Food, Glorious Food

There are a lot of people from every era of my life who think of food when they think of me.  And rightly so.  I’ve always & forever used food to convey a sense of  “I see you, I care about you.”  

It started in elementary school, making Krazy Krunch for classroom parties, expanding into nibbles for Glenn Hall, then dinner parties for college friends, full-blown soirees as a young adult, my 30s saw Mom et moi as the "Muffin Ladies" of the college, my 40s ushered in whipping up monthly goodies for "Class of '70" dormies & adopted" classes, and now I bake for my Friday morning stint at the Bryn Athyn College alumni office (dropping by a plate of whatever to the Theological School). 

Ah, but will I ever top my crowning glory?  With the exception of the tea sandwiches & whimsical wedding cake, I baked all of the various nibblings served up to guests at our cathedral wedding reception. Still not sure how I managed it, but I did & had a swell time doing it.  

What brought all these food memories to mind?  I’m fending off a cold, loading up on liquids & sleep to elude it.  And I’m heating up one of Maddie’s cheese rolls, the cheese rolls I made sure I was well-stocked with before she hightailed it off to Singapore for almost a month.

In about 15 minutes, I will settle down with a big glass of fruit juice & tear apart the crisp crust, revealing the soft insides, laden with cheese & Maddie’s special touch.

Nothing brought home to me the power of food than realizing the pure comfort of having something to eat that was made by a friend.  My guess is that’s one of the reasons a bowl of chicken noodle soup served on a bed tray by Mom, crackers to the side of the wide bowl, always made me feel better right off the bat – the hot soup tasted wonderful, but the genuinely healing part was Mom. 

Food has a power to connect like nothing else.  For millennia, people – even enemies – have broken bread together as a way of closing a deal, settling an argument, sealing a truce.  Food has power. 

Right now, food – a piping hot cheese roll & a steaming cup of tea – will help me fend off illness as I wallow in the comfort of the couch, a kitty by my side & thoughts of Maddie all around.     

Overrated

A treasured author mentor shares the deep wisdom, "Being practical & safe & always logical is way overrated."

I agree 100%.  Yes, there are times it's vital to be practical & logical & playing it safe, but my experience is that growth - the great BIG quantum leap sort that takes you wondrous places you never dreamed of - rarely  if ever springs out of such stolid grounding.  Such grounding goes a long way as underpinning of fantastic dreams, is utterly & completely necessary in many cases, but paired with the fantastic, the absurd, the preposterous to reach great heights.

Boys putting in countless hours putting with electronics in their family garage.  The frustrated mom of a celiac child believing it's possible to develop a recipe for a gluten-free cookie that tastes over-the-top fabulous.  The nut convinced a thread-like wire can carry sound or that pictures & print can float through air or the one who prattles on about projectiles soaring outside the earth’s clutches.  Many the skeptics scoff at what they saw as wasted energy & talents which could have been better invested in more practical pursuits.  But oh what can come out of those endeavors! 

My parents were among the most impractical, illogical people I've ever met.  In spite of being among the least financially well off of folks in my home town, they urged their children to invite dorm students down to Sunday dinner.  The Boys Scouts could count on Dad whenever they needed a contribution, even though his own boys were grown & gone from home.  As someone who owned his own fledgling business, Dad often didn’t bring home much of a paycheck, but the church treasurer wrote that if everyone tithed like Dad did, the church would never need to send out a fund-raising letter.

When Dad realized my college was skipping a college luncheon in honor of graduates - just as they had when my sister got the same junior college degree 4 years before – he & Mom put on a special supper at our house, inviting ALL of the graduates from the junior college, the senior college, the theological - and spouses - as well as all the teachers and their spouses.  It wasn't grand, but it WAS.  And they did it all on their own dime, without drawing attention to themselves as great & glorious benefactors.  It wasn't until near the end of the supper (thank goodness for the fair weather, because we never could have fit them all in our house) that the dean realized it was Mom & Dad, not the college, footing the bill.  

Impractical, illogical & (it could be argued) financially fool hardy.  But dozens of students felt honored by their college, dozens of teachers had a swell time, and one dean was stunned by the basic generosity of two parents who wanted to make sure their child had a precious experience.  

It was practical thing to cancel the luncheon, which conflicted with another event happening the same day; it was logical to leave things at regretfully explaining the situation to graduates;  it would have been financially safe for my parents to keep the hundreds of dollars they spent in the bank, to forego the many hours spent making it happen.  Compared to the precious memories & priceless lessons that came out of that unforgettable event?  Overrated!!!

Parallel Parking

A friend wrote on Facebook the other day about giving her younger daughter one last lesson in parallel parking (I assume before that milestone-passing driver’s test).  In addition to smiling with delight at how much she was enjoying this as a special event, not an arduous duty, I smiled in memory of my own parallel parking lessons.

