My Undo List

 

Here comes Baby New Year, dragging a sack full of self-improvement behind him.  Lose weight!  Exercise!  Learn a new language!  Organize your life!  Marie Osmond, the Rosetta Stone people, and Oprah Winfrey will show us the way.

And so I give in to the urge to resolve.  The notion of reinvention is too alluring, like an untouched snow bank.  It’s easy to replace my Christmas “to do” list with a list for building a better Rita.

List, shmist.  Enough with the addition.  I’m moving on to subtraction.

I’m not giving up.  I’m letting go. 

I still see each new year, each new day, as a repository of possibilities.  As 2014 approaches I wonder what experiences it will hold.  But I don’t plan to greet midnight with a long “to do” list designed to fix me once and for all.

Instead, I resolve to release a few things.  I’m dropping dreams that suited an 18-year-old but don’t fit the person I’ve become---some visions are built to last while others are as transient as leisure suits.   I’ll also show those evil Wonder Twins, Guilt and Regret, the door.  That one will definitely require divine assistance.  I don’t want to become impervious to the convicting power of Guilt, but I’m tired of carrying it without cause.   As for Regret, he’s a nasty little fellow who promises to keep his distance only if I manage to live an error-free life, and that’s not likely.  Keeping him at bay will require daily doses of grace.

My archenemy, Perfectionism, will not go gently into the night.  But I’m learning---slowly---that the secret to winning that battle lies in the small victories.  A mug in my kitchen is emblazoned with this saying:  “Strive for excellence, not perfection.”  I keep that little motto in mind as I write.  Only One is perfect and He doesn’t expect me to be.  He just asks me to follow His lead and be the person He had in mind before I was born.

Would you like to travel with less baggage through 2014?  Don’t give up.  Just let go.

Happy New Year!

  

 

 

 

 

 

       

My Christmas Soundtrack

Silent night?  No, thank you.  No disrespect to Mr. Mohr and Mr. Gruber and their carol, although it’s not my favorite---I always strain to hit the high notes in the “sleep in heavenly peace” part.  I think Christmas should be anything but silent; it should be filled from bottom to top with music.

I share my father’s love of all things Christmas: The holy and the worldly, the Nativity and the tinsel.  It’s not surprising that the grief I felt at his passing started to heal in earnest at a Christmas Eve service three months later.  The music spoke directly to my heart in a way no words could, and provided complete assurance that Daddy was just fine.

I've collected Christmas songs and carols for as long as I can remember.  I sang them to my sleepless babies and I sang them to my preschoolers as I pushed them on swings.  I still sing them softly to myself as I shop.

I can’t pin down which tune is my favorite, but I can tell you which ones comprise my Christmas soundtrack.  Here goes:

“Up on the Housetop”:  Okay, so it’s nothing fancy, but this song was always part of the annual Christmas Eve show my older sister and I put on for our parents.  Their anniversary was December 24 and our performance was our gift to them.  My sister is almost eight years older than I, but she treated me like a partner in this annual production.  I wish I could remember more of the details of our shows but I can picture the programs we wrote and decorated, the muted light of our living room, and Mama and Daddy smiling at us from their seats on the sofa.  (And don’t forget to snap your fingers at the “Click, click, click” line.) 

“Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle!” “O Tannenbaum,” and “Adeste Fideles”:  These carols carry memories of my time at the Episcopal school I started attending in sixth grade.  I found the Latin version of “O Come, All Ye Faithful" in a hymnal shortly after I started Latin classes and I considered myself quite the scholar when I memorized it.  Mr. Olechovsky, my high school French teacher, taught us “Un Flambeau” and the original German version of “Oh Christmas Tree” although I can’t remember why.  I don’t believe we sang it in a school program.  There didn’t have to be a reason; Mr. O was excited about teaching and we wound up excited about learning.

