When you get lemons~

Make Lemonade

The month of June in Massachusetts has not been good to its beach goers or vacationers, or, I suppose, to any of us who have been looking forward to some warm summer sun. But being raised by a mother who often reminded me that complaining accomplished nothing, and most particularly where the weather is concerned, I'll not complain.

When it's raining lemons, I'll make the metaphorical lemonade.

I picked cherries in the rain. Not counting what we ate out of hand, our five-year-old Rainier cherry tree blessed us this year with a pie and two cobblers.

Who wants to bake in the hot summer? Not me. But in the unseasonably cool rainy days, I found it pure pleasure to mix and stir, and pop a pan into the oven, and then fold laundry while the delicious sweetness filled the house.

I thought often of my grandmother. I think it was the act of pitting the cherries--truly manual labor--and it brought to mind the long-ago summer days I'd sit with her while she shelled peas or snapped beans for supper. While I folded clothes, I thought of my mother who would iron while watching Afternoon Playhouse on TV. I can still smell the starch, and hear the hiss of steam.

Those were labor intensive days in many ways, yet they forbade the multi-tasking we are so prone to today. Laundry day was for doing a week's worth of laundry; shopping day was for buying groceries for the week. I find my self tossing in a daily load of wash and then jumping in the car to pick up some milk and bread, and then doing the same the next day. And the next. I've lost the sense of being done for a week that my mother and grandmother had.

Maybe I need a little old fashioned one-thing-at-a-time in my life.

~~~~~

Smiles don't have to be saved for a rainy day. it's good to waste them. ~ anonymous

Retirement anniversary~ one year!

When I retired last June, my then 24-year-old daughter was on a business trip in Copenhagen, and couldn't attend the retirement party. She sent this note, which my son read aloud. It made me cry then, and I see now that it still chokes me up. Forgive my indulgence for posting it . . . but an "anniversary" warrants looking back. And I am.

Mom,

For 36 years, you have corrected quizzes, monitored lunch rooms, chaperoned field trips, assigned homework, led discussions, read aloud, taught spelling words, and taken home class pets for summer vacations.

I’ve gotten used to finding containers of mealworms – the most recent class pet’s food of choice – firmly wedged into the refrigerator between the butter and the cream cheese.

You’ve made it clear to children that their, they’re, and there, are spelled differently – something a lot of adults I work with can’t get right, but your 11-year-olds wouldn’t be careless enough to mix them up for fear of disappointing you, and your red pen.

You’ve tied shoes, explained the multiplication tables, patiently stated that just using spell check isn’t good enough, and taught children how to think critically, and most importantly, think for themselves.

When I was a little kid, I loved visiting your classroom. I remember bright sunlight streaming through the windows, and books and building blocks spread throughout the room. I relished sinking my feet into the soft carpet of the reading circle and testing each desk to see which had the best view of the chalkboard. It was a treat to sort through all the posters and decorations you had saved to adorn each bulletin board for each change of subject or season, and I especially loved tapping on the glass of the current rat or lizard in the cage by the windowsill. I looked at the student essays tacked on the walls and eagerly anticipated the day when I would write my own essay, to be stuck on our refrigerator at home.

You set the bar for my own time in elementary school extremely high, and I constantly compared my own teachers’ classrooms to yours, knowing that the chairs in your classroom were better, you read every character’s voice flawlessly, and you had a far better variety of books in your bookshelves. Certainly you were reading Charlotte’s Web to your kids while I was stuck practicing my handwriting.

