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Ring
In
The New Year
Haul
Out
The
Home
Movies...
I am notorious for writing my Christmas cards in
January. I cannot help it. The holiday season sprints to the finish and
I am out of breath. For once the after-Christmas-fire-sales smolder,
the errant bows and wadded up tissue paper are wrestled out from under
the sofa...
...I long to catch up with old friends and far away family.
But then comes the moment, when I open the address
book and find I must cross off another name, change an address, add a
newborn, delete a marriage, change Miss to Mrs., and erase, replace,
and hit enter.
The times are always a changin' and the year is
soon to be new, so I find comfort in old family albums where lives and
loves and losses, new and old faces, huddle closely together. Here, the
once upon a time of ancestors, parents, friends, children and even
beloved pets, remain embedded in sepia, black and white, and
technicolor, just as I remember them.
May you, on this New Year's Eve, find yourself with
your family album pressed open on your lap or with home movies running
in your head, life both still and in perpetual motion, from way back then to here right now.
Family Portrait
Our family portrait is a running slideshow
of memories, current images are clear and sharp, while others reveal red
eyes, vintage clothing and dated hair styles. Corners bent and dog
eared, a few are the treasured, the favorites, the ones we linger over
to freeze frame in time.
Details, where and when and who.
Names and dates,
The flash of a camera. Wedding
cake, the first house, Dad awkwardly holding a newborn, first steps,
birthday parties, swimming lessons, first day of school, graduations,
new driver standing by old car, old drivers standing by new cars,
weddings, reunions, funerals, gatherings, firecrackers, car trips,
summer cabins, tiny fish on big poles, young faces with big grins, old
faces with warm smiles.
The album is just that, a memory vault.
When we think we have forgotten who we are,
what our family means, we can run the slideshow...and the pictures
become what is the very best part of being a family...
...memories...
...yours, mine, ours...
...a singular tale of love over time...
©gvw
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Dear Santa...
Dear Santa...
Dear Santa...
Dear Santa...
I didn't think in this day and age that children
still wrote letters to Santa. Grown ups barely write letters anymore and
children are certainly more tech savvy than I, so I falsely assumed if
they did anything, they emailed or texted or tweeted the North Pole. But
an article online, suggests otherwise. It seems there is a very real
possibility that the USPS may not be able to deliver Santa Mail to Santa
this year. Budget cuts or not enough sorters to sort, a reporter is so
very sad to report.
I doubt I am able to explain our nation's debt
problems to a five year old, so I sought a more local and more plausible
avenue to correct the situation. To facilitate young flights of fancy.
To assure a prompt delivery and a rapid response from the reindeer
shepherd up North.
This is a job for Grandmas!
I pull on my coat, lace up my sensible shoes, tuck a
kleenex up my sleeve, roll down my knee high panty hose, wrap my head
in a portable plastic rain hat, slip my flip phone in my pocket, back
the car down the driveway, swing around the block to double check that I
really did shut the garage door and head off to my local post office.
I really and truly did NOT do any of the things I
just said I did, but any grandmother worth her salt must keep up
appearances, especially at this time of year. The truth is, most of the
time, adhering to the rules on page six of the Grandmother's Etiquette
Guide, I wear a piece of duct tape over my mouth, so that if I am asked
for advice, I keep it to myself.
I stand in line for over an hour and when I reach the head of the line, he scratches his head and says there is nothing to be done, no time left, no ready hands available. So I offer up my services.
I volunteer.
He reaches under the counter, shoves aside the
holiday stamps and hands me not a stack, nor a box, but a sizable carton
of letters, each one addressed in a child's scrawl or printed in
crayon.
Santa Claus
The North Pole
Period.
I gather up the letters poking out the top and tuck
the carton under my arm. Believers. A carton of believers. I could not
would not let them down. My mission, though seemingly impossible, 'lo
the week before Christmas, is an appointment I surely must keep.
I too am a writer of letters and posts. I consider
these glittery, colorfully illustrated missives in pen or in pencil or
ink, the early stirrings of imagination. The illustrations, primitive
art. The design and the glitter, a budding sense of fashion and flair.
The sincerity and directness, a formal first opinion piece. A creative's
first pitch. A search for one's voice. A desire to communicate.
Those tiny tims of faith, who dream big dreams, who despite their circumstances still firmly believe in perhaps not a gift, but at least a reply.
I, distant kin of the formidable Emily Post, believe in Thank You
Notes. Acknowledgements. I think I am the only person left on the planet
who believes that every email, letter or post deserves a response.
So here, late at night, with the stars overhead
twinkling and giggling their delight, I open each and every letter. One
at a time. Glitter rains down, plus stickers and stamps. This, I assure
you, is NOT an invasion of privacy, nor an act of sabotage.
