Charmed

I have never had a charm bracelet, but I always wanted one. I thought that the idea of a piece of jewelry that changed over time with the addition of gold and silver memories was just so cool. A trip to the zoo could provide an animal charm that marked the shocking first glimpse of a live lion. I loved charms that were detailed and unique and had tiny moving hinges.

But it always seemed that charm bracelets were a family thing, handed down from generation to generation as memories hewn in metal were passed from mother to daughter. And in our house, that wasn’t something that would have occurred to my mom.

The idea of collecting charms and adding them to a simple metal chain until it chimed when the wind blew would have been a very foreign concept for her. That’s probably because she was a piano teacher whose hands flew across keyboards and the idea of anything jangling on those flying wrists was a wild distraction.

The subject of charm bracelets came up once again because the first novel of my writing mentor/friend Wade Rouse is coming out this month – and wow – it is a powerful tribute to the intergenerational connections of mothers to daughters and granddaughters. Perhaps not surprisingly, the book is entitled “The Charm Bracelet” and he’s written in the name of his grandmother, Viola Shipman.

It’s one of those beautiful novels that makes you want to read as fast as possible to keep up with the women whose stories come alive on the page, and at the same time, you want to slowly savor each scene and phrase so that the characters can stay in your life a little longer.

This creating-imaginary-worlds-in-a-novel is all new for Wade. He is an extraordinary memoirist with books that cover his childhood in the Ozarks, his career as a Mommy handler at a tony private school, and his decision to pack in his “real” job for the writing life in rural Michigan.  In turns hilarious, biting, and poignant, Wade’s memoirs reveal the smart, funny man that he is. What you can’t really know until you meet him is that he’s one of those unique types of humans – a gracious creative.

Although I’m sure he struggles with the angst and anxiety that is part of life for all writers, artists and musicians, he also graciously shares what he knows and has learned with wannabe-writers in workshops and retreats hosted with his husband Gary Edwards. Together they demonstrate such a generosity of spirit that their fans span the country, and we’re all excited for his summer book tour that will land in independent book stores wherever people gather to read.

This novel is coming out by the end of the month, but is available for pre-order now. Here’s his website http://waderouse.com/content/index.asp so you can follow his summer travels and watch for an opportunity to hear him read - and get the book.

And now I’m running out to get a charm bracelet for my daughter. Never too late to start!

One Forgets

Winter version of Lake Harriett Bandshell.

Four winters in Southern California and suddenly all is new again with the Minnesota version of this season.

That crinkly sensation from frozen nose hairs? Ah yes – there it is.

Duck stepping along the yet-to-be-shoveled back walk? Treads become a necessary feature of all footwear.

The shock of temperatures on the negative teens side of the scale? Layers, layers, layers, and don’t forget the gloves.

Hand cream, and lots of it, is always in my bag and face cream is not optional for those of us who are of a certain age. It’s remarkable how drying a deep cold can be.

I expected it to be dry in the desert Southwest. But I forgot that the desert has nothing over a walk on a frozen lake at 15 below zero. Your body screams for moisture when back inside – well, moisture and heat.

I remember my mom and her cold cream – Pond’s Cold Cream. She was very disciplined about her nightly ritual that involved a healthy slather on her face and neck. And now that I’m older than she ever experienced, I’m finding that her discipline was something I should have picked up a decade or so ago. Ah well – we start where we are.

There are other things I forgot about winter in Minnesota.

I forgot the deep urge to gather friends around a table laden with steaming soup to share stories and argue politics in the safety of the progressive predictability of this state.

I forgot how comfortable a crackling fire could be with a wind blown sound track taking place safely outside of the house

I forgot about the different types of snow that keep it interesting, ranging from micro, fluttery snow flakes to those big massive flakes that hit like a cold wet kiss on your check.

I forgot about “stupid cold weather tricks” that include this year’s phenomenon of posing frozen pants in the yard. We haven’t gotten around to flinging pans of boiling water into freezing air to hear the crackle and pop as it crystalizes. Nor have we blown soap bubbles to watch them freeze and shatter as they hit the ground. Yet.

