holidays

Chex Mix

In today’s version of The Skimm, I clicked the link about the rising cost of Diet Coke. The writer interviewed someone who drank 4-5 cans a day, and their wallet was feeling it. I puffed up my chest for just a moment, because while I love the vice that is Diet Coke, I certainly don’t drink four cans a day. Don’t we know that aspartame is bad for us! And then my smugness dissipated as I went to pour my third cup of coffee.

Each week I’ve been watching the price of bacon jump up – last time I checked a pound had gone up a dollar fifty since I started paying attention in October. Inflation isn’t new – we’re talking about it, we’re feeling the impacts, we’re curious about what’s going to go up in cost next.

And, we use our little vices to keep discomfort at bay. November turned to December quickly, and days were filled with meetings, meal planning, perhaps paying too much attention to the rising cost of things. And in my conversations with friends and family, shifts and changes continue to happen as the world rumbles across the ocean. One friend is quitting her job, another trying desperately to get pregnant. Kitchens are getting remodeled, grandparents moving to nursing homes, and our neighbors got Covid again.

I told Dylan last night I’m having a hard time filling my container with my own worries. I’ve gotten porous again, taking on the fears and hurts of others because I just want the world to stop. being. in. so. much. pain. And then I wonder, is it the world’s pain, or my own?

This weekend I got out my mom’s splattered recipes and stocked up on Chex Mix supplies. I poured dry cereal, pretzels, and nuts into my grandmother’s old roasting pan. I melted the butter, found the Worcestershire sauce, added salt and poured the hot liquid over the mess of carbs. I let baby stir, and together, we watched comfort soak into the open spaces in the cereal. Nuts became glossy and we stuck the pan into the oven to bake slowly, with intention.

Once done, I scooped the mix into Ball jars and sent the gifts out into the world with love.

Perhaps it’s silly to connect Chex Mix to love, the pouring of fats onto cereal as a way to rub balm into our wounds. When things are shifting, I turn to the kitchen. Salt helps. Butter is consistent. Let’s fill up our holes with love this season. We need each other.

May your snacks be salty, full of butter, and of love. Chex Mix – that, too, a beautiful thing.

Self-Soothing at Christmas

My daughter struggles to nap in her crib. She’s been lucky to be held while sleeping and contact naps have been her norm. As I read parenting books and blogs about sleep training, the multitude of advice, best practices, and shoulds are overwhelming. General practitioners tell me to put her down, walk out of the room, and wait for her to cry herself to sleep. We’re behind, according to the internet, in that she ought to be sleeping better on her own by now.

In this advice, my heart breaks a bit. For how many times, as an adult, have I, too, cried myself to sleep? The cause of suffering, of course, is different. The magnitude of pain seems more allowable as adults. Yet, why are we teaching our babies to self-soothe, when quite often the opposite, a compassionate touch, a hand on a shoulder, a warm embrace is what we long for most?

Recent weeks have been filled with attempts at the holiday bustle. We’ve got a tree up, yet I haven’t done any shopping. We baked cookies and forgot to decorate them. I’m allowing traditions to be replaced with other things; mostly contact naps.

Grief seeps into this season in now expected places. I know I’ll want to send texts to Dad, want his perspective on our decorations, and long for his spot at the table to be filled. I’ll get a bottle of scotch to sip on and leave a plate of cookies on the shelf for him during Christmas week. While friends donated in his honor this month, I longed for his advice in negotiating dynamics at work and a shoulder to lean on as my grandmother’s house was sold.

This year’s grief expands as we have another empty seat at the table. I wish Grandma could stand at my stove top, and teach me how to make our German cookies that she taught my mother to make. The weight and opportunity of carrying on tradition is ladened with loss. In our mixing of sugar, flour and dough, we have sprinkles of old memories. With each turn of cookie press, I remember laughter at smoke-filled kitchens and crinkles of crumbs falling to the counter. To carry on what she started is both a beautiful mix of opportunity and responsibility. There is space for the missing to take different shape.

When illness hit our house last week, with changing child care plans and overwhelming amounts of snot, I was hit with an incredible ache. If Dad was still here, we’d have one more person in our back up child care arsenal. Instead, I took a sick day, and allowed myself to rest, with baby on my chest. As baby cried from exhaustion, I, too, wept and rocked myself saying “It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok.”

Sure, I’ve learned to self-soothe. Yet, I still longed for a warm hand on my shoulder, for someone else to get me a tissue, for the cause of the pain to dissipate.