“Here Comes Santa Claus” (the Gene Autry version, of course):  I heard this song on the radio as a newlywed.  Mr. Pettit and I were driving in our new hometown one night when Mr. Autry came on the radio.  This was long before we owned a library of Christmas music, so we had to depend on the gentle mercies of radio programmers.  Hearing the opening notes was akin to receiving an unexpected gift. I don’t know why this moment is engraved in my memory, but I can recall the warmth of that darkened cocoon and listening to a verse about how Santa knows we’re all God’s children and that makes everything right.

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”:  After Mr. Pettit entered the Air Force most of our Christmases were spent far away from our families in South Carolina.  We created our own rituals with our sons, but this song still makes me cry.  “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”    

“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” as performed by Mannheim Steamroller:  I became acquainted with Mannheim Steamroller when we lived outside Omaha, Nebraska.  I put the group’s “A Fresh Aire Christmas” cassette in my car’s player and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” came up first.  The energy of their rendition surged through me and I felt all was right with the world.

“December” by George Winston and “Holiday Songs and Lullabies” by Shawn Colvin:  I don’t have specific moments tied to these two albums, but they’re too good not to mention.  Listen to either one and your blood pressure will drop by at least ten points.  Bliss.

As I skid from task to task during the Christmas season it’s hard to see beyond my “to do” list and pay attention to the moments flying past.  Familiar songs help me stop and get my bearings.  What is on your Christmas soundtrack?  Which songs hold special meaning for you?

Merry Christmas!

Where Do I Send My Thank You Note?

“To Whom Do We Give Thanks?”

I pass the local Unitarian Universalist church every time I head to town and I always look at their sign to see the sermon topic for the week.  I imagine we don’t agree on much when it comes to theology, but I think the title for last Sunday was right on the mark.

This won’t be a column about how Thanksgiving winds up squished between a witch on a broomstick and Santa on a sleigh.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m as fired up about the holiday’s minor league status as anybody, but something else has been preying on my mind.  It’s this:  Thanksgiving forces us to choose sides.  You must decide if there’s Someone to thank.

Halloween is a religious holiday for some, but for most Americans it’s a time for small goblins to get free candy and adults to look ridiculous.  Christmas developed a split personality long ago, with the Christ Child and Santa Claus vying for dominance.  “A Charlie Brown Christmas” vs. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

But we haven’t figured out how to strip Thanksgiving of its meaning.  Yes, each year more retailers decide to start “Black Friday” 24 hours early, and I cede the fact that the fourth Thursday of November is at risk of becoming National Shopping Day.  But Thanksgiving by definition involves thankfulness.

To whom do I give thanks?  I thank my husband for opening the door for me, the lady at Target for carefully wrapping the picture frames I purchased, my sons for remembering my birthday, my friends for listening to my rambles.  But who do I thank for those people?  For both stranger-to-stranger kindness and love and friendship woven through decades?

For me, the answer is as clear as Wyoming's sub-zero air.  There is only One to Whom I must give thanks on all days and in all circumstances. 

Thank You, God, for everything.

Baked Goods

Life is a cookie, not a cake.

Credit (or blame) my Southern upbringing, but I tend to use food in my examples and illustrations.  I'm a substitute teacher, and when I teach a lesson about even and odd numbers to first-graders I'll talk about how two friends can share four pieces of pizza evenly but not three.  If I come to the word "want" on a spelling test I'll say "I want to go to the party," where there will be food, of course.

So it's not surprising that I'd turn to a calorie-driven metaphor when connecting three times of fellowship in the past month.  Almost three weeks ago Mr. Pettit and I spent the weekend with some friends from college.  Last week we drove about an hour and a half to celebrate Older Son's birthday with him and his wife.  This weekend Younger Son and his wife visited us.

Time shatters illusions, especially the fantasy that we'll always have more of it, unfolding before us like a stretch of deserted beach.  When our little boys were blasting through the house like a derecho, leaving dirty sneakers and cereal bowls in their wake, we took those unbroken spans of time for granted.  We could squint and spot the empty nest in the distance but it was so far away we pretended it was a mirage.

