Evolution of a Tree

December – Advent

Rooted securely in my mind since childhood is the maple I planted and nurtured from seed to sapling to tree in our front yard in Easton, Maryland. Up until we moved from the Eastern Shore when I was in sixth grade, that tree served as the background for what would become many of my formative memories – a favorite nesting place to read, a live scene on the set of our neighborhood skits, a second base in kickball games, a place to gather with friends to have serious pre-teen talks about growing up. No matter how many times I have moved to new states and countries, knowing that tree was there has been the foundation of my definition of “home.”

My tree is gone.

We recently had the opportunity to spend a weekend in St. Michael’s, a picture-perfect bayside town located less than a half an hour from Easton. As we drove along Route 50, my husband responded warily when I asked him to turn left at an upcoming intersection. He has this way of raising an eyebrow when I ignore the GPS and assume I know where I am going. (I call it exploring; he calls it getting lost.)

We turned onto Dutchman’s Lane, made a right at the next street, and pulled into the driveway of one of our neighbors who I knew still lived next door to our former house. While it seemed much smaller than what I remembered, our two-story Cape Cod looked beautiful. Current owners had added shutters and a rich coat of blue paint. Trimmed shrubs and summer’s faded marigolds filled the front garden – vestiges of our original landscaping. I remember the lingering smell of those pungent blossoms that our father assigned us to pluck from their stems once they had lost their golden vigor. That non-allowanced yard duty was at least a little better than picking mushrooms from the backyard that would sprout overnight after a humid rain.

When the tree (at the right of the photo) was just a few years old! Check out all those marigolds…and the station wagon in the driveway!

I looked up into the two dormer windows on the second floor and pictured shadows of my sisters and I playing in our shared rooms. How many days did I spend at my built-in desk, writing and drawing and sometimes doing homework as I daydreamed while peering out of those very same windows? I remembered my turtle, Mr. Sassafras, who lived for a while in a terrarium I kept on my desk along with various creeping charlie ivies, spider plants and other “stuff” I collected back then. I imagined the breeze that would flutter the sheer curtains bringing a welcome breath of cool air into our room as we talked and tried to settle ourselves to sleep after heated summer evenings of playing marbles and catching fireflies.

My sisters and my parents occasionally have had the opportunity to visit friends in the old neighborhood. Through photos, I saw my tree grow from its (and my adolescence) into maturity, branches reaching higher than our house, its trunk thickening almost humanlike over the years. But now, my tree is gone, a bald round patch in the grass the only sign it ever existed in the first place.

My husband stayed in the car as I walked up to our neighbor’s house and knocked on the front door, something I had done probably hundreds of times in years past when I would ask if my best friend could come out and play. I had already planned to meet her and her daughter for lunch, but I thought it would be fun to surprise her and offer a ride instead. Nearly 50 years older than we were back then, our hug transcended time. The lines between past and future dissolved. We are moms and daughters, neighbors and friends.

“What happened to my tree?”

“I think it got sick. They had to cut it down this past year. You can see how big that spot in the grass is. ”

“I am so sad.”

All I could think of as we got into the car to go to lunch was that maybe the grass would not ever cover the spot where my tree lived. Could there still exist a tiny seed of life that might push itself up through the ground again? Probably not, but that’s where my defiant thoughts went anyway.

Just a few days after we got home from our weekend trip, I chanced upon this Bible verse from 2 Corinthians Ch. 4:16, 18. Honestly, it startled me out of the contemplative funk I had been fighting about the passage of time, life, death…and trees. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day…for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Maybe a little girl lives in our old house now. Maybe she will find a whirlybird helicopter pod one day and ask her dad if she can plant it. She will point to a perfect spot in the front yard, bury the seed, and water it every day knowing intuitively that if she believes, it will grow.

Heavenly Highlights

December – Advent

I was just about to click “purchase” when I saw the bold face message above my order advising that I had already bought this book eight years earlier in August 2014. Perplexed, I reached for my Kindle and searched my library. 2014? I had to call my mother.

“Mom,” I spluttered into the phone, “that book, the one we are supposed to read before we go on our trip to the Holy Land… I already own it. Apparently, I have also read it. I have absolutely no recollection of ever buying it, yet alone reading it. I was the Principal at St. Augustine then. Were we doing a book study? I honestly can’t remember.”

“It’s a long book,” she laughed. “You might want to get started now – again.”

My mother and I are going to Israel at the end of January. In anticipation, our Bishop, who is leading the pilgrimage from the Diocese of Tucson, suggested we read Jesus: A Pilgrimage, by Father James Martin.

I am not sure whether I feel awe or intense anxiety when something resurfaces that I have buried in a file folder deep in the back of my mind. Have I finally reached an age when I forget more than I remember? Or is this yet another reminder of my humble place in a universe that was created way out of my existential control?

