Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving day.  At first glance this year it seems hard to give thanks at the end of a tumultuous year of hospital visits and broken bones and pet loss and friend loss and downsizing and friends losing jobs-hope-faith and ongoing wars in other countries and guns and government infighting for themselves and the White Sox/Bears/Cubs eliminated again.

Wait.  While the negative can seem overwhelming, it is the small, the simple, the unexpected and sometimes the everyday, the overlooked that we should be thankful for today and perhaps each day.

I am thankful that an unplanned-for shifting of priorities–and finances– means we now spend more time with our friends and families playing-laughing-cooking,  share our homes and talents, a dinner out appreciated more (especially for mom), we explore local treasures, thankful I can watch a new rescue puppy morph into a dog, health recoveries, a vacation, a movie night in with the whole family, warm tomato and basil straight from the garden,  an email from a forgotten friend or a call from someone up the road, finding the steal of a deal while shopping, s’mores and lightning bugs, impromptu talent shows of children dancing and singing, decent grades in new schools, family moving closer, a new work endeavor, each other.

These thoughts aren’t new, though the experiences are, but sometimes it helps to really take a moment to remember, as life slips by, like sand through the fingers, the grains all intermingled but each one still individual–the shiny, the tarnished, the plain forming into a beautiful stream of grains.  And I hope that you all have small joys and the everyday smiles to be thankful for. They fill our lives as much as the than the wonderful, grand moments we experience.  They are everyday happiness.  C

 

Needing a Gay Chaperone

Who needs a gay chaperone?

That’s the question pick-up line I heard from the salivating youngster, approaching my companions at an extremely popular Chicago nightclub, The Crimson Lounge—full of poseurs and provacateurs and a team of forty-something women with matching dyed blond hair and black outfits and a real-life Planet of the Apes characters and mafia wanna-bees and MTV-looking nothings and a few people like us just out for fun.  Very cool decor.

Do you use the same shampoo? was the real question he asked the two sisters,  his excuse to be approach them.  Supposedly, his goal was to see where they looked when they answered—each other or us or him.  Whatever.

Is khaki a color or a fabric? The sisters perused this question from another buttoned-down boy, his entourage watching in the distance, waiting to pounce.   The two sisters debated this as a serious question until I informed them he really didn’t care.  He just needed a line–and I bet it was used often. Oh, yeah, right.

We left the technotronic sounds of Crimson Lounge, where the crowds felt like they were waiting…watching…in anticipation of….some B list or A list actor or musicians to sit behind the cheesy red ropes one step up from the main floor as an exhibit for all to watch.  Cliche, so the masses could wonder How did they eat?  What did they drink?  Who would they allow to cross the ropes?

The next club it was  I’m from NY; this is my first visit to Chicago. I was told.  That was later replaced by “Where are you from? No one says where they are really from.  I was really raised in Spain, and now I live in Chicago” this said after conferring with his friend, who readily agreed to this truth.  Ahhh—where is the accent, my Spanish dreamer but decent partner, old-school dancer?  I told him before he disappeared into the night that he should start with that line, not end with it.

And his friend, the purported overweight Yoga instructor.  Yeah, right.

You’re sisters?  We’re brothers ! We were told much, much later by two very similar looking, chiseled cheek lads still alone shortly before three am.  Maybe the only truth in the night, since they clearly resembled each other.

I forgot there are no night truths as the night fades to black, the speakers silence, the hunters and the hunted united in arms and beds, a few like us still with our evening posses, bodies exhausted from non-stop dancing, ears ringing, totally fun from start to finish.

What is the best or worst pick up line in YOUR past?  Mine has to be  on a college set dance set-up  date “Do you like to fish?” I certainly wish I had my gay chaperone that evening, spent trying to ditch a drunk fool who followed me into the bathroom.  But that’s another story. C

 

Patti’s Private Pumpkin Patch

The garden smells of decay, the leaves drying and swirling, flowers blackening, bees swarming for the last of the nectar.  The tomatoes are fading, the pumpkins ripening, neon shades of orange, some still a faded green.  They are stocked in bins outside the grocery and hardware stores, gourds in nets, ready for picking–and payment by weight.