Unlike every other person I knew, I did NOT learn how to drive at age 16.  No idea why I missed out on having Chief Ryan teach me how to drive – we were immensely blessed in my hometown to have a chief of police who did such amazing things – but miss out I did. 

My guess is that I was none too invested in the idea of getting a driver’s license, as I was pretty sure my sister would never let me get near the car.  (A suspicion, I am glad to say, she confirmed many years later, saying, “I’m glad you understood that.”) 

Dad, on the other hand, blissfully unaware of the sibling dynamics that would have doomed my driving to only the utter dregs of opportunities, was eager for me to learn.  And he would teach me.

Even at 16, I knew this was not a good idea.

Dad decided to start me out in the parking lot at the high school field house, but quickly decided against that when he realized there were a) cars parked there for the nearby swim club which  b) adults & kids walking to & from.  He quickly recalculated next-best-place & decided on the much smaller parking lot next to Pitcairn Hall. 

Strange, but true – I was fine driving, if we were on actual roadway.  It made sense to my practical mind.  I could handle it.  Learning how to drive in a small parking lot did not make sense to me, left me feeling distinctly uncomfortable. 

Which I promptly demonstrated by running the car up a curb, then slamming it back down onto the pavement. 

Dad asked me why I had stopped. 

I asked Dad, “Don’t you hear a hissing sound?” 

He got out, looked at the left front tire – on the driver’s side – looked at me in a way I can’t describe & have no desire to, then walked around to the back of the van, opened the doors, took out the jack & one of the two spare tires he always kept back there (when you use a car commercially, as my lumberman Dad did, it pays to be over cautious), lugged them around, and replaced the ruined tire.

I was aware of the people playing tennis across the road watching all this, pausing occasional to make comments to each other.  Mortified doesn’t begin to describe my feelings.

Dad finished up, put the beyond-repair tire & the jack in the back of the van – and to my total horror, got back into the car on the passenger’s side.

Hey, I was 16 – unschooled in the ways of male thinking.  Now, I get it.  If he had been intent on teaching his youngest child how to drive before, now he was fiercely determined.

“Okay,” he said in a totally calm voice, as if it made total sense, “That wasn’t something you want to do again.  Turn the engine on, let out the clutch & make a circuit around the parking lot.”

“Can’t I drive across the road, drive around the loop in front of Benade Hall?” I asked, knowing it was roadway & that it was on school property; on a Sunday afternoon, that meant no one was in danger of being hit.

Maybe he was trying to soothe my shattered, humiliated nerves or maybe he wanted to calm his own, but Dad let me drive the van across the road, around the loop & back again.  It all went off without a hitch.

Maybe he felt like my steady driving on roadway boded well for renewed lessons in the parking lot.  “Okay, now make a circuit around the parking lot,” he instructed me.

So, I did.  Although there was no cars to worry me as I drove the circuit, across the road four pairs of upperclassmen eyes were soaking it all in from the tennis court.  And they had stopped playing & were just watching.  Me.

Which is when I went up on the curb again – this time on the passenger’s side – and slammed back down on the pavement. 

I looked at Dad, Dad looked at me, and it seemed an eternity until he cocked his head to his right, listened, leaned out the window & listened more intently, opened the door & looked down.  Then got out of the van, walked around to the back, hoisted out the second spare tire & the jack & replaced the now destroyed second tire.

To this day, I do not know who the tennis players were, but I knew they had a pretty awesome story to tell, one that would keep their friends in stitches & me offering up thanks that it happened over the summer, that by the time September rolled around it would be old news. 

After that, Dad never made so much as a peep about driving lessons.  Which was fine by me.

It wasn’t until the ripe old age of 24, after I got my first job & needed to be able to get all my teaching paraphernalia to & from the elementary school,  that I finally learned how to drive.  A backpack would not suffice.

By then, Dad had been gone for a couple years.  My best friends offered to teach me.  Using their car, brave souls, since there was no way my sister, who was bequeathed his new van, was letting me near it.  Praise be, they were patient & kind & seemed to understand that I really was not eager to be doing it. 

The one thing that I remember above everything else was how Dave was a stickler for parallel parking.  There was no way he was going to have me take the driver’s test until he was absolutely, positively sure I would nail parallel parking.  How well I remember the look in his eyes when, having parked in what I thought was a perfectly acceptable fashion, he’d eye the results, give a small yet encouraging sigh, and have me try again.   

To this day, whenever I find myself in a big city faced with the option of paying $$$ parking garage fees or maneuvering my car into a tiny parking spot, I offer up thanks for having such a darn picky teacher. 

Jenn – may Marley nail the parallel parking section of her driver’s test.  

Knowing her Mom, my bet is she will!

