new year | pull up a chair

new year cleanse

despite being a fundamentally punctual soul, i tend to be late for plenty of things. in life, that is.

got married at 34. first baby at 36. last one at just shy of 45. so i shouldn’t be too surprised that we’re two weeks into the new year and i’ve finally gotten around to realizing it’s high time for a cleanse.

i’m not talking refrain from fuzzy bubbly, nor gulping goopy green drinks in an effort to roto-root my insides. i’m talking one of those good old-fashioned retreats from the noise and the headaches that too often encumber the festooned days of fa-la-la december.

fact is, after a string of weeks that brought to this old house canceled christmas eve flights, hacked bank accounts, more late nights than i’m used to, a general level of cacophony, and too many comings and goings, i am full-on frazzled.

i dream of hot bubbly baths. and towering monastery walls (of which i’m on the inside, safely ensconced, and far from the harsh, harried world). i imagine quietude. not a decibel louder than that of a page turning, a firelog crackling, or a kettle of soup lazily simmering.

i long for unfettered days, with nowhere to go, and no one to answer to.

it takes some of us a good bit of time to snap our synapses into order again, to de-frazzle our wee little nerves, to fill our heads and our souls with pure fresh breathable oxygen.

i basically long for a DIY friary, with compulsory silence. and menial chores.

yes, chores. and, yes, the more menial the better.

since this is a prime time of year to be confessional, and confession is a fine first stop on the monastic road, i’ll go first, and––ahem––admit to one or two quirks when it comes to the ways i unjangle my nerves: over the years, i’ve found uncanny pacification in hoisting bucket and mop. yes, i’m a serial cleaner. i often reach for fleece-lined yellow rubber gloves when i’m in need of mollifying. vacuuming dehydrated bits of the vacated christmas-y tree (wee little thing that it was) tends to quell my wobbliest self. scrubbing spots off the floor puts me together again. de-greasing the stove = the short route to nirvana.

you can bet your brill-o pad that soon as the college kid slips out the door and onto the tarmac this weekend, i’ll be peeking behind the bedroom door he’s all but barricaded these past many weeks (the better to bar me from tsk-tsking the mess). i’ll be switching out sheets, spritzing sweet herbal poofs in the air, rinsing the crud out from the drains. call me loony (if you didn’t already) but i tap into rarefied bliss when armed with squeegee and lysol.

only then, when every last wrinkle is smoothed, and the faucet and sink twinkling like venus, will i settle into my preferred mid-january posture: squished in a nook with a book. decidedly monk-like. and i might not look up for days. should the phone ring, i’ll not hear it. should the phone ping, i’ll play possum.

of course, this isn’t the only way to take on the starter month, the one roz chast (yet another of my new yorker supernovas) vividly declared the “cruellest.” (see new yorker cover above)

i realize i’m hardly alone in pondering new-year restoratives. just the other day, blithely turning the pages of the new york times, i found––in the food section, no less!––even the recipe mavens were proffering thoughts on how to muddle through the 31 days. here’s longtime writer melissa clark on the matter:

“maybe there’s another way to look at it,” she begins. “what if january could be quiet and centered, a period of calm reflection when it’s too cold to go out and no one wants or expects anything social from you anyway? to me this is the ideal moment to hide in your house, cozy up near the stove and simmer a nice pot of stew. go low and slow—after all, you’ve got plenty of time this month.”

sign me up, missy!

while i set my sights on the distant shores of far-off february (when things might really turn dreary), i’ve decided to up my january game, and thus will subscribe to a slight monastic upgrade:

as a firm believer that one shouldn’t starve while immersed in abstemious mode (a fancy way to say spartan), i plan on stocking my make-believe monastery with sumptuous soups, breads so grainy they give your incisors a run for their money, and, true to time-tested friarly ways, a good vintage to wash it all down (mine will be an $8.99 prosecco from ol’ trader joe).

here’s what i’m stirring this morning:

Carrot-Leek Soup With Miso
By David Tanis* (annotations by babs)

