Anyway you look at it, its a miracle

This photo was taken at a department store somewhere in Cleveland. I was 5 or 6 years old. According to my father as the photo was being snapped, supposedly I was telling Santa that we were Jewish and didn't celebrate Christmas. This was true. I have no idea why my father would have taken us to see Santa as he was very strict about being Jewish....we DID NOT have a tree, we did NOT celebrate Christmas. I felt sadly left out of the festivities, although Cleveland Heights was a comfortable place to grow up Jewish. Anyway the miracle of Chanukah (as I learned to spell it at Rabbi Silver's temple), is that after the trashing of the Temple, there was only enough oil to keep the Everlasting Light at the Ark burning for one night. It would take 8 days to go and then return from where oil could be purchased. It was a great miracle that the tiny bit of oil kept burning for the entire time. Christmas celebrates the miracle of the birth of the Savior. So this is truely a miraculous season,no? The Facebook version of Chanukah is that even though the cell phone battery was almost dead, it lasted for 8 days. I remember lighting the candles as a kid, as a parent, and lighting the 8th candle last night. I always wanted a Christmas tree though, I love sparkling lights, piney smells, and beautiful ornaments. I never had one until I was in my 40's. I echoed my Dad, "You are Jewish, Jewish people do NOT have trees." When my daughter brought home her college roommate, who had recently lost her father, my husband and son put up a tree, "only to make her comfortable". Ever after it became "why not we did it before?" I have to say, I enjoy the beauty, the smell, the festivity;the stuff.Chanukah is not the important holiday within the framework of Judaism that Christmas is to Chrisianity but it has been the Jewish answer to the season. I also loved to celebrate the Solstice as the home of friends,smaller gifts were exchanged, with meaningful thoughts for those who received them. Right,wrong, I don't know, my former Rabbi said that ;Jews don't have trees because they didn't think of them first." Another friend says I am an uninformed Jew. Some years I do the tree, some years I don't, this year I needed the smell and the glitter. Its all okay, it is all a miracle, no matter what or how one celebrates. It is the miracle of the season that I hope we are celebrating. If one looks back at Pagan times,the miracle was that even after the darkest, longest night, the dark hours grew shorter again. We renew our lives, through daylight,through oil, through a belief that the Messiah has come....anyway you look at it, its a miracle. God is bigger than all of this, of us, and I believe exists. Happy holidays.

Happy birthday Lynda!

I am amazed at my own life sometimes. My friend Lynda turned 61 last week. It is hard for me to believe. I am 4 years older than her, although come February, I will be 5 years older. Time has flown;we don't seem much older to ourselves. We still send birthday cards to each other that remind us that we are "still hot", as least she is.I don't mean menopausal either, I mean attractive. What kind of brought this time passage to some sort of perspective was when I realized that I met Lynda when she was the same age as my son, who is 36 now. How can this be? Not only are we older but our "kids" are older, we are both Grandmothers....I don't feel any older at all. This truely is the basis of this blog, my musings....I think about things all the time, I just don't always get around to writing about them. I am blessed to have friends that have stayed in my life for most of it! I guess the thing that got me here was the realization that a friend I made as an adult is still a friend and we are older adults....wha happened? Time passed, and it is good and sweet and life has given me more gifts than I can possibly handle. Thanks Lynda for being one of them, and for all the laughs, for all the times you listened, for the good advice and the friendship.

Who will know?

We are now the elders of our family and in some cases of our group of friends. It is a sobering thought because who can we ask what we should do? I remember the first time I realized we had to make up our own minds, but we were still young and there were people to ask. It was Thanksgiving probably about 30 years ago and I remember standing in our kitchen: my sister, her husband at the time, Arnie and I wondering if the turkey was really done. I had a moment of fear, knowing it was up to us, at least until my Mom got there. She may have been at our home once that morning as she usually made the stuffing and then brought it over to bake at our home. Now my husband is in the middle of mess of paperwork, he can change his Medicare Advantage plan during the open enrollment which will end on December 7th. It is kind of a big deal, he can only change within an Advantage plan because of his pre-existing condition (cancer). Due to our limited income we need to get the best bang for the buck. So he is calling agents, having agents present different plans. He would like to talk to someone about it, I live here, so I would be a good choice. I am overwhelmed by the paperwork, the decision, the time limit, and wanting to do the very best thing. If my Dad were alive, we could talk this over with him. Today we are the people who need to decide. We are the ones who are supposed to know. I wonder if the generations before us didn't really know either.

