"I Stayed Up All Night To See Where the Sun Went - Then it Dawned on Me."

A friend of mine sent me the pun that is serving as the title of this post; ‘I stayed up all night to see where the sun went.  Then it dawned on me.’

It’s a wise pun, and anyone who knows me knows I enjoy puns very much!  My favorite birthday card was one that read, “I would dance down the steps to celebrate your birthday – but I’m a Fred a stairs”.  When in the library recently, I told the librarian friend of mine, “I'm reading a book about anti-gravity.  I can't put it down.”  So, the fact that this particular pun was sent to me today was not surprising.  However, the way it hit me was unique.

I’ve been waiting around for something to happen, some job to pop into my life since I was laid off from my prior full-time job over 2 years ago.  I started this blog, tried to get my children’s book illustrated, took a part-time job, and did my normal array of daily activities from cooking through chatting with friends.  But, through all this time, I didn’t really investigate and work toward any one thing in particular; I sort of floated through all my interests waiting for one to push me instead of me pushing it.

So, I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.  I sat and did nothing, and everything happened anyway. I went with the flow and the tide has now left me on a new beach.

There’s a pretty good chance that I will begin a new, full-time position on Monday, May 14^th.  I received a call on Wednesday from the head of HR at a company I interviewed with, informing me of their decision to hire me.  Along with all the pertinent details of salary, vacation time, benefits, etc., with that one call, I was excited to learn that I had finally done it, I had succeeded at being recognized as valuable to the outside world once again.  Being that I am superstitious, I am not counting on anything until the formal letter arrives; however, the chance is pretty real that I will once again return to the world of full-time employment very soon.

Of course this is very welcome news.  The increased income will make it easier to buy fun things, pay off some accumulated, straggly bills, and perhaps, once I have earned time off, go on another cruise with family and friends. However, now I am grappling with one particular, nagging thought; did I do enough with my free time or did I just stay up all night and wait to see where the sun went?

I know I used the beginning of my time at home wisely and appreciated every single day.  Aside from searching for a new position, I was able to be with my Dad before he passed.  Those months are etched in my memory and I will cherish those moments with him forever.

I also remember spending time doing more mundane things like cleaning out the pantry and making an effort, in the beginning to de-clutter the house.  Well, that lasted for a short while.  Before I knew it, the clutter was back and I was just as good at ignoring it.  I still believe in the saying that a house needs to be clean enough to be healthy, but messy enough to be happy.  We strive for happy.

Writing this blog has been a big plus for me.  Getting things off my mind, putting them on paper, hoping others get something out of my writing, these things have been productive and enjoyable.  But, did I use the gift of time as importantly as I could?  Now that so much free time is winding down, I realize there are still so many things I would like to do yet the seconds are quickly ticking away!

Don’t get me wrong, the position I have been offered is very desirable and one in which I feel I will be contributing to a greater good.  The organization and follow-up that will be necessary to succeed in this position will be a welcome opportunity to get out of “my own head” and concentrate on something else, a sort of forced mental vacation.  Everyone I met through interviewing at the company was intelligent, welcoming, friendly and kind.  I want to do well, fit in and prove myself worthy of this opportunity.  I will try my best.

But, it just “dawned on me” that the free time I was given was really a very special gift; a gift that I lived in for a period of time; a gift that has taught me a lot about myself.  It is a gift I am glad I will never have to return as it has enriched my soul forever. 

I am excited about this new opportunity that is right around the bend.  I worked at getting this chance for a long time and will try my best to be a valuable addition every single day. 

My time spent sitting around waiting for the sun to rise was a wonderful time.  Thinking about it now, in retrospect, the time was used wisely and appreciated fully.  This experience enabled me to take a breath, clear my lungs, follow my heart and sing out loud.  And now, with the dawn approaching, I can start fresh.  I can watch the sun come up with a smile and face the new day and all its new challanges with enthusiasm and gusto.

Hello World – I am back!

A Must Hear Interview

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you will know I have had the honor of interviewing William Bertram MacFarland over the internet on more than one occasion.  Bertie Mac, as he is known, has published the first book in his series regarding the decades he spent working for various Presidents’ of the United States beginning with President John F. Kennedy and ending with George W. Bush. 

Bertie’s life and experiences are breath taking in their importance.  His writing is brilliant and masterful.   Bertie’s  book, “Back Channel – The Kennedy Years”, is one of those books you just will truly not be able to put down.

