Light, 12/16/13: Carrying the Sun

What did you draw on your tummy?

A diamond sun.

Is there something special about the picture?

It makes me feel sunny.

Is it a picture you saw somewhere else?

No, but I made it up.

Why do you want to feel sunny?

So I don’t feel sad or mad.

Do you like to carry the sun?

Yeah.

*     *     *

It makes me think about the different ways we carry light with us. And how we spread it—sometimes intentionally, sometimes without knowing it.

Basking in someone else’s warmth, though—isn’t that something? 

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Light, 12/12/13: Big Bright Yes

Sometimes you get into your car and the music on the radio is something you love and haven’t thought of for a while. Not only that, but it matches the day perfectly. And yes, it is cold outside—bitterly so—a cold that makes your hands crack open and bleed, and yes you’ve lost another pair of mittens just in time for this cold snap so that you are once again using the pair you’ve had since high school—the one pair you’ve never managed to lose, which, despite holes and the leather that’s peeling off the palms and the fact that they don’t fit very well, actually keep your hands pretty warm. But these things pale. What matters right now is how the sun is winter-bright against a cold clear sky and how it all just fits.

Sometimes it happens that everything—the x-rays, the CT-scans, the blood tests—everything comes back clear and good and the answer is that you need to just keep doing the things that are making you feel better, slow as that’s been. And the day is bright with that news, and the music in the car is swelling up to a favorite moment, and you know right there that even though your lungs are still tight and there is healing left to do, you have been on the right path. In fact, all around you everything is saying that you have been on the right path all along in a whole lot of ways. That your instincts were no accident. That all that hardness wasn’t wasted.

Sometimes you get a moment like that.

Remember this.

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Light, 12/9/13: Transformed

Do you see that? Ugly vinyl blinds. Un-openable. Years ago, whoever put in the ugly vinyl bathtub insert cut away a large portion of the oak window frame in order to make the insert fit. The ugly vinyl insert shoves hard against the ugly blinds, and the blinds do not hang right, and there is not room for them to be twisted open.

A person might wonder what use a window is if it cannot be opened or uncovered and doesn’t even do a very good job of letting the light in.

And yet the light does get in. And the light shines, and makes shadows, and plays with droplets of rain or tree branches or whatever else might be on hand that day. And the ugly vinyl blinds, once in a while, become something else.

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Light, 12/7/13: Nightlight

Youngest informed us a few months ago that she would not feel safe unless she could sleep with her nightlight. Recently, she has made sure it is plugged in and charging before we begin our before-bed reading, so that she can bring it to bed with her like a stuffed animal. (It is, in fact, the closest thing to a stuffed animal I can remember her bringing to bed. From an early age she spurned all furry things offered to her at night and demanded a book. Or twelve. But that’s maybe another story.) Her nightlight is a special light—a Christmas gift from Oldest one year. It has personality. It glows red. And you can bring it to bed with you.

 

The idea grips me—the possibility of taking light to bed with you. I have not forgotten the difference one dim bulb can make in a dark room, the way it softens the edges of night, melts away the threat of the unfamiliar, of danger. How much better if you can hold that light in your hands.

 

I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but it has always seemed to me that my children sleep in character. Oldest sleeps calm and wise and sweet. Middle sleeps noble and graceful with a quiet, dramatic streak. Youngest sleeps warm and intense, often with her head thrown back. If we hear footsteps in the hall at night it is usually her, and it’s hard to predict where she will end up. A few nights ago Husband and I were slow to investigate the sounds coming from upstairs, but it didn’t matter, soon she came down to us—charged past us and around the dining room table to the spot where she eats, sat down, laid her head in her arms on the table and closed her eyes.

 

Sometimes her light travels with her during the night. I woke up one recent morning to evidence of one of her visits.

 

Many nights she comes to our bed. Sometimes because of a bad dream, although she usually will not talk about it because she does not want to frighten me. It is enough to be held close for a while. We both drift off, and at some point I am awakened by the pain in my arm, stretched immobile under her head. I ease her out of bed. “It’s time to go to your own bed.” I guide her to her room, into her bed, help pull up the covers as she lies down. I pray—thankfulness for her sweet, warm, spirited self, for our family, for the goodness in our lives; I pray for peaceful sleep, for rest in general.

 

“Good night, sweet girl. I love you.”

 

“Mommy, give me something to think about.”

 

When she is alone again in bed the bad dreams threaten to return. I have told her in the past that she needs to fill her head with other things—so wonderful there is no room for the bad dreams. I conjure up something—a chocolate-filled swimming pool, a field full of flowers-that-are-actually-jewels. I don’t always remember, later, the things I come up with. What I do remember is that always, in the middle of the night, I resolve to love better. The resolution comes simply, but I ache with it. It is light around me, around us all. Everything else melts away.

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Light, 12/3/13: Illumination

What she can tell you is this:

The fortune tucked inside the cookie was especially good. Not because fortune cookies are to be taken all that seriously, but because the words fit so well.

Seek out the significance of your problem at this time. Try to understand.

This is true. There is no point in seeking out darkness, but understanding where the light was brightest in the dark—that is helpful. What shines? What is revealed? What glows in her head and heart? Somewhere inside those questions are growth, healing, purpose. 

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Light, 12/2/13: Day After the First Sunday in Advent

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.”