Aisle Dance Forever

Remembering the time Mim & I were grocery shopping and for some utterly forgotten reason started dancing in the aisles to the piped in musak.  Very Gene Kelly, with a bit of Fred Astaire partnering with a hat rack.  Can see it still in my mind.  What delicious silliness!

Dueling Crazies

What’s reality?

Does money determine worth,

Your prosperity?

Which has more value –

Amassed wealth?  Creative self?

Can you have them both?

I’ve been stuck for years

Betwixt dueling messages

That were so whacked out.

“Money conveys worth.”

“Money kills the creative.”

Both are full crazy.

What are the values of my happy self?

How does this particular reflection end up under Sneezing Chickens, rather than Saving All My Best Lines?

Because my view of the values I hold dear is wrapped up in stories.  Am keenly aware that what  I hold to be my values are too often falsehoods, values I lay claim to but which I actually only want  to have.  

Until I get clarity on what are really & truly the values of my happy self, will write under "wrapped in stories" rather than "my 3rd act."


See, seems to me there's a heap of difference between something that IS a value & something I'd like to have as one. Still, the question does ask, "What are the values of your happy self?" not the more general, less defined, waiting to be sentimentalized & overstated, "What are your values?"  Makes it a tad easier to zero in on what IS rather than what is merely hoped for.

Hmmm...  To focus on what are the true values of my HAPPY self, I should get into my heart to find the wordless response that bypasses distracting, downright deceptive verbage:
1) take a deep breath - close my eyes - take another deep breath
2) drop my awareness into my heart center, focusing attention in the area of my physical heart
3) focus on creating an all-loving, all-nurturing, all-accepting, open environment there, in that place, as if I have an innocent cradled against my chest
4) place that palm of my hand over my chest, feeling my heartbeat.
5) drop into the heartbeat, as I ask - What are the values of my happy self?

YES!

Mantra for the year:

For all that has been, my thanks.

For what’s to come – YES!

(tip of the hat to dag h.)

2013 Mantra

We are our stories.  Our stories are more substantial than our dna.  Energies within energies.  

And so many times, way too many times, we use stories against ourselves.  Don't.  It's stupid.

Instead, I will take to heart, each & every day of 2013, the daily mantra  (courtesy of an early influence - I was in 8th grade - Dag Hammerskjold) - - For all that has been, Thank You.  For all that is to come, YES!

Wondering

Been wondering about the power of the messages we think we got through family, teachers, friends,  messages which might have little to no connection to anything ever voiced.  How many times did we misinterpret something because of where an inflection fell or garbled body language or because we were feeling stressed or unhappy & completely took what was said the wrong way, then believed it for years, even decades?

We all do.  

It's the nature of the human condition - to mess things up, even when we have the best intentions.  

One of the few things I know for sure is that WHAT we know is a teensiest tiniest sliver of a sliver of what there is to be known - and most of that humans mess up by thinking we know it all.

Imagine how different life on the planet would be if we considered as suspect all the messages we use to set the gps of our personal life.  

How many of us have discovered that mapquest.com is NOT the most reliable way to get driving directions, that it should always be backed up by a long, hard look at a MAP of where we are & where we are going?  

The same is true with life.  How many times do I figure out my next destination using information already in my head, info which - in many instances, in many ways - has been messed up, either from the its beginning or over the years?  

More & more I find that the smartest thing for me to do is to clear out the old info, take a fresh look at where I am & where I want to be, and plot a course based on that information, not well-intentioned gobblety-gook.

QUIDDITY

(cross posted onto savingallmybestlines.blogspot.com)

A lot, maybe a majority, of people dismiss the importance of saying – out loud, in writing – our personal stories.   Stories can be seen as symptoms of self-absorption, indicative of narcissism, dull prattlings of people with too high a regard for themselves & too little of matter to keep themselves occupied.

Such folk miss the importance of personal stories, ours & others.  A wise woman wrote that celebrating life stories, big & small, important & apparently inconsequential, provide a “strategy for learning.”  By taking the time to look back on who we were, on what we did, on the impact of others on us, of the things we knew for sure that turned out to be way different than what we thought – by doing that, we help get a bead on who & where we are, maybe get a hint of where we might be going. 

How can we know who we are if we don’t honor what we’ve been?  How can we know where we’re headed without giving at least giving a tip of the hat to the tracks we left behind? 

Learned a new word this past fall – quiddity. 

According to Merriam-Webster, quiddity is a noun meaning “whatever makes something the type that it is; essence.”  Strangely, the same source includes another meaning - a trifling point. 

Interesting.  

So many people find life stories to be mere trifles.  They tend to chalk up folks like me, who find that such stories cup in their metaphysical hands whatever it is that makes us who we are, as eccentrics.