I’m not soliciting parenting advice, nor am I sharing another “should” for those who are trying to get their little ones to sleep. Instead, I’m wondering why our culture starts us off, at such a young age, by encouraging us to cry ourselves to sleep in the dark, when perhaps instead we need comfort and connection. The world is overwhelming for all of us at times.

The holidays come with a jumble of joy, aches, wishes, and wonder. We’re all familiar with the ways in which our stories fall short of the Hallmark versions of reality depicted on television. Whether you’re sitting in feelings of joy and connection, or weeping in the dark, I hope you’ve found people to lay a warm hand on your shoulder. I hope you remember to whisper “It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok” Self-soothe if you must, and I hope instead you can ask for comfort.

Experiencing the gift a snuggle, the glow of Christmas lights, and the choice to nurture and be nurtured are beautiful things.

Tis’ the Season

We’ve entered the season of giving with a joyful heart. My inbox is full of reminders of places to give money, gifts to buy, and packages to send. Generosity of spirit and snacks is in the air. I’ve made lists of my own. December is never short on opportunities to spread joy in boxes and bags and envelopes.

I’m great at giving. Sitting in therapy this week, however, I was reminded how hard it is for me to receive.

To be on the one asking for help and having people follow through without a sense of obligation or needing to do anything in return is vulnerable and risky.

One of the shrapnels of grief still stuck in my chest is sharp reminder that grief is ever present. Asking for help often made some people uncomfortable. There was an air of ‘you’re still here, huh?’ when being vulnerable, and while not everyone responded in this way, social stigma and my own shame around my emotions cause me to turn inwards. Unhealthy self-sufficiency only leaves more room for the wounds to seep.

My therapist asked, “How would you like to try to receive differently this season?”

I froze before answering. After a moment or two, I whispered, “I have to believe I’m worthy of being on the receiving end of generosity.”

In big block letters I wrote in my journal, Tis’ the season to PRACTICE RECEIVING.

When I woke this morning, I sent texts to several friends asking for recommendations on products I’m considering. One sent me a laundry list of things to consider, another said flat out, ‘Would you like to have ours?’ I was floored.

In minutes, I was reminded of the many ways people DO like to give, but they can’t know you’re in need unless you ask. Grief, tangled with shame, taught me not to ask.

I’m unwrapping old stories, and laying shredded ribbons of protection at my feet. In this new season, I’m going to need help. I’m going to need to receive. And practicing is a beautiful thing.

As The Darkness Descends

I now obsessively click on inciweb, checking the status of evacuations and wind patterns and burn scars up the canyons close by.

With the fires mere miles away from my home, I spent the weekend nervous and wondering. I signed up for text alerts and began making lists of items we would take should we get a call that could change our life.

My prayers centered on surrender and asking for protection. While I prayed, people in my community lost their homes. Whole lives burned up as bricks stood witness to the incineration.

New fires sparked further down the Front Range cooridor and I ask, “Is being witness enough?”

And if my witnessing is filtered through a screen, liberal media outlets, and through the stories on my social media feeds? Does this count as standing witness to pain?

I know what it’s like to get a phone call that can change your life. I also know what it’s like to hunker down and wait, with bated breath, for the wind to shift.

I’m trying to balance panic with presence. Reframe what could be to what is. Taking moments to identify the gifts residing in this natural disaster space.

Community members rally together to raise funds for those who have lost livelihoods.

Voters wait for hours to fill in bubbles with black ink.

The laundry is done and the sourdough is active.

I use my words to meditate – sending hope and love and peace to myself and others.

As I become accustomed to skies darkening with smoke, I slice oranges and lemons and toss them into a pot with cinnamon and cloves. Cool water covers the mixture and simmers slightly on my stove, trying to reclaim the air with fresh scents.

Ash rains down, falling in thin layers on my back patio, reminding me an essential part of my human experience is surrender.

I can click refresh but I can’t change the outcome. I can sweep away the mess, but things have still burned. The remnants smear black on concrete.

So much has turned to ash this year. Plans and dreams. Jobs and homes. Trust and a sense of safety. Community. Connection. A sense of time.

The other day I was checking the status of an online order we placed in August. The stressed customer service agent shared plans for the item to ship on October 20th. I texted Dylan, “Think we’ll get it before Christmas?”

His response?

“Christmas is really not that far away.”

I suppose he’s not wrong.

