lot of trouble, but the fact that he's one of the best dentists, and best people, I know makes me hope we can work this out.

I don't know if routine precautionary radiation is another topic or not.  I utterly despise it.  Yet I also understand the many benefits it has had to a lot of patients.  Everything is about flying blind and weighing odds, and you won't convince me that it never causes a tumor and only detects.  I doubt if even the imaging industry would claim that, but they do insist that I play odds that their bean-counters post as beneficial to "the whole."   In some cases, and facial radiation is one of them, I absolutely will not do it.

The toaster that gets you dates!

Sometimes I look at the bloggers who commit to blogging every day for some prescribed period of time and think, "No way."

I know that ordinary little things can lead to interesting and important musings.  But take days like today.  Bought a toaster.  No emotional or philosophical implications.  No drama at Costco.  No fires or thefts led to replacing the old one.  It wore out.  That's all.

Nothing to write about.  At least, that's what I thought.  Then I read the Instruction Manual.

I won't razz the people who need instructions on how to toast.  There are too many people who hand over their bank account numbers on email-request, or who eat the silica gel pak in the aspirin bottle.  They probably need a course in toasting.


I will quietly acknowledge the genuine need for those instructions, and move on to Item Two in the list of warnings:

The danger of Toasting Alone!

I was unprepared for this restriction on my toasting freedom.  Sure, I don't live alone, but what if Larry goes out of town?  Or even just up to the Home Deepot?  And maybe I want toast, and maybe I don't want to wait till he gets back.  Do I await my Attendant, or eat something safer, or heck! just throw caution to the wind and toast with abandon?

It's grossly unfair that there's no notice on the box warning you that this toaster cannot be used by single persons.  They get your money, you go home and unpack it and not only are your hopes of making a crunchy, buttery piece of toast dashed, but your mental competence has been insulted, AND the toaster is pouring salt into the wound of your unattached status.

But then it hit me.  They've done you a favor!   Finding a new and amusing pick-up line is never easy but this toaster gives you one for free.

You spot an attractive prospect.  You sidle up to the bar and do all the "Hi, what government program would you cut?" or whatever they're icebreaking with now.  Then, with shy charm, you say:  "Look, I need your help.  I'm not allowed to make toast tomorrow morning unless I have...you know....somebody else there.  I sure hate to be all alone and toastless..."

The instructions fold for easy pocket transport to the local bar, so when you encounter skepticism, you can even produce the interdiction against toasting alone.

And I wlll say that it makes lovely toast.

BTDT

My feeling about New Year's Eve has long been "Been there done that."  Never liked it.   I'd attend parties more as an obligation, or as a way to not feel isolated and pathetic. Many New Year's Eves I spent watching TV and washing my hair.

One notable exception was a year in which I'd undergone a break-up in the fall. That year (1991?  Not even sure!), I forced myself to go to a dance, and, what's more, I decided I could not leave the dance until I had danced with 7 guys. Any adult male counted, but I had to stay until 7 different men had filled spots in my mental dance card. I did it. It took until 2AM, but that also was a good thing. Getting home too early seemed only marginally better than staying home altogether.

I really am just as susceptible as anyone, to the symbolic "fresh new year" thing, though I'd be more inclined to say that the year turns at the solstice.  I've weakly made resolutions, then quit making real ones and made spoof ones, and now I skip it.  Every day is a chance to do my best and some days I do and some days I don't.  That's not likely to change.

I'm blessed with a spouse who's not into New Year's Eve either and we spend a quiet evening. We have to stay awake because the Traditional New Year Phone Calls come in from the kids and sometimes other kin, so going to bed only to be jarred awake by the phone is worse than the tiredness.

I also took some last-day-of-the-year photos today, so here are a few photos of the environs this afternoon:

Camellias starting to bloom

It's camellia season --  they will be loaded with blooms in a couple weeks.

Tiny garden spider babies recently hatched

We fear for these baby garden spiders.  They hatched too soon, but their mom laid the egg sac awfully early and the extended warm weather brought them out.  Even at 16x zoom with camera braced against the porch wall, the photo isn't too clear, but there they are. 