This, this is an intervention. For I am a certified
Santa's helper. An elf. A fulfiller of dreams. A conduit to the land up
North where the reindeer graze and the toy shop buzzes with the
workbench sounds of Rap Tap Tap, and the background hum of Ho Ho Ho.
I do! I swear!
Have a license on my wall.
A notarized, signed sealed and delivered PHD in Santa Studies,
from the Jolly Old Professor Himself.
I am a scribe. A knighted believer in all that is
Santa. I have never missed a Christmas Eve, my plate of cookies by the
fire, my eyes squeezed faithfully shut, and hope in my heart that sleep
will echo with the sound of reindeer on my roof.
Santa will pause, then land in the soot,
and know its MY stocking by the size of my foot.
Even at this age when my eyesight grows dim,
I'm a certified professional believer in him.
A Magna Cum Laude Graduate of the Santa School Of Wonder
The letters await.
Dear Santa...I've been good...Love, Annie
Dear Santa...I've had a few bad days, but I promise to be better...Your friend, Louis
Dear Santa...Sorry for the peanut butter stains on
the page, but this has to reach you in time, it just HAS TO. Hurry up
and thank you... Ed
Dear Santa...Can you bring Dad home in time for Christmas, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you very much...Sincerely, Bella
Dear Santa...My Mom lost her job and says money is
tight, but I will leave a map to my piggy bank so you can find it,
okay?... Yours truly, Maggie.
Dear Santa...This is my cat. And this is my dog.
And this is my sister, who takes all my good stuff and breaks it and I
just need a replacement, no not a new sister, well not really, but
maybe...This is a coupon for the store closest to my house so you won't
have to go too far out of your way. Bye for now. Martin(I prefer Marty)
Dear Santa...
Dear Santa...
Dear Santa...
Dear Johnny and Benny, Agnes and Fred
Willard and Crystal and Eric and Ted...
Attention to Marty and Bella and Jim
Kathy and Kitty and Scottie and Tim...
Season's Greetings Dear Children
Ere you turn out the light,
The Grandmas of Christmas
Are with you tonight.
Won't you gather with me at the ticking of twelve
With the cookies and milk on the fireplace shelve
Won't you place just one finger aside of your nose
And give Santa a boost, for he certainly knows
That all elves are welcome, all hands to the ready
Making wishes come true marks a hand that is steady.
Be thoughtful and gentle, be decent and mild
Just answer the letter of one little child.
Make wishes come true ere he drives out of sight…
For everyone, anyone, can be Santa tonight.
The Yard Yetis A Gardener's Tale continues...
Thursday, December 5, 2013
It's
That
Time
Of
Year...
It's beginning to look a lot like...um...you
know...that holiday...the unmentionable one...the one kids can no longer
sing about in school...
That certain day we used to celebrate with lots of
red and green, but red and green are also no longer allowed in certain
classroom parties...so maybe it's now taupe and gray.
That special time of year when some of us buy
presents for the ones we love, except that presents are now considered
to be a form of Uh-Oh, the commercialization of the holiday we can no
longer mention, nor sing about, nor wear red or green while flashing our
cash and credit cards around.
The time for the bell ringers to stand by the
kettle and with a warm and welcoming smile...no?...oh right ...now it
seems they too are rather wary and have been warned...so they sort of
smile and start to say Happy...or Merry...and mumble some other
syllables while standing in the freezing cold.
I thought this was a magical time for the believers
and the Non...until I saw a billboard from the Non Folk...of the night
sky with a star on a lovely blue background and the words...well I can't
repeat the first once since it's been outlawed...so the abridged
version goes something like this...
C-------s Is A Myth. Don't Believe Any Of It!
I was going to hang up my lights outdoors, but I
read where some neighborhood associations are instructing their
"neighbors" in a neighborly fashion that only white lights
could be used and that they could only be up for the week before...that
unmentionable holiday...and they must be down the day after. So I am
sitting here with an enormous box of a certain two unmentionable colored
lights all kinked up and knotted together and I desperately want to put
them up somewhere, so I think I'll go hang them all over the shower and
the tub, except that is an electrical hazard for someone who
occasionally drops the blow dryer in the sink...ah yes...I'll put them
in the laundry room because I know for sure I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO GOES
IN THERE EVER!
I did go to the mall today to look for a whatchamacallit gift, no not a present, well
I mean a little something, for someone other than myself, after I stood
about ten feet from the woman by the kettle who averted her eyes so as
not to have to struggle to greet me, and launched my dollar into the
air. I don't know where it landed, because I averted my eyes as well and walked into some other mysterious shoppers carrying nondescript brown paper bags, averting their eyes as well.
I thought I heard a familiar carol wafting through
the store. I mean it is THAT time of year for songs to be played in a
loop over and over, but no, this song was familiar.
