Blue Moon and Other Reminders

Photo used under Creative Commons from Noel Zia Lee

Blue Moon

A full moon will rise at 4:43 pm today. This will be the second full moon of the month, making it a blue moon. Isn’t that cool? A blue moon on New Year’s Eve?

“Once in a blue moon,” people say. It could only happen that one time – a time like no other. It seems a good portend for the New Year. Even if it’s the universe’s way of predicting an unprecedented year, I take it as a hopeful sign.

I like reading the “Weather Notes” in the paper and the “Weatherguide” facts. Back when I was writing mysteries I kept my Weatherguide calendars that I got each year from the Freshwater Society. I figured I could be accurate about the weather, use it as a backdrop to the story.

Remember the movie “Doc Hollywood”? There’s a scene where the young doctor played by Michael J. Fox has gone off to Hollywood and he’s so bored and lonesome, he calls back to the little town of Grady to listen to the weather report. Maybe there’s such a thing as a dial-up weather report but I get the same feeling from the notes and facts in the paper. I feel comforted by them.

Listen to this one about yesterday:

“Twin Cities: Cloudy with flurries or light snow. Winds south-southeast, 8 to 10 mph.

We now have 8 hours and 50 minutes of daylight.

The sun rises today at 7:50. It will rise at the same time through Jan. 4 and then begin rising earlier.

White-tailed deer bucks begin to shed their antlers at this time of the year. Rodents such as porcupines, meadow voles and deer mice gnaw on the fallen antlers to get essential minerals in their diets.”

Isn’t there a tone to it?

Other Reminders

The tone of words, the combination of cloud and snow, wind and daylight and antlers that fall from one nourishing another, gives me a feeling of continuity and the purpose in all living things. It reminds me that nature has a voice that soothes, and that human beings can too. It reminds me that weather is not all about the drive to work, and that sometimes weather reports include blue moons and small miracles.

Time and Risk

I took 21 pictures of Christmas -- 2 of the family as a unit (we never get these, or at least in the last one Henry was still crawling), 19 of Henry with his toys, and I used the remaining three this morning to begin a photographic binge.

I want to capture the fields of Rosemount, those I pass on my way to work. I may become a photographer of snow. There's something about the way the snow, then rain, then snow came down over the holiday that has made some real snow sculptures out there in the fields. Don't even need a tree nearby to get an interesting picture. We'll see how often I get to leave early enough or come home late enough to make a real stab at it.

This morning there was a car behind me at the spot where I wanted to get the horses. There are four who live on a quaintly picturesque farm and they feel like buddies since I see them nearly every morning. Today there was one real near the street wearing a green blanket, but I didn't dare pull to the side of the road.

The thing about being artistic is you've got to have time and you've got to take risks. If I get time, take risks, and capture anything that isn't too mundane, I'll post it. At least it's one way to enjoy the snow!

By the way, Christmas was lovely...full of beautiful people -- a real pageant of every age and color, and brimming with emotion and care, especially for those joining us and those leaving us--poignant and bittersweet and joyous...all at the same time.

Hope yours was all you desired it to be.

This is the moment

This is the moment. Christmas Eve morning. Fresh snow on the ground. Everything done that requires leaving the house. The family still asleep. Quiet.

Wishing you your moments.

Mari

The great gift of Christmas

Decorated our "indoor" tree finally.

I wasn’t going to. We got it in and the lights on and then, when no one seemed interested in hanging the ornaments, I found I didn’t mind. I told Donny we might just leave it as it is and he didn’t go for it, so I brought up two of the boxes. On the top of the first box were two “theme” bags, one with birds, the other with angels. Henry was enamored right away by both, so we put a few on while we were home alone. Later, Grandpa helped and Angie hovered, and we were amazed at Henry’s dexterity with branches and hooks. He did a fine job, and the balls that sparkle were also among his favorites.

Man, I used to be such an ornament collector. I can remember buying $8 ornaments not too many years ago (well…maybe ten). Then a year or so back, my mom quit decorating as much and gave each of us kids some of the baubles from back when we were growing up. Looking at them last night, I felt bad that I’d considered skipping it, and not just for Henry’s sake. I can still remember going down into the really dank canning room in the basement of my parent’s home to gather up the cobwebby boxes of decorations, and now they’re in my own dank (if not as bad) basement room, and when I look at them…well…I love the darn things. There’s nothing like them now. There’s some sort of charm in the old stuff, which I think, when it’s personal old stuff, comes of the way you saw it as a child.

It seems to me like the great gift of Christmas – seeing with the eyes of a child – seeing with wonder.