Now I can see that life is a cookie, not a cake.  Moments are bite-sized, meant to be savored as stand-alone treats.  You can't enjoy a full day in one gulp any more than you can consume a whole cake in one bite. You don't get the option of gobbling up chunks of life all at once; you get one cookie at a time. 

When I think about life as a collection of moments the goodbyes sting a little less. It shifts my perspective from what I don't have and, indeed, can't have---the cake---to what I do have: A beautiful plate of cookies.  And unlike the chocolate chip variety, I can have these cookies and eat them too:

Waving rally towels at a football game along with friends who know us and still like us
Receiving a parting hug from a son
Strolling to a dock on the Potomac, taking in the lights of National Harbor in the distance
Catching a glimpse of my little boy during a game of table tennis
Listening to a preschooler's prayer

Bon appetit!






                                                    
  

Keeping Score

I came to the faith as an adult.

I grew up in the Church of Hardwood, trained in the liturgy of free throws, jump shots, and Smith’s Four Corners offense.  My parents, North Carolina natives, had Tobacco Road in their DNA.  They were N.C. State Wolfpack believers, and the team’s 1974 championship is one of my sweetest memories.  I don’t need Google to recall the names of my favorite starters: David Thompson, Monte Towe, and Tom Burleson.  Mama spoke of “little Monte” (he was only 5’7”) with affection, the son she never had.

Columbia College, the girls’ school I attended for my freshman and sophomore years, held an annual powder puff football game. In a moment of hope and insanity I decided to play.  I don’t think I had ever even held a football before.  I attended every practice faithfully, looking forward to my athletic debut.  Daddy even drove to Columbia for the big game.  Alas, I didn’t come off the bench for a single play.  Apparently the professor who served as our coach was under the impression he was Bear Bryant vying for a national championship.

 

Football, you stink.

Seasons passed and I moved on to other things.  Even my love of basketball was pushed aside by work, marriage, and children.  I went through a dry spell, sports-wise, until 1991, when Older Son discovered the Atlanta Braves.  The Braves played the Minnesota Twins in the World Series that year, and although they didn’t win the championship they claimed our little boy’s heart.

Eventually ESPN’s “SportsCenter” grabbed “The Today Show” by the jersey and threw it to the sidelines.  Like a stranger in a strange land I started to learn the language and local customs.  I knew who was in contention in any sport at any given time and who had been left behind to lick their wounds until next year.  And football started to look good.

I belong to the collegiate sect.  I rooted for the Nebraska Cornhuskers when we lived outside Omaha.  ("Go Big Red!")  I shivered in the stands at the Air Force Academy, where I witnessed the best opening act in football: Flyovers by military aircraft and an actual falcon.  (I always wondered if that bird would fly away one day.)

Since moving to Virginia, I've gone to games at James Madison University, Older Son's alma mater ("J-M-U wish you had a Duke dog!"); Virginia Tech, Younger Son's (Metallica's "Enter Sandman"---need I say more?); and the University of South Carolina, Mr. Pettit's.   (The music of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" precedes the arrival of a giant rooster.  Trust me, it makes sense when you're there.)

Do you see the pattern?  I love the pageantry more than the competition, the frosting more than the cake.  Before the 2013 season ends I'll find a seat at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina, and wait for a black tarp to fall away, revealing the presence of Cocky, the giant rooster.  When the Gamecocks drive into the red zone the USC band will play a tune that sounds like it was borrowed from Darth Vader's iPod---Waah, waah waah, waaaaaahhh---and the Carolina faithful will chant, "U-S-C, gooooo Cocks!"

For a few hours, from the first moments of the tailgate to the long slow procession from the parking lot, Mr. Pettit, our friends and I will live in a little bubble where the most pressing issue at stake will be the location of a brown leather ball.  We'll revisit days when our bodies and our spirits were the same age.  We'll retell the familiar stories that get better with time, share the dreams we still hold, and make new memories.

And pray that this time the Gamecocks will find a way to win.