And I forgot about the deep clear blue of a Minnesota sky that can light up the snow, making the world sparkle for the day.

Yes, my California friends, it’s still good to be home despite the 80-degree difference in temperature. Once you’ve experienced 15 below, the rest is balmy. 

Sweet Melancholy

Sunset reflections in Poipu Beach.

Now that we’re back on the North Coast of the country with its extremely long nights surrounding the winter solstice, I’ve rediscovered the sweet melancholy of this time of year.

It’s connected somehow to the collapsing of time that happens as I work my way through the disheveled address book that I use to log the annual cards we send at year’s end. As I work through the alphabet of pages, I see names of people who were very dear for a portion of life’s journey, and now our paths have diverged and I’ve lost their whereabouts.

I stare at the names, wondering if life has treated them well, or vice versa – then move on to the next name on the list. There are the names with a single line through that tells me that they’ve passed on to a place where no cards are delivered. I pause on those names and remember dear faces, and move on once again.

This annual process has become a cherished part of the season of long nights despite the minor hassles entailed. Do we have a decent family photo this year? How can I avoid a schmaltzy annual letter? Are annual letters even a thing in this Facebook immersed world of ours? Where did I put that Zazzle password? And new this year was the emerging aches of – could it be – arthritis in the writing hand.

But I’ve learned over the past 30-some years that when I take a break from the annual process, I feel a sense of loss. It’s comforting to work through that list of names with remembered faces and moments in time. There are the families who were part of our early years as parents; those couples who became traveling friends before children slowed down our wandering; friends from early jobs, childhood, college, and pre-Jacques escapades. Then there are the geographic friendships – great humans in the right place when we needed them, and then one of us moved and everything changed.

The truly precious are those who remain dear despite separations of time, geography, and experience. Those who contain a piece of who we were then and who love us anyway are so important to who we can still become in these next chapters.

So as the calendar turns to the critical, yet comical, chaos of an upcoming election year, we send our best for a 2016 full of health, happiness, and meaningful moments in spite of it all. 

Letting Go

Shades of the '80s.

The annual Pantone color designations for 2016 were a surprise. Ever interested in maintaining my slavish devotion to all things trendy, I was very stunned to realize that the ’16 pastels of the year – Rose Quartz and Serenity (blue) – were curiously similar to the trendy colors of the early/mid 80s when my friends were getting married.

I know that because I’ve been schlepping a collection of bridesmaid dresses cross-country for the past 30 years.  Featuring shimmering taffeta folds, poufy sleeves, and necklines that reflect the awkward hang of a fabric not meant to drape, this collection of wedding memories have occupied a corner of a basement closet that is rarely visited in the Minneapolis house.

The weddings themselves were memorable – with or without the physical swoosh of the stored dresses. Although not all of the marriages lasted as long as the dresses, the women remain friends – and would probably be surprised to know the dresses are still here.

The Pantone news release reminded me of the style dictum – if you were old enough to have worn the fashion the first time around, you’re too old to wear it again. And I was never ever going to wear those dresses again.

Originally, I had used my daughter as the excuse to keep the dresses. What if she wanted to wear one to a high school dance? Right…

But truth be told, I was holding on to a period of time that I remembered as filled with the potential and promise of youth. I remembered the sheer bravery of leaping into marriage in our 20s, launching new careers, imagining the life of a grown up hosting dinner parties with lifelong friends, and actually raising children.

Fast-forward 30-some years and that’s where we are now. We leapt, we launched, we figured out place settings, and now travel to spend time with grown children who forgive us for most of our mistakes.

And that’s when I knew it was time to let go of the dresses – to take them where they might be enjoyed. Since the dress colors are now trendy, there are young ladies who might enjoy remaking them into something stylish for Spring 2016 dances (poufy sleeves, be gone).

It has been a year of letting go of the things of life that are an unnecessary anchor. The things that hold back the brave acts of our next chapters. Some of those are physical things, some the mental and emotional baggage of stored memories. That’s my resolution for 2016 – to let go of all that doesn’t serve the future, which definitely includes bridesmaid dresses from the 1980s. 