I’d forgotten it WAS October 20th. My brain is still stuck in April. Or September. I did grow a garden, right? Who knows if we’ll holiday, or give thanks over cardboard takeout containers. Wouldn’t it be alright to take a pass on tradition this year? Nothing else has been conventional. I’m not willing to risk a life for a turkey dinner.

The days are growing shorter and the nights are now long. I’m working on turning off my screens and taming my clicking finger’s tick to satisfy the need to know more of the madness we’re witnessing.

I’ll be here, turning on warm lights inside as the darkness descends. May that be a beautiful thing.

Daaad, can I have one beer?

“Daaaad, can I have one beer?” he squeaked out from the corner of the table.

A little boy wearing a navy winter coat stood a foot behind his father, pulling on the older man’s black puffy jacket.

“Can I please have one beer?”

The dad stopped, put down a bulky baby carrier and turned to address his curly hair child.

“Yes,” he said, “but how will you choose which type to have first?”

“Blue sprinkles,” said the little boy. “That’s the one I want to have here.”

I had heard the young one incorrectly, and perched on my orange bar stool, I started to laugh.

Sitting in a busy donut shop on the morning of Valentine’s Day, I watched families stream in with little children. Grub hub delivery people stood patiently in the corner with their branded red bags. Office managers waited patiently as steaming-hot clumps of dough got dipped in strawberry frosting, rainbow sprinkles, and the good part of Lucky Charms cereal.

One man in his twenties was working hard solo, filling the orders with patience and frosting smears. His eyes opened wider each time another person walked in the door.

It was a simple Friday morning. I was invited for a coffee and a donut with a dear friend. We sat on orange bar-stools, and sipped bad drip coffee, and filled our tummies with sugar and dough fried in lard. I watched the woman scrape mounds of lard into the fryer.

We need not go far to be delighted.

Hard working people. Lines of people on their way to work waiting patiently for fried dough. Sprinkles. Smashed cereal and chunks of chocolate and raspberry glaze.

IMG_20200214_080010

Say what you will about donuts, sugar, health food and habits, but for just that one morning, I felt the love.

What a beautiful thing.

Mary Wasn’t Ready Either

“Nine days til’ Christmas!” the radio announcer proclaimed in a voice much like a Who in the 2000 version of The Grinch.

I imagined his tiny teeth and coiffed hair proclaiming the minutes ticking by to the Big Holiday as I turned the corner on to the major highway on my way to work.

We’ve been hustling and bustling with packages and bows. Dodging Suburbans in parking lots and honking at stop lights. Just like the travels on their way to Jerusalem for the Census. Right?

Christmas is coming and I’m not ready.

I’m not ready for the waves. Waves of excitement. Waves of grief. Waves of anxiety that come with the planning for pulling people who love each other together in a room for a purpose we easily forget in a gift giving world.

As I drove and listened to celebrities sing about holy nights, I paused and thought of Mary. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t ask for this baby at all.

I didn’t ask for grief. For missing. For aching. For the need for reinvention and the embracing discomfort to push through to potential. I didn’t ask for the mystery of the “What the heck – this wasn’t quite how it was supposed to be” moments.

Mary didn’t either.

And yet, Jesus came.

Hope in the form of an infant, on a cold dark night and with him came the angels and the promise of healing and restoration and wholeness. Can you imagine witnessing all that potential just laying in scratchy straw?

A woman surrounded by men in awe. Probably telling her what to do – how to swaddle, where to sit, what to consider next.

And in the confusion, I’d like to hope peace came to her that night. In some form or another as she sat and wondered, “How will God use me in this?”

I’m not ready for the mysterious of mix of hurt and hope and sparkle. I’m not ready for the shadows looming, his empty chair, the small talk at holiday parties.

I’m not ready.

And yet here we are. “How will God use me in this?”

So, I start to pray.

I’m praying for the miraculous possibly found at a home-made table surrounded by beautiful, broken, seeking, healing people. I’m praying for peace as we sit among the fallen nettles of a tree-farmed pine tree under twinkling lights.

I’m praying for toasts and witnesses and a squeeze of my hands or shoulders or a kiss on the cheek. I’m praying for the Holy to come and be with us and those who can’t or won’t be in my living room.

Nine days ’til Christmas!

Turning left, I pulled into an icy parking spot at the local King Soopers. I rushed in to buy green pears and soft cheese. Simple offerings for the Holiday lunch at the office. After paying and slipping on wet linoleum, I started to fumble for my keys in my pit of a purse. Looking up, I caught sight of something special.

