This morning I walked the lake as I've been doing consistently two days a week since the new year. I suppose that is my resolution. I'm not sure if I knew it was at the time, but apparently that's how resolutions are made and kept at my age: make it small, tangible and achievable.

Baby steps.
​
Today the fog seemed to tell me something similar.

Usually while walking the lake, I have a clear view of the opposite shoreline. It's only about 3 miles around, so it's not difficult to see the whole thing at a glance, but not today.

​This morning the fog was so thick--like pea soup, as they say--I couldn't see the water, let alone the other side. It was very striking, beautiful, unusual--other worldly. At certain points it seemed as if I was staring off into the ends of the Earth.

As I walked I wondered what the lesson was because it felt like the fog was telling me something. The Universe was whispering in my ear and it struck me: focus. Focus on what is right in front of you and don't think or worry about the other stuff in the background. Fog forces this to happen.

​On a clear day the branch of a tree can be so easily lost among the colors of the water, the distant trees, the bird flying by at that moment, etc, etc. Fog erases all of that from your vision and the branch that never caught your eye before, stands boldly against the backdrop of the muffled grey mist. An ordinary blade of grass pops. The empty boat has never looked so desperately alone.

The Universe pleads, "Slow down. Focus on what is right in front of you."

Don't waste time thinking of the stuff off in the distance. There may come a time when you are there, but currently you are here. Forget "over there" for now.

Appreciate, worry about, tend to, take pleasure in, suffer through, deal with, savor--what is right here right now. 
Be present.

Let everything else fade off behind the fog.

At long last, two years after I was originally supposed to sit down with the wonderful Joy Nelkin Wieder, author of The Passover Mouse, we finally got to chat mask-free in the WCAT Studios this past Monday. I got to follow Joy on her journey from spark of an idea back in 2002 all the way to this moment twenty years later to celebrate her picture book just before Passover begins April 15th. 

The Passover Mouse came out two years ago, just before the pandemic, and so Joy has had to endure a two-pronged form of perseverance with not only a long wait for her story to become a book and reach the eyes of children, but also to connect with those children once the book was out there. So much was cancelled and so two years later she looks forward to reading it to kids in the classroom, at libraries and bookstores to see their reactions to a story about a mischievous but adorable mouse.

​Joy said it best during her interview when she said, "Don't give up!"

It's been a while. Since, the writing--in here.
With a blog titled, "Dear Diary" I wanted to write, "Dear Diary, my mother passed away less than a month ago and I'm finding it hard to write. Why does grief take up so much room in my head? Why does it feel like such a relief to write what I'm thinking in my paper journal with my pen, but when it comes to typing in this Diary---I just don't want to?"

And that's a problem, for a writer. "Writer's block" seems to take on a whole new, debilitating strength after the loss of a loved one. It makes me think of the children's book I used to read to my children called, Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball by Vicki Churchill & Charles Fuge. For some reason, when I'm sad or overwhelmed, I want to get as small as I can. And, in an effort to get as small as I can I pull in my arms and legs and tuck my chin down. 

It's hard to write when you're in a ball.
Writing is an extension of who I am and I suppose stretching myself out so publicly on a page is simply unappealing. It's the last thing I want to do because, well--when you lose someone you love you really don't want to do much at all. But I'm still a mother, wife, sister, friend, neighbor, volunteer, citizen and, still, I am a daughter--with all that continues to come with such a role even without the mother to show for anymore. 

A little over two months ago I set out to create a blanket--for myself. I haven't done that since the '90s!
​
Post-2000, my blankets have usually been for new or approaching babies. I made one for a cousin's birthday.

A few starts remain undone for one reason or another--like abandoned manuscripts tossed into a drawer. 

Shortly before the new year arrived, I tied the last knot in the blanket I started in October. It's warm. It's cheery. And, it's the perfect size for sitting on the couch, kicking up my feet and fully covering me from pointed toe to tucked chin. 

It's bitterly cold today. My thermometer reads 5 degrees. 
Hats, gloves, coats: ON.
Heat: UP. A constant purr in the background.

I hope you have something cozy to snuggle with today.
One stitch at a time may seem slow, but Cozy Rosy is proof that--
even the long, cold days
eventually come to an end.
Keep going.
One stitch at a time.
One day at a time.
One thought.
One word.
One -- soon equals five, then ten.
You'll have something to spread out and 
be grateful for when it's just you,
your creation, and
​old man Winter.

I love the Peanuts cartoons and always have to watch Merry Christmas Charlie Brown when the holiday season rolls around. It's a wonderful, quiet nod to the real reason for the Christmas season and how community can lift us up, little things can mean a lot, and the underdogs in our lives can surprise us and save the day! 

During such challenging times, fear can start making our decisions for us. That's not a good thing. The ever-present essence of fear in the air lately makes me appreciate the page from my Our Daily Bread book that I have included alongside this entry. Linus takes center stage and speaks so simply.

I hope that whatever faith you practice you are able to take strength from it, lean on something larger than any of us and shed some of the fear that we have all come to live with constantly.

I have faith that something is going to give and we will start to feel some relief from so much stress in the new year: 2022! Good times are ahead where we will be able to let go a little, enjoy the moments as they present themselves to us, and live fearlessly.

​Happy New Year to you and all the family and friends in your life.