A Simpler Time

My husband listens to old time radio stations at night through his internet radio. This morning we heard a radio play about returning two men who go back in time 20 years prior to the "magic time" that they lived in: 1952. It got me to thinking back to the 50's. So many people today say those were the golden years: post war, the country growing and changing, homes, jobs and so forth. Yes it was different, but so was our mind set and our expectations. The wall I am standing in front of in the photo is the retaining wall of our home in Cleveland Heights. My Father and my Grandfather built it. It looks pretty solid today(at least 50 years later) and I don't see any sign of repairs. My father also paneled part of our basement and made it into a recreation room. The walls were sanded by my sister and her friends, in a "sanding" party, my parents supplied dinner. I remember lots of junior high kids there helping. My Dad built our back porch into a bedroom for me. The floor was made out of pressed wood chips....something very new and different. We only had an upstairs bathroom so my Father added one to the downstairs for my Mother. Those were days that if one needed something,they mostly did it themselves or had friends who helped out. There were many things that we kids wanted but we just couldn't have them. No money. Credit cards were metal plates that each department store notched if you had an account there, but you only had one card. It came in a small leather envelope. They were only used for department stores, not gas, drugstores and so on. My Grandfather was given a color television and the whole family would go over to watch Bonanza on Sundays. We were really lucky to have one black and white television in our living room. We didn't all run and buy newer models. As kids we walked or biked most places. I guess I was just musing about those days because of both that radio program and the the fury of this election year. On the larger part though, everybody didn't have to have everything that someone else had. We didn't have that awful drive to get what someone else had. We didn't go into debt on plastic to be like other people. We accepted who we were. We may have wanted but knew that sometimes, having wasn't possible. It was a simpler time. We need to think about that, it was simple because we were not so driven and possessive. We didn't need alot of stuff to be okay.

I think this photo would have made my Mom happy. My brother and his wife sent us plane tickets and took us to a beach house on Emerald Isle in North Carolina. It was such a beautiful place and a wonderfully peaceful time, for me anyway. I hope it was for them also. For all of us, or maybe just me, who were merciless with their brothers and sisters as children, it is amazing how precious they are as we age. Who else knows us as well. One friend said that "family will always push our buttons, they installed them!" This may be so, but only if we are looking at the negative side of it all. No one quite "gets" where I am coming from like my "sibs". Anyway the week was special and beautiful and I can only say that I didn't deserve it but I am grateful for it. I sat on the beach next to my brother who will be 60 to my 66 next year (no rush here) and thought how lucky I am that we still have that opportunity to share some time and space. Our spouses are compatible and we are blessed to be together. Our parents gave us the gift of family and installed the belief in its importance.

Job Well Done!

I know, I know, I am still writing about my parents....I thought I was done. In the group that I am a part of, we talk alot about humility, letting go of expectations, thinking of others instead of self. It's what can make us better people. I believe it can and will. I was not a humble child, although I was insecure and not confident. Those kinds of feelings can result in acting boastful, angry and impatient. I was also intolerant and easily bored. Taking care of my Mother was an exercise in patience,tolerance,and humility. (I wrote much about that in my prior blog "Turnabout is Fair Play".) Sometimes when I do something good, or take the time to help someone,in those moments when I am able to put my needs and wants aside, I have to think to myself that my Mom was a teacher for me until the end of her life. Job well done Mom. I cannot thank you enough. Or maybe I can by simply doing the right thing.

Wish List: Compassion

I remember how very sad my Dad was when his last male friend died....he kept saying that he couldn't get over that D.L. was gone. I said,"yes,yes..." All the time thinking "jeez, the guy was 93, how long can people go on?" I don't think it was in a really mean way, just not really understanding how deep those feelings of loss and sadness were. I also remember my Mom saying that "When one out lives their friends and family, one wonders why they are still around." We would roll our eyes and just wonder why she couldn't appreciate just being here, being alive. Two weeks ago, we lost a friend who died rather quickly after his diagnosis from metastized melanoma. He was gracious and courageous until the end. My husband had found a good (accepting) friendship. He feels the loss more than I do. We don't have alot of friendships in our lives that are 100% accepting of who we are. Where finances, backgrounds and our own foibles are overlooked. When I think about our friend I have anger, that he is gone, that we didn't get to know him longer. Arnie,I think, has a mixture of sadness and admiration....I think. This weekend we have 2 friends in the hospital. One will be fine, the other at 88, I am not so sure. I think that at his age, he and his wife,also 88 with a fair amount of dementia may be forced to make some lifestyle changes. Which may entail moving them away from being our closest neighbor. That would be a big loss too. I have friends that lost parents and spouses this summer.I have a friend who is recovering from breast cancer, a friend caring for her grandson with cancer, another with a diagnosis of cancer. Life changes. Some of us remain. We go to the doctor more often. We are changing. I wish I had understood more and realized that sadness of loss that parents had and been more compassionate. I am beginning to understand because I think I am starting to go into that tunnel myself. Put compassion on your wish list. It is better to have it sooner than later.