As I have the honor of remaining in e-mail contact with Mr. MacFarland, he sent me the link to a recent radio interview.  The link may be found at: http://wendleebroadcasting.com/KXYL.htm .  Once there, click on the Tuesday 5:15 link.  The interview begins close to the 11-minute mark.

Hearing Bertie’s story in his own voice is worth the time.  I hope you enjoy!

The Joy of Bread

My husband and I spent Saturday morning with my in-laws, helping them work out a few issues and running a few errands.  My mother-in-law is, sadly, falling deeper into her Alzheimer’s abyss.  She can’t seem to remember, from one moment to the next, where she’s going and why, although she does still know who everyone is and how we are all connected. 

We met them in their old apartment building’s parking lot.  Unfortunately, that really threw her.  “Did she still live here?” “ Where did she live now?”  These questions kept her going for well over a half an hour.  In retrospect, we should have met them someplace else.  The problem was, we were running errands in their old neighborhood.  As it was, my father-in-law parked on the opposite side from where we asked him to park.  This mild confusion caused us to sit and wait for 15 minutes looking for them, when they were already there!  Finally, we became concerned and called them only to find they were already parked close by, just out of sight.

Due to reading the book, “Still Alice”, I believe I could, at times, see my mother-in-law’s inner frustration at her own confusion.  It must be similar to the feeling we all get when something is “on the tip of our tongue” yet you just can’t seem to retrieve it.  Only in her case, two minutes later, she forgets that she’s even trying to access anything.  My father-in-law is at his wits end, and it is completely understandable.  It must be torture to watch someone you love drifting away right in front of you, with no way to throw a lifeline. 

The four of us ran errands, then my husband and I wanted to take my in-laws for lunch.  It was finally Saturday, the day bread; crusty, delicious, teeth-sinking, comforting bread, could re-enter my diet after 8 days of Passover.   A restaurant in the area, Tomatoes, sat tantalizingly in a strip shopping center, it was calling to me.  My husband and I have eaten there before and they have an amazing roast beef sandwich on crusty bread with caramelized onions and the most wonderful horseradish sauce you can imagine. My mouth was watering just thinking of the deliciousness to come!

A young woman, who had no idea how thrilled I was to have reached this point in the day, led us to our table.  I took a look at the menu basically to reinforce my previous decision concerning the roast beef lusciousness.  We ordered and chatted while waiting for lunch to arrive.  Over my father-in-law’s shoulder I could watch the Ottawa/New York playoff game, which was a very good thing. 

Amidst the sounds of fanfare, (in my head), the waiter arrived with our lunches precariously perched on his arms.  Without hesitation, perhaps sensing my urgency, he placed my plate in front of me, the roast beef sandwich sitting majestically on the plate.  If it had been socially acceptable in any form, I would have devoured it before he even began to place the other entrees on the table.

My father-in-law had ordered the same sandwich I did, but he is a “plain Jane” eater and refused to try either the au jus gravy or the horseradish sauce, removing them from his plate and placing them on the table in between us, as if their simple existence was abhorrent.  To me, the placement of the additional sauces was a joyful insurance…in case I spilled mine or for some other reason (gluttony) needed more!!

In an attempt to be somewhat calorie conscious, I carefully scooped the roll on both sides of the sandwich, then without any delicacy at all, poured the horseradish sauce into the cavity formed by my scooping on the top half.  I suppose that totally negated my calorie consciousness!  But that sauce, that amazing, wonderful sauce, is completely irresistible with its delicate balance of creaminess and its soft touch of horseradish heaven.

Replacing the cavity filled top of the roll, enabling the sauce to comingle with the caramelized onions and perfectly cooked roast beef, I took my knife and with the lady-like precision of an ice sculptor, I cut the sandwich into magnificent halves oozing with messy delightfulness.   Full fat, salty potato chips and two pickle slices finished the perfection of what I was about to devour.  With no further thought to calories or being “lady-like”, I took my first bite! 

The mixture of textures, taste, and relief at being free again to eat what I had been craving filled my senses.  Savoring each tantalizing bite, speaking little, I was lost in the moment; sheer, pure enjoyment encompassed my being.

Perhaps this is the meaning of Passover.  Only through the forced denial to eat bread could I fully appreciate and take complete delight in the joy of bread and the joy of the freedom to eat bread.  Life is full of opposites; hot opposed to cold, sickness opposed to health, light opposed to darkness. Perhaps the meaning of Passover, the freedom that it celebrates, can only truly be enjoyed at the joyful completion of the denial of that freedom in a simple, ordinary way.  Just as it is easier to appreciate the importance of memory and good health through spending the day with my mother-in-law as she is now.

