putting up the tree . . .

I could have written about so many things tonight but, in the spirit of simple pleasures, putting up the Christmas tree bubbled up to the top of the list.

This is no small feat, having the tree up and decorated the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  After two consecutive years of two-week-long, if that, wonders (AKA having the tree up and decorated), it's almost a minor miracle!  Of course there were reasons for both years' late arrivals and early departures, difficult reasons that demanded that Christmas this year be easier somehow. Putting up the tree is a beginning . . .

As I struggled with where did I pack the stand and the rug and the angel topper?--sensible packing decisions once I retraced my mental steps--I had an idea!  Why not photograph this solitary ritual of mine, tell through pictures the story of how this tree came to be?

The first solitary ritual tree--a Norfolk Island pine that long-ago Christmas of 1994--had nine foil paper cranes (one lost her way four Christmases ago . . .), a rocking horse, a ceramic snowflake studded with flowers, a pair of miniature bears (Hallmark's "Friends need a Hug") . . .  Only one of this year's ornaments predates that most difficult and loneliest of Christmases . . .  The silver ball with the pink rose first hung on a family Christmas tree when I was two . . . 

Each ornament has a story, a meaning.  The collection has evolved over time, mostly through gifts from others . . . 

May Christmas this year be a time of joy and wonder, a maker of treasured memories . . .

old glass and new blossoms

to be happy about :-)

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

quirky things to be happy about . . .

33. going shopping in the closet
34. slowing into the therapeutic zone
35. renewing a Lincoln rocker
36. conversing in old glass: slag, goofus, opalescent, carnival, whimsey, custard, rose bowl, nappy, jack-in-the-pulpit, coin dot, hobnail, vaseline, epergne
37. enjoying neighborhood walks with an mp3 bff
38. blogging on Friday evenings when Monday seems forever away
39. collecting everything adagio

40. knowing a Seagull guitar is tucked away for someday . . .
41. finding blue paisley capris at 75% off (and in a size you thought you'd never see again!)
42. holding fast to dreams . . .

Galveston . . .

A couple of years ago, maybe three (was Katrina the catalyst?), I began collecting everything I could find about the 1900 hurricane. There's no family tie other than my genealogist daughter's laments about immigration records lost . . . But it's amazing how a well-crafted piece of nonfiction can tie us to those who lived long before we drew breath. Isaac's Storm and The Sisters of Charity Orphanage story on the Galveston News website did just that for me . . .

As I watched the waves crash over the Galveston seawall this afternoon, courtesy of 21st century streaming video, the Cline families and the Sisters protecting their parentless charges lived once more in my mind's eye . . .

I so wanted to give the young man who was out to see the waves this afternoon, staying because Ike, after all, is only cat two, a copy of Erik Larson's book . . .

108 years, almost to the day . . . Time is indeed a circle . . .

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 . . .