So, I begin reading (re-reading). Within pages, I am startled by various highlights and notes I must have made during my first experience with this book. I tend to be compulsive about annotating text. This helps me interact with what I read, and often inspires me to deeper learning. Even in digital works, I continue to annotate while also believing I will probably never go back and see my notes. Normally I do not. Until now.

One of the first highlights I bump into comes in the second chapter in which Father Martin writes about Mary and her “yes” to a future she cannot begin to comprehend. He says, “God begins a conversation with Mary, as God does with us, breaking into our lives in unexpected ways…. And we think, why am I feeling these feelings…? This is God beginning a conversation.” I like that thought. (I highlight it again.) Maybe God is picking up the threads of a conversation He began with me eight years ago when I downloaded this book for the first time.

Mary embraced God’s request without understanding why she was chosen to do so. I had also highlighted the next sentence or so in the same chapter that mentioned teaching: “We accept a position as a teacher and our lives are changed by our students. More simply, we say yes to God and are completely transformed.” Okay, that makes sense; I had most certainly been reading the book from the perspective of an educator. And I have undoubtedly been transformed by my students in so many ways.

As I continue to read, I latch on to not only Father Martin’s spiritual and theological reflections, but also his observations as a tourist to the places he visited that are also on the agenda for our upcoming pilgrimage. I enjoy his very human response to the congested traffic, the hotels and convents where he stayed, the crowded buses, and lack of signage along the roads. I have a need to know this as I contemplate which shoes to pack, the winter weather in Jerusalem, and how many dollars to convert to shekels.

Next, I encounter this: “God meets us where we are…. In other words, God comes to us in ways that we can understand and appreciate, even if only partially or incompletely.” I wonder what compelled me to underline this before. Today, I read this phrase through the lens of eight years of hindsight. I never would have thought then that I would be where I am today as I travel back and forth between home in Tucson and my husband’s workplace in Washington, D.C. I am mostly retired. I am a grandmother. I knit hats. In addition, I recognize my tiny position in a vast global world that God sees in its entirety – a place where we have all been so weathered and affected by the pandemic, tumultuous politics, and moral issues that test our faith in so many complicated (perhaps Biblical) ways.

According to my Kindle, I am 20% into my current journey through this book. I downloaded a hard copy of my previous notes just in case I am inspired to jot down a few other thoughts along the way. While I don’t re-read books very often (there are too many others to read first), I am blessed with time to prepare for this pilgrimage, especially during Advent when all of us are called to look anew at what we have experienced before and to look ahead at what is to come through the transcendent life of Jesus.

This leads me to one more quotation from Father Martin’s book: “There is one person in a variety of times, the past informing the present. God is at work at all times.” I think about this while swiping my finger across the bottom of my Kindle to turn the page. I sense the Holy Spirit reading alongside me, nudging me to discover and welcome more “heavenly highlights” along the way.

Note: Quotes highlighted are from Jesus: A Pilgrimage by Father James Martin (Kindle edition, published March 2014)

The Road to Oracle

November – Ordinary Time

Less than an hour from our home in Tucson, Arizona where we have lived for more than twenty years, we took a right turn. I glanced over at my son who was driving. It was 6 a.m., and we were on our way to the Town of Oracle where he was set to time the Oracle Run, a 5/10K race that was marking its 40^th year on this “sky island” perched at about 4,500 feet at the base of the Catalina Mountains. I am not a runner, but after years of being a track mom, I continue to volunteer to assist when needed. I was also looking forward to seeing our daughter-in-law and grandbabies when they would meet us an hour or so later.

“Why have I never been on this road?”

My sister, also in the car and preparing to run the 10K, sipped her Starbucks coffee and noted that I should prepare myself to step back in time and simply enjoy the morning. She first ran here a couple of years ago and came from Phoenix the night before to participate in this iconic race in this equally iconic town.

I have lived in nine states and two countries and have traveled through several more on various adventures. But just then, as has happened a few times in my life, I was physically steered away from a road I have driven many times and onto another that significantly jostled my perception of where I have always lived, worked, shopped, and eaten. How could I be so oblivious to potential experiences hidden “just around the corner” from my established routines?

“Walk around and explore Mom,” my son advised while he was setting up his timing equipment. “Everything begins and ends in the museum over there,” he said, pointing to the weathered ranch-style building with a huge wrap-around porch adjacent from where we parked. I knew he meant that the race’s base camp had been set up at the entrance of the museum, but as I discovered, there were lots of beginnings and endings to explore up the wooden steps and through the front door.

