My Thoughts Today are Far Away

2016 has begun to be the year about passings. But it had a head start. 2015 was pretty much a downer too.... 

And now that I think about it, 2014 had its moments. And it's been going on like this forever, hasn't it?.... Since time began.... Maybe now that I'm old I'm just noticing it more. 

My poor parents; I was aware of Death at a very early age and was traumatized by the thought of it. I felt Death constantly eyeing me from a distance, but back then at least it stalked me from afar. 

Death dreams began at an early age, too. Very real and vivid. I can still remember them. And every time I woke from one I was sad and couldn't explain why. I hadn't the words to describe what had happened in my sleep, only the lingering feelings of freedom and peace and relief, and the longing I had of capturing the memory of those feelings before they'd slip away so that I could replay it again whenever I was afraid of dying. Which was immediately, of course. Dreams may be remembered, but feelings in dreams just disappear.... 

Losing my grandfathers at a young age both hurt and helped. It was comforting to know that Death now had someone with him that I recognized, someone who'd be there to catch and hug me if (still wasn't mature enough to think in terms of 'when') the ride came to an end.

As an adult with kids and problems and jobs and not enough hours in the day, I didn't think about Death much. I was too busy. Yes, we'd meet at the occasional funeral and nod to each other like distant acquaintances, but those times were blessedly few and far between. There were no Death dreams like before. I did dream of dead loved ones, however, and they were always eager to allay my fears, and that helped. But only until I woke....

But now that I’m approaching my 60th birthday I feel like Death has parked a trailer in my backyard and waves hello to me every time I look out the window….

I hate that.

But I'm kind of getting used to it.

Nevermind nodding pleasantly to each other; occasionally now we even chat. I can look into his face and be OK with what I see there. And sometimes we can even joke and laugh together. The fact that he's taken to dressing like an old friend instead of the Ghost of Christmas Future has helped TONS, of course.

Know what else helps tons? There are so many familiar figures now at the end of that ride to catch and hug me when it ends.
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Friday Thoughts for 1/8/16

Hooray for the week's BEST day.

The weather here is supposed to be cold and possibly snowy for the next couple days (it is Minnesota in January, after all), and that just makes me think about hunkering down in front of the TV (like normal) and eating my way through the weekend (like normal). If someone doesn't pay me to stop putting food in my mouth, I'm afraid I'll explode here....

Last weekend it was Downton Abbey reruns leading up to the first episode of this year's final season. This weekend? Not sure, exactly, but there are so many possibilities! And I'm open to suggestions for anyone who cares to share.

That being said, here we go with today's musings. And have a happy Weekend Eve!

FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT (from The HappyBook by Barbara Ann Kipfer):

1.      Old political cartoons. (And old favorite comic strips.)

2.      Grandmothers. (YES! They are so important, aren’t they? Dear God/dess, please make me an important one. Thank you.)

3.      Flash Gordon. (I’ll admit I’m not at all familiar with him, Buck Rogers, or any of the other space adventurers. Except ‘Spaceman Spiff.’ LOVE Spaceman Spiff….)

4.      Talking to yourself. (If this were an Olympic event, I’d be its record-holding gold medalist. Forever.)

5.      Baby bunting. (I can’t see the word ‘bunting’ now without immediately thinking of the delightful swags I saw in every cute English shop in Derbyshire. So ‘baby bunting’, to me, paints pictures of a fairytown with garlands of little triangles arching from one tiny mushroom tea shop to the next.)

My FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

1.      A snack of seasoned almonds.

2.      ModPodge™ and the ideas it sparks….

3.      A robe so soft it must be made of clouds and angel hair.

4.      Pigeon tracks in the new-fallen snow.

5.      A package in the mail.

Your FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

            (Don’t hold back. Knock yourself out!)