Quiddity - essence.  The gist of who we are.  That could be why working with stories - naturally, without any sense of forcing – can make it easier to interact with olders, especially olders struggling with the delicate balance between what they remember & who they were with what they forget & how they've unraveled.  

Words – once partners in expressing thoughts – turn against them.  They can’t remember the right word or they seem to pluck ones out of the air, whether they apply or not.  

Ah, but things of essence are beyond words.  They simple ARE.  Things of essence conjure images in the mind & heart that need no words, would be hemmed in & caged  by words.   

Maybe those who seem to find my passion for honoring, sharing, recording life stories to be a trifle, not worth significant time or effort, miss the essential point, which true for young & old, robust or frail, sharp-as-a-tack or forgetful ~ stories anchor who we are, help us find ease with who we are becoming, help us find peace with who we were.  

They conjure up, reflect & shine a light on our quiddity. 

Passionate?

(cross posted onto savingallmybestlines.blogspot.com)

Am I passionate about sharing/saving personal & family stories.  

To quote the much-missed Carson Tyler – you bet your booties, grandma!

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the effect sharing stories has on the majority of older people.  No matter how infirm or even forgetful they are, trigger a happy memory & they're freed to  zip back to earlier years, to perhaps long-gone loved ones & friends, precious moments still fresh in their minds.

Is it easy getting an older to tap into their treasure house of memories, to share them with others?  With 9 out of 10 olders, no.

First of all, olders  - make that almost everyone – tend to think of their stories as of little interest to others, inconsequential.  Just little stories from long ago.

It typically takes another's genuine interest & lots of low-key cajoling to get most olders to open up.  It rarely happens the first, or even fourth, time it’s attempted. 

What is the value?  

Stories can be an invaluable tool working with olders.  Even the healthiest generally experience increasing isolation, as friends move or pass away.  Remembering stories, valuing them & having them valued by others, helps keep many olders engaged with life.  They have proved powerful tools working with folks suffering from memory challenges, providing connections when there might be their grasp on the here & now might not be as strong as it is on the back then.

Today's culture has become so automated & digitalized, we’ve lost many – perhaps most – oral traditions that were once commonplace.  

When olders live with their children, sharing stories about grown sons & daughters was natural as dishes were washed or meals were made.  There were countless opportunities to ask questions about early years, courtship, marriage.  

The current barrage of distractions is so different from anything that existed before.  Radio gathered families around it, which television did not.  Today, computers & iPads et al make entertainment an often solitary experience.  So different from the typical households of the 100 years ago, when entertainment was often as low tech as the family piano & story telling, tales of past adventures & triumphs, challenges & tragedies, resilience & victory were shared across generations.

Stories are not all sweetness & light.  There can be pain there, too.  Clients of mine lost relatives & dearly loved ones in World War II.  My brother died when I was seven.  Mom was widowed at  63.  Both John & I have ridden financial roller coasters & wrestled with difficult relationships.  

Who wants to hear sad stories?  Truth be told, there can be a lot of power in stories of tragedy, loss & woe.

One tragic tale I heard from my Mom happened before she was born, a story handed down from her mother, about an uncle I never heard about until the final weeks of Mom’s life. 

We did a lot of talking over those weeks, both at INOVA Alexandria (VA) & St. Mary’s (PA), especially when we thought she was on the mend.  Maybe we’d been discussing medical advances.  For whatever reason, she started telling me about her older brother, William – Willie – born after Uncle Al and before Uncle Bob. 

Newborn Willie couldn’t accept his mother’s milk, couldn’t take a bottle.  This was in the first years of the last century - there was no alternative, like there is now.  My grandparents, in their late 20s, had to watch their sweet little babe ebb away.  

Near the end, my grandfather refused to leave his tiny son’s crib.  Finally, my grandmother went in, draped her arms around her bereft husband’s shoulders, and said – “Ben, come away.  Let him go.”  In tears, my grandfather let himself be led out of the room.  Within the hour, Willie was gone.

Yes, it was a tragedy.  Still, imagine a father’s love being so strong, it was  kept a wee baby connected to this life.  It happened over 109 years ago, to someone even my mother didn’t know – except through her mother’s stories.  And it’s retelling is the only presence that little baby, my Uncle Willie, has in the here & now.

Am I passionate about sharing & saving such stories?   

YES!!  

Just one broken heartbeat...

(cross posted onto savingallmybestlines.blogspot.com)

It might seem sort of a downer thing to bring up during this Christmas season, but we are all just one broken heartbeat away from losing the stories of our lives.  The people we love – especially parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – are just one broken heartbeat away. 

Friends often say to me, “I wish we’d had stories from our parents.  You’re lucky to have so many of your Mom’s.”  Just the other day, a friend mentioned my passion for sharing Mom’s stories.  

It’s not a passion for sharing Mom's stories, but for nudging others into have their olders do the same.