The museum is operated by the Oracle Historical Society and is housed in what used to be the Acadia Ranch, built in 1882 by Edwin and Lillian Dodge. It not only served as a boarding house and guest ranch, but also as a tuberculosis sanatorium. According to information posted on the museum’s website: “It was at the turn of the last century that Oracle gained international fame as an ideal cure for those suffering from ‘consumption,’ the name given to tuberculosis and other lung afflictions at a time before penicillin. After an article was published in the leading medical journal, many came to Oracle in the belief the fresh air would restore them to good health.” (There is a wealth of information about the museum, history, and culture of Oracle to be found on the museum’s website: https://www.oraclehistoricalsociety.org).

Each room of the inn opened my eyes to not just time gone by, but time eternal. The first room was dedicated to a mixed display honoring the tradition of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Photos of family members were interspersed on tables laden with colorful representations of papier maché food, painted skulls, sheet draped ghosts, and lanky skeletons. Perched against a wall was an unrelated sign outlining Mine Rules dating back to the early 1900s from the nearby San Manuel copper mine.

The adjoining rooms led to a kitchen, dining hall, sitting area, and guest quarters, complete with a metal framed bed and assorted medical instruments for those in treatment for their lung ailments. I couldn’t resist lifting the heavy kettle from the kitchen stove and trying to put myself in place of those who came before me. The best part of this museum is the ability to touch and feel the history – hardly anything is locked under glass, including shards of pottery that date even further back to when the Hohokam and Apache settled in the area a thousand or so years before the inn was even conceived.

I wandered the grounds surrounding the main building and discovered the ranch’s tack room and icehouse. In the time before the starting gun fired, I found a quiet spot on the porch to sit and enjoy my own cup of coffee. I have always loved those gliders that go back and forth on rusty springs. I filled my lungs with the cool morning air and completely understood the healing energy to be found in this mixed climate of desert and mountain currents. I marveled at a landscape that not only nurtured cacti, but also pine trees.

I didn’t run the race, and I honestly didn’t help my son with any of his timing duties, but I did rack up nearly 5K worth of steps running a “race” with my three-year-old grandson and guiding our one-year-old granddaughter over the bumps in the road she toddled over. I felt totally justified in buying the t-shirt!

Proud of my sister for winning her age group in the 10K and just as proud of my son for timing with no glitches, I thanked them both for inviting me along. “Glad I could help,” I said, acknowledging their eye rolls with a smile.

I felt revitalized not only by Oracle’s healing breezes, but also by the gift of being nudged, via a right turn, toward a new road on my own personal odyssey. There are so many treasures to discover just “around the corner.”

Note: So what is a sky island? A sky island is defined as an isolated mountain range separated from other mountains and surrounding lowlands of a different environment – such as a forest surrounded by desert. There are several examples of these sky islands in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. (Find more information at https://skyislandalliance.org).

I Wait for Rain

October – Ordinary Time

“Each night before we go to sleep, we read a book or two, say prayers, and reluctantly close our eyes to the day. Thank God, the sun comes up in the morning and we can begin again.”

-Welcome to the World Journal, September 1993

Our son had just turned four when I wrote those words at the tail end of my journal entry. How can it be that the sun has traced its pattern across the horizon more than 10,000 times since then? My four-year-old now has a wife and two precious babies. Each night, they nestle themselves on the bed with an assortment of books, say their prayers, and set a clock that shuts it eyes when the lights go off and signals a new day when it is time to “wake up” (at an appropriate hour)!

Thirty years after I tucked my baby into bed, I still say my evening prayers, always beginning the way my parents taught me when they tucked me in: “God bless mommy and daddy, grandma and grandpa and everyone else.” Sometimes, I add, “P.S. Please let it rain.”

I am a woman of the desert. My days usually begin with light creeping under the window shades that I leave partially raised so I don’t miss the dawn. I bask in the dusty pink-orange rays of promising light, whisper a prayer of thanksgiving for a new day, and make my way to the kitchen and espresso pot. I stubbornly admit there are mornings when I gather the covers around me and secretly harbor tempestuous thoughts, ones that defy the predictability of the golden star’s eternal creep through my windows and into my half-closed eyes. Perhaps this is my imperfect attempt to slow down the passage of time, a desire to settle into a soft comfort of cloudy gray – one that blankets me like an old fleece and allows me the freedom of deeper thoughts and memories.

I wait for rain.

I should have been a meteorologist. In addition to being a fan of the Weather Channel, I spend too many minutes scrolling through the MyRadar phone app searching for colorful masses that predict an elusive weather pattern. I watch for a blip on the screen that could potentially snake its way up the Baja Peninsula, across the international border, and over the craggy Sierra Nevadas as highs and lows collide, gathering energy into a cloudy fist whose only outlet will be to burst open and replenish the cells of the dehydrated saguaro and my thirsty soul.