4 servings

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups peeled, cubed carrots (from about 6 medium carrots)
2 medium leeks, white part only, chopped
Salt and black pepper
8 cups water or vegetable broth
2 tablespoons yellow or white miso
1 small lime
Thinly sliced chives, for garnish (optional)

PREPARATION
Step 1
Heat olive in a heavy pot over medium heat. When the oil glistens or ripples (both signs that it’s hot enough), add carrots and leeks. Season generously with salt and pepper, and stir to coat well. Sauté for a minute or 2, then add broth (Tanis insists lightly salted water simmered with leeks and carrots is plenty tasty enough; count me among the not-yet-convinced). Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer. As soup simmers, taste and add salt as needed. Cook until carrots are soft, about 15 minutes.

Step 2
Once the soup is cooled, reserve 2 cups liquid, then purée the remaining contents of the pot in a blender. (Alternatively, use an immersion blender in the pot.) Use reserved liquid to adjust the purée’s thickness, adding just enough so the consistency is that of a thin milkshake.

Step 3
To serve, heat soup and whisk in miso. Divide among 4 bowls. Grate a little lime zest over each bowl. Quarter the lime and add a good squeeze of lime juice into each bowl. Scatter with chives, if using.

well, that was a long-winded way to bring you a root-vegetable recipe. but this space for me is what a gym might be to a gymnast. it’s where i practice my twists and turns, and aim to stick my landings. as a long-ago failed athlete, i ply no bodily tricks, and confine myself to maneuvers of nouns, verbs, and a host of dangling modifiers.

because levity is a proven balm for most ails, i’m adding a bonus here this morning, and showing you a snap of what this ol’ monk shall be wearing during her retreat from the world. if it seems i’m on some sort of new yorker binge, it’s unintentional, and pure coincidence. but the one thing i got for christmas this year was this fine pair of cat’s pajamas (new yorker cartoon cats splattered up and down legs, sleeves, and even the pockets), which arrived in the post just the other day and which i just might never take off (the ad on the new yorker shop site shows new yorkers wearing these things out and about. even in art galleries, and on the stoops of their brownstones). i solemnly vow only to wear mine inside the friary.

what’s your preferred prescription for those chunks of the year when you’re in need of deep hibernation?

p.s. thank you roz chast for your eternal and forever brilliance. new yorker cover above, by dear roz!

15 Comments

December 30, 2022

packin’ it in. . .

at one point yesterday afternoon, five of six burners were occupied on the carrier ship of a cookstove that occupies this kitchen: one boiled a vat of water for soon-to-be-roiling pastas; one simmered the beginnings of roux; one held a pot of tomatoes and basil and a chunk of parmesan cheese; one simmered chunks of apple and pear and cranberry into a compote; and one awaited the tea kettle’s whistlings.

even the cutting boards had taken assigned seats: one for the stinky onions and garlic; another for apples and pears.

we were packin’ it in.

stuffing as many favorites onto the stove, into one afternoon, into one ultra-condensed week of days jam-packed together. four of us––aka, all of us––are home this week. bedsheets are tossed in two of the rooms, the floors seem to be serving as closets and drawers. why unpack when you’ll soon be packing again, heading back out the door, into the air, and home to those faraway places?

packing it in seems as apt a way to live a life as any i can imagine. squeeze in as much as you can. (as long as those super-thick times are bracketed with spells of the monastic quiet that seems my most natural habitat.)

when it comes to loving, i’ll attach lavish every time. i don’t think an hour’s gone by this week––or maybe in my whole motherly lifetime––when i didn’t deep-down marvel at the miracle that two human beings were born to me. born from me, as a matter of fact. a feat i somehow never ever thought my wobbly old body would be able to do. i’d never put quite enough faith in my physical capacities. finish lines felt far beyond my reach; i wasn’t one to get where i needed to go by sinew and bone. and, besides, i’d mucked it up plenty along the way.

and so, the sound of their newborn cries in two dimly-lit delivery rooms is a sound that lifted me out of my body. it’s never faded.