Both wearing printed pajamas and snow boots, two small children walked hand in hand with their tired- looking mother. They stomped and they hopped and they wrestled for a cart. Children in pajamas at the grocery store. Beautiful.
Whispered prayers and wondering hearts. Beautiful.

Incomplete to-do lists, anxieties, hopes and healing. Beautiful.

I’m not ready for Christmas – I’m guessing Mary wasn’t either.

What a beautiful thing.

Good enough for this year.

Photo by Miroslava on Unsplash

I walked in the door to grief group tonight with my arms full of bags – the worn canvas stretched as I turned to open my arms and hug the once-strangers who I now consider my friends. I bent at the waist and removed my clogs and turned and slid my mismatched socks towards the table.

Twelve courageous women laid out crackers and creamy cheese and plates of cookies to frost with store-bought frosting. We swiped crumbs off of islands and sprinkled flour on the clean counter. Relying on our resourcefulness we used a pepper grinder to roll out the dough. We cut shapes and dunked morsels in chocolate and shook green, red, and white sprinkles over pre-made cut-outs. We sat around a table and said their names and shared the multitude of complex things we feel during the holiday season.

And I stopped and thought, “Yes, this is good.”

Good enough for this year.

And earlier this week, while taking my turn at a four-way stop I apparently cut off a car coming round the blind corner. The horn shook me out of a something-thought and I proceeded to find a parking spot. I walked gingerly to the favorite kitchen store in town and met Mom to wander through familiar aisles.

Looking up from the shortbread display I grabbed my mom and I hissed, “Pause here.”

Around another blind corner, old acquaintances stood eyeing their own gifts and goodies. We pivoted, avoiding the unnecessary moment of awkward eye contact. Running into “before people” in stores on holidays earns you a pity tilt of the head and a sympathy sigh. If they are really unsure, you may get a pat on the hand as well. We turned towards the tea pots and moved through aisles to make our purchases on the other side of the store.

We had planned to spend hours together shopping, just like we used to, and instead we spent three hours talking at a new taco shop in town. At a small table in the back, next to the kitchen, we wept and we wondered how we can let go of the old and create something new.

New traditions. New expectations. New hopes and new chances to shape togetherness because the old holiday traditions will never be the same.

And as we paid the bill and walked into the winter sun, I stopped and thought, “Yes. This is good.”

Good enough for this year.

As I held my mom’s hand and looked her in the eye she said to me, “You know, we never started baking gingerbread snowflakes with the intent of that being tradition. We tried them. They were good, so we did it again.”

I’m borrowing loosely from holiday expectations this year. Different formats for making cookies. Different time spent shopping on Amazon rather than in stores. Different routines and expressions of grief and making space for the sadness our culture demands we package away in pretty red bows. Maybe we’ll do them again. Maybe we won’t.

I spent year one through three trying, pushing, forcing the holly and the jolly and it was horrible.

This year I’m stopping and thinking, “Yes, this is good.”

Good enough for this year.

What a beautiful thing.

December Favorite Things – 2019

I wrote my Christmas card this weekend and thought to myself, “Wasn’t it just August?”

You too?

Welp, here we are at the end of the year and the end of a decade. Hard to believe.

Here are a few of my favorites as I decorate my house, buy gifts for others, and blow my nose continuously because the winter cold has hit me.

Merry Merry to you and yours.

1. Advent Devotional by Ann Voskamp
  It’s the season of light and I get excited to remember how we can choose to welcome the Holy Spirit back into our lives. I read this one every year
2. Dried oranges – I followed this simple recipe and used the oranges as ornaments on my tree and tucked them in on a home made wreath. I left the sugar off because I know my dog would eat them …. Another recipe suggested tucking whole cloves in the slices. I didn’t have any and dried allspice instead and wasn’t that impressed.
3. Simmer Scents to make your house smell great naturally
4. Pair this shortbread with Scotch and toast to Roy

5. “Eight is a lot of legs David.” – the best line from Love Actually

In a completely separate request, I’m gathering answers to the question:

As a reader of 52 Beautiful Things, what do you like most about the writing?

Send an email to 52beautifulthings at gmail dot com with your response

Chim Chim Cher-ee

“Winds in the east, theres a mist comin’ in
Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin.
Can’t put me finger on what lies in store,
But I feel what’s to happen all happened before.”
– Bert – Mary Poppins

It was 60 today. They are saying snow on Tuesday.

It was August just yesterday. Thanksgiving is on Thursday.

Here I am, tonight, writing in the now, while and temperatures drop and Christmas lights go up, and lists get written down to prepare for the holiday season. Movement.