Our family lived in Yuma, Arizona for a few years during our son’s elementary days. Yuma is cradled into the southwestern corner of Arizona and often records some of the hottest temperatures in the nation. We would escape to San Diego when we craved a more moderate climate and a sandy beach adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. When we could not leave, there were afternoons we would drive through the carwash and pretend it was raining for a few minutes as the water pelted the roof of our automobile! Our subsequent move to Tucson included a pool in the backyard where, come rain or shine, the water is always there for us and for the families of mourning doves who stop by for random sips of refreshment in “their” pond.

As I write this, I am in Virginia, miles from my desert home. I spent the morning paging through old journals for a project I am compiling. (That’s where I discovered the letter to my son and the idea for this reflection!) Needing a break from my laptop, I put on my oversized University of Arizona sweatshirt to go for a walk. I glanced out toward the patio of our apartment (our home away from home during this stage of life). It was raining, the remnants of horrible hurricane Ian whipping its tailwinds up the Atlantic seaboard on its way out to sea.

So much for lofty thoughts filled with too many adjectives. I had known it might rain; I just thought it was coming later. God always answers my prayers further prompting me to take advantage of this particular weather pattern! I tied my shoes, grabbed the umbrella, and pointed myself in the direction of the Potomac River. It might be nice to see how the geese were holding up on this unusually cool and wet day.

There weren’t too many people on the trail; however, the ones who were smiled as I passed, secretly sharing their own needs to experience a day without sunshine. Only half-trying to avoid puddles, I simply put one foot in front of the other, not really thinking of anything. That, in and of itself, proved therapeutic.

All morning, I had been pondering the passage of time (and several of the old journal entries I had decided to toss in the trashcan.) Walking, I slowly let those thoughts go. I subconsciously began to focus on my immediate landscape – leaves succumbing to autumn, fat acorns that crunched as I stepped on them, dots of vibrant color in the defiant blooms of summer’s final flowers, a turtle perched on the one rock not submerged by a rising tide. And the ducks and geese – quite impervious as they glided along the shoreline.

I silently conversed with God as I continued, experiencing peace punctuated by a darker thought as I selfishly drank in the aftermath of this hurricane, knowing how others continue to suffer the eye of that storm. I allowed myself to be a conduit of both the light and the dark.

The breeze shifted and the temperature dropped a degree or two as I turned up one of Old Town Alexandria’s cobbled streets and headed home. It was still drizzling and there was not even a tiny sliver of an opening in the dense clouds.

I wait for sunshine.

Home again and at my keyboard, I reconcile myself with the grace of this day – one that I know I will have to reluctantly close my eyes to later this evening. “Thank God, the sun comes up each morning and we can begin again.”

Chasing Metaphors

September – Ordinary Time

Today, the metaphors were pooled at my feet in a pile of unraveled yarn. I had knitted and purled this variegated project too many times – a scarf with a lace inset, no…a hat with a cable…better yet, the front panel of a sweater. All went well until I twisted a stitch, dropped a stitch, forgot a stitch. So much for trying to find a pattern to match the skein of yarn I found on sale a few weeks ago at Michaels!

I frogged the frazzled wool (for the third time) back to the cast on row. I had just spent 15 minutes that turned into two hours accomplishing absolutely nothing. Frustrated, I gathered the tangled jumble, walked to my bedroom, and stashed the entire mess into a dark corner of the closet. Mustering a surge of guilty energy, I then managed to wash the breakfast dishes, take a shower, write an email, and scrabble through the bills in record time. I was driven solely by a compulsion to have something concrete to report later when my husband and I would share details of our day over dinner (which I had not planned yet).

It’s been almost three years since I took my name off the door of the Principal’s office at St. Augustine Catholic High School in Tucson, Arizona to follow my husband’s job to Washington, D.C. As much as I have tried to define my purpose as we hopscotch between the east coast and our “real” home in Arizona, I find my unemployed retired self often feeling just as tangled as the knots now hidden in my closet.

I am untitled.

And although my epitaph will someday include daughter, wife, mother, grandma, journalist, teacher, and principal, those titles have become somewhat honorary if I am being honest. Today, my signature block simply reads “Lynn.”

After my morning of discontent, I laced my tennis shoes and headed out for a long walk from our apartment through the ever-quaint streets of Old Town Alexandria. I ultimately ended up seated at a favorite bench looking out over the Potomac River. Inserting my earbuds, I tuned into Day 269 of Father Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year Podcast. (I am proud of myself to committing to this endeavor!)

“For whoever has despised a day of small things shall rejoice” (Zechariah 4:10). Is it ironic or coincidental that this particular quotation trickled into my ears today?

While I am no longer tasked with doing what I consider great things like educating children and running a school, what do I really have to complain about? I berate myself for feeling selfish. Haven’t I always said, “When I retire, I will have time to read, to write, to travel, to volunteer, to study, to take afternoon walks, to knit?” (Actually, I never aspired to knit.)