Oh creative muse, where are you?

I wonder what happened to that muse that kept me going during the last 3 or 4 years. I can't seem to get anything going these days. I order stones, I look at things that used to delight me...I just can't feel it. I don't like anything I have come up with of late. I branched out and did 3 paintings this summer...that was good. Instead of the rush to the finish that was my painting style in years past, I took my time and painted, and painted, and "dinked" around with it, fiddling with this thing and that.I was pleased with the results. My jewelry, not so much...I just don't like much of anything. I can't decide if I do any shows this fall or not. I want that Divine Creative Spark to visit me again and soon...it more addictive and exhilarating than any drug ever invented. Today is the 8 month anniversary of my Mother's passing. Is it really possible I am still inhibited by grief? Who knows.

Some things never change!

I returned last night from a trip to the city where I was born. I went there to spend time with 2 people who have been consistantly important in my life. My cousin Karin is about a year younger than me, and my Aunt Bonnie, was the wife of my uncle for 18 years. From the time we met her, around age 20 (her, we must have been 5 and 6?) she has been the person we wanted to be. For a number of reasons Karin and I had wanted to spend time, "just the 3 of us" at this point in our lives. It was possible for all of us to do this last week. There is much to say about how wonderful this was. My blog today is about the feelings that driving around Cleveland Heights brought up. Many of the buildings and streets were the same! It makes me feel grounded and happy and amazed. I love the fact that buildings are not knocked down so that boring places are built there instead. Even the new Casino is housed in the former Higbee Department store downtown. I was excited to see the Cedar-Lee movie theater lobby was THE SAME! Sure the carpet has been replaced and the walls painted, but that lobby is the same as when I went there over 50 years ago! The original theater is the same one, but in cut in two. The stairs as steep as ever, the "make out" balcony: still there too. The newer theaters are in the old Clarks restaurant. The Cleveland Art Museum, still greets one with Rodin's bronze "The Thinker". It all validates who I am somehow....I am affirming that this was all real, I was there, I existed in a time and place that I loved!

My Legacy

In kind of an attempt to clarify the musings of yesterday, what is my Legacy? I really have come to the realization that anything material is unimportant when I am gone. Not my art, my house, my jewelry....my stuff. That does not mean that I don't enjoy the things I own, I do. I love the "things" I have, but the older I get, the more I see I can get by without them. I have never seen anything that was more beautiful to me (other than my grand baby!) than the Tetons by horseback! Of course, I have not been everywhere. My legacy is only in the values I may have instilled in my children, my grand-daughter, and those daughter-women that I sponsor in my program. The smallest bits of kindness, tolerance, and right actions are all I will have of value. If life has meaning at all, it is in service to others. I don't think accomplishments are greater than that. Even the most respected religious leader serves their Higher Power and their flock.Our favorite actors, artists, musicians are those that make our own hearts and lives fuller just by seeing, hearing, and provoking our minds. I feel these things deeply today,right now. I hope I still embrace this tomorrow instead wishing I had a new car. This is part of my human condition, no? I don't want to sound preachy, just kind of unemcumbered.

The beet goes on..........

I know, pretty silly, but life does go on and I am still hanging out in my head many times. It has only been 6 months and 5 days since my Mom died. I have come to an interesting conclusion regarding "stuff". It is mostly baggage. Why do I say this? When one is gone, the "things" that we loved are another's "quandry" when we are gone. I don't mean that my Mother's "things" weren't appreciated. Those who read my other blog (Turnabout is Fair Play) know how hard it was for me to clean the room that was hers. Other family members chose pieces that were important and meaningful to them. Now I have things that I truely do not know what to do with, but feel guilty parting with because they were so important to my Mother. For example, her Mother's chair, which she says was specially made for her because she was so small. Her Father's desk, which is a dark wood upright with a drop front. It was not a desk that he brought from his original home, but bought later. She kept it when he passed and it was important to her, none of these fit into my home but I don't want to get rid of them. Lets not even go into the Swarovski crystal pieces that are in small display cases in her room. I find myself really cleaning out all kinds of my own things. I don't want my children to have say "I know she loved this, but what do we do with it." I can't imagine making any moves at my age with the amount of stuff that we have... and I guess the best part of that is: I don't have to do anything today. That is a relief. I am now leaving the danger zone of my mind.