We are our stories.  

Yet how many of us know much about our parents before the years we started being consciously aware of them?  

It's a joy whenever a friend posts snapshots of her Mom & Dad & their friends enjoying good times together, back when they were very young adults.  I look at their older selves at church or other places and see the vibrant young woman, the dashing young man, in their smiles, their eyes.  And so many of the photos are at spots where their children & grandchildren & even greatgrands have similar grand times!  

Their daughter isn’t telling their stories in words, like I did with Mom, but in photos.  Clear evidence that pictures really do speak a thousand years! 

Albums

We are only one broken heartbeat away from throwing out albums of uncaptioned pictures, like I did with a haunting one full of pictures from the late 1800s & early 20^th century, photos of my father’s beloved aunts & uncles at their summer place on a unknown river in an unknown place - there wasn't so much as a single caption under any of them.  Will always remember the zest, the pure pleasure of being with each other.  But without the captions, they were strangers to me, in a strange but wonderful land.

Are your family album photos clearly captioned?  Not just on the page. Unless it’s actually glued onto the pages, as Dad’s family album was, each photo should also be captioned on the back.    Photos sometimes fall or are taken out of albums.  If it only has a page caption, it’s history is gone.

Christmas Heritage

It is my pleasure & great honor to work with some fabulous grannie clients.  Some of them have A LOT of grandchildren, so buying Christmas presents can take a big bite out of their funds.  A wonderful present to give adult grands is a photo of the olders back when they were youngers.  I don’t have children, hence no grandkids, but aunts & uncles can give photos of their parents, brothers or sisters.  Captioned on the back!  Reprints are easy to get these days, even at the corner Walgreens or CVS.  Team it up with a mat from the arts & crafts store, and you’re good to go!

Captioning suggestion – I write captions on white labels, then affix them to the back of the photo.  That way, I don’t have to work about a ball point pen leaving an indentation on the precious photo or ink bleeding through.

Passion for Sharing

We are all just one broken heartbeat away from losing all our stories.  I am passionate about sharing the joys of gathering them.  Each of us is an walking album of stories – this holiday season is a wonderful time to help olders open up & share them with you, to haul out family albums & remember the stories, the people behind each photo. 

Just one…. 

Power of Stories

(cross posted onto savingallmybestlines.blogspot.com)

Chalk it up to having the honor of being the daughter of someone who lived well past the proverbial "3 score years & ten" and the friend of many others who did, too - from Grandma Rose & Viola Ridgeway to my mother-in-law & many beloved teachers ~ ~ it's impossible to remember a time I didn't understand the remarkable power of stories in living a joyful life.  

It's impossible to remember a time that sharing life stories with others, over a family meal or a friendly cuppa, recording them in letters or journals or now blogs, wasn't a natural part of my life.

It constantly stuns me how many people didn't have that same sense of connection to past generations, to their parents' younger selves.  

What fun it was, hearing Mom talk about Aunt Dot, Uncle Al, Uncle Bob, and especially Aunt Betty, her lifelong BFF as well as baby sister.  To hear stories about Dad's family, especially summers with his mother's relatives. Those stories held important life lessons, too - both Mom & Dad had early years marked with great tragedy, left with surviving parents who had somewhat dysfunctional ways of parenting.  

From both my parents, but especially from Mom, I was given a rich treasure house of memories of people I never met, times I never lived in, circumstances I never faced.  

One of the most important things I do with my grannie clients is to talk about their earlier years.  It's interesting, coming from a family that always & still values such stories, to hear client after client dismiss their earlier years as being of no value.  And I mean stories from their lives, not things that happened to others.  

Most - sadly, most - of my clients don't initially see much value in their earlier experiences.  Taking the bull by the horns, I explain to them that I am a compilation of all my previous experiences - good, bad & indifferent.  In recognizing & honoring them - even the stinky ones - I've come to have a better understanding of who I am at this moment in time, which will be itself a memory tomorrow.  Strange but true, they can see the truth of that about me, but shake their heads that it could be true of them, too.  

One of my greatest wishes for EVERYONE is that they develop an urgency about recalling, honoring and recording their memories.  No need to dredge up icky stuff.  There's plenty to recall that can be shared without fear of causing so much as a single kerfluffle.  

That being said, let dark things come up if they arise - there's power in remembering uncomfortable, even sad moments.  Sometimes, we learn the most from those moments.  

Some of my grannie clients have memory problems, which makes story telling a challenge.  They can get frustrated not remembering a name or a town or a date.  It's interesting how many times, if the sharing is very general, the details will float up in ways they don't when being forced.