Time Travel

After bingo and before dinner the music starts.

A DJ in a bowler hat scrolls through sixty-year-old (and older) songs on an iPod, offering commentary on each piece before it’s played.  His audience calls out answers to his trivia questions:  “Glenn Miller!” “Julius LaRosa!”  “Les Brown!”   

The DJ, Randy, prods the audience to come out on the dance floor without success until he plays “String of Pearls” by Glenn Miller.  A lone couple steps out on the dance floor tentatively as if attempting to cross a frozen lake.  Uncertainty yields to confidence as they wrap their arms around each other and yield to the music.  They dance with the familiarity of two people who have moved in step for more years than they can remember, their feet touching lightly on the floor, hers following his.

Randy announces that the next song is the best dance tune ever and begins to play “You Belong to Me” by Jo Stafford.  At least a dozen couples scrape back their chairs from the bingo tables and slowly converge on the dance floor, responding to a command I don’t hear.

I cannot stop staring at them.

Moments earlier they had been senior citizens off for a brief holiday in the Poconos, nursing lingering disappointment over what might have been if only “B4” had been called.  But as they dance, however gingerly, 2013 fades away and the Big Band Era takes its place.   I see these couples as they truly are.  Not the outer shell supported by orthopedic shoes and wrapped in a cardigan, but the forever young spirit within.   

I compliment a gentleman and his wife on their dancing when they return to our table.  “We’ve been doing this a long time,” he replies with a smile.  When I ask how long, he answers, “Fifty-one years.”

The heart keeps its own time---whether five years or five decades have passed is irrelevant when the music starts.

Lessons From a September Morning

Sometimes you have to hit the brakes and change direction.

I’ve labored over a light-hearted seasonal column for several days now.  The subject didn’t arrive without effort and the words followed suit.  As I watched a 9/11 memorial on TV this morning I realized that it was time to put that column aside, at least for now.

My parents were in their 40’s when I was born.  They left my life too soon, but I’m grateful for their stories.   Mama and Daddy described the Great Depression and World War II not as historical events, but parts of their lives.  They recalled where they were and what they were doing when they learned that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.  I didn’t truly relate to that story until September 11, 2001.

Not one of you, dear readers, needs a description of that day.  After the first two airplanes made their final, fatal descents, scores of heroes appeared:  first responders rushing into danger as others fled, office workers helping each other escape the flames, the passengers of Flight 93 choosing to die as valiant soldiers rather than helpless victims.

Every September 11 I think of the people who left their homes that morning with a long list of concerns on their minds.  Mortgages.  Quarterly reports.  A son’s ‘D’ in math.  An aging mother’s forgetfulness.  I imagine many folks walked into their workplaces weighed down with worry.

Maybe others commuted with lists of another kind swirling through their brains.  First I’ll do this, then I’ll do that, and finally I’ll reach my destination.

And then they were gone.

Living in the moment isn’t a New Age philosophy; it’s reality.  God doesn’t promise us another week, another hour or even another minute.  But we have the present, and that’s enough. 

When you resolve to appreciate each moment the world starts to open up like a flower.  You notice the crescent moon surrounded by gauzy clouds as you drive home and crickets jumping in your path as you cut the grass.  You take in your husband’s smile as if for the first time.

See the beauty of the earth.  Listen to the people God has made.  Love the ones He has placed in your life.  Notice the moment.

3" x 5" Memories

Ice cream and chlorine: These marked the birthdays of my childhood.

I had one traditional birthday party, complete with party favors and cake and a circle of little girls in frilly dresses singing “Happy Birthday,” when I turned six.  I don’t know why I didn’t have another, although it might have had something to do with the fact that I had few friends.

Our family moved to a little town in upstate South Carolina when I was a baby, but we never quite fit in.  We didn’t meet either of the basic requirements for complete acceptance: Deep ancestral roots---at least Civil War-deep---in the community or owning a business in town.  Maybe things would have gone better for us if we had been Baptist, but I don’t think even that would have helped much.