in birthing both of them, volumes and volumes were birthed in me. i began to redefine love. and loving. i was filling in blanks, inserting my own particulars, and reaching toward the surest truth i’d ever been told: love as you would be loved. it was sacred instruction made flesh.

and all these years now––decades now––i’ve been stumbling, and bumping into walls, and trying and trying to do just that. my boys have become my paradigm for loving. my living-breathing exercise in empathy. i might try too hard sometimes. but i’d rather err in that direction than in not quite enough. not enough can feel achingly empty.

and so, here at the brink of a newborn year, another chance at trying again, it’s not a bad time to consider the ways we choose to live our days: will we pack it in? lavish a little bit of love? or as much as we can muster? will we put up with the jumble, and the noise, because it means we might squeeze in a few bits of truth, the truth that rises up from the deepest residue of the heart and the soul? will we pay close attention? will we savor our one more chance to live the love we all pray for? to be the love we imagine, we believe in?

my prayer for the new year is ancient and infinite: dear Holy Breath, that i may love as i would be loved. again and again and again. in ways never noticed, and in ways certain and strong. amen.

how will you live your days?

(the sweet boy above had promised he’d send along a photo of the jam-packed cookstove, with all its burblings and gurglings, since i was far too busy stirring to snap one, but as of friday morning press time, said photo hadn’t yet appeared, so we’re running with the one frame i managed to snap, in all its blurry glories. tis the famed mac ‘n’ cheese i’ve been making for 28 years.

p.s. long as i’m here, might as well pass along the mac ‘n’ cheese that has my boys crowding the cookstove….

mama mac ‘n’ cheese

Provenance: Gourmet magazine, May 1995, pages 200 -201; the issue that just happened to be lying on my kitchen table the day I sat down to plot the festivities for my firstborn’s second birthday.

Yield: Serves 8 children.

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter

3 ½ Tbsp. all-purpose flour

½ tsp. paprika

3 C. milk

1 tsp. salt

¾ pound wagon-wheel pasta (rotelle)

10 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded coarse (about 2 ¾ C.)

1 C. coarse fresh bread crumbs

* Preheat oven to 375-degrees Fahrenheit and butter a 2-quart shallow baking dish (the broader the crust, the better).

* In a 6-quart kettle bring 5 quarts salted water to a boil for cooking pasta.

* In a heavy saucepan melt butter over moderately low heat and stir in flour and paprika. Cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes and whisk in milk and salt. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking, and simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

* Stir pasta into kettle of boiling water and boil, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Drain pasta in a colander and in a large bowl stir together pasta, sauce and 2 cups Cheddar cheese. Transfer mixture to prepared dish. Macaroni and cheese may be prepared up to this point 1 day ahead and chilled, covered tightly (an indispensable trick, when confronting a serious to-do list for a day of birthday jollity).

* In a small bowl, toss remaining ¾ cup Cheddar with bread crumbs and sprinkle over pasta mixture {Note: My boys insist you go heavy on the extra cheese here, it makes it better, and my boys are ones who like their cheese to supersede their bread crumbs}.

* Bake macaroni and cheese in middle of oven 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden and bubbling. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. At last: Dig in.

may all of our 2023s be blessed. . .

12 Comments

December 28, 2018

prayer for the new year just round the bend

new year sky

it’s almost upon us, here in the hush of the in-between days. new year’s coming. new hopes, new dreams, new promises.

new beginning. old habits. can we shed even one? break one chain that binds us? worry less? hope more? trade in gentle for harsh? can we be kinder, beginning with our sweet old selves? can we sketch out, at last, a plan for moving us closer to the ways we want to be, to live?

i’ve no idea who invented the notion of starting over, but it’s a notion to which i’m deeply indebted. the whole year gets to start all over again. one after another. slate gets wiped — or so we pretend, so we make ourselves believe under the noise of the new year’s whistles and horns.