And they're fascinating.  In the picture below, you see this same bunch -- top-center -- with the egg sac that they left, back there in the corner above the door.  They move in a group and are actually not on the ceiling but suspended just underneath it in a group web.

Baby spiders in cluster - top center

Wild grape vines, finished for the year

Annual autumn sea oat wash-in

Every fall,  the sea oats die back and lots of them float in on the tide and get stranded.  I was delighted that this picture really shows the way they get suspended on top of the vegetation.  I'd tried many times to capture that with other cameras!

Scooter accompanied me on my photo shoot.  He makes a nice closing shot.  Happy flip of the calendar, everybody!

Christmas morning

About 8:30 AM, 12-25-2011

Christmas Eve - from Beyond Sing the Woods

Beyond Sing the Woods (and its sequel, The Wind from the Mountains) are the saga of the Björndal family from about 1760 to 1826.  The books were published in the US in 1936 and 1937 -- and it's odd that they haven't come back into print, while so much else from the bad to the good-but-obscure has, in this digital age.

From these novels, I am posting TWO Christmas descriptions tonight --- but the other excerpt is on the book blog, so go here to read another one.

Here is Christmas in about 1809(?) from the first novel, Beyond Sing the Woods:

---

There was an old custom at Björndal by which all the gaard ate together on Christmas Eve.  In earlier days the old living room had been big enough, but so many more people now lived at the manor that it had grown too small, and for twenty years now the Christmas meal had been spread in the sal.  This had been built for feasts in the days when the rococo style still lived and laughed in the northern countries.

There were chairs enough for all, and handsome they were for the most part.  Some were from Holland, some from England, and some had been made at Björndal by Jörn Mangfoldig.  They were not alike for they dated from widely different times.  The finest had high backs and were upholstered in yellow leather and of these there were eighteen.

There must have been parties in that room before, with dancing and music;  but long since, thought Adelaide, for tonight it looked very solemn.  The candles hanging from the ceiling were unlit.  All the light there was came from the table--from the holy Christmas candles.  There they stood in straight lines in sticks of silver, brass, and iron.  In the middle of the table stood the candle of the Three Kings in a stick of heavy silver, and before it lay the Bible flanked with two tall wax candles as in church.

Adelaide did not take in much of all this, but the solemnity of the hour stole into her.  It was very quiet in the hall among all those many people.

Glasses were filled with spirit and ale, and the food was brought and set upon the table.

Then Old Dag read the Christmas text as in all years.  Hands were folded and heads bent in silence.  Major Barre, the tough old soldier, laid first his left hand upon his right, and then his right hand upon his left--then he, too, folded them together.  Adelaide's eyes stole round to Young Dag sitting at her side.  His hands were clenched together, iron within iron;  he was leaning a little forward over the table, and his head was bent as though listening to something far away.

Old Dag's voice carried the words of the Scripture firmly and gravely out into the room, and the sputter of the candles as the flames flickered was the only other sound.  The air was heavy with food, candles, ceremony and newly-washed people.  Adelaide was conscious of all this, as she sat beside him she wished to be beside, and the happy spirit of Christmas and festival penetrated her as never before.  The Bible images of shepherds, star, stable and manger and Kings from the Orient passed living through her mind as in her happy childhood.

Those at the table who had lived at Björndal for some years--and there were many--looked in surprise at Old Dag this evening.  His voice was strange and fuller of meaning than ever before.  He shut the Bible with slow dignity and said Amen;  there followed creaks from chairs and breathings from people as all began to eat.

When all had had their first taste of meat, Old Dag took his glass in his hand and surveyed them all.

"There is much to be remembered on this evening," he began, "much good from the long year which is past."  Every man should therefore thank Him who governs all, he said, and he himself gave thanks especially because he still had health to see them gathered about him once more.  Then he wished God's peace on the house and upon all, and with this was given the signal for them to take up their glasses.

Adelaide peeped stealthily out from beneath her lashes, and fixed these pictures in her memory.  She had never thought to sit down at meat with so many sorts of people.