When I truly reflect on it, I haven’t completely wasted my time over the past few years. I taught English to middle schoolers online during the pandemic. I work now and then training teachers in curriculum development. I have traveled to Italy with my sisters. I have time to explore the historical sights of our country’s Capital City. I am able to spend quality time in Arizona with our grand babies and also in Pennsylvania with my husband’s family. I completed a class on Jane Austen. I am going to the Holy Land with my mother early next year. I have even knitted a couple of blankets to donate to the Christ Child Society – an organization I hope to volunteer with when we finally settle back in Arizona again.

More importantly, I am re-discovering the joy of spending quality time with my husband. Nearly 40 years ago, we began our marriage in a two-bedroom apartment, and now, we share a two-bedroom apartment while living in D.C. (The first was HUD-subsidized; this one is not!) I have time to plan and cook healthy meals. It is enjoyable to market shop – three blocks to the to fish store to buy fresh scallops, just down the street to the Thursday afternoon farmers market for in-season produce. Sometimes, I take the metro and meet Joe in Georgetown for dinner at one of our new favorite restaurants. We have reconnected with colleagues from our college and Air Force days who have settled in the area. On Sundays, we go to Holy Rosary Church downtown where Mass is said in Italian. After church, we enjoy an espresso in the parish hall with new friends who have become like family over the past three years.

Despite this complicated world and all the conflicts that tend to tie me in knots both externally and internally, I realize what I already know – there are treasures to be found in the “small things.” After all, every beautiful tapestry is a collection of single stitches. It is within the patterns of small things that I am slowly discerning that it is less important to be titled and more important to focus on what is Still (Extra) Ordinary Time.

Full disclosure: On my way to the bench along the Potomac, I walked through Old Town and to my favorite knitting store. Pattern in hand (not the other way around), I purchased the yarn I would need for my next project. When I got home, I went straight to my closet, pulled out the mess I had stashed there earlier and threw it in the trash can.

Sometimes, you have to take charge of those tangled metaphors and put them where they belong.

No Excuses

Finding Restfulness in the Midst of Restlessness

Holy Week – April

It took a $38.20 charge to my PayPal account to jolt me out of my isolated lethargy of the past several weeks. I assumed WordPress would charge me for next year’s subscription close to the date it would renew, not the month before. Alas, I am in no mood to fight.

“Perhaps,” my lazy gadfly whispers, “this might be a sign for you to whack through the weeds of your creative intentions, face your pandemic of doubt, and channel your blighted energy into your unmanicured fingertips where they meet the keyboard.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I mumble (nowadays, talking to oneself is survival, not a sign of dementia). “I’m back to my blog because I hate wasting money!”

I have no excuse. I have recently discovered that 24 hours is plenty of time in a day. For years, I have been able to safely dream outside my cone of reality knowing that I would probably “never have time” to do those things I always said I would do “if I had the time.” There were always good reasons for my procrastination like raising a child, building a career, planting flowers in the spring, and pulling weeds in the summer. It’s so much easier to plan than to do.

But here I am.

I was just getting used to semi-retirement and a recent move to the eastern seaboard when the Coronavirus seeped into every area of our world’s semblance of order. I had spent the past few months searching and exploring everything from restaurants, coffee bars, and nail salons to museums and national monuments. Where I had been able to stay busy with the mechanics of settling into a new environment, I, like so many of us, now have hours and hours to fill as I experiment with the new vocabulary of isolation and social distancing. What an opportunity, right?

I will give myself some credit. I am dabbling with – not necessarily embracing – the loftier goals of my “when I have time” ventures. I signed up for an online class focused on spirituality and prayer. I bought a new journal. I ordered a few books written by authors who kept journals. I logged into a yoga channel on YouTube. I bought six skeins of yarn. I started two writing projects. I began to track my daily Weight Watchers points.

So far, I have had some success. I follow a pretty regular morning yoga ritual. I prepare healthy meals for my husband and me. And, my obsession with knitting has inspired shock and awe among my family. My mother’s unsuccessful attempts to seed my crafting abilities took more than 40 years to germinate…but now, I am out of control. To date (since October), I have knitted three scarves, a baby blanket, six hats, three potholders, and am currently more than 60 rows into an afghan!

I am challenging myself to write, but I must admit that I suffer nagging and existential doubts that test the waters of evolving authorship. On positive days, I tell myself it doesn’t matter if anyone ever wants to read my stories; on negative days, I stop writing.