But, my friend Patti has been visiting a pay-by-the-carload pumpkin patch north of the IL border for fifteen years, packing the car with a rainbow of pumpkins. We played a couple hour of hooky to visit her secret spot earlier this week, gathering pumpkins on their opening day.  What fun we had on a lovely autumn afternoon!  The first car in, we parked by an open field dotted with pumpkins, scattered gourds on the ground. We traipsed back and forth, pumpkins in hand, tiny ones in a bucket piling higher, the trunk filling.

babies

Once the car was filled with green and orange pumpkins, tall and round and skull-shaped ones, the search was on for the elusive white pumpkin.  We wandered in the fields, sneaking a few more treasures, but we only found four small white ones intermingled with the orange ones.

A full load!

All this, for only $65.  Plus an afternoon of  sun, searching through fields, spending time with a good friend.  Worth the late nights catching up working. Plus, the porch looks great with the decorations, and the kids are ready to carve them, toasting the seeds.  C

 

Julie & Julia & Friends & Dreams

Short notice, but five neighborhood friends went to see Julie & Julia this week. I loved the way the story was told, with two tales simultaneously developing, intertwined and funny and downtrodden and quirky.  We sputtered and laughed and hoped for success for both protagonists, as they followed their food-filled (and too meat-filled for me, sorry Patty who sat next to me) dreams.  The costumes and sets were perfection, and the film made me want to return to Paris NOW.

Meryl Streep was, as always, incredible with the lilting accents and mannerisms and movements that I remember from when my mother used to watch Julia Child on TV, when I was a child.  Debonaire Stanley Tucci was her husband, so in love and involved as she wrote and cooked and wrote and cooked and…  Amy Smart was funny and neurotic, a bit over the top at time, but sweet.

As much as I loved watching the story develop,  it made me sad.  The dreams  I once had, fading as life  moves forward and I am caught in the wave of time and children and mortgages and jobs and mopping the floors and and volunteer work and keeping on top of  the family schedule with military-like precision, until rain changes three practices, and aging families and friends in need.

How many people are staring at their screens after watching that film, trying to write their first blog searching for quick fame, with blank thoughts, no stories to tell?  And don’t realize how challenging it can be to write day after day?   How many other brilliant writers are out there penning away, unnoticed?  What makes a blog catch fire?  Sometimes it’s the real, sometimes it’s the fraud–like the woman who claimed to be pregnant, got all kinds of sponsors and uh-oh she wasn’t pregnant.  What? someone lied on the internet?

We would all love to come home to 65 phone messages like Julie, with offers and names and deals and opportunities to do work we dream about.  A smidgeon of extremely lucky people do what they love each day, not the masses.  We might live through them, while following our own paths.  Even as we grasp at our dream remnants we can only hope for the support system of spouse and friends from the film, cheering each zig-zag step forward.

In my mind, a successful film is one that makes me forget I am sitting in the dark–transporting me to become an invisible participant–gives me reason to feel true emotion while watching, to talk about it afterwards, and to make me think about the major and/or minor issues in it long after the screen is dark.  In all of these goals, Julie & Julia succeeded.   C

 

The Drop-Off

For the fourth straight year, my friend Laura and I have driven our two eldest girls to camp very early on a Sunday morning, and the younger two now going for their second year.  Overnight camp at the YMCA, or where ever you choose to go, is such a rite of passage.  I wish that all kids had this opportunity.  They get to explore outside their town, their families, their boundaries and meet people from other cities, states, countries as their bunkmates, roommates, counselors, and friends.

So much of camp seems the same as when I went–horse back riding, boating, swimming, crafts, archery,  group songs, family style meals, woods, group bathrooms, chores, fun, fun.   The worst part for us is waiting for check-in, arriving early so the girls can secure a good bunk near each other,  the crowds pushing forward–every group wanting the same, the newbies wide-eyed.  It’s a bit crazy.