A light shining in the distance

I practically ran out to the cabin this evening – just before the sun went down – to bring out the little lighted tree that was the last present my dad ever gave me. Mia wanted one for her apartment last year and I bought her one. Angie asked after mine this year, and I said, “No, I’m going to put it in the cabin.” And here it is, December 17, and I hadn’t done it yet. So I ran it out. Discovered that the bottom lights weren’t working and that if I sat it on my desk as I have in years past, not many of the lights would be visible through the window, so I sat it on the desk chair. It’s still not much to look at for being back a ways from the window, but the idea is being able to see it from the house. To know it’s there.

The way it came to be the last present my dad ever gave me was that he was bored one day in the nursing home, back when he still had enough energy to get bored, and he said, “Let’s clip some coupons.”

Working with my elderly male client, I’m getting more practice at being with a coupon-clipper. He was pretty upset the other day when he couldn’t find the zip-lock bag of coupons with no expiration date. He thinks I threw it away, as I’ve been tackling some of his clutter. I might have. (What is it with seniors and coupons? Don’t even get me started on that!)

Anyway, my dad and I sat with the Sunday paper cutting coupons. I saw an ad for the little tree and said, “I’d really like to have a tree like that for the cabin.” He insisted that I take a $20 from his drawer and go get it. I didn’t do it right then, but he remembered as I was leaving for the day, telling me to “Get the $20 and go get the tree.” He was delighted to be able to send me off to get something I really wanted.

That year, Christmas fell a month, almost to the day, before his death, and his little tree was the only one we had. There was no way for it to be a “usual” Christmas or do all the usual things. We just sat it on the piano table behind the couch and said, “Good enough.” It was the next year when I told Donny I had to take it out to the cabin and then shortly afterwards was doing dishes and saw it’s lights through the window. I had to wipe my eyes with sudsy hands. Donny putting the tree out there for me was one of those things someone does for you that you appreciate so much.

And so, the tree is in the cabin again…a little late, but still there.

Now I’m thinking about my proprietary feelings toward it. Usually “things” of all kinds are up for grabs around here…but not that tree…not that last gift. Maybe it’s sentimentality, but I don’t care.

I posted some on grief a while back when a wave of it caught me by surprise. A few readers were surprised by it too – at me still feeling it nearly three years later. So I just want to add here, that I don’t experience grief as something morbid. I don’t have that feeling of grief (that I wrote of then) right now, just the sentimentality or whatever it is. It’s the tree and it’s the time of year too. Certain things about the season are forever different. But that’s okay.

Sometimes grief is like the little tree – a light shining in the distance.

Routine

Simeon, Max and Sam

This is the first morning in a really long time – maybe years – that none of the animals wanted to go outside. Although Simeon hasn’t wanted to go out since it dropped below thirty degrees and snowed, Max was still game. Sam, like a good dog, uses the outdoor facilities no matter what the temperature is. We’re a veritable parade every morning – them following me or me them, a parade of one human, one dog, two cats. Sam’s about seven-years-old, the cats a year older. So it’s a routine of many years.

It was the absence of Sam that made for the change this morning. She’s gotten so she sleeps in. If I get up too early, she doesn’t always greet me as soon as my feet touch the floor as she does otherwise. The cats might have glanced at the door, but without Sam panting to go out, I simply got out the cat food, made my coffee, and didn’t even think of the unusualness of it until I got to my room and looked out the windows at the back yard. Then I thought, ‘Man, I didn’t smell the air or look at the sky, or feel the cold. What’s the day like?’ I can’t tell from here.

It’s a real haze out there, is what it is. The kind of haze that gets you blinking because it appears to be out of focus. I’m settled on my love seat now with the Fahrenheat blowing on me or I’d get up and check it out. But I can tell you the windows aren’t frosted – so it’s not them – not the windows today.

It’s just minutes before six o’clock and lighter outside than you might expect. Everything solid is black against the whitish-pink haze. This could mean there’s a fine mist of snow coming down and I can’t see it. It could actually be foggy. I can make a good guess that there’s fresh snow because there’s areas that are flat and un-trampled by boots or tracked by rabbit feet. The shadows of the apple trees just lay down flat and sublime on those stretches, as if giving up to the season. Totally surrendered.

Yesterday I took my mom Christmas shopping. The day was totally different: clear and bright in that crispy winter way. I purchased the only gift I’ve bought this year when I was with her last. It was a three pack of cars from the movie “Cars.” It was three dollars. It was for Henry.

I came home without a single gift this time, thinking maybe I should shop from inside. Do the internet thing. Don’t go out into it and see what’s it’s really like. Don’t go sniff the air in the aisles or hang out under the florescent lights.

In the store, I am swayed. Even not buying a thing I feel undisciplined. I can just see Henry with that kid-sized Black and Decker tool set with a belt and hardhat.

Henry wants some dinosaurs (and candy) for Christmas. That’s all.