I’ve moved out of our safe-zone and into the holidays and I’m thinking of Bert and his cautionary storytelling.

Awhile back, I shared how my grief safe-zone was from the day AFTER Father’s Day to the week before Thanksgiving. As Thanksgiving is a week late this year, I promptly walked out of the safe-zone and into the field of grief triggers last Thursday. Was it 8 am or 3 pm?I couldn’t tell you. But I noticed.

The wind’s blowin’ in.

Mom’s making turkey hats, I’m writing Christmas lists, and I ordered my holiday cards. I bought a wreath hook and gingerbread cookie mix (blasphemy … sorry Mom) and started the joy-filled planning tasks while honoring the Dad-size bubbles of mash sitting on the back burner for the last few months.

The grief, still warm, starts steaming and stewing and mingling with pine and plans and memories of tree trunks and his strong love of going around the table and sharing our thanks for the miracles God provides.

Later this week I’ll share my 52 Thankfuls for this year with you.

Tonight, I’m getting out my wind-breaker to brace for the back and forth blowing all of us humans feel while crafting Hallmark holidays in a broken world.

As my grief moves, I drove through the Target parking lot and stared at the pretty trees glowing yellow with magical space in between bare branches. I stole a taster from the cookie store. I ate brunch with my family and drank a latte with another who gets the scratchy feeling our frayed heart holes have when rubbing up against the Christmas sweaters of others. Beautiful, beautiful things.

Celebrate, yes, and witness the beautiful things around you. Tend your hearts with toasty socks and mugs of something warm, and twinkly lights on boughs of delicious smelling trees.

And bring a friend some tissues, or invite your co-worker to lunch, or take an extra long bath because, while wondrous, magical, and sparkly, this time of year tends to rub on our healing wounds like the scratchy wool socks waiting for your cold toes in the back of your drawer.

Year four. Worn. Familiar. Something that’s happened before. “Can’t put me finger on what lies in store.”

Air Laced with Love

There’s a storm rolling over us right now.

God, does it sound gorgeous.

At my feet my little dog sits, her eyes slowly drifting to sleep, eyelids heavy and half open.

Rain smacks against our roof. Thunder claps.

The birds still keep tweeting.

I’ve got the windows open, despite the storm, and my little family basks in the dewey light of spring. Toes splayed out on our worn comforter we sit with devices on our laps. These are the things gratitude is made of.

Inhale deeply.

Social media is full of messages of motherhood today. I know the national holiday holds significance for women all over the country. I’m touched and feel tender from the shift happening on the internet.

The shift towards real.

So many of these posts exclaim an appreciation and understanding of how holidays, while meant to celebrate, can also exclude. For the women longing to be mothers, those estranged from their mothers or their own children. For those who kissed weary lashes and watched last breaths exit those beautiful bodies ready to be done.

Today, some men and women and children wonder and hurt and pray crying out, “F Mother’s Day”.

Thankful to those who see those who are yelling or are perhaps banging their fists silently against their own hearts.

I spent Mother’s Day weekend with my grandma and my mom in a hospital room. Grandma’s fine – had to have a few procedures done and was released earlier today. Our plans of champagne and hollandaise got replaced with jello and apple juice in small plastic cups.

I showed up. I sat in the blue chair with plastic that crinkled each time I moved my legs. From the corner I watched as caring nurses attentively gave their time and talents to Grandma. We ate cookies from plastic sandwich bags and listened to beeping screens. We breathed in the sacred air. Air laced with love tinged with concern and the miracle of modern medicine.

chair

Down the hall, in the ICU, families waited and breathed slowly and slept on couches in waiting rooms. I did not have to celebrate in that space. Not yet. That space holds a heavier kind of pain.

Losing someone has heightened my awareness and piqued my ears up towards all the ways our culture tells us we should be celebrating.

Today, I do not dread, but I know my time is coming. Father’s Day lurks quietly around June’s approaching corner. Soon start the advertisements for ties, barbecue grills, beer and outdoor adventures. Lowes and Home Depot will taunt me. My dad didn’t like many of those things anyway and he already had so many ties.

I’ll swerve and veer and navigate my own loss as we move towards another national day of recognition.

So today, here I sit, with toes splayed out, resting in the delicious balance of rain, of unknowns, of love. I say thanks for imperfection and for storms and for nurses. For those who have mothered me in a million trillion ways. And for another beautiful opportunity to remember those who live – in hospital rooms, in text messages, in our hearts and our dreams.