SOMETHING (I think is) COOL:

Today’s cool item is courtesy of online free spirit Rob Brezsny:

Slate has created a compendium of the best things that happened each day in 2015. Here are ten of the best:

1. Nigeria bans female genital mutilation.
2. HIV protection is effective in African women.
3. Hunger has become much less severe in the past 15 years.
4. States' juvenile prison populations drop.
5. Homelessness declined 11 percent in the U.S. from 2010 to 2015.
6. Reforestation effort in Ecuador breaks world record.
7. Africa has its first polio-free year.
8. New Ebola vaccine is highly effective.
9. Energy storage technology, which is crucial for solar power, is making great progress.
10. People taking pre-exposure prophylaxis are staying HIV-free.

(See the best events of the other 355 days at this link.)

Because sometimes we need some good news, right?

A LITTLE SOMETHING:

I noticed that some ‘interesting’ books have been left recently in my Little Free Library. Books with covers featuring glowering women in tight corsets and shirtless men with sculpted abs…. James and I checked them out and determined that even though they feature some suggestive art on the covers they are written for high-school aged kids. What the heck?? My library gets frequent visitors, and on New Year’s Eve alone we noticed children checking it out no less than half-a-dozen times. Were they there because of these suggestive books? Has one teen taken it upon themselves to teach me the lesson that young people nowadays aren’t at all interested in National Velvet or Where the Red Fern Grows or A Wrinkle in Time? Hmmmmm. Well! The little monkeys SHOULD be because they have no idea what they're missing. So there....

LIFE AT TUMBLEDOWN:

I finished my first ever decoupage project recently and I like it. And yesterday was tea and talk with the recipient of the decoupage project. She likes it, too. Whew!

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

Enjoy your weekend, my friend. Mix up a batch of garlicky hummus, or oniony salmon dip, or creamy guacamole. Then open the crackers and binge-watch something fun. What will you be queuing up? Please tell me all about it. :)

See you Moonday,

…me.

A Snippet of My Today

I’ve inherited a pigeon. It just showed up one day around Christmas and has been a frequent visitor ever since. I’m a bit surprised that it’s alone as I always suspected they hung out in big social flocks. But James and I both think it cannot fly. At least we’ve never seen it fly. We’ve approached it and everything and it just runs away….

Originally I took to calling it The Major because it struts. But that changed to The Dowager because it cocks its head comically like Maggie Smith’s character in ‘Downton Abbey.’ And today I’m thinking it looks a bit like Downton’s butler ‘Carson’ because its beak is large and I think I heard it ‘harrumph’. But Maj. Dowager Carson sounds excessive. So for now it’s still ‘It’….

Of course I’ve left food out for it (you’re surprised, aren’t you?) but my resident juvenile squirrels are experiencing their first Tumbledown winter. If something looks, smells, resembles, or even whispers the word ‘food’ they’ll eat it. Not only have they bullied the pigeon away from its meal, I’m afraid it’ll be dessert if it’s not careful…. 

There’ve been times when the Squirrel Gang has swooped down on my feeder and wreaked violent havoc, and then I’ve not seen the pigeon for over a day. I’m afraid to hunt around too carefully then (don’t want to look behind the garbage bin and see something traumatizing), and am always elated when it shows up at the doorstep, patiently awaiting its handout. Like today. I looked out the back door and there it was on the step, its feathers all fat and fluffy in the cold and its red eye trained on the door like it expected Room Service to arrive at any moment. (It did. Who could resist? Not me.)

The only ever time I’ve had a similar situation was years ago when the little neighbor boy brought me a mourning dove because his mom wouldn’t let him keep it. That dove couldn’t fly either. I promised him I’d take care of it and he could visit whenever he wanted, but he forgot about it after that. I fed the dove what I thought was a quality meal and made sure it had gravel, greens, and water. And rest. Weeks later it surprised me by flying up to a curtain rod (yes, I had it in my house; you have no idea how much I’ve been resisting bringing the pigeon indoors….). And a week or so later when another single mourning dove appeared outside, calling, I released it and they flew away together. Success. Recalling that, I routinely add grains, greens, and gravel to the pigeon’s mix and hope it gets a taste, at least, before the squirrels come leaping the fence.

So we’ll see....

