epiphany

World English Dictionary, definition 2: epiphany-any moment of great or sudden revelation.

My baby boy--who could not carry a tune until second grade--sang the second solo of his life today . . . and what an epiphany that was for me.  Jamie, a singer--and an accomplished one at that!  Yes!

His first solo was as a second grade.  I was not there . . . but at another school that evening, greeting other parents of children not my own.  Creating a void in my lifetime memory collection.  A void filled to its brim and beyond today!

Collins English Dictionary definition: Epiphany-a Christian festival held on Jan 6, commemorating, in the Western Church, the manifestation of Christ to the Magi and, in the Eastern Church, the baptism of Christ.

How fitting that Jamie's solo today was in the words and the voice of those three wise men . . .

In my lifetime memory collection are images--in color but blurred with time--of the Christmas pageants I religiously recruited (or compelled, if need be) my three younger siblings to present each year for our parents.  We were costumed, of course.  I remember especially the colorful (silk or rayon?) robes my grandmother across the wide Atlantic sent one year, colorful like Joseph's coat, worthy of kings from the Orient.  I remember the songs we sang.  Always opening with "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Did we dare sing Martin Luther's "Away in a Manger"?  "Silent Night," I'm sure . . . and maybe "The First Noel," in honor of our mother because we thought it was French (the minister this morning had a very British explanation of the origin of "Noel"). 

For my mother, I always ended our pageant by singing her favorite" "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  My solo in the days when I could sing. How fitting that this morning's cantata ended with choir and congregation singing the third verse of that hymn, words still engraved on my heart.

And for me, most especially for me, we always sang "We Three Kings"--every verse!

For me, most years since, those wise men had to come to Bethlehem, had to once again experience their epiphany, before the dismantling of Christmas could begin . . . 

NOTE TO SELF: the tree stays up, the Nativity scenes in their places of honor, until January 7, 2011!

remembering a king and an earl . . .

1976
"The Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibition opens in Washington, D.C., to a record-breaking crowd of five million, before moving to Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York.
http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/timeline.html
National Endowment for the Humanities

It was January, one of those Virginia wintry days when the trees from the Parker Mountain farmhouse to Washington’s Smithsonian were treacherous:wondrous ice-clad marvels, the stuff of which fairy-tale illustrations are made. For me, that day was to be a fairy-tale dream come true.

My fascination with mythology paralleled my fascination with outer space in my adolescent and teen years. The names of those other-world gods and of those other-world planets and moon and stars and months and days that bore their names . . . I knew them all. I discovered the pyramids of Egypt—and the tomb of its boy-pharaoh—at about the time that I discovered academic writing. My first ever research “paper” was about King Tut. And now, on that coldest day of a new year, I would place myself in the presence of Tutankhamen’s earthly treasures, those which believers in other gods had once set aside for their boy-king's journey into the afterlife.

How strange then that—among the throughtheyears ghostly memories of my baby boy in his stroller as we waited in the long-lines cold, of ice skaters twirling on a frozen outdoor rink, of either the remnants or the preparation for someone’s inauguration, of Tutankhamen’s awe-inspiring treasures—the one memory from that day that is yet crystal clear is that of a cup of tea!

I think it was in the cafeteria of the National Gallery of Art, though I have no memory of art that day other than the contents of that cup of tea. I could not tell you of bergamot other than its magic . . . that day, and so, so, so  many wintry (and not so wintry) days since.

Earl Grey tea and King Tutankhamen’s treasures . . . what a day full of simple pleasures that was . . . at a time in my life when simple pleasures meant the world . . .

Almost time to brew a second mug of tea. I was “out”—not of tea (I have become quite the collector over the years) but of Earl Grey—until this afternoon . . . This afternoon, I also placed an Amazon.com order for White Chocolate Kisses, Cherry Vanilla, Vanilla Caramel, and something with eggnog in its name? Yes, tea. Six-pack boxes of tea bags—some for Christmas bags and stockings but, yes, many for me.

But none, much as I enjoy each of them and will enjoy those yet to be discovered, will ever displace the memory of that magical moment, that first sip, Earl Grey . . .

a "park" of my very own . . .

one perfect morning . . .

This has been so.