Isaiah 9:2

I have given myself the task this year of focusing on light this month, believing Advent at its core is about seeing light, and waiting—trusting—that it is a promise of Light to come. I had family plans for Advent, as well.

But we were traveling home yesterday, and because of how that went there was no formal honoring of the first day of Advent, only conversation about it, and hopes for how we can observe it as a family.

And this is so often how it is.

I love this season, Thanksgiving and then Advent. Grocery shopping is still grocery shopping, but the parking lot is colder, and more often you find yourself bracing against dark brittle air. Along with the brittleness is the sound of bells. And lights. And there is decorating and baking and too many activities, and for most of December that is the background to normal life. Expectation like white noise, but also light—blinking and glittering—across, against, around everything. Regular life, with all its regular everything, but shot-through with something that is usually not so tangible.

And so, for us. Driving home was usual driving home, but also kind of festive. And grumpy. Nobody was ready for Monday. But I watched for light to share, and twice yesterday looked into the sky and saw what I was looking for. More than I was looking for—it was so beautiful. And there were memories of light from our trip, and new moments in the car, itself.

Even so, last night was long and full of unpacking and getting kids to bed and putting together much-needed couches from Ikea and at the end of the day I could not put words or pictures together to share anything.

The pictures waited. They were not quite what I’d hoped, but they waited. My elaborate plans for Advent stayed mostly in my head, and the general living-of-life took up most of today. But it was good, and there was light, and some of the words working their way through my head waited, as well.

Somehow the expectations, the ways in which I think the light will show itself, never quite meet reality. They brush against it, only. But the light is there, and it pricks and surprises, and there is always something to see, more than you are looking for, maybe, if you keep watching.

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Thankful, 11/28/13: Sharing

We traveled today, our family. Shared cross words (and some thrown elbows and one shove,) and also hugs. And snacks. Husband shared the Great Courses CD he’s been listening to—“The Symphonies of Beethoven.” Youngest wanted to borrow my iPod and asked me to choose the music for her. She wanted “classical” and “fast,” and I shared the last movement of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2. Twice we heard a quiet Oh! from the back seat while she listened. Oldest shared some of his music with me, as well as things that make him laugh. We will share his asthma medicine while we’re away from home, since mine didn’t make it into the car. Youngest shared the first glimpse of sunset with everybody. Husband and Middle shared goofy haiku, taking turns writing lines (they also share a particular sense of humor.) We all took turns sharing sightings of birds—bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, Canada geese. Middle pointed out how a swath of wind turbines all blinked their lights at exactly the same time, and then she shared with us the non-goofy haiku she wrote about it.

My parents shared their table with us when we arrived, we brought cranberry sauce and toffee and wine. We ate and talked and ate and talked. Over the years we have shared many words, much laughter, many tears, much love—we have each been the cause and the recipient of each of those things. I believe, in the end, the love will be remembered above the rest. I do not believe any of us forgot to be thankful.

 

 

 

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Thankful, 11/27/13: Always a Story—

Which means that everything contains some element of mystery. Always something to learn, always something to understand, and always a kind of freedom in knowing that it might not all be known. I see richness in that, and beauty.

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Thankful, 11/25/13: Easy Toffee

I have this recipe for toffee that is ridiculously easy. Also ridiculously fast and ridiculously delicious.

Cook a stick of butter and ¾ c. packed light brown sugar in the microwave on high for 5 minutes, stirring every minute. Pour out on a foil-lined cookie sheet, and sprinkle with a ½ c. of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Cover with another, overturned cookie sheet or muffin tin for 1 minute to soften the chocolate, then spread the chocolate evenly over the toffee with the back of a spoon. Refrigerate until the chocolate is set. Break into pieces.

It does not take much time, but it requires me to stay in the kitchen and not do other things while I make it. It is an excuse to stand next to the microwave and read a book in between stirring sessions. And stirring! Bubbling butter and brown sugar—it is beautiful and rich and fragrant, and captures all five senses. And although the making of it is fast, the scent of toffee lingers in the house and in my hair all day, and I cannot get enough of smelling it.

It’s not completely foolproof—like other candies, you cannot make it on humid days because the texture won’t turn out. Also, it seems that different brands of brown sugar have different moisture contents, which will also affect the texture. (What the texture not turning out means, though, is that while it’s not good enough to give away, it is still good enough to eat. Chewy-soft and gritty, it is just as sweet. Addictive, in fact.)

Texture aside, this is a favorite thing to make, because it is special, sweet, good enough to make a gift of. And easy.

I am resigned to life not being easy. I accept that good things—the things I really want—often require work, effort, sacrifice of some sort. They are worth it. But some good things are, in fact, easy on top of everything else, and those are a wonder. I am so thankful for them: when I look up and notice that the sky has changed from beautiful to beautiful and there seems to be a promise with it that beauty and change never get used up, when relationships flow easily and with love, when my lungs fill deeply and without effort, when life works—these things are a wonder. And on top of all that, there's toffee.

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Thankful, 11/21/13: Natural Light

A rainy day yesterday. Something about the sound of thunder in November is particularly enjoyable—maybe it’s the surprise of it. Maybe it’s just the comfort of being inside and warm when I hear it.

It was dark inside, but after everybody else left for school and work in the morning I felt little need to turn on lights. Letting the light come in from outside, dim as it was, felt perfect. Enjoyable, seeing things differently. Good, to welcome in what presents itself.

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