The space ceased being Jay's office and became just a bare room, and the shut door was a way of not missing him so much. Within a few weeks I began to refer to the room as "the Bare Den," as a way of having a little fun with words. That's when it occurred to me: MY BEAR COLLECTION could live there! Multiple stuffed bears were currently stored in boxes in a closet. I wasn't quite ready to give them away, but I didn't want them cluttering our condominium, either.
One-by-one I set them out and now the BARE DEN stayed open and morphed into the BEAR DEN, which is what I still call it today, seven years after the take-down of Jay's office. Lately, I've been doing a series of daily physical therapy exercises for my knees and hips while lying on a yoga mat in the Bear Den. As I lie on the floor I can see the bears in their 'caves,' a storage shelf Jay built back in the day when we had hundreds of LP records. I have to admit, it's really fun looking at the bears as I do my repetitive and boring exercises. Please meet my stuffed cuties that I look at as I exercise on the floor. I'm liking their company.Monday, April 25, 2022
The BARE Den becomes the BEAR Den
Friday, April 8, 2022
While living alone recovering from a mild case of Covid-19 (omicron)
So you heat the skillet, slice the cheese, spread butter on the bread, and start the sandwich, while you wash an apple, set the table with a napkin and placemat, and pour a glass of water. Is it time to turn the sandwich? Probably.
This is what happens when you cook without a sense of smell.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Unwitting Gifts are Anywhere
In the Poetry Potluck sponsored by the local YMCA we write poems to semi-monthly prompts given to us by our poetry facilitator or his designee. We meet over Zoom for an hour twice a month to read aloud and chat. Through our poetry prompts and the resulting poems, we've become what feels like friends, yet most of us have not (and may never) meet in person. It's been a lovely perk during the other 'P' even we've all experienced in the past two years. Thank you, Y!
The most recent prompt for a poem was "advice/words of wisdom received." Instead of writing about a specific gift, I wrote a poem about one of my favorite notions--something a person hears inadvertently that becomes advice and can even be profoundly helpful. Nine years ago I wrote a post on the topic and published it on this blog, which I reference in this link .
Here is my poem written last week on the same topic.
THE UNWITTING GIFT
Anyone can give you an unwitting gift,
and that anyone will likely never know it.
Offhand or sloppy is how the gift is wrapped,
its ribbon like a crumb stuck on a sleeve
that draws you in, but goes unnoticed by another.
It’s a gulp of truth spoken in passing,
expelled like breath and enveloping you
with an ah-ha, and unravels a knot of
worries and concerns or questions inside
that helps dissolve an undigested mental lump.
Maybe you hear something on the radio
and as your ears swallow the phrase, you realize
how starved you were for this very thing,
word-food which silences an unknown craving
that soothes your insides from the inside out.
You might receive an unwitting gift in a checkout line,
or as anecdotal sharing in a good-friend chat,
even from a person you don’t much care for,
but someone has brushed past you with the dustpan
that holds the puzzle piece you didn’t know was lost.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
A new discovery about an OLD item
It very much looks its age--a century plus, but I don't know its exact provenance. Not only is its finish badly worn and marred, but its legs were chewed on by our family dog in the late '50s. Our English bulldog, Winston, apparently found comfort in gnawing away at the claw-like legs when we'd leave him alone too long. The desk resided in the part of the house that Winston was confined to when alone, so there wasn't much we could do but scold him when we noticed the increasing damage. Of course, it never happened when we were home.
The decorative cupboard door |
I intended to get out my old-fashioned paper tickets (you know the kind, maybe 1.5" x 4") for an event this weekend. I pushed aside several folded, home-printed tickets for other events, saw the little envelope I was looking for and went to grab it. But, wait . . . I had just seen it, but it was gone! The small envelope seemingly vanished, which I substantiated by taking everything out of the compartment and reexamining the contents of several envelopes, flyers and pamphlets. What the f - - k!
Probing around with a flashlight helped me realize there was a small gap in the back of the little cupboard. I concluded the tickets must have somehow slipped through to the back of the writing surface underneath the cupboard. But even scraping a ruler underneath that area, I found no tickets! (I did find several rubber bands, a paper clip, a bookmark and a museum guest pass lying there, though.) Next, I opened the top main desk drawer, wondering if the tickets had fallen through to that drawer, but--no--still no tickets!
Next I removed the drawer where, sure enough, the ticket envelope was lying on its supporting wooden shelf that separates it from the next large drawer. In addition to the tickets were several other larger pieces of paper, two with dates on them that put them back to 2012 and 2013! The two dated sheets were too big and unimportant to ever have put in the locked cupboard, so I have no idea how they got there.
I can't remember ever taking out the drawers except when preparing the desk for a move. The last time that happened was 2010. But I'd never dreamed an item in the little locked cupboard could make its way into hiding in an instant, a poof! My point in writing this? For me it's a smack-in-the-face lesson: Never, ever, take anything for granted. For you, it might be a lesson in how aging brings on a recalibration of what's exciting enough to spend time writing about it. (EEK!)
Monday, February 14, 2022
Paper Flowers
greedy retailers had wrecked it for most
by marking up
candy and jewelry and cards.
“Just tell me
you love me on Valentine’s Day
I do not need roses
at ten times their worth!"
After running
some errands and returning back home
I entered my
office, then gasped and stopped short
A vase of red
roses had been set on my desk
and my anger erupted
in the rudest of yells
“What the . . .
you know what I think of flowers this day!”
“Yes, I do,” he
said as he rounded the corner
to yank up the
vase and toss out its contents.
“Dollar Store!”
he grinned, then hooted in glee.