So far I haven’t seen a dinosaur that doesn’t come with a gimmick. They roar or spit water or sense movement and turn toward it or to avoid it (I’m not sure which). I know the plain kind are out there somewhere and that the way to find them might be from home. I can sit right here. Not even sniff the day.

It’s just plain weird.

There’s different kinds of going out and different ways of staying in, and times you get in a routine and it takes you a while to realize you missed it…or might miss it.

The Pursuit of Peace

Watching the sunrise through the frosted windows of my sunroom I became intrigued by the designs. One window’s pattern looked like ski slopes, the one right next to it like a line-drawing, and the one on the other side of the L was all crystals and sparkle.

Obama has accepted his Nobel Prize. That day, the newspaper said that his speech would address the pursuit of peace in wartime. The crowd would be ready with signs of Change with a question mark.

Change?

It got me thinking about how, in addition to your conscience and your temperament, “the pursuit of peace” stands in relation to what you feel responsible for and to whom you feel responsible. I wouldn’t want the responsibilities of a president.

I figured Obama would address not only his reasoning but his feelings. I like this about him. He’s helped me with some personal questions I’ve had by sharing the process with which he works through his, comes to decisions, and takes action.

There’s this great line in A Treatise on the Art of Thought (the first of the four treatises in The Treatises of A Course of Love) about replacing responsibility with response. The way I’ve seen it is as a call to take the obligatory feeling away from responsibilities and to respond truly – from who you are. Man, I’ve had a hard time with this.

Donny and I made a deal about morning childcare since Henry’s mom returned to work two weeks ago. Basically the deal is that we split the hours so that I still get my morning time. We don’t usually do this kind of thing. We’re pretty loosey-goosey about the flow of our days. But faced with losing my morning hours, I had to voice my need of them. It feels so amazing to me to be heard and to have this cooperation.

They say Obama’s did a lot of reading in preparation for accepting his prize: reading the speeches of past presidents who received the Nobel, (Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson), as well as those of Marshall, Mandela and King. One of his speech writers said Obama feels that the award places a responsibility on him…being in that company…wanting to extend the legacy. So Obama does all that reading, takes in all that history, and then delivers a speech that is from his heart and from this present time. Others will listen and respond. The power of the word, of an expression of conscience, combined with a relation to the needs of the time, might just prevail…or so I was thinking.

There’s something about the possibility of true expression prevailing that excites me, no matter the outcome, and that gives me hope in the small area of my own life. I simply feel that we’re all so different – as different as the frost on the windows – but still “frost’ if you get my drift. And it seems that if we were each able to respond truly, the change that’s always happening anyway, would be more aligned with who we are…even if it takes some negotiations.

I am just psyched that I’ve had this one successful negotiation, that it protects my quiet time, and that it makes me hopeful for more of the same. I’ve been downright cheered by it.

Of course, Obama admits that negotiations sometimes fail and that then other measures are necessary. This is always the pits. That my negotiations have failed a great deal of the time is probably why I’ve fallen away from trying, and have ended up so surprised and delighted that a negotiation as simple as this one between Donny and me worked. I thought I’d share it because it’s been such a good reminder to me.

The “pursuit of peace” is one of those paradoxes – the more you “pursue it” – the more it can appear to elude you. I’ve heard this again and again. My favorite quote from a friend of mine is about how when she started praying for harmony, all hell broke loose. I’ve seen it happen more than once…true peace only coming when you’ve walked through the disharmony, or the stale habits, or the friction of a relationship…and how we often are better at achieving peace everywhere else than at home.

But I’m encouraged. Maybe those you love are more prone to negotiation than terrorists too. It’s worth finding out.

Pot-stirring

Don Shelby is retiring from WCCO radio. I didn’t even know he was on the radio. I know him as news anchor of WCCO-TV. An article in the St. Paul paper yesterday reminded me he’s been on TV since 1978 and I vaguely remember him coming and the end of the career of Dave Moore, who I liked a lot. In 1978 I was 23 years old and Angie wasn’t born yet. Realizing such things is just plain weird. But that’s not why I’m writing about him.

He never impressed me as a TV anchor. I quit watching local news almost entirely about 15 years ago, so I haven’t seen a lot of him lately. But he said something in this article that I appreciated. He said, “People have told me, ‘I never watched you on television – didn’t like you at all, but I listen to your radio show, and now I’m watching because now I know what kind of person you are.’”

Shelby talked about how tightly scripted TV news is and says that on the radio, “He’s able to let his personality shine through and connect with listeners.” He said, “After nine years of listening, they can tell what you’re made of.”

I imagine you wouldn’t have to listen for nine years. Sometimes you can listen for nine minutes, when a person is just being themselves, and get that sense of knowing what they’re made of.