Nearest the door sat mostly vagrants, some very white-haired, shaky old fellows among them.  Some had furtive eyes and bent heads, others sent sly or greedy glances at the food, and ate as if never to eat again.  Life has been hard for them, thought Adelaide;  they have had but little food in their time.  And she thought kindly of all she saw.

There were many and varied people at Björndal and all had their places at this table.  There was Stygg-Hans and Espen Fillehaug and Ruske-Per and Lang-Ola and Stum Jens and Anette Paasa--these and many others who could work no longer.  Then there were some among them who could still use their hands, such as Jörn Mangfoldig who was once so skilled at carpentry.  Now his eyes were dim and his hand shaky, but he still had work to do mending things, he imagined, and he had his safe home at Björndal until the end of his days.  He was one of those who had Dag's cast-off clothes, so he was finely dressed for the party.

Here and there all around the table were those who were young and strong, like Syver and the other grooms, and there were wild young people among them, but at this table they behaved themselves.  People from the woods were here too, and Martin Hogger himself, the most powerful tree-feller in the forest.

Chairs scraped and shoes shuffled when every one left the table.  Each in his turn, according to his station, walked past Old Dag and shook hands to thank him for the meal and wish him a happy Christmas.  The old man took each one's hand with special warmth this year.  Then chairs were shifted back against the wall, the table was cleared, and all went back to their own quarters about the gaard.

Christmas rudeness

I've been waffling about posting this for 5 years.  Seriously.  It has sat in draft mode since December 2006, while I worried about whether it was too mean and snarky, too ill-timed, always too-something-or-other.  Apologies.  I want the yearly "Should I post it?"  dilemma to go away, so here it is.

I wrote it to vent my frustration, back when very dear relatives were sending me the most godawful glurge emails ever.  Though I was tempted, I never actually emailed this spoof back out to them in response.  It's been so long that long-form glurge is really a thing of the past.  It lives on in short form as Facebook posts  ("If you don't copy and post this as your status, then you do not love - [your spouse, your kid, Jesus, America]!!  C'mon folks, who's with me?!").

But meanwhile, 5 years is a long time to leave an unposted draft in the queue, and I'm tired of looking at it every December and wondering, "Should I ....? Nah, let me think it over a little longer."  Lemme just "publish" and get it over with...

•*¨`*•. ☆ .•*¨`*•

Once there was an elderly shopkeeper. One snowy Christmas Eve he was closing up for the night when a little boy and a woman came to the door.

"Please!" begged the little boy. "Have you seen a puppy?"

"Why no, son," answered the old man. "I haven't seen any puppies. Have you lost one?"

The boy looked very sad. "He was my Christmas present. I told mom I wanted a puppy more than anything in the whole world, and she got me one, but he's missing! Somebody mighta stole him!"

The boy's mother finally spoke up. "Timmy, why don't you go check the alley in the back. Mister, is it OK for him to go to your back door and check the alley there?"

"Certainly, young man. Right through there." The man pointed.

"Say, that's a swell idea!" said Timmy and headed for the back door.

When he was out of hearing the woman said to the old man, "Please, mister! There was never any puppy. We can't afford one, but Timmy wanted one so much, I told him that the puppy was stolen, so he'd think I could give him his heart's desire. Please go along with it so he will think I got him a puppy!"

"Of course," said the old man.

Just then, Timmy came back in the front, looking glum. "I didn't see him in the alley."

The old man looked down and said, "Timmy, there's something I have to tell you. I cooked your puppy and ate him for dinner. I'm very poor and I thought he was a stray that had no one to care about him. I'm so sorry."

Timmy screamed and burst into tears. His mother looked at the man in horror and then she knelt down and held her son. "Timmy that's not true!  Nobody cooked your puppy!  There never was any puppy!  I couldn't afford one, so I told you he was stolen!  I didn't mean to hurt you."

Timmy wiped his eyes and said, "That was mean!" and went out to the car.

His mother said to the man, "How could you say that to him?!"

The old man answered, "I bet you never lie to your kid again." Then he went home and brewed up a nice cup of spicy Christmas tea.