I am exploring my religion. I have always tried to honor Church with sincerity and devotion. As I enter this stage of my older life, I find myself searching for ways that lead me beyond the rituals of my faith – which I deeply revere – and into a more contemplative place where my rational self doesn’t always have to get in the way. When I signed up for the online class on centering prayer, my intentions were well positioned, but I admit that I was probably looking for a template that would give me all the tools, provide the instruction, and then quiz me on my success. Obviously, it doesn’t work that way. As I diligently persisted through the modules facilitated by the late Father Thomas Keating, I also read one of the books that has been on my someday list for years – Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain. I was inspired by Merton’s journey but naively caught myself wondering how anyone other than a Trappist monk could ever have the time and space to live such a full life, study the great religious doctors, and then ultimately find a certain freedom in literally letting much of it go. For me, when I try to sit for even 20 minutes and focus on not focusing, I begin to itch – literally and figuratively. Perhaps that is what the centering prayer is all about – discovering those things in our lives that make us “itch” and then turning those irritants over to God. I’m trying.

Another book I am reading is called The Naked Now by Franciscan friar and contemporary author, Richard Rohr. If I am interpreting correctly, the ability to truly wake up spiritually is to let go of pre-conceived notions of how we view the world. There doesn’t always have to be a right way or a wrong way in prayer or politics or all those other big ideas that bog us down (what Rohr calls dualistic thinking). I mean really, if this virus is teaching us anything, it is to let go of almost everything except the common relational bond we have with each other to simply survive.

“Contemplation,” Rohr writes, “is an exercise in keeping your heart and mind spaces open long enough for the mind to see the other hidden material.” This makes sense to me. Right now, I believe I am discovering a purpose in the exercise…much like I do in working through a mindful pose in yoga, losing hours in the creative practice of writing, or mindlessly stitching the patterns of a knitting project. In the process, I am unearthing some of the hidden material in my life and starting to feel a little more restful even in the midst of my restlessness.

I also feel justified in accidentally marking the auto-renewal box of my WordPress subscription. Here’s to more than a penny for my thoughts – $38.20 to be exact!

One Letter at a Time

(The Thesis is in the Final Paragraph)

Advent – December

My piano is a laptop where I compose the music of my muses one letter at a time. Forever pleased that I paid attention during high school typing classes, I impress even myself that my fingers move almost as quickly as my thoughts. My mind seeks creativity among dense clouds and a gray sky. I view the landscape asymmetrically from my second- floor writing space where the window before me draws my eyes to trees stripped of their leaves, bare branches opening to a wider street where cars move persistently north and south. My hands linger above home row, seeking just the right words to capture autumn emotions on this cusp of winter. Just last year, I wrote from the Principal’s Office – newsletters filled with anecdotes of school. Now, thousands of miles away, I take tentative steps in old shoes out of the comfortable breezeways of my career and walk cobbled streets of this colonial city that bears the burden of tangled politics and ever-evolving history.

These mornings, I have time to pour a second cup of coffee instead of rushing to work on time to unlock the front door. I am becoming accustomed to watching the Today Show and the beginning of Kelly and Ryanbefore moving to my desk and online tasks. Lately, my new routine has been interrupted by “breaking news.” I actually called my sister the other day and remarked that I must really be embracing retirement. After all, since when would I become annoyed that I missed the trivia question on my television show because the Speaker of the House had an important announcement?

Of course, I always listen to the news. It’s in my DNA.

Years ago, during my first career as a journalist, I would have perched at the edge of my seat to hear a news update. Today, I switch between channels to analyze broadcasts interpreted to nurture the insistent opinions of those who share their diverse perceptions of the same reality. No one is right; no one is wrong.

I am not writing about politics – especially from this dynamic city that is now my temporary home. I love Washington, D.C. As a child living on the east coast many years ago, some of my best memories are born from visits to our nation’s capitol. Earlier this month, my husband and I went to Mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception – a beautiful basilica where my prayers subconsciously turned to daydreams and meandered to cherished memories of my young sisters and I nestled together with our parents on the polished pews. I thought back over the years and could still envision us in our Sears Roebuck dresses and saddle shoes. We wore lacy chapel caps on the crowns of our cropped haircuts. (We called them doilies and couldn’t wait to take them off after church!) My past and present selves sought to identify the saints in niches far above – a marbled reminder of something that is somehow static and dynamic all at the same time. No matter how much I have traveled, a part of me was raised in this city.

The liturgical year has ended just as fall is turning to winter. And just like that, we have lit the third candle on our Advent wreaths. The sun-starved days of this season lead us not only toward Christmas, but also the beginning of a new calendar year. I read somewhere that even as we grow older, the vision we have of ourselves doesn’t really age. So even though my physical body might be measured by nearly six decades, I still “feel” the way I did when I was six years old kneeling rather uncomfortably on the kneelers in the Basilica. Then, it was hard to see over the pew in front of me; now, my joints are grateful when it’s time to stand. However, I am still me and the faith born in my youth continues its journey in a timeless, ageless sort of way. I am reminded of this Bible verse: “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

Defying all conventions of writing, my thesis is finally being revealed to me in this last paragraph of this composition. Such are those muses on an overcast day! Three years ago this month our father passed away. I pause at the end of this quiet reflection, comforted in knowing that today’s written song is dedicated to my mother, my sisters and all of our children. Wherever we are in our lives at this moment is exactly where we are supposed to be. There is an angel watching over us, casting true rays of God’s light through the grayest clouds, into the window, and onto the keyboard where I type…one letter at a time.