Change

Dylan mural by Brazilian artist Kobra - completed summer 2015 in downtown Minneapolis.

As the leaves move from brilliant reds and yellows into the burnt oranges and browns of late fall, I’ve been thinking about change and how hard it can be.

Think about it. We should be used to change – it’s all around us.

We’re surrounded by ever shifting seasons as this globe whirls through our oblong path through space – so we know cyclic change well.  Up here on the northern coast of the country we’re doing our winter preparation rituals – getting the leaves off the lawn before snow pack arrives, Costco shopping binges just in case we need an extra 36 rolls of toilet paper in a snowstorm, that sort of thing.

Somehow that context doesn’t help when it comes to personal change. Moving through the process of saying goodbye to the collected furnishings and accumulated stuff of my dear departed mother-in-law’s place in Madrid was really hard work. And now that’s done. It’s still sad.

We’re in the final stages of construction chaos with the home improvement projects our 111-year-old house announced it needed upon our return to Minneapolis. I am looking forward to less dust and fewer people banging on walls – yet, I already miss Al, the tile guy, with his long, long stories and curiosity.

My dad was good at change. He left life on the farm to go to the city. He said he just didn’t like working with horses. They nipped at him. But I think it’s because he liked to solve the problems of change that were part of the emerging mid-century industrial landscape.

He was a mechanical engineer and he designed and redesigned factory floors to make the process of manufacturing more efficient. He loved clean simple modern design and applauded the tear down of the frilly buildings of the 1800s that were replaced by modern 1950s box-like structures.

“So much cleaner looking,” he’d say. He liked the change that modernity brought.

For me, it’s hard not to miss what was. Whether it was the Victorian buildings of my old hometown, the family apartment in Madrid we visited for 30 years, or the experience of the glorious summer and early fall of 2015. 

One thing I know for certain – this, too, shall pass.  But it makes me curious - how do you deal with change?

Construction Playground

A glimpse at the backyard, minus garage, pre-concrete pour...

There are big burly men in our backyard yelling at each other.

“Up one,” shouts the first.

“What?” in response.

“Up one!” in a much louder voice.

This exchange has something to do with aligning the frame before the concrete guys show up to pour later this morning.

And it’s 7 a.m. on a beautiful fall morning, which means the sounds carry swiftly through the crisp air.

This neighborhood that is our home has developed some immunity to morning noises as it lies in a flight path for the busy MSP airport. But I wonder whether this assault on morning grogginess might just put my neighbors over the top.

When we arrived home this spring, we saw our 111-year-old house with newly critical eyes for some of its needed updates.  The mid-century siding – yes, actual tin siding – was definitely due for an update.

Then there was the upstairs bathroom that suffered the comparison with some of the wonderful showers we had experienced in California. So that was on the project list.

And finally, our neighbor with the charming cottages was seeking off-street parking for his bride-to-be, and negotiated a perpetual easement onto our property in exchange for building us a new garage, with a stall for his car.

We really worked to have all of these bids and contracts sequenced one after the other in a well-planned order.

Best laid plans and all – all three projects are taking place within the same block of time. So the siding guys, the garage guys, and the bathroom guys are competing for space in the dumpster and on the decibel scale.

We take some small comfort in knowing that this too shall pass and by November, it will be quiet and tidy on Sheridan Avenue – in time for a lovely blanket of snow.

And for the neighbors, I should schedule a soup party open house to offer some pay back for their rude awakenings this month.  Hope they forgive us.

Outrage Fatigue

Image borrowed from a typewriter blog - really!

It’s been a summer of outrageous events in the world and, frankly, I’m tired of it all.

From the South Carolina church murders to the slaughter of Cecil the Lion and now yesterday’s social media massacre – these are gut-wrenching actions. Then there is the ongoing migration of thousands of families running from home to seek peace elsewhere in the world, the full-fledged evil of ISIS’ destructive intent, and the sideshow circus of early political rambles in this country.