I was reading my itty bitty Our Daily Bread book this morning and had to share this. Sometimes no matter what your faith is or what you believe, it's good to know you are on this Earth for a reason.

With the cooler weather starting to seep in, I can't help but think of one of my all-time fave holiday movies: It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart! 

I got news of someone's passing today. She wasn't someone I knew well--in fact, I'd only met her once in my life, but she was a lovely, talented, generous lady and it made me think of how all of us have people in our lives or that perhaps were merely brief flashes of acquaintance who have been impacted in a good way by us.

None of us is ordinary!

Have you ever given inanimate objects more credit for your future than they deserve?

I have. Earlier this month, I found myself getting to the end of my current writing journal. You may have seen the cover of it in a past blog or newsletter. It says "Organized Chaos" on the front. I have to admit it wasn't my first choice for cover designs, but like with clothes--often I go for comfort over style--the choices of journals with coptic binding were few and so I snatched it up. The important part is the inside (wow--what an unintentional, but heartwarming truth:) with its empty lined pages. 

As Organized Chaos came to a close and school was starting, I pulled my next journal out from under a pile of clothes. (How I knew it was there, I have no idea. And why it had remained there--also, no idea.)

The next journal said, "Sunny Skies Ahead" on its cover. The colors were muted and everything looked calm about it. It was quite the follow-up to multi-colored, metallic organized chaos. That's when I started to believe, to genuinely hope, that the journal was making promises we all know it couldn't keep. Once I opened that blank journal I would be leaving chaos behind and sunny skies would open up and usher in the calm that everybody's been longing for after several years of not-quite-calm-at-all. 

This is the story of The Little Clematis that Could

A little over two years ago, we were preparing to move. We had outgrown our house and needed a bit more room, so like a crab we molted--shedding our old shell in favor of a new one. Being a gardener, I had so many plants in my garden that I wanted, but couldn't, take with me. One particularly striking plant was a  Clematis vine with big, beautiful, purple/blue blooms that ushered in the spring brilliantly. 

Knowing I couldn't uproot that large plant I noticed a "volunteer" down at the base, which was a small stem sticking up that had taken root and could be separated and taken with us.  So, that's what I did--took it with us. In the crazy chaos of the move it got lost and quite frankly I forgot I had even taken it up as it was not the only plant I had taken a division of and moved around. That little plant found itself all alone and down the Cape, still in its second-hand pot, all winter long.

The next spring we went down to find a pot on the banister. It had to have been found by someone and placed there because it surely would have blown off onto the ground if it had been left there for months during the snowy, blowy winter. I almost didn't recognize it with no leaves and no label, just a desperate little stick of a stem with nothing to distinguish it from any other little stick of a stem just trying to survive a long, cold, lonely winter. But, alas--I had a suspicion it might be that Clematis.

We moved into our new home and I found what I thought was just the right spot for that little transplant. When I pointed it out to my mother she said, "Oh no, that won't grow. Clematis don't like to be transplanted." Hurrumph. Well, it was in the ground and I was going to water it and see what happened. And guess what?

It grew. It started growing and I went out and bought a pretty metal trellis for it to climb and I anticipated how beautiful it would be, but--a groundhog came along one day and ate everything in that garden right down to the ground including the Clematis. All I could think about was how much that little plant had survived and yet, just as it started to thrive it was cut short. So short--surely it was a goner.

​With expectations very low I gathered a few tree branches and lay them over the spot where the stem still appeared in its heavily munched state. I figured perhaps the branches with their twigs sticking out all around would deter any hungry animal the next spring. I waited and waited and then--

Signs of life. The vine started to stretch and green up. The sticks I had covered it with were not a problem as the vine wound around, through and up. It grabbed hold of the metal trellis I had supplied it with the year before and it kept climbing up and up and up. There were lots of leaves now and it was spreading out in all directions. 

Watering it one day I noticed a big hole behind it--clear of the sticks that had been placed in front of the trellis--between the trellis and the house which was about four inches. Bunnies! A bunny had decided to dig a nest for her babies back there behind my Clematis vine. How? Why? I don't know. Perhaps it seemed like a safe place for my Clematis and for some baby bunnies. Somehow the digging didn't bother the roots of the vine enough to kill it. The bunnies stayed, until they left.

Before too long the vine was green and healthy and continuing to climb so I cut away the branches I had put in front of it to protect it and was able to fully admire it. But then. Those bunnies. They were hungry and began to chew on all sorts of things in my garden despite the plentiful clover: my Amelanchier tree, a swamp Azalea I had planted only weeks before and yes . . . that Clematis vine. 

The infuriating thing about it was that those bunnies didn't even eat the whole thing. This time they just took a nibble low on the vine so as to cut the power to the rest of the plant that had so miraculously climbed that trellis. Snapped it in half and walked away so that slowly the leaves of the top of that vine started to brown around the edges and curl inward toward itself. Feeling defeated and somehow emboldened I pulled away the dying part to toss into the compost bin and made a trip to the store where I bought chicken wire. 

With little chicken wire experience I cut through it, shaped it, cut my hands up plenty, got about twenty mosquito bites as I worked, but was determined to surround the base of the Amelanchier, the Azalea and that Clematis with something strong and unpleasant. Life went on.