Folks with fully intact memories can find it hard to grasp the challenges memory lapses present.  It's easy to feel (even if we don't express it) exasperation at the person we arrive to pick up who comes to the door on a cold day in a warm weather outfit & a light coat, who forgets the name of a grandchild, who has lots of pieces of paper around the house to remember important dates & events & people.  It's not so easy to see the person who's doing their best to hang on, to bridge the chasm they face every moment between knowing & not knowing, between being their self & watching their self.  

One reason my Mom aged so well is that she had the constant point of reference that stories provided.  We batted them about frequently - not just me, but my brothers & sister, too.  It seemed every family gathering included the three older kids swapping tales of swimming at the pond or in the creek or a legion of other  things that were great unknowns to much-younger me; Peter, Mike & Mim were many years older than I, a generation before, rooted in a culture I never knew.  But Mom did.  And those stories of the past - along with the ones I added, the ones John could recall with a smile & a laugh - helped anchor her in the present. 

Imagine an older person, someone who lived in a house filled with kids, busy & bustling with being a mom & a wife.  Imagine that person downsizing with her husband, moving into a smaller house, with no kids needing her care, but a house that still had to be cleaned, gardens that still needed tending, a husband who still needed her.  Imagine that person alone, living in an apartment - still in her town, but not able to get around as much as she did, still able to drive but fewer places to go & never at night.  Imagine that person no longer able to drive, without the energy to do much of what she did, with someone who comes in to clean her apartment, who has trouble figuring out how to turn on the radio or work the TV. remote control.  

Having a store house of memories, a lot of pictures around as reminders of past times, maybe albums of photos with captions identifying people-places-times, helps us stay grounded in our present moment.  Building up that store is a safeguard against loneliness when we're at the age where our aging bodies & sometimes failing minds limit our once busting-at-the-seams energies.  

Storing up stories is more than simply a safeguard against isolation.  We all need ways to recall, honor & story our lives.  We need their nourishment as much as we do wholesome food & physical activities.  

Without our stories, our spirits can too easily atrophy.  With them, we have moments long past from which we can take pleasure and even learn new lessons.  With them, we have a rich legacy to leave when we're gone.

Mom didn't have much of an estate when she was finally (after 28 years) reunited eleven years ago with her O! Best Beloved.  At the time, I said that her legacy was much like prizes awarded at certain events, where you had to be present to win because Mom's greatest legacy was the stories she recalled to us, the stories that made up her life.  

There is great power in stories, but time is short.  We are all just a broken heartbeat away from losing those stories.  

Take the time to talk with an older relative or friend.  Do it frequently, without agenda - it takes time to get most people to open up & share.  It's hard for people who knew Mom through her Mindwalker1910 e-mails to believe how many weeks & cups of tea it took for me to get her to share her personal stories, not just the amusing "war stories" we grew up with.  Can recall her scoffing that anyone would care - I'd agree that her kids wouldn't (and sure enough - the others didn't), but she should do it for the grandchildren, the great grands she hoped to someday see.  Through her stories, they'd see her.  

It took many weeks & much softly delivered cajoling, but Mom finally started making tape recordings, sometimes over a cuppa, sometimes out on drives.  In time, she evolved to e-mail, going from sharing them with me to sending them out into cyberspace where anyone who cared could read them, to an ever-growing circle of old friends & new connections, people she never met but who knew Mom through her posts.

I guess that is my great hope for all of my grannie clients, although I've yet to convince them (still working on it) - to share their stories, if only with me.  To them, as to my Mom, their stories are piddly things, nothing that would engage anyone's interest.  But it was never, is never, about who reads the stories.  It might be no one.  It's about the remembering, the writing of them, the recording of a life, the honoring past selves whose accumulated whole is your present self.  

There is power in our stories.  They are not minor or piddly.  The reason is simple, yet so often overlooked.  Our body is composed of flesh & blood & bone, but WE are so much more  ~  we ARE our stories.  

Wrapped In Memories

It's such a blessing to have so many remarkable memories of Christmastime - they warm & soothe, like the very best sort of comforter.   So many patches of special moments, stitched together with love & laughter.

Until fairly recently, I had no idea that my family approached the holidays any differently than most.  Much to my surprise, few of my friends have the rich treasure trove of out & abouts,  trips into Philadelphia & NYC, and more "must-do" Christmas events than you might believe. 

One of the BEST ways I'll celebrate the season this year is by recalling a memory a day, much like the advent calendar I made my sister a couple years back, each hand-decorated tiny box containing a Lockhart Christmas moment.  Never kept a copy for myself, so this is sort of my own countdown to Christmas.

The LONG Wait
All of us Lockharts were sticklers about waiting for Christmas, delaying our holiday gratification until AFTER Thanksgiving, however tempting it might be to put on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or set out a wrapped present.  

But once Thanksgiving was in the rear window - WHOOSH!  All manner of Christmas music hit the air waves, decorations seemed to materialize out of nowhere & wrapped packages came out to be ooooo'ed & ahhhhhhh'd over.  