Never underestimate the joy of bread…never underestimate the blessing of good health.

The Winds of Change are Blowing

Sitting here, I can hear the wind snapping at the roof.   The leaves on the trees are bending and swaying as if they alone can dance to the musical hum of the whipping wind.  Listening to the symphony of shingles shifting and the pool cover flapping against the cement, I realize the inside of my house is oddly silent.  The television is off, my IPod is quiet, no one is speaking and nothing is running in the background – no dishwasher or washing machine.  The house is truly quiet except for the music of nature.

Every so often a stronger wind gust blows some unsuspecting sand off our back patio, it swirls rapidly before once again settling into a new home on the pavers.  I guess in many ways, the sand in the wind is like my life.   The winds of change are blowing me out of my comfort zone.  Where I am settled now may soon be quite different from where the winds will drop me; a new place that is hopefully close to where I am now, but different enough to warrant adjustment.

This past weekend was a holiday weekend.  Passover was celebrated in our home; while Easter was celebrated in the homes of many people we love and care about.  Honestly, Passover was never one of my favorite holidays.  I remember having a discussion with our Rabbi many years ago about what I felt to be the incongruence of the celebration.  The story we tell at the Seder consists of the celebratory tale of the Jewish peoples’ exodus from slavery in Egypt.  It celebrates freedom.  In short, the Jews had to exit their homes quickly, so there was no time for their bread to rise.  In honor of this fast exit, we eat unleavened food for the duration of the holiday.

My beef with this celebration is that it was the time that the Jews lacked, not the ingredients…therefore, it seems we should need to eat fast food this week, be forced to eat in restaurants, not cook at all!  But, instead, we labor in the kitchen for hours preparing foods to work as substitutes for what we enjoy the rest of the year.  Substitute foods are prepared; foods that never taste as good as the real thing.  (Some may try to argue this point with me and say how much they enjoy Passover food.  If that were true, why wouldn’t bakeries sell Passover cakes and cookies all year round?  I’ll tell you why; they taste like the sand on which the Jews traveled for 40 years, the sand that is whipping around my patio!)

Contrast Passover with Easter.  On Good Friday, Jesus was crucified.  On Sunday, he was reborn.  If this were a Jewish holiday, we would have to push pins through our hands or starve all day to relate to his suffering on Friday.  On Sunday, we would celebrate his rebirth by perhaps lighting a birthday candle, Yippee!!  For a people that really do know how to party, our holiday celebrations don’t do us justice.  Why can’t we celebrate our freedom with decorated, beautiful cakes, gifts, spring colors, and smiles instead of dipping bitter herbs and drowning gefilte fish was beet stained horseradish? 

As always, I “keep” Passover in my own way.  I don’t eat the bread, cake, cookies, crackers, peas and corn as I do the other 357 days of the year.  I don’t clean out my house of all bread products because my daughter and I are the only ones in the house who try to restrain from eating these foods.  Because of this, religious Jews would obviously say I am not keeping Passover.  To them I say, you’re right.  But, my daughter and I keep it our way out of respect for who we are and out of hope that one day, someone will stand up and say…they didn’t run out of bread, they ran out of time!!  And on that miraculous day, Jews all over the world will rush to various fast food outlets and nosh to their hearts delight for the eight days of Passover! 

There are changes that are happening, however, as the consistent beating of the wind against my window reminds me.  These changes are on a personal level.  I write often about my children being adults now. Thoughts of downsizing our home, ridding ourselves of so many accumulated odds and ends, looking down the road at being empty nesters…these changes like that grain of sand being blown in the air by a sudden wind and forced to settle into a new reality.  The shifting of reality, the day-to-day changes that seem overnight but really have been taking incremental steps for decades, these changes are reaching a new plateau.  Life is change…like the song says, “The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.”

I hope the winds of change result in all of us landing in an interesting, comfortable new place.  Happy Holidays everyone, no matter what you celebrate, take pride and joy in being you.   Whether eating the sweets of Passover or Easter, or just the sweets of an ordinary day, beneath it all we should always remember that the only sweetness of any importance is the sweetness we offer one another.

Experiencing the Library!

