Loving two people

     You know with every wedding things go wrong.  Actually they just go differently than they were planned.  But in every sense, the way things went at my son Chris' wedding to his best friend Jenny this past weekend was better and more full of life than anything we could have predicted or planned.



     A lot of wedding planning is attempting to predict and solve for the unexpected.  Which by definition is hard to do.  But you think, what if it rains, what if it starts late, what if people get lost trying to find the venue, what if no one dances, what if no one rsvps a 'No'? lol. Post-wedding, I say embrace the unexpected.  Who do we all think we are that we can pre-plan every special moment?  God has it in his hands, people.  God has much better plans than any we can imagine.  Wait, isn't that in the bible?  I think someone said that before me.
     I wanted to mark a few memories down here before I forget them.  I barely remember anything from my own wedding day, 34 years ago.  But I can come back and read this and it will remind me.
     Remind me of the Lion King moments.  Off in the huge fields beyond the ceremony were a herd of buffalo to the left and a herd of elk (?) to the right.  Floating between them seemingly to the violin music being played during the ceremony were a large flock of birds swooping in harmony amid the buffalo.  God's creation all around, from the sweetest flower girl moments with their innocent and meandering path down the aisle to the fall weeds (you know I love 'em) by the split rail fence for the 'getting ready' photos to the mist that surrounded the hillside and the trees just starting to turn a bit for their fall splendor.

     Of the laughter had by all.  The jokes about the rain, the Rage Club (the house where Chris and Jenny met and fell in love), Jenny growing up, Chris' nerves.  Chuck wanting to stick a fork in Chris and call him 'done'. So much laughter.  The Merlin fathead....

     Of the mishaps.   I had heard a few frayed nerves. So serious to run out of ribbon when tying the candy apples, have the makeup and hair person out for emergency surgery, the chef in charge of MCing the evening quit three days earlier, the parents of the groom completely forget about the yard games they were delivering and apparently a few other stories the bride and groom plan to share when they return from 9 days of blissful honeymooning.




     Of new experiences? I am sure I had never opened three weather apps on my phone at the same time before and tracked the weather for 3:30 pm in Edwards, IL for seven days before an event.  It burnt up some of my adrenalin, keeping me busy doing that.  Predictors went from 30% to 90% to 50% chance of rain in the same day on one of the days I roosted there.  Weather, weather, weather.



     Of new experiences!  My first Jewish wedding!  The unveiling, the do-se-do, the chuppah, the blessings.  The stomping on the wine glass is a tradition I've seen in movies, but the explanation in person was much more meaningful.  This represents how fragile relationships are and how without trying you can break it into a thousand pieces so easily and quickly with the wrong words or actions.  So true and gives me goosebumps to recall this. 

     The reception was wonderful and hard.  Hard because you invite all these people who love you and your son, and then you get to spend about sixty seconds with each, if you are lucky.  I guess all the weddings over the years are how you repay them for their devotion and support, but I wish we could have talked to everyone more!




     Wonderful because with only two glasses of wine in five hours I felt high as a kite the whole time. High on the most amazing reception venue with glass on three walls looking out into woods and fields and sky.  

     High on love and joy, good food and wine, beautiful flowers and smiling faces.  High on watching my girls dance together and have fun at their brother's wedding.  High on watching adorable great-nieces and nephews at the photo booth. 

   

     There were several epic moments, including the hora or Hava Nagila dance where it seemed all 200 guests were on the dance floor while we circled the loved couple at a speed racer pace!

     Wonderful to see my firstborn as a mature, loving husband who truly cared about his new wife, who danced as much as anyone there to the amazing bluegrass music of New Cats.  Very impressed with he and Jenny's intricate, quirky, tightly woven group of friends who were so present all day and evening.




     Wonderful to stand outside on the rain-soaked deck in my bare feet, with Chuck and look back into the venue at 8pm with all the lights and flowers and flying dancers and know that everything was right with the world in that moment.
     Do I feel ten years younger now that the responsibility of all that is involved in a wedding in 2018 is accomplished.  Yes, yes I do.  Before this weekend I might have been overheard saying "I've got to go through this three more times as the mother of the bride."  Do I still feel this way? No.  Life is simple and beautiful when concentrated down to this.   I now feel that if I'm really, really lucky I might GET to go through it three more times and experience the overflowing joy, all clearly focused on loving two people for a time.