Since getting married, it's not just enough for me to wait until after Thanksgiving to break out the decorations & music.  My kick off day is Dec 1 - today.  Let the merriment begin!

Wanamaker Light Show

The ultimate traditional Lockhart Christmas Trip was down to Philadelphia, to Wanamaker's, to see Santa & be awed by the annual Wanamaker Light Extravaganza.  Those were the glory days of family Christmas Trips.  

We would walk down to Bryn Athyn to get the train or hoof it all the way to Bethayres - Mom didn't drive.  (It was usually the much farther Bethayres, since there were way more trains no the West Trenton Local's schedule than on Newtown's.)  

The last Lockhart Christmas Trip to Wanamaker's (now Macy's) was in 1991.  Mom & I took John down to hear the magnificent Wanamaker Organ & be dazzled by the spectacular Light Display (still a store tradition). He'd never been!!  

We drove in, parking at The Bellevue, blocks away from the store, because it was December 8 and Center City was bustling.  

Or at least that was the story we told Mom. 

We nipped up to the hotel (which now takes up the top floors, not the entire building, as it did back when I was in college - another great story) for a reviving libation in the Library bar.  

Or at least that was the story we told Mom.  

As we sat in the big comfy chairs, I opened up my big handbag to get out something.  

Imagine my feigned "surprise" to " discover " that Sissy & elmo - two very small stuffed monkeys - had stowed away!!!  And, why look - as I drew they out from the bag, it appeared they were holding an even smaller wrapped package.  John took the teen package, looked at the teensy tag, and turned to Mom, saying, "It seems to be for you."

Mom thanked the two stuffies as - taken quite unawares - she carefully took off the ribbon & unwrapped the paper & opened the tiny box, lifting out a tiny rolled scroll of paper.

She carefully unwound it, to read, "Surprise!  We're staying here overnight!!"

What a delighted, amazed, thrilled face rewarded our careful planning & collusion with our willing accomplice, the doorman. And what a difference it made to the rest of the day, since we could take our time & be as leisurely as we liked - we were there overnight, not just from mid afternoon through evening!  

It was splendid & unforgettable - we have a picture featuring the backs of Sissy & elmo watching the extravaganza.  

We took a meander around City Hall - the interiors were all alight in one part of the building, where they were filming a courtroom scene from Philadelphia - before having a laughter-filled dinner at a no-longer-there restaurant. 

Turned out that our special weekend was also special to the service academies - it was the weekend of the Army-Navy Game, and The Bellevue served as the grand & glorious temporary billet for the top Navy brass & honored guests!  A bevvy of admirals & other dignitaries, all grinning & laughing, having a WONDERFUL time (Navy tromped Army).  

Could write on & on about what an incredible time we had at The Bellevue, how pampered & privileged we felt, but that's for another time, maybe even another year.  Smiling, remembering a perfectly planned, executed & savored holiday surprise!

Precious Memories

Have been posting suggestions on holiday outs & abouts on my Well Worth The Gas  blog.  It's been a gift, writing each one, remembering scootling off, almost always with Mom, often Mim & Margaret.  

What a rich treasure house of memories to tap into as the countdown to Christmas begins.

Several years back, I made Mim an advent calendar featuring 25 memories of Lockhart Christmases.  Alas, I didn't think to print out a copy of the memories & the selection was lost when a computer crashed.  

This year, will give myself a similar present, only instead of tucking each one into an artsied match box, will post them under this blog, celebrating the stories in our lives.  

What better time to reflect on the healing power of happy memories.  It doesn't matter which memory is recalled, it's memories of moments long gone by ~ ~ of tea in Odessa & Christmas cocktails at the Algonquin, of Christmas bazaars in Philadelphia's Frankford section & down at Mitchellville, outside D.C. ~ ~  that are what today's holiday experiences will become.  Treasure troves of priceless moments where our best selves came out to play. 

What better time to reflect on my core belief that - our true self is made up of the energy of stories, not atoms.  

What better time to honor &  share them than at Christmas.

Painting Pictures

When I started legacy coaching - although I didn't know that's what it was - with my Mom, I'd all too frequently ask her something along the lines of, "So, Mom - how was life different when you were young than it is today?"

In the beginning, it never dawned on me that the question was so broad, encompassed so much, there wasn't any hook to help make it simple for her to remember, let alone share.

Always amazed me how Mom initially clammed up when I asked for stories about her life.  She'd freeze every time I switched on the tape recorder.  It's really hard for people who came to know & love her Mindwalker1910 e-mails to picture her balking at thinking about the past, the people & moments that I never experienced yet were part & parcel of Mom's being, because what she ended up sharing is so rich, so alive.  

