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Showing posts from December, 2018

Out of the Clear Blue

Every night, a million words hover and swirl around my head before my eyes close. They blink in and out, alternating in bold whites and varying shades of gray -- as if in competition against one another. The competition goes on for what seems like hours, and by the time my lids fall like lead, I can never tell which word finally prevails. I guess that's why people who can pick out one single word to encompass New Year's resolutions, hopes, dreams and themes amaze me. There are just too many words. At least for me there are. The last Thursday of the year, I went through the usual morning motions: made the bed, brushed my teeth, refreshed the dog's water dish and poured a cup of coffee with just enough cream so the color matched my skin. I sneaked a cigarette and, coffee in one hand, phone in the other, sat on the porch despite a biting wind that came with morning rain. Words, in list form, blew in and out with cold blasts of air, and I fanned them away in favor of th

We Didn't Name Her Pearl

It's a girl, mom. We had a girl. my husband sniffled as he told his mom the good news. She replied Are you gonna call her Pearl?  My mother-in-law is an educated woman with a wicked sense of humor. She knew it was the 61st anniversary of Pearl Harbor, so yeah: pretty funny. I giggled at that and felt joyous...and also empty. As I was hooked up to monitors and watched the nurses wash and clean this new life, I wished that somehow, someway in the middle of all the celebrating and praise that goes on in Heaven, that my mom got the memo about the birth of her granddaughter. But that's not what this is about. We didn't name our daughter Pearl. Instead, we named her after an aunt who after her presence was a fact, was named, and died shortly after. Our kiddo's middle name is her grandmother's -- my mom. I like to think that's from whom her wisdom-beyond-her-years and discernment comes. As I celebrate and weep and get teary over the person I see my kid become;

Tis the Season of Pinpricks

I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down -- We get it Chumbawumba, we get it. Even as you read this, you're someplace on your way up again and prepping to get knocked down. Again. Good for you. But that ain't me. I'm trying to get up again and flinching at everything that might possibly could maybe, who knows, knock me down. Again. It's been a long November, a month in which I had planned posts on daily affirmations of thankfulness, perhaps a countdown to my daughter's birthday / my mothering day and maybe a post about the minutes I've been missing my parents since all the way back to 1987. But I got knocked down by a lot of things. The knowing that so many friends of mine were newly missing loved ones in the season of giving thanks that leads into the season of celebrating family and friends. It'