But don’t feel sorry for me.  I had my family, I had my books, I had “Star Trek,” and I had Emily.

Emily lived out in the country and her family had a swimming pool.  No one else I knew had such a thing, but the pool wasn’t the basis for our friendship because I couldn’t swim.  However we had plenty of non-pool activities to enjoy: Sitting on the top step of the wooden stairs in her family’s old farmhouse and slipping down to the bottom, one step at a time, giggling all the way.  Covering ourselves with a quilt and listening for ghosts making their way up those creaky stairs toward her room.  Helping her mother in the kitchen---my mother’s kitchen was her kingdom and I entered only for mealtime.  Selling Girl Scout cookies and earning merit badges.   I think I appreciated the sweetness of those times even as I was living them.

I called Emily’s parents Aunt Duffie and Uncle Tom.  My parents taught my sister and me to address family friends as “Aunt” or “Uncle”---perhaps that was their way of making up for the lack of extended family nearby.  Their sisters and mothers lived five hours away in North Carolina; how long that journey seemed!

I’m not sure when the tradition started, but for several years Emily and her parents would celebrate my July birthday by inviting my parents and me to their home for swimming (or, in my case, splashing) and homemade ice cream.   That ice cream lives in my memory as being perfect in its simplicity, much like the chocolate cake with chocolate frosting my mother would bake for me each year.  I wish I could taste that cake one more time, especially the frosting---grainy with sugar, like fudge that hasn’t quite hardened.

So I am thankful I can revisit my childhood each summer when I retrieve the card titled “Eagle Ice Cream” from my rusting “Land ‘O Lakes” recipe box.  Aunt Duffie shared it with me when Mr. Pettit and I got married 35 years ago.  Her penciled letters are fading now but I’m not sure I even need the directions anymore.  Still, it’s not my compulsive nature alone that compels me to pull out that folded over 3” x 5” card---it’s the need to see that writing and let those memories wash over me.

It’s the same feeling I get each Christmas when I pull out Mama’s recipe for sausage balls recorded in her beautiful script.  Mama didn’t really use recipes, not like I do.  I didn’t know how to create anything other than cookies when I married so I followed the instructions in my Betty Crocker cookbook with an attention to detail that would impress an accountant.  All of Mama’s recipes were in her head, although she did read cookbooks as others read novels. 

Most of Mama’s recipes went something like this one for pimento cheese---I wrote it down on a card after pinning her down for details one day.

Pimento Cheese

Grate 1 pound cheese.  (Let it get soft.)

Add: Big jar pimentos

         Sugar

         Vinegar

         Mayonnaise

Blend with mixer.

What kind of cheese?  Cheddar, of course.  How much sugar, vinegar, and mayonnaise?  Until it tastes and looks right.  How long do I blend it?  Until it looks right.  Daddy always had the last word on the “rightness” of the pimento cheese.  I can still see Mama spreading a bit on a slice of white bread and handing it over for judgment.

The sausage ball recipe is precious to me because it was written down by Mama herself.  (It even includes detailed directions!)  I like to think that 50 years from now a young lady or young man with a bit of Estelle Segroves Finch’s blood in their veins will be making that recipe, although they might have to find substitutes for

the sausage and cheese.  Soy? Tofu? Yogurt pellets? 

When I hear news stories about wildfires bearing down on neighborhoods, causing people to grab what they can and jump in their cars, I think about what I’d save from the flames.  Photo albums and family videos always come to mind first, followed by my little jewelry box containing Mama’s wedding rings. 

I’ve decided to add that little rusted recipe box to the list.  It contains more than directions for Rhonda’s cranberry cider, my sister’s "Banana Split Cake" and Nanny’s peach cobbler.   It tells my history in tablespoons of vanilla and cups of flour.  Each card is a note from the past, a gentle nudge to my memory.  I’m reminded of the cooks behind the recipes, women who understood that sustenance involves more than food.