In the closing comments of the article, Shelby says, “I have an overall hope that has nothing to do with WCCO radio. I have an overall hope that we bring back gentility, that we take hate out of the equation, that we take fear out of the equation. There are so many pot-stirrers in the business today who say things that are designed only to inflame or designed only to get people on your side … I like when you turn the heat off and say, ‘Let’s taste this and see if it needs a little of that or it needs a little of this.’ Because at some point, you have to stop stirring the pot and you’ve got to serve it.”

Of course he mentions some “celebrity personalities” we all know even if we don’t listen to them – the ones who get way too much air-time stirring the pot with hate and fear.

It’s definitely a pot-stirring time – a time when something new is getting cooked up. You can’t always rush the meal. But you can stir without making a mess, and without banging things around too much. You can stir with love rather than hate. And I guess what struck me was that when you are who you are, and you’re not scripted by outside forces, and you’re not pandering to the dramatic side of things that sells or that gets people “stirred up,” just to get them stirred up, then you can still be passionate and stand up for your views, and you can do it without alienating because they’re your views, and you claim them and, if you’re made of the right stuff, you walk gently with them.

Quotes from “Shelby signing off,” by Amy Carlson Gustafson, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 1A, 12-7-09.

Avatars

I’ve had two friends tell me in recent weeks about how good it feels to send things out – letters and emails. One was my friend in Norway who writes me real letters that he posts with a multitude of pretty stamps. He’s said I don’t need to worry about responding. He loves getting up in the morning and putting pencil to paper and sharing what’s in his heart. Then a woman whom I share a lot with had her e-mails to me start bouncing back two and three days after sending them. She said it wasn’t response she needed so much as it was knowing that she was being heard. To send them out into the void, not knowing if I was going to get them, started to get to her.

I don’t have this blog set up in a way that tons of folks know about it and so I don’t get a lot of response, and that’s been fine by me. It’s the act of expressing myself that I enjoy and even require. But I admit that when you’re doing something like this and you take a break from it, and you have a hard time getting back to it, it’s because you start wondering why you do it. Why you take the time to do it is part of it. But there’s a bigger question (or two).

Why do I want to share what’s in my heart – even if not a soul is listening? Why do any of us?

And, When did we quit, and why would we question the value of it?

Those are bigger questions than why anyone starts a blog, but they’re related. When you get started on something like a blog, and you like it, and it takes on a life of its own – that’s just an amazing thing. I mean, maybe you start out to tell a story or write about one situation – the one you faced yesterday and that’s still on your mind today – and pretty soon, something else entirely other than what you started out with is happening. I’d say it’s like going into an antique shop – you never know what you’ll find.

So I was musing on this last night and this morning, being that it’s Sunday and there’s a book section in the newspaper, I went looking for it. I got hijacked by the article on the first page of Sunday Life. It’s about Avatars.

After reading the article, replete with “self-portrait avatar” renditions, I looked up the word avatar.

Avatar: decends from ava – away + tarati he crosses over.
1: the incarnation of a Hindu deity (as Vishnu) 2 a: an incarnation in human form b: an embodiment (as a concept or philosophy) often in a person 3: a variant phase or version of a continuing basic entity.

Fascinating.

The article highlights a number of avatar artists concluding with Dennis Calero, who does freelance comic-book art. “He decries today’s rampant “culture of celebrity” and thinks it healthy when “people wake up and say, ‘I don’t want to worship another person.’”

Instead, they want to express themselves, be made known as who they are, rather than as who people take them to be. Like anything else, this can be shallow or profound.

It’s kind of like the yearly self-portraits I mentioned a while back. One year, I was trying to do “literal” art. I first painted a sunrise. It was awful. As elementary as a kid’s would be but without the charm. I was so frustrated by it that I painted a second one. I was bolder and the feeling of “something happening” came in the midst of it. When it was done I liked it.

I decided to do the same thing with that year’s self-portraits. They’re the images at the top of this post. The first was literal. The second was what I painted when “something happened” as I worked on it. I got this feeling in my chest of a sort of excitement/dread/compulsion. I had no idea why I was adding the things I was adding, what the color choices were about, none of it. When it was done my daughter walked by my room and said it was a little scary. It is. But I like it. I see it as kind of cosmic and having some strength and power.

Then the whole process of painting the literal and the non let me see something new about life, and particularly about the process of creating. “Literally” I was standing in my room pacing around an easel or sitting at my desk drinking coffee and typing. That’s all you’d see. But what was happening, especially as I wrote the books of A Course of Love, was not what you’d see. The “literal” had little relation to the non-literal experience.

So there's other possible descriptions of the avatar -- could be a stylized likeness of an Internet user, or could be a non-literal expression of an experience.

Quotes from "A Face in the Crowd," St. Paul Pioneer Press, 12-6-09, p. E1, by Julio Ojeda-Zapata.