James keeps reminding me that its existence would be warmer and safer if I had only let him get me that chicken coop for Christmas. I might just have to finally take him up on that. :)

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For You From Me (and Good Earth Tea)

Moonday Thotz for The New Year

It’s a New Year. And can you believe it’s really 2016? 2016….! Wow….

I’m looking at it in my head -- the years spiraling backwards into the last century -- and it is a bit overwhelming. I love period dramas and books about the Victorian/Edwardian eras, and they make me wonder how it must’ve felt for someone then to see the end of one century and the beginning of another. And yet here I am – here we are – doing just that, and it doesn’t feel weird at all. Just feels like life plodding on….

Anyway.

Due to all sorts of computer-y mayhem in the OLD year, I’ve not written a single Thot since I-Don’t-Know-When-Exactly, but I feel like getting back to them now. And I’ve forgotten the format of these messages (I’m sure I could find it if I wasn’t so lazy), so I’ll wing it until things feel comfortable, OK? But I do know that we start with this:

FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT (from The HappyBook by Barbara Ann Kipfer):

(Me here: I will pick up where I think we left off….)

1. Bowls of vegetables being passed.
2. "Closed" signs.
3. A Sunday feast of pot roast or plump roasted chicken.
4. A tin lizzie.
5. Learning the harmonica.

My FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

1. Love, laughter, and lutefisk with family at Christmastime.
2. Ringing in the New Year with champagne, cookies, and reruns of Downton Abbey.
3. Saying goodbye to all the holiday cocooning. (It was fun while it lasted, though.)
4. A breakfast that doesn't consist of peanut brittle and homemade butterbeer fudge....
5. Hope for this New Year.

Short and sweet! Best not to be too wordy so you get sick of me right from the get-go.

Enjoy your Monday, my friend.

…me.

P.S. Please visit www.thingstobehappyabout.com to learn more about Ms. Kipfer and her wonder-filled book.

Happy Solstice

It's less than a handful of days before Christmas here in Minne-snow-tah, and there's NO SNOW. I'm having a heckuva time getting into the spirit....

Feeling a bit desperate today, I tried wrapping gifts while listening to instrumental holiday music. I enjoyed some eggnog, took a bite or two (or ten) of peanut brittle, and even threw a top hat on my wraith -- "Old Blue Eyes" -- and dubbed him the Ghost of Christmas Future. But his Dickens vibe still didn't put me over the edge. And Dickens always puts me over the edge at Christmastime....

There were cards in the mail and brown paper packages (sans string) on the doorstep. And snow could be smelled on the air....

Still.... No 'holly jolly.'

I stood for a long moment at the front door and breathed in the scents of woodsmoke and the promise of snow. Twilight had come early in tints of slate and lavender. My Little Free Library was a shadow at the curb. Rowanberries trembled on their branches in the chilly December gusts, while a rabbit sheltered beneath the tree in a stand of frozen coneflower heads.... 

Suddenly I got it. And gone were thoughts of Burl Ives and Toys R Us and Amazon Wish Lists and whether or not I should schedule a haircut before Christmas. I'd been focusing on the wrong stuff.

(*Deep breath*)

So now I pour myself a glass of wine and raise a toast to that rabbit, that twilight, those shadows and wintry scents. And to you.

May the season wrap you in its wintry arms and fill your heart and spirit with peace. Happy Solstice.

Love,
...me.

Focusing on Sparkles

Something on Facebook this morning triggered a full-blown case of the panics (dang anxiety....), so I've spent my day working hard to focus on sparkles. Here are a few of them:

• A decent night's sleep.
• Soft clothes! (And matching socks.)
• A long walk in the wintry wind.
• Wispy clouds across a robin's-egg sky.
• Hearing the mailman at my front door.
• A postcard from a dear friend.
• Cat on my lap, cockatiel at my shoulder, and a sleepy rattie in my pocket.
• Twilight shadows in a silent house....
• The hum of the fridge and the rhythm of the faux firelog.
• Mac-and-cheese thoughts of tonight's supper....
• The liquid jade color and sweet seafoam taste of my cup of matcha tea latte.
• Typing to YOU.

Love you, my friend. I hope your day has sparkles in it, too.

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