Having you for a mother has ingrained in me a deep respect for all teachers. It is one of the very toughest careers, requiring endless patience, intelligence, and creativity – traits you have in spades. Your students look up to you and they will always remember you when they think about their childhood, and thank you for the positive impact you had on all their lives.

All one has to do to see just how much respect and admiration your students have for you is look at the cards you get from them on every holiday and last day of school. Crayon messages on carefully folded pieces of construction paper bear words of thanks and admiration, and when you would bring boxes of cards and candies home on these special days I would get a lump in my throat to see there were so many other kids out there to whom you meant so much. Then I would dig through the box to look for any chocolate chip cookies.

And now, after years of being a guiding light to so many lucky students, you are going to turn your classroom lights off for the last time and start on your own “field trip.” And you’ll finally be able to sleep in.

You have so much in store for you!! Think of all the time you now have to do anything you want!! You’re going to garden. You’re going to write. You’re going to travel. You’re going to photograph everything. You’re going to read so many books that your favorite authors are going to struggle to keep up. You can throw away your alarm clock, and you’ll never again have to rise before the sun to shovel out your car on a frigid, blustery winter morning!

You will do all these things and more, knowing that for the rest of your life, wherever you go and whatever you see, you are held in the hearts of hundreds of children and colleagues who remember you as a fantastic teacher, inspiration, and friend.

And, if you ever miss teaching, just remember that you’ll always have a permanent student in me.

I’m so proud of you. Congratulations!

Love,
Joanna

Happy Father's Day AND Happy Birthday! Call me!

I hear my husband downstairs in the living room.

"Dial home," he says. And again, "Dial home," a firm command with precise enunciation.

I think of ET, the loveable extraterrestrial asking to call home.

But Bruce is actually speaking to his new iPhone, trying to get it to recognize a voice command.

"Call Ruth Douillette, home," he commands.

The phone rings. That's for you, he yells up the stairs.

I'd figured as much.

"Hello there!" I say.

"It's me," he says.

So we talk for a bit about the marvel of this new device that does his bidding--no questions asked, no ifs, ands, or buts.

A couple of days ago, he'd asked, "Want to know what you can get me for Father's Day and my birthday?" The two are days apart.

Of course I wanted to know.

I hate shopping, and I'm a lousy gift picker-outer, to boot. I hate to disappoint, so I belabor choosing a present, looking at it from so many angles until I convince myself that it's a stupid idea, until eventually every gift seems like a stupid idea. So if Bruce knows what he wants, and he usually does, bring it on!

He wanted an iPhone. He was in line early yesterday when the phones went on sale, along with many others. It reminds me of the Cabbage Patch doll thing. Only at the Apple store they don't trample.

I don’t much understand this techno-love, and as a result, I'm probably not much fun. He tells me excitedly about all the available applications.

"But what's the point of that?" I say. "You can just . . ."

Each one seems to do something one could get better results with another way. Like seriously, would you download an app on your iPhone to tell you how to read the results of your EKG?

I thought not. That's not one he's interested in either.

But he's happy, and I already have his birthday present taken care of. Nothing to worry about from now till Christmas.
~~~~~
Read about my phone: Call me.