One of my favorite joys of being unemployed, or “under-employed” is the free time that I now enjoy.  I have already blogged about the time I had to share with my Dad before he passed away, time I would have otherwise missed.  Those moments, though tinged with sorrow, were such a blessing.  Love filled each and every day my Mom and I sat with my Dad in the hospital that last week.  Knowing I was there for him, to feed him, sing with him, talk to him, enabled me to hold him in my heart that much closer every day since.

The time I now have to write is also greatly enjoyed and appreciated.  Reflecting on what is in my heart at any particular moment is therapeutic for me.  I have time to appreciate the moments in my life that might just otherwise pass by in the hectic day-to-day of the full-time working world.  Now, that all being said, if I were to find a rewarding full-time position, one that held challenge and contribution to a greater good, that would be terrific; but, until then, I am appreciating what I have today.

Today.  Today I am not scheduled to be in the store.  Today I am looking forward to spending the day with my daughter and my Mom if she is free.  My daughter and I have rediscovered the neighborhood library the last few months.  Tuesdays seem to be our day for that excursion.

There are three women who sit at the front desk to the library.  They are friendly and welcoming and they now know us from our frequent visits.   The women look up from their work every time someone enters the building; they smile and welcome everyone.  My daughter and I have become such regulars that they not only say hello to us they also ask how we are!

The unique quietness of the library always strikes me when I first walk in.  There is an atmosphere of learning, of information, of endless possibilities.  Do you want to learn about gardening, philosophy, history, or cooking?  It’s there.  Would you like to listen to a book on tape, read a book in large type (without your reading glasses – great for when you’re coloring your hair!), or watch a movie?  It’s there!  Visiting the library is in many ways like writing my blog; each visit is the same yet yields different results.  Each visit is a reflection of my feelings of the day, my interpretations of what I am thinking and feeling at that moment.

On my second to last visit to the library, I took out a wonderful book, “Still Alice”, that carefully detailed the life of a woman diagnosed, at 50 years old, with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.  Having just visited with my in-laws, seeing my mother-in-law, I felt this book might give me some insight into what she is going through instead of only thinking about what my husband, father-in-law and the rest of us are going through.  I learned so much.  I highly recommend the book.

Last week, when I returned the book, I took the trip to the library by myself as my daughter was in Florida with her boyfriend.  I don’t remember ever going there by myself before which struck me as odd, but in I walked.  The friendly women at the front greeted me from the counter, as always.  I said hello and we exchanged warm smiles.  Then, before simply walking in as I usually do, I looked around.  The computers were full of young people and senior citizens.  Articles were visible on the screens, so many different topics popping up then off the screens.  Beyond the computers, straight ahead was the fiction section, next to that – audio books.  For some reason, that wasn’t my direction for the day. 

I was drawn to the area to the right, beyond the videos, to non-fiction, then to philosophy and beyond to religion.  Slowly and deliberately I read the titles.  Some were about death, a bit too morbid for my mood.  Other titles touted dealing with an ‘empty nest’, then there was an “Idiots Guide to the Torah” that drew my attention for a time.  Before I knew it, my arms were loaded with eight to ten books on various topics from religion to happiness to the stars (in the sky, not Angelina Jolie!).

In the back of the non-fiction section there are a few desks, which line the circumference of the library.  The wall is floor to ceiling windows that overlook a landscape of trees that stretch as far as the eye can see.  The trees are still bare and the branches are clearly visible with their twists and turns to the heavens.  It is truly beautiful; peaceful, serene, just lovely.  I choose a desk that allowed me to put my heavy pile of books down and offered me a view of the trees that calmed my mind.  It was a chilly day outside, but from my vantage point I could enjoy the outside while experiencing the calming warmth of being inside.  The interesting topics of the books in front on me then enveloped me.

Before I knew it, an hour and a half had flown by.  I was amazed when I looked at my watch.  After more careful inspection, I narrowed my choices down to five books.  I gathered my coat and purse, returned the books not chosen and allowed myself one look back at the now empty desk and the audience of trees.  Carrying my chosen pile of reading, I walked to the women still busy working at the front desk.

We talked quietly about the sudden return of winter as each book was scanned.  I walked through the double doors and back to my car, where I turned the heat on immediately upon starting.  With an inner calm that is not my usual state, I drove home singing to Carol King’s Tapestry.  It had been a lovely day and one I am now looking forward to sharing with loving company today.

I wonder what direction my mind will wander into as I enter the library today?  The one thing I am sure of is I will not know until I am there, confronted with the endless possibilities.  The library is a bit like life, I may not be sure where I am headed, but I am excited and happy to be on the journey!