I remember when Lisa and I went to camp.  It was August of 1977, and we took an 8 hour (!!) bus drive to southern IL.  Yes, we had one freak in our room who told us she had heart medicine that we would all DIE if we took, pretended to talk in her sleep, and swore Lisa would go straight-to-hell for going up to communion as a non-Catholic, because as a 13-year old she was too embarrassed to stay in her seat, alone.

She joyfully broke the news to me that Elvis had died when she heard in a letter from home, knowing I was a huge Elvis fan. I was convinced she was lying, but wrote my mom just in case to save me all the headlines and newspapers—which I still have today in my yellowed Elvis scrapbook.

I remember our relay race–everyone in the cabin participated–with Lisa riding the horse (boy, was I jealous!) and I sprained my ankle tripping over a raised root in the path.  Then everyone else was jealous of me because I got to see the cute, friendly doctor as he wrapped my ankle, and he let me hold newborn kittens each visit.

I wonder what my girls will remember from their yearly camp visits, other than the great songs we learn from them (“there were 3 little muffins in the bakery shop…”), the friends they can keep in touch with online, and the 1000 types of friendship  bracelets they can make.  I hope they will remember their routine of driving with their moms, the bakery we stop at for lunch, waiting in lines,racing to cabins, and many quiet and loud moments that I am sadly not a part of.

Me, I will remember the 6-7 hours Laura and I get to listen to the girls’ giggle and talk and that we get to catch up, uninterrupted on the way home.  and maybe route 65 closed, while we are SO thankful to have the iphone GPS.

Camp.  Everyone should go! C

 

View from the Back

Wow–Monday is tough.  Not only are we back to work on a cold, snowy morning, the economy worsens, another of my friends has lost a job, another house in the hood has not sold, and I have to pay bills with a knot inside as the  dow drops yet again.

I try to move forward, keep my spirits up, knowing that today I have my family, my work, my home, my friends, my health, my hobbies–albeit much scaled back, potential for another project. But I will keep my world close, hold it tight, watch it carefully, and wait cautiously for the sun to rise again, the air to warm, the ground to bloom in tiny swells and hope, hope, hope. 

Sometimes the view from the rear of the boat is more glorious than the front.  We move unknowingly to the back, then sometimes we huddle there–dance amongst friends, laugh with strangers, sing with ourselves, and wait watching, together, as the changes abound. 

We will hope for the mundane, maybe see the wonderous.  But we will see it together, smiles and tears blended into the waters below.

C

 

Miniscule and Massive, Simultaneously

Riding on a ship with no land in sight, surrounded by the turquoise blue then steel-grey waves, a watchful warming sun and swiftly moving breezes, we saw no land for twenty-four hours. 

Gazing over the endless waters, an occasional ship in the far off distance, that ride made me think about  how truly small we physically are.  A speck. Of no significance.  Flick this boat like a fly and we disappear.

But I turn away from the waters, towards my group of friends, for the final day of the trip still laughing, joking, dancing, swimming, sitting, reading, sharing, sleeping. Truly joyful, as we live  in each moment, strangers picking up our energy and  sharing it with their groups, passing it around. 

And I realize that while we may be miniscule in the view from the clouds, in our small sectors, with our friends and family and fears and lusts and mysteries and goals and wonders, we do have an impact, we do love, we do have a reason to be, to laugh, to cry.  Our spirits, when we share them, are wider than the oceans, taller than the clouds.

And we should be so thankful, and are so lucky when we can experience freedom with the ones we love most.  Thanks girls, for another amazing holiday.  C

 

The Usual

Usual.  What a typical, boring word.  No surprises, no adrenaline.  But, walk in to your favorite restaurant–be it fancy with lacy tablecoths and low lit candles or in my case be it the corner grill, when the waitress Eileen glances over before you sit down and says “you want the usual today?”  you just feel comforted, known, thankful to be sitting, sharing.

Even if it is the local tavern where the bartender pours your drink when you approach, or the local cashier who smiles and says “hi”, it just feels real, lightens you inside.