Scientist announced a device that can be placed in a pacemaker and will call your doctor whenever you are having heart trouble. When told about it, Dick Cheney said, "I can't afford those kind of phone bills.~Conan O'Brien

What will they think of us?

Yesterday a new name was unveiled on the black marble monument that stands in the town common. A new name under the name of a new war . . . or rather an old war renamed and continued through the centuries in locations all across the globe--different civilizations, different weapons, but for the same reason: power, resources, religion.

And I wondered . . . eons from now, long after ancient wonders have turned to dust; long after Stonehenge is mere grains of sand; pyramids are flattened plains; cities are piles of rubble, and the archeologists discover us anew, what will they make of these indestructible monuments of polished black marble buried at odd angles beneath ruins across the world?

Will they deduce their purpose? Will they decipher our ancient language? What will they say about our society?

That we take pride in our countries?
That we honor our heros?
That we recognize sacrifice?
That we mourn for loved ones lost?

That we never found peace? Never made peace?

And will they learn from our sad lesson?









~~~~~
About Kevin T. Preach
Read Memorial Day Tears on Camroc Press review

Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn't have as many monuments to unveil. ~Kin Hubbard

Only a dream~

Into the future . . .

I cried in dreams two nights in a row.

Dream one: I was at a teacher's meeting. We were planning to give an important test the next day. There was a lot of preparation to be done. At the end I thought, "Wait a minute. Someone will be giving this test to my class. I'm not responsible. I'm retired." I pointed this out to another teacher. I left the meeting and cried.

Dream two: I was waiting for an important phone call, but in the mean time had tried to get things done. I'd cut the time too close and realized my cell phone was in the car, not my pocket, so I ran to be sure not to miss the call. I found my phone already flipped open. When I said hello, it was my mother. She told me that her mother--long dead--no longer recognized her, and wasn't that funny? "It's funny," I acknowledged, "but it's also sad." Yes, my mother admitted. And I cried.

They say dreams mean something.

They say dreams work out conflicts we struggle with in daily life.

They say dreams are cathartic.

They say a lot of things.

I only know that I'd been unnaturally sad for a few days before the dreams.

I'm fine, now. Outwardly, any way. As far as I know.

But I'm willing to bet I'm struggling with change, at the very least. Things have been left behind that mattered very much--my job, for one. I thought I'd moved on, and quite happily. But there must be a residue of melancholy. My mother will be 89 soon. It makes me happy that she still remembers me; she doesn't remember much. But if ever she doesn't remember me . . . I've felt the pain already . . . in a dream.
~~~~~
Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril. ~Laurens van der Post

Life's games~

Erring on the side of caution seems reasonable. I've certainly followed the axiom now and then through the years.

I've looked before I've leaped; I've double-checked; I've played it safe rather than sorry.

I've also taken chances, risks--reasonable ones. Can you live without taking risks? Should you?

Along the line of acting cautiously in regards to the swine flu, the Center for Disease Control has placed the country at Level 5: continue with daily lives but take precautions. Wash hands. Check out symptoms. Don't panic

Common sense. I've done that for years. Especially the "continue with daily life" part.

There is a considerable amount of media hype and comment from our leaders--both Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi said they'd keep their families from traveling--that sends a message of fear. I don’t mean to make light of a potentially serious situation. Yes, it's better to be cautious where the flu is concerned, but there is such a thing as over reacting in fear.

My hairdresser has two plane trips coming up next month: one across the country to California, and one across the Atlantic to France. She had been excited, anticipating the time away. But now the swine flu has put a damper on that. She's worried, and might change her plans.

But think of this, I told her, "Suppose you stay home and catch the flu from someone here. And if you’d gone you wouldn't have."

It isn't really about the flu; it's about thinking we can control what happens to us. If we stay home we'll be safe, we think. But not necessarily, because bottom line, we have so little control. We play life like it's a game of chess, but sometimes it's a crapshoot. Life has plans. We get dragged along.

I finished reading Life Lists for a review next month in the Internet Review of Books. It was a biography of the famous birder, Phoebe Snetsinger, who was diagnosed with melanoma and given a year to live. She determined to pack that year full--no more playing it safe for Phoebe. Her cancer went into remission, then reappeared . . . several times. Twenty-five-years after her "death date," she died. Not from cancer.

So what am I saying?

Wash your hands. Stay away from people if you feel ill (and why weren't you doing this anyway?) Take precautions. Don't panic.

But mostly, continue with your daily life.

Spring speaks in poems~~

There's a flower blooming.

An unassuming plume of pink

As generous as a baby's grin

And just as captivating,

This is newborn spring!
RD~



The bees are bumbling.