__

Daer Episcopal church - yur doin it rong

You can't be more tired of my rants about the division in the Episcopal Church than I am, but this may be the last one, because they've, pretty much, cut the baby in half, and it's not really my issue anymore except in being there for my dad. He gets around fine by day but doesn't drive at night, so I accompanied him and endured a meeting about this a few nights ago.  It wasn't fun.

Most of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is on the conservative Anglican side of the debate.  Not just the churches, but the Bishop of SC his very own self, who's distancing the diocese from the national policies. 

(For clarity here's the deal:

Technically, all sides, Episcopalians and Anglicans are ... Anglicans.  It's all part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, but the views of its various offshoots differ so radically that the sides need IDs.

So when I say "TEC," that's The Episcopal Church with its affirmation of gay unions and its liberal theology.   "Anglicans" will have to refer to the conservative sub-groups who oppose TEC's direction.)

Dad is ardently in favor of the conservative view.  My mother, though, despised the controversy, thought the church should proclaim the basics, embrace all people, and help the poor, and was furious that this parish she'd given so much time and heart to was withdrawing much support from TEC.  She marched into the rector's office 7 years ago and said that she expected her pledge to be shared with TEC as always.

My parents were a life lesson for couples in embracing your commonalities, while uncompromisingly standing for important beliefs when you differ.  I learned a lot from these people.

I rarely miss her more than I do when confronting the fundamentalist mentality here in RedStatistan.  Yet I don't speak "for" her.  I am appalled at the whole controversy, right here on my own, but differ in my willingness to say "Buh-bye!" and let them go.

The meeting was not even about the various points of view, but assumed that all of those present were on one solid side, certainly trying to coexist, but united and unquestioningly against "them" and their liberal policies.

I will hand it to them, that they, the Anglican conservatives, hope to keep the denomination intact and not split away, but they are as uncompromising as TEC is and it's hard to blame just one side for slicing the baby in two. One woman stood and said she hated the idea that her lifelong identity as an Episcopalian might, if things go badly, be something she has to leave behind, but that, and I quote, she'd "rather be a Christian than an Episcopalian."

Gee, that's funny, so would I.

I get the disgust with TEC.  I'm with the Anglicans on some of it.  TEC has been unable to affirm even the most basic Christian doctrine as its foundation, and that could make them a big teetering organization about nothing.

Some of my best friends  (you know who you are)  repudiate all supernatural elements and the whole Bible narrative of miraculous events and incarnate God.  I have no quarrel with what anyone believes, because I honestly -- it's a whole 'nother topic -- think belief is not at all a choice.

But why the  %$*@!   be a Christian church then??  Rename yourself Secular Liberals United for world Betterment (SLUB), employ all those people on the enormous TEC campus in the Cause, and quit claiming you're a "church."  It's OK, you can keep your non-profit status and everything.

I've said before that it probably should just split if it can't find common ground, but both sides are pointing out stats on declining membership, and many of us are emotionally long-gone.  I don't think they have a clue how thoroughly any split would fail to neatly give each side a comfort zone.   If they tear the sheet in half, a lot more disconnected tatters will fall loose to the ground than they realize.

In my family, my generation pretty much symbolizes the slice-the-kid-in-half aspect of this battle.  Already, my brother is an ardent fundamentalist, and he has no interest in the Anglican permutation of that.  He's an active member of his Baptist church.  And when the time comes, I'll be on my way. 

It's OK. I sat through this meeting, and I'll probably sit through more services and meetings I despise, to be there for Dad who may need help getting there in the future and deserves to participate as his conscience directs him.  And then I will have no more to do with either branch.  Because, like the conservative lady who spoke, I'd rather be Christian than either a nothing's-true EC or a submissive-women, anti-gay-marriage Anglican.

I'm cool. I took my Serenity pills. I'm still in the process of watching an important part of my childhood implode, but I am processing it, though a 2009 trip to the church we attended from the time I was 3 til I was 14 did kind of give me pause.

It was my uncle's funeral in Dec 2009, in this church in which I was a toddler in the nursery school, Confirmed at age 12, a truant from Sunday School at 13, and even came sort-of full-circle as a teen assistant in that same nursery, when I was 13-14.

Photo by Larry, while I drove.