My friend Collette, a psychologist, my partner who eats “the usual” with me every couple of weeks says that she finds that people feel greatly empowered when they feel known—really known.

There is a truth in that.  There are precious few we show our real selves, always wearing some persona, being who we are but also who we are supposed to be wearing the hat of mother-student-wife-business owner-dog walker.  But, people who we see at regular intervals, when we are going about our normal routines, when we are calm, relaxed,  even angry, they also know us and some invite us into their space, honestly and openly. 

Grasp on to those offerings;  they come with no pretenses, and let yourself open for people and experiences.  You just might make a friend or learn about others or yourself along the way.

So,  “yes, I will have the usual” ,with a smile.  C

 

A Wonderful Cliche

Thanksgiving is such a relaxing holiday to enjoy once all the shopping, cooking, and travelling is complete. There are no expectations of gifts or glory, just a time to spend with family, friends, watching or playing football, eating, drinking wine, catching up on days gone by, more eating, and walking some of that extra food off.

Even as the world around us is full of dire news about the economy and our country, there are so many things I am thankful for this year: my three incredible children, a husband who supports all the many tasks and jobs and ideas that fill and escape my brain, a family that stretches from New Jersey to Oregon who will jump to help when we are in need, fun-trusting-caring-sometimes wild friends from New York to California to fill my home and in-box and mailbox with hope and (sometimes) tears and are willing to join us on this journey of life, steady jobs, hobbies that fill my free time and give me opportunities to expand my soul, all the volunteer work done this year, no more children in car seats and diapers on six hour drives to Michigan, dogs to hug and horses to let me feel free, a sun that breaks through winter grayness, an unexpected phone call, a Caribbean cruise, a stolen moment to write, a photography class.

And Thanksgiving brings me hope for renewal, for a better world, that we may find peace in 2009, that we may breathe and loosen our wallets as the economy improves, that the press will BE QUIET, that our soldiers might come home, that the Christmas season can continue a feeling of sharing and giving and hope.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my family, my friends, my colleagues, my neighbors, my readers. May you find your stolen moment of quiet this weekend to do what you most love. C

 

Literally, Letting it ALL Hang Out

It was a full-house during The Full Monty at the lovely Marriott Lincolnshire theatre.  The show was raucous and hilarious and appropriate for only the 21-and-over, the play staying true to the English film of the same name, except the locale was changed from England in the original to Buffalo, NY on stage.  The performers, several of whom had been in the touring production, were outstanding for this small theatre. 

We arrived so close to curtain time that the 60-something usher told my friend Tracy to not go to the bathroom and miss the opening, as the Chippendale scene was one of the funniest in the show. I knew we were in for a treat after the first number, on our perfect girls night out.

As the show proceeded, I glanced around the theatre at the audience.  Why were there so many seniors?  Do they know what “the full monty” is??  Male frontal nudity, in case you are wondering. How many of them had seen the film?

There was a group of 8 octogenarians directly in front of us, four couples.  One male was so hard of hearing that the woman next to him had to repeat the jokes while the audience laughed and clapped. There were a LOT of seniors, a surprising number of couples, and groups of girls ranging from our age to their 70’s.  One group in particular obviously had a much longer happy hour than we did, cackling loudly throughout the first act. 

We all happened to notice three couples in their 30’s in the front row and talked about them at intermission, how two of the guys did not seem to enjoy the show, while one laughed as hard we did.  One buttoned up man in particular seemed too straightlaced to be sitting there, eyes wide, not responding too much to the humor–except, I wryly noted, during the gay-oriented humor in the second act.  Well, well I thought, very interesting.

So clever, the way the theatre pulled off the full monty at the end, the audience all roaring and cheering the male performers on.  All in all, an excellent show though we thought it could have been about 20 minutes shorter, and the introduction of one character’s mother dying and his coming-out moment seened forced and unnecessary.

We joked later that night that a group of our husbands could attend our neighborhood Halloween party “dressed” as the Hot Metal dancers.  Nah–we didn’t really need to see THAT much of anyone else’s partner. C