 


*PhotoCredits: courtesy of the hashtag #roomies4life on Instagram and Facebook!

Love Letter to my House

      We are in the process of leaving behind a home we've lived in for 22 years, so far.  Only one baby was born here, but the other three barely remember our previous house.  They were something like 9, 6, 2 and not here yet when we moved to this 1898 Victorian.  It has five bedrooms, two baths, two stairways, and much more.  Most people walking through my house would probably think 'Charming but a bit lived-in perhaps?'  But I see below the surface level of newspapers and ankle boots and dog toys.  And as I look to moving from this house to something much smaller and a good 50 years newer, I want to document what I will miss about our Park Avenue house.  Leaving out the broad expanses of dog hair and dirty dishes that we all have, right?
     First, there is the address.  Wherever you go people take a second look when you say 'Park Avenue', I assume because of NYC and the songs.  Second is the boulevard down the center.  Who gets to live on a street with trees and flags down the center?  Not many!
     Then there are the friendly dog-walking neighbors at all time of day or night.  Reliably looking up at the architecture or porches of many more illustrious houses than my own. 


But my house, the things I want to document so I can look back some day, is in the details.  Details like the front door knob. 

Details like the trim around every window and doorway in this place (I think we have 25 windows).

Details like this broken finial (?) that I have refused to fix so it reminds me of my wonderful life, just like the movie. 

The fact the house had a lily carved in the newel post and we had a daughter named Lily probably has something to do with us taking this on and gutting it 20 years ago.

     Going back outside, there is the sidewalk that runs all the way around the house in a big oval that all the kids could ride their bikes or trikes or scooters around.  I didn't grow up with that, but it is a great thing for a family. Details like a porch swing and spindles and this bright red door that came to us this way.  Its always the perfect color once a year at Christmas-time.

Details like the windows, some of which I've written about before more eloquently in the past, but nothing is the same.  It is all unique.  That's how they did it in 1898. 

Some things I always wanted in a house include this pocket door that is still in great shape, never refinished, because it is usually hidden away.

My next house is so much smaller, I'm pretty sure it wont have a 'Christmas-tree room' like we have now.  Or two stairways, one with room for many more stockings than the 9 we have  hanging this year. 

Or this nook at the top of the stairs I've always been in love with because of its utter impracticality.

     love this picture because it represents our marriage so well.  Chuck built this pantry the first year we moved into the kitchen.  But one year for Christmas without me knowing it he added a light inside.  Something I'd waited a good 18 years for, lol.  The pantry was something we added, and are leaving behind for the next owners:

     Don't you look back and childhood photos of birthday cakes, and really, what is fun to see, is the counter behind everyone with the pencils and phone and the notepad to take messages on (no one ever used).  Or the crazy rec room carpet pattern on the floor.  It is the details that bring back childhood, and even though this house doesn't represent my own childhood, it represents my own children's childhood.  As my friends know, I'm not particularly sentimental.  About pets, or kids going to college, or empty nests.  But I am sentimental about leaving this house.  I feel good about it.  It is time.  But I do feel nostalgic for all the impromptu tumbling classes we had in the long front rooms, the coat closet at the back door I would literally throw my weight into to close with all those snowpants and snowboots and mittens.  Our chandelier that I once broke, using it as a life ring as I fell while cleaning it.  And paid a hefty penny to restore, or so it seemed at the time.  I've never made that mistake again (of cleaning it haha)...

     This is where Santa visited with a vengeance and backpacks were tossed and tossed, and tossed as they all arrived home from their respective schools to turn on Rugrats and drink their capri suns :)

So many moments here, and I'm just hoping I can remember as many as possible for safekeeping.  On to the next adventure (eventually).  We don't do anything quickly!
     Of all the houses we've had or will have, this is without a doubt the best one for Christmas-y feelings.  Last year for it!

And the Eleven goes to...

In 2015 I achieved a personal best--I posted to this blog 11 months out of twelve.  I'm happy about this and have decided I like receiving awards and may do so on a regular basis. Give YOURself an award for something you are proud of.  Nearly perfect is high praise for you too.