65. walking a cool, early morning beach framed in sun glow and sea breeze
66. wearing sandy-hemmed sweats
67. being able to go the extra mile the day after the race
68. having just enough change for the parking fee you didn't expect
69. beginning with Amigos Para Siempre (both versions randomly back-to-back)
70. collecting not just one baby's ear but two :-)
71. remembering "here on the shore, turned into stone, lies a piece of a conch's one-spiral cone"
72. collecting whelk fragments for someday's frame
73. finding both Carolinas' state shells on the same morning

74. ending with Somewhere in Time (Michael Crawford with words :-)
75. eating breakfast both before and after

I would not have imagined that I would have been

. . . absolutely in awe as I drove over the Ravenel bridge for the first time today.

I have gone out of my way to avoid this encounter. They tore my beautiful bridges down, frail sacrifices to this aquatic demon. I wouldn't look in its direction on my few visits to its city. I went around, but never across, until today.

Today, because, in the morning, I will walk with thousands others the breadth of its span and more. Today, because this first encounter needed to be more up close and personal, more private.

Traffic crawled this afternoon, crawled enough for me to savor the marvelous intricacies of this giant Tinkertoy creation. Yes, marveling, wondering, agape with awe. . .

I can see its skyprint from my window tonight. Tomorrow it too will become one of my beautiful bridges, one that I imagine will live on this earth and sea longer than I . . .

toy train memories . . .

When Jamie was a baby, Christmas was exquisitely simple. Santa's elves actually carved and sanded building blocks and crocheted colorful bags, by hand, to hold them. Even the ornaments on the tree (yes, including popcorn and cranberry strings) were handmade. Does anyone remember the recipe for the ornament dough???

The train table and trains, projects eternally in progress/process, came later. But, Jamie's first Christmas, I discovered a song in my books of Christmas carols for the piano that was to be forever linked to those precious Christmas memories of his babyhood. I could even play the song on the piano then--and for most of his childhood years . . . Not now . . .


I found our song today. Twenty years after my baby boy and I discovered "Old Toy Trains," Roger Miller gave that song to the world.

Where was I that Christmas of 1995 that I missed this . . . ? I remember attending a middle school Christmas concert (my last year as a teacher) and, in spite of my first and only abcessed (knock on wood!) tooth, discovering both solace and delight in the music. I remember that at midnight that New Year's Eve I was home alone, assembling one of those eternal jigsaw puzzles (on the table I de-puzzled and lemon-oiled yesterday ), and consoling (via landline) my broken-hearted middle child, also home alone on New Year's Eve . . . But Christmas I don't remember at all . . . 1993 had gifted me with Patty Larkin's "Good Thing" from Angels Running and James Galway's rendition of "Gabriel's Oboe" (on tape--no CD or mp3 for this one but the YoYo Ma version is even more awesome!). 1994 had eased an achingly lonely Christmas with David Lanz's Christmas Eve. 1995?

I purchased two copies of the mp3 today (the Roger Miller version--many have followed since)--one for my Zen V Plus and one for Jamie's iPod. Making new memories with an old song. Michael is into toy trains too :-) . . . or at least he was last spring . . .



I also purchased the acoustic guitar mp3 version (from Christmas Innocence by Peter Groenhof). There's my Seagull in the entryway to dream with and two grandbabies, Mason and Campbell, taking guitar lessons . . .

a Toy Store story . . .

I am really intrigued by what Windows Moviemaker chose to leave out from the original videoclip. You'll need to use your imagination here to picture Percy's magical transition from Cassie's hand to Michael's and her predictable two-year-old response :-)

There's another story in the picture in the background. When my son was about 9 or 10, he decided he was ready to attempt counted cross-stitch. Having an older sister who excelled at the craft was both his inspiration and his project's eventual salvation. I purchased complimentary designs: Antique Store (in the background) for me and Toy Store for Jamie. Both were tucked away, unfinished, for years, until Kimberly decided to surprise Jamie one Christmas by completing his picture. (A snapshot of the project, as Jamie had left it, is taped to the back of the frame.) A few Christmases later, a completed Antique Store (probably the last time I attempted anything in the way of embroidery . . .) joined Toy Store in the nursery being prepared (yes, that wallpaper had to go!) for Michael's arrival.

Why I Am Not a Writer!

More than a year after my one-and-only draft-but-not-published post on the Why I Am Not a Writer blog, the catalyst for launching this blog appeared on my doorstep this afternoon. Click the link above/below and check them out!

