Monthly Archives: February 2011

Woe, the Signpost

07 Monday Feb 2011

Posted by in Writing

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All Saturday and Sunday and even some today, I’ve been wondering about my role in the blogosphere.

My thinking leads to questions.  About purpose, for one.

More to the point, it leads me to question myself.  I’ve wondered what unique gifts I bring with so many out there in the wide blog yonder.

I’ve wondered in the heavy silence that stands between me and the computer screen why I think I can write.  Or want to, for that matter, since writing isn’t easy.

Writing always feels like carving in stone blind-folded.  Far too often, I don’t know what end the stone will yield until I get there myself.  Sometimes I walk away from a partially completed bust knowing I’m too small for the subject at hand.  But there are other times, too, and it’s these that keep me pounding away at hard white space.

In spite of its shaky feel, this is no “woe is me’ signpost.  I’m just expressing my truth du jour.  In part, because I know I’m not alone;  I realize we must all have days when we wonder about life purpose and its associated questions.   So I write to confess, because admitting the truth is freeing.  And for good measure, I’ll forgo pan-handling for encouragement, by placing a lid on the spot where comments typically go

But before I place a lid on today’s thoughts, I wish to confess that I’m not without consolation.  That today’s has strangely come from that stranger-than-truth locust and wild honey eater, who many mistook for the Messiah;  because at his memorable best, John the Baptist served as a solitary signpost in the wilderness pointing a finger at one greater than he, whose sandals, he confessed, he was unfit to untie.

So today I confess how I know this feeling well.  How it comes in part from keeping company with my blog betters — those on my roll and others not.  And how I think,  as I read their blogs:  Now, why again, am I blogging?  And for whom am I blogging?

It’s always this last question that gets me.  Some days, I struggle to answer it with a few original words — words I later baptize with a  title  after it’s known by me. Other days, I’m content in being a signpost for my blogroll.

The one which comes without woe — well, it’s the wrong one.  Which means I should have called this piece, Woe and the Signpost.

Snowmax

04 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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For Max, who enjoys a winter serving of snow more than any I know, this lovely poem by Mary Oliver.

The Storm

Now through the white orchard my little dog

romps, breaking the new snow

with wild feet.

Running here running there, excited,

hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins

until the white snow is written upon

in large, exuberant letters,

a long sentence, expressing

the pleasures of the body in the world.

 

Oh, I could not have said it better

myself.

Standing by Sis

03 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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I was six and a half when Sis was born.

Counting “the half” was important then; this I know for fact.  But what I don’t know and can’t recall is how I felt about having a baby sister.

I do remember the baby shower though, where I helped Mom unwrap many gifts.  The party was held at Edith Marshall’s house I believe, located just up the hill, west of the church where Mom and Dad married.   I remember Mom wearing a yellow corsage made from baby socks — which reminded me of soft baby chicks — fashioned into rosebuds held together by diaper pins.  The pins and socks, perhaps, were a nod to practicality, both intended for the new baby’s use.

I don’t remember Mom going to the hospital.  Or Mom being at the hospital.  Or Mom coming home from the hospital.  But I do remember seeing my baby sister lying in her used but freshly gussied up bassinet.  I whispered a promise to not wake the baby so I could watch her sleep.  I stood as close as I could get.  And looking in past the new lace ruffles adorning the wicker hood, I found her small.  No bigger than a baby doll.

Christi was the only one of us Dad named.  He chose to name her for his best childhood friend, Chris Alexopoulous.  He and Chris met in 1943 in Cohoes, New York, a few years after Dad’s mother died in a  tragic auto accident.  Dad may have lived there a year — and, while longer than many places Dad called home as a child, I wonder now, how Chris became so important to Daddy, in so brief an interlude, that Daddy would name a child for him.

I don’t imagine Chris knows Daddy honored him in this way.  Nor do I imagine Chris ever realized the regard Dad held for him, that so many years after knowing him, Dad would find a way to ensure he never forgot Chris and the friendship extended to the shy boy my father was.

But as I sat here and write, I realize many regard my dear sister in just this way — in the same way Daddy regarded his best friend Chris.  So while Dad may have initiated the honor to his good friend through his act of naming, Christi has extended Dad’s honor through the way she lives her life, as she stands by friends through trials and joys.

I don’t imagine Sis knows the good she does through her simple gift of friendship.  But then, perhaps there’s nothing simple about friendship.   If there were, wouldn’t we have more friends?  Fewer acquaintances?

— Happy birthday, Sis.