Picture taken just after cleaning up where the dog threw up a chicken bone....

This is my dining room of course.

I post a lot of pictures on facebook.  I think of it as my replacement for the picture albums of yesteryear.  I could print them some day, I can look back at them at any time from anywhere.   But I take 100 photos, and I sort out all the frowns, shut eyes, blurred focus (lots of those in my haste), too dark, too bright, too shadowy.  And these days I have to usually make sure one of my offspring won't be upset if I post a pic. A highly complicated process, to make it through that filter for reasons you could never tell looking at the photos.  But they'll all laugh 'I can't believe you think that one is good??!' shaking their heads in despair at my gaucheness.  The few that make the cut, I fix the colors and crop them on my phone in about 17 seconds (I remember the old days, when it took me half an hour to do that.)

Facebook or similar photographs, which I enjoy, are not my real life. Not mine.  Not yours. Not that friend who was a cheerleader in high school who still looks good in yoga pants.  I've heard "I can't stand to be on facebook and see how great everyone else's life is compared to mine."  I don't suffer from this very common and understandable malady, because I know how the slices of life I (me. Toni) post on facebook are the grain of sand moments grasped among mostly long, boring, tough, argumentative, tiring, humdrum, routine, vanilla regular old sandbox-of-life.  I know that when others post pics, they aren't showing me (usually) the overflowing toilet, the lost cell phone, the toothepaste cap that rolls out of reach, the front door that won't stay shut when it drops below 40, the letter from the mammography center.  They aren't showing me the 47 unmatched socks in their laundry basket, or how they felt after a bad phone conversation with the bank, or a depressing visit to their parent's nursing home.  Do not judge me, or anyone else we meet on facebook or instagram or twitter by the short witty sayings and sunset-background couples shots that we all love to share.

Facebook photograph sharing is not real life.  That is why today, I shared the picture above.  It really was taken just after we cleaned up from the dog, Molly.  Molly got into the garbage when our back was turned (OK, my husband's back was turned, I wasn't home.) and rooted out some old fried chicken, bone and all. After she threw it up the first time, while we were running to grab something to clean it up with, she managed to eat that same deliciously-regurgitated chicken bone again.  The next time it came up we found it on the dining room rug.  Happened to be just before I took a bunch of shots of my crazy Thanksgiving dining room and kitchen.  Shots that were only for me, until now.

This is a dining room you ask?  Isn't everyone's dining room covered in miscellaneous flip house leftovers and the entire contents of their kitchen pantry?

Doesn't everyone's kitchen ceiling open up to the plumbing runs above it for repairs?

No?  No plastic sheets hanging everywhere to keep the drywall dust down?  

Am I getting new counter tops for Christmas?   No, but I did get a patched ceiling, for which I'm very grateful.  It was opened to fix the pipes that froze once upon a time and have kept our second bathroom out of commission for many long months, because, really, when is it a good time to cook under cover of 120 year old falling insulation?

But I digress.  My point is, that you (and I, definitely I) may not post pictures like this, and I am A-ok with that.  I like pictures of snow falling and babies crawling and sons playing amazing bass guitar.  The photos we all share online represent the brief breath of life we want to hold onto, remember, keep.  Sometimes we want to brag or make one of our children or our aunt or our dog groomer feel special.  Sometimes we just want to reach out and say 'hey, I'm here' or laugh along with Jimmy.  Nitty-gritty life is not frozen in time, but messy, grassy, muddy, windy, old, new, broken, stained, taupe, scotch-taped and hot-glued.  Don't compare your well-worn Target version of Keds to someone else's satin-pink-ribboned toe shoes.  They really aren't comparable.

Waiting to be noticed

The first morning.

“I just sat for half an hour listening to the birds speak to one another, staring at trees and a meadow.”

“How long has it been since you did that?”