as i settle in for a quiet turning over of the page, i think of the ones who aren’t with me. the ones who’ve lived their lives large, with abundance. who filled every crevice with courage, with joy, with conviction. i think of the look in their eyes as their hours drew to a close. how they implored: don’t waste this. it’s not lasting forever.

i’m drawing all of them close. each and every one who didn’t live to see 2019. i’m thinking of one magnificent friend who at any hour might breathe her last. i’m poring over the lessons she’s been teaching ever since her cancer came back, ever since she’s been bravely, transparently, hold-nothing-back “nearing the edge.”

i’ve been digging around my old notes, and found a prayer i prayed once upon a new year. if i boiled it all into one single whisper it would be this, i believe: give me the grace, please, to make this as holy a world, as gentle a world, as the one you, God, first imagined when you breathed it all into being.

dear God, help me take it up a notch. and be ready with the band-aids when i fall and skin my knees.*

amen. love, me DSCF0322

*i decided the longer version of my new-year prayer was simply taking up oxygen, so i boiled it down and left only one line standing. the one about band-aids, for the hours and days when we fall from our deepest-held hopes…..

what’s your new year prayer?

9 Comments

September 14, 2018

awake to awe

two holy things happened in synagogue this week, on the night and the long day of prayer that marked the new year: one, the boy who now towers over me, he grabbed my thumb with his, and inch by inch enfolded his fingers over mine. he wouldn’t let go. he leaned in, so much so that i yielded my head to his shoulder. felt the rise and fall of his breathing against the tide of my own. we sat like that, entwined, silent, for long stretches of prayer. it was the holiest prayer i’ve prayed in a very long time. over and over — it never gets old — i remember how unlikely it was, how impossible it was, that he came to me, to us. that in the midst of our believing it would never be, the unbelievable happened: he happened.

a mother’s deepest prayers, sometimes, are the ones she whispers only to herself. those were the prayers i prayed on the new year. each breath was emboldened with the knowing that a year from now he will not be by my side. i will not feel him pressing against my shoulders. there will be miles and miles between us. and it will ache. i will ache.

the other holy thing, the thing that’s washed over me all week, and will wash and wash for days still, is the notion that we carve these 10 days of awe out of the whole cloth of the year, and do as commanded. we are commanded to be awake to awe, to make each passing moment be a prayer, the prayer of paying attention, the prayer of drinking in all that surrounds us, that buoys us, that lifts us and carries us on a current unattached to the dreck of the everyday.

the prayer in my prayer book is this, and the title of the prayer (composed for the High Holy Days in the early centuries of the Common Era, according to the footnote) happens to be How Do We Sense God’s Holiness? Through Awe. here are the first lines…

And so, in Your holiness,

give all creation the gift of awe.

Turn our fear to reverence;

let us be witnesses of wonder —

perceiving all nature as a prayer come alive….

the prayer goes on, and the leitmotif of paying attention arises again and again through the hours of prayer that are rosh hashanah. it’s as if the prayer found my soul, found the soul that had been waiting for just those words, just that command: “let us be witnesses of wonder — perceiving all nature as a prayer come alive.”

and so i’ve done as commanded ever since i walked out of that sacred space where the prayers and the limbs of the boy wound around me. i’ve opened my eyes and my ears and my soul to the majesty — the breathtaking, trumpet-blasting, cymbal-crashing beauty — that is this stretch of time and season-turning, the enflaming of the planet as the last-blast palette engulfs the trees and the nodding heads atop the stems that bend in autumn breeze.

it’s not just a ho-hum isn’t-this-lovely that punctuates my days, it’s a notch beyond. it’s a command from God. “perceive all nature as a prayer come alive….”

there is a certain holiness imbued. there is a sure clear knowing that the hand that created all of this, all of this fathomless wonder, is the hand of the Creator, the one who breathed first breath into each of us. the one who has tumbled the unbelievable into my life — more than once.

my watch-keeping this week feels anointed. as if God is right there over my shoulder, delighting each time i spy one of the wonders. delighting when i pause to drink it in — slow the car, plop down on a stone, tiptoe out the door to count the stars.