La-dee-dah-dah...I'm pretty sure it was the title song from a new album
by a recording star who is spending the unmentionable holiday in an
unmentionable rehab center. Or maybe it was that one that needs to find a
belt underneath the C-------s tree.
Oh dear. The tree business. That's a No Go too. Cutting down a tree, even at a tree farm,
is an ecological offense. Buying a tree that was chopped and shipped
from way up North to the local hardware store is even worse. I am pretty
sure even looking at the trees in my own back yard might result in a pretty stiff fine.
So...no Dancer or Prancer and certainly not Vixen
No...I'll be home for?
No...I'm dreaming of a white?
No..."Twas the night before?
No...Jolly Old St.?
No...Have yourself a Merry little?
No...Little Drummer Boy?
No...Cookies For Santa?
I am utterly undone. At my wit's end. This is all
so confusing and perhaps slightly amusing, as I have walked down this
path before.
When I first started writing my Garden Pages, I
made a commitment to myself, that while I was writing from my heart, the
words on the pages might touch another heart. That someone might stop
and read and say...So True...ah yes...So True. That my memories of
family and friends, life and loss, success and failure, might stir a
thought, evoke a memory, ease a loss, or rekindle a smile. The garden is
home for everyone,so it was quite a surprise and a shock when a marketing guru wrote Bah Humbug and Grinched all over my work.
Red pencil slashes thru the words hope and believe and wish and dream.
Extra X X X's and NO NO NO.
I might...just might...offend...my audience.
But my audience is YOU...and YOU and I know that
HERE in the garden, is the one space, an enduring place, where all that
is necessary, the only requirement is that you DO...
Believe.
In things we cannot see, or touch or feel.
Here in the garden is the one common denominator
for every gardener, every tiller of the soil, every seasoned and
reasoned soul, to come together because we...
Believe in the seasons and have faith.
Faith.
Faith is not a promise, it is a hope. A wish and perhaps a dream.
Even Grinches have faith.
So did Scrooge.
We all do.
For example, every day I drive across town and I
have faith that the light will turn red. Stop. Then green. Go. I live on
the belief that an engineer somewhere much smarter than I concocted
this system to keep us all safe from crashing into one another. To teach
us to take our turn, to be patient and wait, until the light changes.
Red. Green. But what if, one groggy eyed morning, after an all night
vigil and months of protest, someone decided that red and green might
OFFEND someone else's sensibilities. And there, in the foggy morning
mist, the lights are now the Crayola colors of Fuzzy Wuzzy and Mauvelous. In the middle, what was once yellow is now Mango Tango.
Oh and the...
Red
Yellow
Green...configuration...Gone!
In it's place a new less threatening version and
one most people easily recognize, a spinning orb of color, sort of like
the Wheel Of Fortune...where it lands nobody knows...fingers drumming on
the dash board...uhhhh...you know what happens next...one person inches
into the intersection, then another and then someone skips a turn and
then honking horns and oh dear oh dear there must be some sort of a
pattern, but NO NO offending anyone's sensibilities...except for, oops,
for the COLORBLIND.
Let's face it. We all have faith in something.
We all believe in something.
And some of us spend our entire lives desperately searching for proof that we are right.
The truth is that in this life, in this garden,
none of us will ever know for sure.
So we tell stories.
Stories of faith.
Christmas is a beautiful story. Of a family in need
of shelter. Of a baby born in simple surroundings. It could happen
anytime anywhere. A star in the night sky. Songs of great joy. Wanderers
coming close for a peek at the child.
Faith.
The word comes from the Latin meaning...
Trust.
Hope.
Wishes and dreams.
I cannot imagine the world without them.
I could not sit here with the ground covered in
snow, the trees stripped to their branches, the squirrels tucked in
their nests, the geese flying off to the south, without hope. Without
the dream of Spring. So I tell myself a story, about the seeds in my
hand and how one day soon, I will plant them again and they will grow
and flourish. But I cannot know for sure, as the moon is full and the
night is young and tomorrow may never come.
But sleep will, and in my dreams, lie hope and
faith. And wonderful technicolor stories. Beautiful multicolored lights,
decorated trees and packages under the tree. More importantly, in my
dreams, in my story, I am standing on the the lawn with my grandchild
watching for reindeer, holding loved ones close and making a wish. A
tender and gentle wish for all of you...a song to sing...this time of
year...whether near or far...
"I'll be home for Christmas.
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me.
Where the love light beams.
I'll be home for Christmas.
If only in my dreams.."
It really IS beginning to look a LOT like Christmas...
( "I'll Be Home For Christmas...lyrics and music by Kim Gannon, Walter Kent and Buck Ram)
And if you are STILL NOT SURE....
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