It was an astonishing experience to see it in 2009, for the first time since I was 14 years old --41 years!-- and not see the typical unrecognizable updating that I've come to expect when I visit old haunting grounds.

Neither the neighborhood nor the building had changed. No idiots had "modernized" its design or feel. The peace of the place, which clearly spent its money on good solid maintenance but not on "Hipness Appeal! Relevancy! Make it Pop!" amazed me. The feeling that it was serenely outside the current crisis was undoubtedly deceptive, but it felt really good.

I keep hearing that a split is "inevitable" since both sides seem to be so rigid.  Such a split will affect my old church too. I'm not sure which way they'd go, but I'll never live there again and neither denomination will have a place for me anyway. But it's the feel of that place that I'm looking for. A place that actually pays attention to the Red Letters, and helps the poor, and shuts its mouth about politics.

An anecdotal weather ... thingamajig

I often have insomnia which cuts the center out of my night, and last night was one of those. I was up at 3AM, net surfing, drinking a protein shake, reading, wandering, tripping over cats who always think "The hooman finally gets it!  This is prime activity time!"

So there was my weather widget up in the corner of my google page.  It told me that the current temperature was 70 degrees (f).

That widget has been wacko before. It can pull the wrong data for a location.

I've also blogged about how hot it can get year round here in coastal SC.

But....but....!!  [sputter sputter] ....I never.....

Not at 3 AM.  Not in the middle of the night the day before Thanksgiving.  I went to weather dot com and got the US map and was so amazed that I took a screenshot.  Zoom it and you can see the time of night,  "3:15 EST"  at the bottom of the map.

This is just creepy.  When the temp does not fall below 70 degrees at night, that's in, like, July/Aug, when we're having 90s during the day.

We've got a holiday and guests coming in tonight and I can't give any kind of time to research right now, but I did a cursory search for record night temperatures in SC.  I can't say that this doesn't happen regularly.  I coulda' missed it.

Unfortunately, nobody cares about records on the warmest nights, only the coldest.  They love to tell you how hot it got on a particular day and how low it dropped at night, but the dilemma of how to research "how low it did NOT drop" is something I can't devote time to today!

Just know that even for hot and muggy SC, where we get odd shorts-weather days in every month of the year .... 70 degrees f, deep in the night, on 11-23,  crossed the line into being kinda disturbing.

OK, the zoom is mindblowing

My new camera offers  - it says on the case -  a "4x optical zoom."  That's one reason I picked it over another similar PowerShot that had only the same 3.5 zoom that my old one had.

So I'm standing around taking outdoor pictures a couple days ago.....

.... and I noticed people out in the marsh oystering, which they do at low tide.  I thought I'd see if the 4x got enough detail to show what's going on out there.  I hit the zoom lever and it crept up to 4x, then hesitated.  Before I could think to let go of the lever, it started up again and kept zooming until the display told me it was giving me 16x.

I.  am.  in.  awe.
Here's another one.  From this:

To:

My happiness level with the new PowerShot is increasing.  A lot.

My little love and I

 I love it. I'm keeping it.

My beloved camera is what I'm talking about.  My dear 2004 Canon PowerShot.  Heavy as a hand grenade, took great pictures in its prime.  It's having trouble now.  Every shoot has more unusable shots.

In each shoot, more turn out like this.

So I had to get another camera, and I went with another PowerShot since I liked the last one so much.  Below are a few from the first batch of photos. 

Good, because I could get a photo when I tried to get a photo.  Not good, in that I'm not happy with them.  I was hoping the old Canon would last until I could get a true upgrade, but it wasn't meant to be.

Still, taking pictures is fun again.

The first photo, of course, had to be of The Boss.

Oysters in the creek at low tide.  This one's OK.

Gone to seed

Fun book!

If you have to go away...I'll leave your shoes beside the bed.

Several of these were taken at Dad's house.

About 4:30 PM, sun sinking, golden fall marsh and flag on 11-11.  This is the only one that turned out as nice as I'd hoped.

The grocery store didn't charge me for either of these 2 little potted mums, since they were nearly dead.  One has succumbed but the other is reviving.

And maybe I'll gain mastery over the settings on this camera and get sharper images.  If all else fails, I can read the manual!