Bed in Summer

Hanna . . .

Today's paper says we'll be spared, that Hanna is following in the steps of Bertha and Floyd, Bonnie and Fran. Just a few days ago, Fay broke Donna's longtime record . . . but not my heart.

Donna is the one hurricane I haven't forgiven--maybe because she stole some of my childhood's simple pleasures when I was miles away in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania Dutch country, not even able to find solace in saying that I too had faced her fury and survived.

Donna erased the shacks from Cape Carteret. The shacks--they were really all the name implies--were where I saw my first queen conch shells, gaping holes in their exquisite spirals, evidence of harvesting for conch stew. I've never been tempted to try my hand or my taste buds at conch stew but I've also never lived in a home without a queeen conch shell on display somewhere . . .

Donna tore down the two fishing piers, washed up fishing boats, on the pluffmud flats where my brothers and sister and I played on weekends and summers. Somewhere--not sure where--is the picture I painted (during my very abbreviated teen artist phase) of that aftermath . . .

Donna washed up a treasure trove of shells from the Atlantic deep. My family--again without me--brought home bucketsful. A few years ago, I inherited that collection--and the Sanibel collections too--some saved in a plastic container that had once housed wire used in my parents' electric motor repair business.

I cut my hurricane teeth on another "H" hurricane--Hazel . . . She earned my respect. Another "H' hurricane--Hugo--came close to challenging Donna's status as heart-breaking, beyond forgiveness. But I was no longer a child, no stranger to loss and change and adjusting and moving on . . .

I would wish, though, that Hanna stay away from the paths of Hazel, Donna, Floyd, Bertha, Bonnie, Fran . . . stay away from the places where my childhood memories are rooted . . . stay away from where I'm from . . .

not that I have anything to write . . .

I finally broke down and added two of my secret obsessions--music and local histories--to my profile :-) tonight. Can't figure out what to do with this year's technology and literacy focus, though. Is this also a simple pleasure or does it really just belong on my other (techie) blog, which I've been seriously avoiding . . .? It's a little like my blog about why I am not a writer (NOT!). I wrote the perfect intro piece for that blog two summers ago, emailed it to the individual who was the catalyst for that state of (non)being/blog, shared it with a group of close friends (some of whom had had similar experiences)--and I was over not being a writer! But the empty blog is symbolic, somehow . . .

This week's simple pleasure? Last Saturday with the "babies," teaching them the swing song I grew up with . . . Watching them explore the new family car their parents surprised them with . . . Michael's first reaction--What on earth were they thinking about???--morphing into This is the best thing you ever bought for us!

I've never owned a black car, in or out, and doubt I ever will. But their new car brought back this one, one of my first ever memories . . .

On the back of the photo are these words, a message my mother wrote from me to my grandfather across the sea, the grandfather whose hat I threw out of an upstairs window somewhere across the gray Atlantic a few months before this photo was taken, the grandfather I would not again, in this world, see . . .

Fevrier 1950

Bon baisers a Grand daddy

Memories are everything . . . the best of life's simple pleasures . . .

childhood dreams are made of this . . .

. . .

If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you. - Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch lost his battle with pancreatic cancer this morning. Tony Snow, my brother's college classmate, lost his battle with colon cancer just a few days ago. Two inspiring men in the prime of their lives and careers. Men who had so much to live for: courageous wives, young children just beginning their journeys to adulthood. Men who taught us so much about how to celebrate our last days of life . . .

Daddy had those same reasons for living . . . Someone somewhere once told me his wish was to live through that one summer. He did.

He was a man of few words, but even had he not been, I don't know that he, or we, would have found the words to say what needs to be said when you know you, or someone you love, have/has so little time left on this earth.

His world was a world before the stages of grief had been named, before talking about dying was a good thing to do. But, deep in memory, there are indelible pieces of that summer:

* watching him hold my daughter, his first grandchild, and knowing that, because he would not want us to remember his wasting frailty, I could hold that picture only in memory, only as long as I drew breath . . .

* listening to his stories, the weekend before his surgery--Grandpa saving him from the fire--stories about love never judging . . .

* holding my breath when he tried, the weekend before his surgery, to pour a life's wisdom about running a business into my so-confused brain (fortunately my mother had the clarity of vision, courage, and determination to build on his legacy) . . .