i felt God the morning i drove along a field shimmering in golden rod, and the glowing slant of sun streaked radiance like lightning bolts, set the dew drops shimmering — jewels of the dawn.

i felt God when i glanced toward the night sky through the heavy boughs of trees last night and caught the crescent moon winking at me. bright. certain. daring me to slow my dash and pay attention. stop and marvel, i almost heard it whisper.

i will feel the certain hand of God when i first hear the faraway cry of the geese, crossing sky, crossing miles, crossing half the globe in search of thermal sanctuary. leaving us behind to shiver in the winter’s cold.

i am living in a census of wonder. i am living awake to awe. i am knowing that all of God’s creation is prayer come alive. and i am praying right along.

what moments of wonder have you counted this week? begin the litany here….

(i am dashing to drive my sweet boy to school, and clicking the publish button before my litany is done. but so be it. we weave the rest together…..)

awe bee nuzzling

8 Comments

December 29, 2017

hibernation station

book corner

reporting from my arctic cocoon, where the mercury hovers at a brisk -3, which the weatherfolk tell me feels something akin to -19, which explains why nary a bird is in sight and the bumps on my flesh are reaching architectural proportion…

if you propped up a camera at my house and did something of a time study, clicking the bulb every five seconds, it might appear that i’ve not moved in five days. the hide of the couch has given way to the rounds of my bum, the blanket lurches off to the side on those rare few occasions when i rise — for a drink or a nibble or a night’s sleep in full recumbent position — awaiting my certain return, where it folds itself just so round my knees and all of those knobby parts that protrude from the human equation. i am the very definition of “to cocoon,” or better yet, “to slither into dormant state where the turning of a page is perhaps the most taxing of movements.”

and so it goes in a week when you’ve intentionally left the calendar unmarked — not a doctor’s appointment or deadline in sight. all you’ve to do is hunker down with the ones you so love, the ones whose appearance by your side becomes rarer and rarer as the years and the miles pull you to faraway points on the map.

just yesterday there was an actual moment — an hour or more — when four of us were all nestled in the very same room, all under blankets of our own choosing, and all turned pages (or, truth be told, clicked through screens), while the logs in the fire crackled and hissed and occasionally whistled. it was — we were — the very picture of post-pioneer home entertainment.

i’ve been hunkering down with three glorious friends — john mcphee, john o’donohue, and my newest friend, robin wall kimmerer, a plant scientist, potawatomi, and poet who is taking my breath away by the paragraph, with her brilliant collection of essays, braiding sweetgrass, a book that’s been lined up in the queue between bookends that sits atop my desk, but only just now shoved its way to the front of the line and into my lap. i take turns with the three of them, as if in deep conversation with friends across the kitchen table. i read mcphee, draft no. 4, a collection of essays on the craft of writing that reads something like a masterclass, for whole chapters at a time; it’s that good that a whole hour can sweep by and i’ve not moved saved for the scritches and scratches and exuberant stars i’ve penned in the margins.

it’s the rarest of times, the depth of the pause that comes in this bend in the year, the days wedged between christmas and new year’s. and, by golly, the weather outside is playing right along. i trudge outside only to dump seeds for my hungry feathered friends, the ones i worry about, especially when there’s barely a flutter of wing and i imagine them barricaded and seed-less in the places they hide to keep out of the cold.

it’s a rare refueling respite. a time to curl away from all that pulls at us, all the other times of the year. it’s what makes these days holy to me. unfettered, unbroken. a time to breathe in the same air as the ones you so love. a time to lay a soft palm on the arm or the shoulder of the one who turns pages beside you. a time for whispers and glances, and heart-melting meeting of eyes.

it’ll be over today, when the tv roars to a tiger-ish roar, and the football teams clang helmets, and the boys i love — along with a few of their friends — haul in spicy hot food and decibels to match.