It took me a
second to fathom the scene. Uh,
no water was spilled
and . . . Oh, the roses were fake!
I gulped and I gasped,
then I snorted a laugh
and he grinned and
extended his arms in a hug.
We chuckled all
day at how I fell for his joke.
All these years
later I still have those roses
sweet keepsake forever
of his laughter and love.
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Madame Sylvia Part 3 (and final)
Madame Sylvia Part 3
And that began periodic visits from Madame Sylvia, always happening around the children’s bedtime. I’d hastily overlay Madame Sylvia’s outfit on top of my housewife garb, kicking off my shoes and squeezing into green high heels as I tied the kimono shut with its sash, and slap on the headscarf and earrings while running around the side of the house to ring the front doorbell. I got very good at this quick change, and made a point of mentioning to the children their dad would get them ready for bed that night because I had to go to the store. Madame Sylvia arrived several times that first year, then tapered off to maybe once every couple of months for three more years. The children always were on best behavior the minute she entered the living room.Madame Sylvia’s
final appearance was in Santa Fe at a family reunion in 2002. She wore different
earrings (one had been lost) and she no longer fit into her green high-heeled shoes, donated to a thrift shop many years prior. But she knocked on
the door of the rented casita where everyone was gathered after supper and entered
the room in her purple silk kimono and blue headscarf. Only her husband knew anything of her plan to join them. He graciously and formally
introduced her to the people she didn’t know— the grown children’s spouses, all of
whom had heard about her. She seemed as delighted to meet them as they were her and shared with each of the women her positive first-hand impressions of them.
After a few minutes of conversation, she said goodbye to everyone and excused
herself. “Don’t see me out,” she said. “I know the way zee vay.” She has not made an
appearance since.
I still have the
kimono and sash. A few years ago I asked my neighbor who’s a native of Japan if
she would like to see the garment crafted from beautiful silk and dyes from the
early-to-mid 1930s. She admired the quality of workmanship with its intense
color and pattern. She laid the kimono out and showed me the proper way to fold
it, which I did and then wrapped it in acid-free tissue. I didn’t share with her
how many times I’d worn it as Madame Sylvia, lest it sounded irreverent and
foolish. Only my closest friends have heard about my foray in this avatar who
triggered my children’s best behavior. As I tucked the precious tissue packet
into a drawer, I could hear Madame Sylvia’s phony-accented voice addressing me.
“I am vun of the best ideas you effer had.”
I nodded in agreement as if she had spoken aloud.
The End
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Madame Sylvia--Part 2
Madame Sylvia Part 2
“I am Muh-dahm Seal-vee-a. I haff come from fahr avay to read to your shield-rehn. I haff heard zay are very vell-behafed. Faht ah zeir names?)
With a
perfectly straight face, he introduced them each by name. “Say hello to Madame
Sylvia, children,” then excused himself (by now he was nearly shaking with
laughter) to leave the four small people in the living room with Madame Sylvia.
She ordered them to sit in a circle at her feet, which they promptly did. After
asking a few questions—without once dropping her thick accent, an essential
part of her disguise—about what they had done that day, she accepted the storybook
from the oldest child and opened it. “I can see you are good children and would
never make an interruption.” She read
aloud in a blissfully silent room.
After she
finished the book, she closed it and asked one to tell their father she was
leaving. When he reappeared, she walked to the door. “You have such polite
children, but I must leave now. It was lovely to meet you all.” ( . . . It vuz luffly to meet you all.)
“Will you come
again, Madame Sylvia?”
“Perhaps . . . we’ll
see. Goodbye.”
I waited until I
rounded the corner of the house to take off the costume, knowing that the
children were being escorted upstairs to bed and would not be looking out the window. In just a couple minutes I tiptoed through
the back door looking exactly the way I had looked before my transformation. I
rushed upstairs to kiss everyone goodnight.
“Oh, good! I
got back in time to kiss you goodnight.”
“Mommy, guess
what happened!” the three year-old began.
The four year
old interrupted. “This lady came and read to us.”
“Really? Why?”
I asked.
“She travels to
houses . . . it was our turn . . . she only reads to good children . . . we
were good.
“Well, I’m glad
you were good! Do you remember what her name was?”
“Madame Sylvia,”
answered the four-year old, imitating her accent perfectly. “She talked funny .
. ..”
“. . . but she
was nice.” The six year old, who had
been standing in her brother's bedroom doorway, finished his sentence. “I sat right next to her
. . . she let me turn the pages.”
I was surprised
no one had yet asked the obvious question. I quickly explained my absence. “It’s
too bad I had to run to the store. I would have enjoyed meeting her”
“She looked a
little bit like you, but . . ..”
“It wasn’t you . . .you don’t have clothes
like that.”
“Can you describe what she looked like?” I
asked, to divert the sting of a direct fib.
Everyone talked
at once—even the eighteen-month-old repeated words from his crib across the
hall. “Purple and long . . . purpo . . . bathrobe and blue hat . . . she talked
loud. . . sparkly earwings . . . floppy
scarf. . . and green shoes, too. Yeah, . . . Mommy doesn’t have green shoes, so
it couldn’t be Mommy . . . but she looked kinda like her . . . sort of . . .
‘cept Mommy doesn’t talk like that . . . nah, it wasn’t Mommy cuz Daddy would
have recognized her.”
“She sounds like an interesting woman. I hope
I can meet her someday. Now, let’s get
to sleep, everyone!” I kissed my four now-well-behaved children, closed all three
bedroom-doors and descended the stairs to the family room.
“What on earth made you think of that?” my husband asked, chuckling. And was it possible I’d really fooled them? Maybe we all needed a little magic now—especially now—after their Nana’s death.
End Part-2