There are things I will never understand

A 2008 photo from the start of the development.  These are 200-year-old live oak trees, destroyed.  Then the real estate crash halted the project until this year (2011)

The  development across our town highway is back in gear.

In 2008, a different developer had Big Plans, and cleared and paved it.  Then 2008 happened and he tanked.  Another developer bought it from him recently and the voice of the buzz saw now echoes through the land.

As I've mentioned before, there's a strip of woodland between us and that highway.

The new developer is building houses along that strip of land, above where I put the Wi-Fi sign, and wants to do clearing about where I've placed the "Woods" label

So the doorbell rings.

"I'm here to offer the services of the developer.  He'd like his residents to have a view of the marsh, and he's offering to clean out that tangle of vines and growth and brush on your lot, at his expense."

Understandable from his point of view, but no, no, a thousand times NO.

To be polite, I went out there and let him show me what the developer was talking about, and it would really be carefully done, and would not hurt any trees.

Just one problem though.  That wood, with its impenetrable wild tangle, is ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND STATE PARK CAMPER INCURSION.  It is also all that stands between us and the endless endless road noise.

He could not get it.  He could not comprehend what I was saying.  Clearing the marsh end of that wood, so it's still a wood, but more manicured and park-like, would put traffic and its noise right in our eyes and ears.  It barely dulls the noise now.

A lovely clear view for the buyers of those houses, through our wood to the marsh, would mean a hideous clear view in the other direction, for us, of their houses, and the cars whooshing by. Tree trunks, no matter how many, won't help.

"But it's a trashy mess" was his, and I'm sure, many peoples' feelings about wild undergrowth. He really thought the appearance was not only bad, but that the buffering ability was irrelevant to living here.

People often say "I can't understand his point of view," when what they really mean is "I disagree with it," but this is a case in which I really mean it;

I can't understand people who think that woods are ugly;  that nature is too messy.  That wildness is  visually unappealing and needs to be neatened up.

Are we really the same species?  Do others really not see the beauty in those brambles and wildflowers?  Or at least see the value they have as a border to an estuary?

I want to leave this house, this precarious location, so badly, it's not funny.  9 years ago, it was such a gift to be able to stay here and reduce our debts, and have the woods around us.  Not anymore.  I want out.

Third grade - peace, love, commas

My elementary school, photo taken 1999.

Writer Natalie Goldberg has advice for writers and blogger Xtreme English posted a passage from it, which included some writing exercises.  And THANK YOU, XE, it's wonderful advice, plus it got me started on one of Goldberg's exercises; to write everything you remember about third grade.

Third grade for me was the 1962-3 school year, and my first thought about the Goldberg exercise was that third grade was a big nothing.  Any interesting events, any particularly good or bad teachers, came in other years, so Third was notable for not being notable.

About 18 years ago, when I was in a writers' group, I wrote a nostalgic essay about 1964. I posted it to this blog (wow. 4 years ago!).  It's here if you want to read it (or read it again) but I never felt happy with it, and later, realized it was not only kind of substandard, but actually inaccurate.

I certainly wrote it honestly --  i.e., that was how i remembered things -- but that memory of 1964 being the last serene summer before awful life events changed our world was false. In fact, Sally and Patsy's father died in the same fall of 1963 that Kennedy was shot, and that next summer was about trying to regain "back to normal" feelings like we'd had before, not a time of still having them for real.

The calm year, the real last-year-of-innocence, was third grade, fall 1962 through spring 63.

Nostalgic visit to the primary-grades building, 1999. The 3rd grade wing is behind me, up the hill.  That hill was much higher in 1962.

Third Grade was a big rite of passage at my elementary school, because we moved up the hill.  The school sat along a hilltop that looked enormous to me then. Grades 3-6 were all in one L-shaped building, with the primary grade building beneath and behind it, down a hillside flight of stairs.  Of course we hiked up and down the concrete steps to library and cafeteria sessions, but our home base as 1st and 2nd graders was the bright little-kid-oriented rooms.