Reading Into Retirement

October – Ordinary Time

I set my cell phone alarm for 30 minutes. I certainly have the luxury to sit and read for a half hour, right? I shift into a comfy position on the couch in our family room and swipe open my Kindle. When the alarm sounds, I am so immersed in the latest conflict my characters face that I rationalize another 30 minutes. I move outside to the patio to enjoy the fall afternoon. The alarm goes off again, and I look up to notice the late afternoon sun is giving way to a pending dusk. Dinner is simmering on the stove, laundry is in the dryer, and Joe won’t be home for at least another hour. I make a conscious choice. I toss the phone aside and finish the novel.

It’s been about a month since Joe and I both came home to Tucson for our grandchild’s baptism. My husband went back to D.C. after the celebration with plans to return three weeks later for a business trip. I opted to stay in Tucson for some extra grandbaby snuggles and to accomplish a few home maintenance projects. It’s been a nice break.

However, now that my husband is here again, it dawned on us that for the first time in years, we would have only one car to share this week (the other is in Washington). Since his schedule requires transportation, I have been exiled to three acres and four bedrooms!

In the 18 years we have owned our house, I believe this is the first time I have spent four consecutive days at home. A car in Washington, D.C. is rarely an issue because of the proximity of grocery stores and metro stations. However, it is a two-mile walk along a busy road to even get to a Circle K from my Tucson neighborhood. Looking back, the only times I ever spent a full day at home were a rare sick day when our son was younger, perhaps a holiday when the family came for dinner, and maybe a day or so when we chose to “vacation” at home and enjoy our swimming pool and built-in barbecue.

My self-imposed exile is hardly a sacrifice, but all this unstructured time is forcing me to reconcile the reality of my situation. Without a full-time career all of a sudden, my Google calendar has ceased its endless chirping reminders. I even check periodically to make sure I haven’t set my technological notifications to silent. As selfish as it may sound, I have discovered that instead of feeling liberated by my new-found freedom, I am burdened by the weight of “when I have time…”

When I have time, I will exercise every day. When I have time, I will write a novel. When I have time, I will volunteer. When I have time, I will focus on my prayer life. When I have time, I will organize all our family photos into albums. But…now that I have time, I feel disoriented.

Then: My body is used to getting up early and showering and fixing my hair and rushing off to work to perhaps stopping for a coffee and then eating lunch at my desk in between teaching and meeting parents and students to finally shutting down my computer while planning dinner on the fly before doing the bills and one load of laundry in between cooking and straightening the house to watching an hour of television to going to bed to beginning again.

My days used to be one long sentence. Today, I have re-discovered punctuation.

Now: There are still groceries to purchase and bills to pay, but there are commas between those things I have to do and what I want to do. This leaves space to read, to write, to re-establish relationships with friends, to exercise (maybe) and to dig into the stockpile of plans and dreams I have put aside for years. When I write, I recall grammar rules before selecting a comma or a semi-colon. I have to decide where to end a paragraph and begin a new one. Now, as I begin to “write” a new normal, I have to stop and think about ways to define the grammatical pauses in my day. For instance, my prayer life feels un-focused. My ability to sit still and read seems like a guilty pleasure. I can’t quite decide what to wear in the morning. It’s difficult to know where I fit in to a new part-time position while recognizing that those who filled my full-time position are doing a great job without me. I must learn patience with myself. I need to allow myself time to train these thoughts, and then grant myself the grace to proofread and edit along the way.

(Along with punctuation, I have also re-discovered my love of metaphors and a passion for parenthetical thoughts!)

I will have the car again tomorrow, and both Joe and I will finalize the pending details for our return to the east coast. These past few days have truly been a gift, a glimpse at opportunity knocking. I have relished getting up early each morning not for work, but to walk with neighbors up and down the hills of our desert reserve. I have read every section of the paper, had two cups of coffee before my shower…and even watched a couple of the a.m. news shows – into their second hours! While I have not battled the photo albums or the attic, I have done what I need to do each day and am learning that I don’t have to set my alarm if I want to read. Just this morning, I uploaded more books to my Kindle library. The titles mimic my mood. I am already through the first chapter of Paulo Coelho’s Hippie, which hearkens back to the 70s when I was only ten years old and very impressionable when it came to the hippies we used to emulate in our denim bell bottoms, crudely doodled peace signs, and plastic smiley face jewelry. I also downloaded The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle. I think it is the only book of hers I have not read. (I just counted 16 of her works on a shelf in my bookcase!) And then, there is a series that starts with Living Apart Together by Elise Darcy. The main character is woman in her 60s (I am thinking this is chick lit for the every-evolving middle-aged woman!).