It all deserves careful dialogue, discourse, and thoughtful problem solving. But mostly this summer, these events are leading to reactive outrage. It’s exhausting.

One can only hold onto outrage for so long before it causes a collapse in one’s view of the world. 

A bit of background here – I tend towards optimism. Some have accused me of being irrationally positive in the face of facts that should lead to cynical skepticism of the intent of others.  But I reject that criticism. 

Despite headlines that would suggest otherwise, my personal experience with humans of all kinds has caused me to believe that most people are basically good. And that this country of my birth is founded on values and principles I treasure.

But it’s been tough to hold on this summer. Voices from media of all kinds have been screaming for my attention to issues great and small. It has been hard to decide where to protest first – a dentist’s office in Bloomington, MN, the #BlackLivesMatter marches connected to a number of summer festivals, or last weekend’s topless gathering for women’s equality.

When I was a child, moments of outrage in our home came with the clack of a typewriter. Mom would scroll in her carbon-sandwiched onionskin typing paper, clack the arm over the carriage, and settle in to write a solid screed to the hometown newspaper.

“This has to stop!” began many a letter to the editor. Whether an increase in property taxes, attacks on the music program in the schools, or bad behavior by teens, mom would dive into her personal perspective on what was wrong with the world.

Typing on a manual typewriter, particularly those from the 1930s, requires finger strength. My piano-playing/teaching mother had very strong fingers so that typewriter clicked and clacked, ignoring the occasional missed letter as the words and outrage flowed onto the page.

When she was done, she felt better. She had articulated the frustration and anger as best she could and now all she needed was a stamp. It probably wasn’t an accident that my father offered to mail those letters for her. Looking back, I’m pretty sure some of those letters were never mailed at all. Mom always wondered why few of her letters were ever published, and now I’m guessing my father had a hand in that.

Sometimes outrage merely needs an outlet on the page, never to be published.

Personally? I’m going to the Minnesota State Fair today. Nothing restores my optimistic view of life more than a day at the Fair, Minnesota’s Great Get Together. Friends and neighbors submit their best baking, art and crafts hoping for a ribbon for the effort. New vendors and foods on a stick make an appearance. And there’s a smile on most of the faces one greets.

That doesn’t solve the impact of the outrageous events of this summer. It’s merely a balm for the tired soul. 

Bonus Time

One of Mom's favorite photos taken by my Dad for her music teaching publicity - I love the 1960s hairdo.

My mother died when she was the age I am now. It’s a somewhat startling realization that what had seemed like a ripe old age is actually not.

When Mom died, I was 22. It was unexpected and quite dramatic much as she lived her life. One minute she was packing her suitcases for a planned trip to Mexico with my father and the next…well, it turned out the tingling in her arms was indeed the sign of a heart attack waiting to happen.

My mother was three months shy of her 60th birthday when she died. Everyone said she was too young to go. That was the one consistent thing we heard at the memorial service in our hometown.

“Your mother was so vibrantly alive,” said one family friend. “It’s just such a shock. She was too young to die.” 

Aren’t we all, really?

I’ve encountered a few peaceful souls who after nine, even ten, decades of life look forward to what’s next. They have seemed almost eager to experience the implied opportunity to meet up with parents and friends who preceded them in the journey to next. I hope that’s true.

Right now, however, I’m not one of those and I’ve realized in a very personal way how much more my mother had hoped to see in her life. 

She never knew her son or daughters-in-law. She never met her grandchildren. She never experienced family holidays with the progeny of her own children gathered around the table. She loved the concept of those types of gatherings despite the reality of the angst those preparations caused for her perfectionist self. 

There is no genetic reason to think that my lifespan would equal hers. My brother and I were adopted into our family, leaving our genetic background somewhat of a blank slate for our lifestyle choices and behaviors to fill in. 

I’ve recognized that in a few months I will have exceeded her time with us. And that has me looking at the years to come as bonus time.  A time to be relished, enjoyed as special, spent meaningfully with those I love, and most of all, for gratitude that time exists.