When I walked into my assigned Third Grade room, I got a clear message that sunny Primary life was over and we were getting down to serious business. Intimidating maps and historic portraits on the wall portended demanding studies.  No more bright paint.  No long wall was devoted to a window looking out at the leafy world.  Upper class schoolroom windows started at the shoulder height of taller kids. Rows of worn readers that we were expected to use for self-improvement when we finished an assignment with time left, and sets of occasional-use books ("Now, would Ricky and Karen please pass out the music books?") filled shelves underneath it.  My class met in a blue-gray room that sun rarely touched.

And this year, we'd get grades.  Not just checkmarks in Fair, Good, Swell categories, accompanied by narrative about our effort and attitude, but A, B, C ... and other, unthinkable letters. The year started, as they all did to some degree, with stomach-knot anxiety about what would be demanded of me.

And, as they all did, it turned out to be just more school. We had a nice enough teacher and a year without drama.  I got good reports at the first two quarters.  I felt more relieved than proud, or even interested. An achievement ethic wasn't in me yet.

Which is why, at the third quarter report, I was stunned to see straight A's down the column.

I hadn't tried for those, or any, grades.  I worked because it was assigned, though I put more into it when the task interested me.  I thought of report cards much the way I thought of bubble gum fortunes.  You opened the paper, you saw what had been declared for you.

I wasn't much into thinking ahead. This was the year I put a leftover half of a peanut butter sandwich in the back of my desk and forgot about it until clean-out day before Christmas break.  It was barely recognizable, stuck to its wax paper with green mold.

But third grade was the year of punctuation.  I mean, serious punctuation; quotation marks, complex sentences with commas.

I hung onto every word.  This was something I wanted. These were the writer's tools for expression and clarity.  I might not have mastered clarity yet, but I got pretty good at commas.

In fourth grade, big things happened, in the neighborhood and in the world, but in third, September to June ambled through their mundane lessons and vacations and seasons.  It was the last year of my unshaken life.  After my friend's father committed suicide that fall, and the President was shot and killed, the world never again seemed trustworthy, but in Third I had the tranquility to let me take an interest in a subject for its own sake.  Which was pretty cool.

I get it! It's pumpkin-colored for Halloween, right?

Dear Local Newspaper Social Pages:

Yall'll have to forgive me for my reaction to this wedding announcement, since its peculiarities may have been around in other places for years, and only just got here.

I want the paper to survive, and if this brings in money, then way cool!  Design the yazzoo out of wedding announcements if you want to.  I mean it.  I sound sarcastic but it really is a pretty clever way to boost the ol' income on non-essential but cool things that people will pay extra for.

I'm actually old enough to find nothing new about the fashion details and the Cast of Thousands in this celebration of the Extreme Specialness of this couple.  Newspapers used to do that all the time, and it was always a premium for the folks in the nice part of town.  Uppercrusters had big, top of the page announcements so relatives could clip it and get the date and paper's name in the clipping, while the tract house families had to remember to snip enough margin for room to write in the date with a Flair pen. The high-falutin' brides - or really, the parental outlay for their dresses - were displayed in 2-column photos, and accompanied by a family history and all the stuff about how the embroidery on the dress wasn't just done by any old sweatshop seamstress, but by the one who got Employee of the Year, and everything.  They probably paid extra for the detailed report, and I bet these folks did too.

I like that.

Here's the thing.  The orange background's gotta go.  It looks like one of those ads-that-look-like-news-stories for Performance Improvement Pills, if you know what I mean.

As for the headline, I don't know who wrote it, but it's a little confusing. The Impressive Specialness of their vows kind of makes me laugh, like I am at the rest of this  announcement, but kind of doesn't, and that's partly because I, this is the truth, read it to see what was unusual about their vows, but didn't find out.  Do some people take rully rully serious, special vows?  Like, bravely hitting the "Play" button at Expert instead of Basic level? I don't mean the write-their-own thing with unique quotes and poems (been there, done that), but a church's required vows?

They seem like nice kids and I wish them luck, so don't tell them that last week in their same church, Tammy Retread and Doug Plywood made the exact same vows that they made.  Even if Tammy and Doug's clothes came from BridalMart and they all celebrated at Waffle House afterwards.