That tape recorder was as intimidating to her as putting a big blank piece of paper in front of most of us and saying, "Now draw something."  We see the empty space and it scares us.  

It didn't scare us when we were little kids.  Have you ever painted with children?  They go through pages & pages & pages of blank pieces of paper, filling them up with all sorts of interesting things.  You might not recognize that the big blobby thing in the center is an elephant & the figure to its right is a monkey, but the artist happily explains it all.  

That's basically all I did with Mom - helped her get to a place where she couldn't wait to fill big blank spaces with remembering, with current day insights, with even mental meanderings.  It became a joy that she savored up to her final days.  And it enriched so many lives beyond her own, so many lives beyond the friends & acquaintances that composed her ever-growing dist list.

What changed?  The way that I asked my questions.  And it wasn't anything I changed due to something I read or heard - it just evolved over a LOT of unsuccessful attempts to help her relax, open up, share what I'd heard her talk about so many times & things she'd never thought to bring up before.

When I started writing this Sneezing Chickens blog, I was on the cusp of understanding how important it is to honor the stories of our lives, to leave them - however simple & unadorned as they might seem to us - for others to hear, experience.   Kevyn Malloy, Mom's mega gifted psychologist, was moved when she heard about Mindwalker1910 - she told Mom that recalling & sharing such stories is one of the deepest ways we can honor our life.  

That was about 13 years ago.  Didn't fully register at the time, but the more I work with my "grannie" clients (and the older I get), the more the fullness of what Kevyn said sinks in on me.

What did I learn that turned my mother from tight-lipped, uncomfortable silence to willing, eager collaborator?  I learned to paint pictures.  Not with paints & canvas, but with words.  Instead of asking, "What were your favorite foods growing up?",  we'd just have a cup of tea & talk - about her younger days, about holidays, about birthdays, until FINALLY the question might come out, "Did you usually have a big Sunday dinner?"  If the answer was yes, we'd get into talking about when they ate, was it in a special place, did my grandmother make a special menu.  And THEN we'd go into some form of, "What were your favorite foods growing up?"

By then, she was so comfortable with the pictures in her mind, felt so connected to people, places & times long past, she was totally at ease remembering.  And I had a lot of information to use painting future pictures.

It sounds lyrical;  it was NOT easy.  It took time.  Lots of time.  And patience.  Like an artist, I learned which colors to use, to avoid;  which brushes to favor - big canvas or small.  

If I approach it in the right way, in the right time, with the right questions, I just might get end up with a masterpiece.

Shared Stories

My sister treated someone else the same way she's treated me since forever.  It felt comforting & strangely positive.  It's not just me, not just me misreading a story line into something it's not.  Doesn't make it easier, but does feel strangely more comforting.  After 60 years, to know in about as tangible way as possible  - it's not just me.

One Regret

I have but one regret when it comes to my wedding, on today's date, 23 years ago.

As the party following our church reception was winding down, my oldest brother requested a few minutes of my time so he could pass along some big bro advice on being married.  

We settled down in a quiet room, a distance from the thinning, but still jolly crowd.  

As he was opening his comments, my brother, Mike, appeared in the door, a big smile wreathing his face.

"Am I supposed to be part of this?" he asked, all brotherly happiness.

"No," Peter said.  

And I backed him up.

The brother who had nurtured a wonderful partnership with his wife, who raised two great kids as well as established a successful career that kept blossoming as he got older, who was a pillar of my church, who shared my love of our alma mater & community - I turned HIM away to get advice from someone who didn't even like me.

Knew IMMEDIATELY what a ninny I'd been, but it was too late.  Crestfallen, smile wiped from his face, spirit downcast, Mike stepped back & softly shut the door behind him.

I will carry that moment, with regret, to my grave....

Fleeting Opportunities

My college alma mater has a challenge most other colleges & universities don't face - a stunning scarcity of  photos & stories of past years, past teachers, past accomplishments & achievements.  

For decades, it was secondary in focus to it's companion high school.  It even shared the same name.  Now, it stands on its own, with an inspiring present & promising future unfolding before it.  

But where are its roots, where are the stories of those who came before?  Not the bound-in-leather stories, the official accounts, but the small ones, the personal ones, the ones that only a few or maybe just one person knows.  

These stories are fleeting.  So many have already slipped from us, teachers & coaches & staff who will only be a name on a list instead of a living, breathing character in a story or an appreciation that someone has taken the time to share, to write down, to discuss.  

I had a dream for this year's Charter Day, but I allowed myself to get discouraged, distracted, disconnected from it.  What can I do between now & early October to get the ball rolling on collecting stories about my college alma mater, helping give deeper roots to what's been, is & will be to countless people a sheltering tree of knowledge?  

The opportunities are fleeting, each person, each memory & moment truly does count...