I have time. And at this moment, my stomach is leading me to the refrigerator where I will make lunch out of last night’s leftovers. Later, I will post this blog (see, I am writing!), and then I should probably fold the towels that are still warm from a tumble in the dryer. After that…I might just spend the rest of the afternoon reading.

Writing into Retirement

Ordinary Time – October

Lightning struck, the power went out, and with that, more than 1,200 words I had written about problems at a local nursing home evaporated into what was then a cloudless cyberspace. I reacted not as a tough journalist of the 80s, but rather the cub reporter I was. I cried.

And then, I re-wrote my story.

I was reminded of this today – nearly 40 years later – when I went to open a document on my hard drive and discovered that in my recent zeal to “Clean My Mac,” I deleted what was supposed to have been my inaugural foray into writing into retirement.

It’s been a couple of months since I turned in my keys to St. Augustine Catholic High School and threw away my business cards. Since then, my husband has begun a challenging new position in Washington, D.C. We have set up our East Coast apartment while maintaining our home in the Southwest, have welcomed a beautiful grandchild into our lives, and have begun racking up airline miles as we traverse not only the country, but also begin taking tentative steps on an uncharted path in our lives.

My journal – host to thousands of rambling words focused on thoughts and emotions better written than said – has been quite abandoned over the past weeks as I have worked diligently to impose a structure on the business of our lives. Now that this system is mostly in place, I am compelled once again not only to journal, but also to ponder, to put into coherent words the moments that ground me and that help me appreciate the small moments within the larger hours of life.

The story I lost was good. It was about a recent Sunday when my husband and I missed Mass because of having to catch a train from a family visit in Philadelphia back to Washington. During that trip, we experienced the blessing of a kind Amtrak ticket taker, an amazing discussion with a 76-year-old passenger, and finally a holy moment with the woman who drove us in her Uber back to our apartment. I wrote quite cleverly that even though we had not gone to Mass, I felt like we had been to Church.

Perhaps that is my story to cherish and one I don’t need to re-write – at least today. I feel a touch bereft for my lost words, but I did not cry.

In some ways, I have isolated my feelings about these months of transition. I bristle when someone mentions that I am “retired” because I really don’t know if I am or not. It is true that I am no longer a high school principal, but I do have a couple of part-time gigs that keep me attached to education. I am also being quite intentional about taking time out of my day to walk, to explore, to read, and to drink coffee. I can’t quite get over not being attached 24/7 to my school’s network, but I do enjoy planning a dinner menu, shopping the markets, and actually having the time to cook. My husband and I are also trying to do what we said we would do “if” the move to D.C. materialized. Recently, we shopped at the fish market at the District Harbor. Talk about memories of childhood days on the Eastern Shore – blue crabs. Need I say more? We have visited museums and sights including Ford’s Theater and the National Archives. We have re-connected with dear friends. For once, at least for me, I am discovering that there is just enough time in every day.

I recently read a poem in which the author recounts a message from a speaker who notes that most of us move through our lives as if in “a daydream.” We are cognizant of the big picture but can’t seem to focus on the little details. How true. Up to now, I would probably say I have been aware of my propensity to see the umbrella, but not necessarily everything underneath it. However, if this transition from non-stop career climbing to semi-retirement is leading me anywhere, it is guiding me back to the details that allow life to be joyful instead of scary. When I was a child, I would lay on the grass and look for shapes in the clouds. Today, I worry if I lay in the grass, how many bug bites will I get? When I was a child, we planted seeds and watched them grow. Today, I look for plants in full bloom to decorate my patio. I used to play marbles and catch fireflies…and although I might not do that anymore, I feel drawn to the details again – the Amtrak ticket taker, the first smiles from our grandchild, a visit with my Mom, re-creating some of the recipes I first made for my husband when we got married 36 years ago.

When I cleaned out my office before leaving St. Augustine, I discovered a jar of marbles my first best friend in the world had sent me a few years earlier. (Ask anyone – even if I don’t play marbles anymore, I still keep a few with me just in case!) Along with her gift was this note: “Saw these and thought of you. They’re sort of like our treasured ‘moonies’ but with some iridescence…” I can’t help thinking that this is a great metaphor for me and for those of us seeking meaning as we navigate life’s stages. We are burnished, iridescent treasures willing to risk our very being and emotions for opportunities that will indeed include lost words, but will always lead to new stories.