* knowing that he, on his one best weekend of that summer, watched as man first set foot on the moon . . .

* spending one last night in a chair in his hospital room and being welcomed, through his coma, with a veryslowmotion wink the next morning . . .

Many years later/ago, I dedicated my dissertation in this way:
to my father,
who nourished my dreams,
and my mother,
who gave me courage . . .

I would like to think that those three fine young men, fathers, nourishers of dreams in their children--Randy, Tony, and Jimmy--will find each other somewhere in that next world. What stories they could tell each other!

Bet Daddy will take a break from gigging for flounder to be in the bleachers in my hometown when Good Morning America visits next week!

the innocence of childhood--reprise

beach week memories--sand castles

beach blues . . .

Full circle again. North Carolina beaches nourished and inspired my childhood dreams. This was the beginning . . .

Back to another North Carolina beach this week . . . with other children with other dreams. A bit bittersweet, though, from this place in time . . .

There's something to be said for the innocence of childhood . . . Need to remember to take this inner child along with me, to let her out to play and wonder and dream . . .

5 more things to be happy about . . .

I never asked my daddy why he loved baseball so. I just knew that I didn't, especially after he died during the World Series and didn't get to see, this side of heaven, who won.

I thought of a million and one excuses on the way home from work today--reasons not to be at a baseball game tonight either.

Wouldn't have missed it for the world!

Mason may accomplish what his great-granddaddy never could--make a baseball fan of me :-)








More things to be happy about . . .

21. watching someone you love earn the game ball

22. celebrating someone's personal best

23. knowing that the top of the inning comes before the bottom of the inning

24. soaking in a spring evening on the sidelines

25. paying forward a free movie ticket



My son-in-law (oops, I stand corrected--it was my daughter :-) asked me tonight who won that long-ago world series. Here's the answer, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The 1969 World Series was played between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles, with the Mets prevailing in 5 games to accomplish one of the greatest upsets in Series history, as that particular Orioles squad was (and still is by some baseball pundits) considered to be one of the finest ever. The World Series win earned the team the sobriquet "Miracle Mets," as they had risen from the depths of mediocrity (the 1969 team had the first winning record in Mets history).

A delighted Met fan held up a sign after the Mets won the final game: "There Are No Words."
The 1969 World Series was played October 11-16. There was no game on October 13, 1969. Maybe the teams paused too, on their way from Memorial to Shea, to honor the passing of a man who so loved their game . . .

OK, Daddy, were you going for the Mets or the Orioles? Knowing you, I'd suspect it was the underdog team. Glad that somewhere, that week, in the world of things you loved, a miracle happened . . .

make a wish

but not until after you've tasted the icing . . .

reflection: The Last Lecture

I read it cover to cover between dinner and bedtime, alternating tears and laughter, laughter and tears.

So many connections--and not just the pancreatic cancer diagnosis at 46 (the author's, Daddy's):

• Places: Kimberly's Carnegie Mellon and Jamie's UVA (they were there at the same time . . . did their paths ever cross?) and even eastern Virginia and Chapel Hill


• Ideas: artificial intelligence and rocket science


• Obsessions: Star Trek (my brother's collector passion) and Disney (my office mate's collector passion)


• Bringing three beautiful children into this world of ours


• Winning the parent lottery: a WWII military father we love to quote and a mother who unerringly keeps our cockiness in check--parents who paired frugality in possessions with riches in learning.


• Being "a doctor but not the kind who helps people"
  

The chapter that opens with the dreams of an 8-year-old that summer man first walked on the moon is bittersweet. My first child, Daddy's wanting to live through that same summer (he did), a husband shipped off to war, moving home, growing up overnight, locking away childhood dreams. . .

But parallel dedications (his book, my dissertation) acknowledge our belief in the value of dreams. His childhood dreams and those he hopes his children will create. My father nurtured my dreams; my mother molded in me the courage to live them. And we have come to understand, this author and I, that the greatest good we can do in our limited time here is to enable the dreams of others . . .

I could have used his wikipedia story on Monday when introducing a group of colleagues to wikis. I'll give them his book instead.

And make time to dust off my locked-away childhood dreams, the few that haven't worked their way back to consciousness, to realization.

Thank you, Randy!