“Uh, never. “

Oh I’ve known calm observations of nature.  I have a few memories of them.  But they usually last sixty seconds.  I will say I had a hard time not opening my laptop or my book as the minutes ticked by -- at first.  I resisted just merging with the sounds and view. But it is early enough in the morning that the sun is still glinting off the dew, the temperature is that perfect feeling of the lightest sheet against your skin.  This porch has many options for me to sit and ponder my life from: a swing, a rocker, a picnic table, lawn chairs.  Right now I’m writing from the picnic table…

 

The dew is one of my favorite things about nature.  An example of perfection.  All those tiny droplets, glinting on each blade of grass like diamonds.  I love the dew.  I wonder on a cloudy day if the dew is still there and no one notices it.  I wonder how many days I walk right past it, not noticing.  But today it is outdoing itself putting on a show for me.  Taking a picture of the dew is never a satisfying exercise for me (reminder, writing blog not photography blog).  It is like photographing the moon.  No photos I take resemble reality.  But I’m going to stop here and try a few shots.

"I don't see it"

 

"Wait, I think I see it"

 

"Yes."

 

I have a whole post about sun on snow.  Sun on dew deserves to be a strong first cousin.  Crystals.  Harder to see, you have to look really close to see diamonds and not just crab grass and mown down dandelions.  But it is there, waiting.  Unseen 99 time s out of a hundred, or 999 times out of a thousand, but still there, waiting to be noticed.  Nature is beauty waiting to be noticed. 

 

New Year -- New me or Old me?

Years ago, my husband and I would spend hours on New Years day drafting detailed resolutions.  I had lists with five goals in each category: Financial, spiritual, home improvement, each child listed separately, and much more.  It was a very interesting exercise, and I do not think a waste of time.  But very rarely (never) did we end up feeling successful at meeting those goals.  No, the promises of a monthly Daddy date or yoga three times a week or saving for college years were forgotten with the very next garbage day/two with ear infections/overdue phone bill combo day.  So now I limit myself to two or three very do-able goals.  The phrase "Older but wiser." does have some truth to it.

"New Year, Old Me" made me laugh as I typed it as tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm supposed to feel older.  With a Jan 5 birthday it is literally an older me come each new year's week.  But I don't feel particularly older on my day of birth.  I also don't feel newer just because the calendar flipped to 2015.  Honestly, I feel about the same.  The new year brings a feeling of promise.  An old me is also reassuring.  

When I look back at 2014 I see a lot of struggle, some pain, losses that will stay with me for many years.  The joke my husband likes to tell (he doesn't know it is a joke) is 'Well last month was really unusual because of X, Y, and Z' but when I point out the last 300+ months have been similarly unusual, making them usual, he just disagrees.  This month things will be calm, normal, uneventful.  It never happens.  Oh some months are more hectic with more major events.  Graduations, operations, vacations. But even a regular old weekend with a dead battery, broken cake plate, lost wallet, frozen pipe, rude neighbor, dog doing her business in the wrong place, and a sore throat is trying. Time rushes on.  Time rushes on.  But in these same brief timespans are good things. Moments of peace.  Finding a new meditation site, savoring a delicious caramel, looking at the sparkle in my dog's eye as he offers me the tennis ball, laughing at an old episode of Seinfeld.  Every normal weekend has times of stress, arguing, fatigue, anxiety.  But interspersed are moments of pleasure, rest, laughter, and conversation.  This is life.   

~Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.~

In my twenties, this was a mantra that my bff Sherry and I lived by when we were feeling wise and trying to figure out life.  As new moms surrounded by Good Housekeeping's pages of perfection as well as diaper pails and check books that didn't match up, we discovered this phrase together and took it seriously. We agreed, if we could keep this on our fridge with a magnet and look at it every day, and somehow live it, we would be happy.

Well 27 years later I can say that I feel I am currently living it.  Oh sure, if I won the lottery I'd have the amazing laundry room and reading nook that I've pinned to my Pinterest boards.  I'd also help families adopt orphans, travel to Ireland, and pay off all my kids' student loans.  (Actually I could write several blog posts on what I would do if I won the lottery, but I digress.)  As I muse over 2014, here at the beginning of 2015, I say this -- I do want what I have.  And that when stress returns (probably within the next 18 minutes) it will do its damage, but that even the smallest crumbs of good outweigh the pounds of bad.  Good wins.

Blessings,
Toni

2015 Resolutions:

1. Hike once a month

2. Second draft of novel by July 31st.