Tumbling over blossoms,

They, too, are thirsty

For the first sweet sip of spring.
RD~

~~~~~
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Pajama party on the Cape~

I love getting away overnight. As my husband explained to David when I told him I was going to spend a night at a friend's cottage on the Cape, women never give up the pajama parties of their youth.

Why would we? There is something to be said for staying up late talking and eating, eating and talking.

The get-together started mid afternoon, talking, snacking, and sipping wine on the couch in the cottage. Later, out to dinner we talked through Martinis, soup, and salad. Upon returning to the cottage, we talked and ate strawberries in cream and chocolate chip cookies. Then lights out and more talk before sleep.

Talk is key. The only thing different from the school day pajama parties of days gone by and the adult sleepover is that adults talk about husbands instead of boys. And eventually we do stop talking and go to sleep.

There is, of course, the inevitable shopping portion of the day. I know I'm not the only woman who gets little to no pleasure from shopping, but I am a decided minority, and the only one among my friends.

While they shop, I'm happy to spend an hour or two in a bookstore, or in this case, walking off our huge breakfast.

I hadn't walked far when I ducked out of the wind into Nantucket Natural Oils. I love essential oils, and prefer them to perfume. This was my kind of shopping: sitting at a bar in front of a variety of bottles . . .

Photo from Nantucket Natural Oils webstite.

I ordered up sniffs of this and smells of that. Now and then the shop owner gave me a cup of coffee beans to breath deeply over to clear my olfactory nerves, freeing them to smell again. I was planning to buy, and was at the point of exchanging wrist sniffs with a friend who had wandered in. How does this smell on me? Wrinkled nose, sniff of coffee beans, the question is taken as seriously as, how do these sun glasses look, or this dress?Eventually I settled on a quarter ounce bottle of Nantucket Rain, a mix of three oils.

We drove back to the cottage and spent the rest of the day talking and finishing up the guacomole and chicken wings, me basking in the pleasant fragrance rising from my wrists. Good stuff , Nantucket Rain. I'm wearing it now, a scented reminder of a great pajama party.
~~~~~
Last year's trip to the Cape: Like an Early Spring.~
~~~~~
Happiness is perfume, you can't pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on

Sharing hope~

The other day I took a walk along the power lines without my camera. I do that when I'm weary of my photographic eye being on high alert. I take mental pictures anyway--can't help it--but when I have my camera I stop-focus-snap-stop-focus-snap throughout the walk.

This particular day I just needed to walk and think after sitting too long at my laptop. I wanted to move, and breathe, and find that quiet place in my mind. I walked faster than I do with the camera, which felt good. I did stop, but only twice: to feel the satiny, grey pussy willows the size of new peas, and to listen to the faint song of spring peepers--chirping tree frogs whose melodious chorus means spring is really here to stay.

Rounding a turn I caught a familiar shape from the corner of my eye. Among plants that fringe the trail was a brown strand of grass whose tip curled into a shape like the breast cancer support ribbon.

I thought instantly of a friend I met through the blogosphere who is entering the dreaded territory of breast cancer. I thought of her faith, her bravery, her determination to learn something from this adventure she had not asked for. And it seemed this hopeful symbol, crowded by a tangle of vines and prickles, was a confirmation that hope and blessing exist, there is reason for faith, even when we are trapped in a thorny thicket.

I returned the next day to get a picture. Hope should be shared.
~~~~~
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.~George Iles

Read Wanda's post about the "ribbon."

Of giants and flying~

Driving home after lunch at a local steak house, my son and I were quiet. My mind wandered. I looked out the window at the naked trees--stiff, brittle, and woody-- but in the late sunlight the bare branches somehow looked soft as grass. Wispy. A giantess could dip the branches into mud makeup and apply color to her humungous cheeks with a tree, I think.

I asked David, "If a giant--a really huge one--were standing in the woods, would the trees feel soft to him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Would the trees feel soft to someone so much bigger than they are? The way moss feels soft to us?"

"Moths?"

"Mosssssss, " I say. "If something very tiny were driving through a moss forest, the moss might feel stiff and tree-like, even though it's soft to us."

"Why would the giant have to be so big, Mom?" he asks, and I think he doesn't understand.

"He has to be big enough to step on trees," I say.

"There are some very small things we could step on that would feel sharp. Like thistles. It's not about the size. It's about what things are made of."

He's right. If giants step on a tree, they better be wearing boots. Trees would be sharp, even for giants. Massive splinters!

When we pull into the driveway, Dave says, "What super-power would you rather have? Being invisible or able to fly?"

I picture my mid-life body struggling to stay afloat in the air while I frantically flap my arms. Who wants the neighbors to see that?

"Can I be invisible while I fly?"

"No. One or the other."

"Then definitely invisible," I say. "Besides, I'm afraid of heights."

"Well, you wouldn't need to be if you could fly, " he says.

That's logical.

And I suppose if I could fly I wouldn't need to flap my arms frantically, I think. I'd soar effortlessly. But I don’t change my mind. Invisible is better. More useful.

Back to reality, when we get in the house Dave goes down stairs to study for a poly-sci test. He'll drive back to campus tomorrow.

I make tea, and think some more. I love taking to Dave. He's fun. He humors me. He gets me. He'll talk about giants. And super powers.

We all need at least one person in our life who does that.
~~~~~