perhaps i’ll begin to turn my thoughts toward the cusp of the new year coming, the one about to be birthed, the one i will once again fill with hope and dreams and prayer. i will pray for peace, and for gentle ways to rinse the land. i will remember those who’ve stitched this past year with kindness, defiant kindness, a kindness that refused to submit to the ways of the loudest and most churlish among us. i will count my blessings, one after another, one sweet soul after another. for it is in the sweet souls who surround me that i find those rare shimmering lights, the ones that keep me from slithering into the muck. i’ve needed those lights more than ever in this past soul-tattering year. needed reason to rise above the least common denominator, needed scant outlines of hope that the darkness would pass, the dawn might certainly come.

oh, coming year, come on us gently, come on us with occasional radiant light….

i pray you’ve found quiet or noise in the proportion that best suits you. and i pray for all of us that the year and the days ahead are gentle to the heart and the soul, and that one or two of our dreams come tumbling true.

for what do you pray in the year just up around the bend?

16 Comments

December 30, 2016

letter to the new year

mama love....

dear year soon to crown,

as i’ve done before in birthing rooms i will reach out to cradle you, take you in my hands, pull you close against my chest. you’ll hear my heart beating, quietly.

i will study you, be in awe of your sudden appearance, your entrance, your being here. there was no guarantee you and i would meet, and therein is the miracle, the often taken-for-granted miracle. yet, unmistakably a miracle. in every way.

both miracle and blessing, each new year demands my full and unwavering attention. demands the full attention of all of us standing here on the cusp, filling our hearts and our imaginations with promises, vows, hopes, resolutions of the deepest kind.

i count on both hands and beyond the people i’ve loved — loved dearly — who didn’t get to know you. the ones, especially, who missed you by a year, or two — the loss still raw, ever a mystery, one i’ll never solve. they’re the everyday reminder to me that 2017 didn’t have to be in my cards. could have been eclipsed. gone before i got here.

i can’t shake the frame locked in my imagination, the one of my dear friend last march, lying gaunt in her hospital bed, all the tubes finally taken away. there was no need for tubes anymore; they’d been revealed to be false hope, distraction from the inevitable. she looked up at me, asked, thinly, “can you believe this?” her words as much declaration as question. i think of her on the doorstep of death, breaths away from slipping to the other side. i hold that moment. study it. i breathe in her courage, i pray it infuses every last nook and cranny inside me. i pray i live her dying instruction: “practice gratitude.”

i beg you, new-coming year, to be gentle. i’ve a hunch you won’t be. i realize the gentle needs to come from deep inside me. i need to find the holy balm to steady me through the rough waters to come. i’m bracing myself wth double doses of those few things that have proven to be my salvation: prayer; silence; rampant and unheralded kindness; the rapt company of a rare few companions, deep in the act of holding up each other’s hearts.

i will usher you in with all the majesty a new year deserves: i’m quieting already. i’m taking walks in the woods, standing in awe of the crimson flash of the flicker darting from oak to oak. i’m assuming a prayerful pose under the star-stitched dome of the heavens. i awake with the dawn, press my nose to the window, often step outside, watch the tourmaline streaks stain the eastern edge of night, rise up, rinse the morning sky in diffuse and certain light.

i will curl in my armchair and scribble my own list of promises. the ways i hope to be kind. to be gentle. to forgive. to try and try again.

the dawn of each year draws me into my natural monastic state. i would have been such a cheerful monk, walking the moonlit halls, bare feet slapping the great stone slabs, guided by flickering candle’s flame. i would have relished a bowl of bean soup simmered all new year’s eve day. would have sliced a thick wheatberry baton of bread. alas, i’m without monastery walls at this moment in my life, and thus must do without the stone-slabbed corridors. but i’ve beans and bread and bees’ wax. i’ve a heart awaiting the new year, and all the prayers it will stir.

be gentle, new year. be kind. and most of all, be blessed.

what do you pray for in this coming year?

my list of prayers this early morn is topped with ones for my sweet little nephew milo, who broke his wrist quite badly, and who is in surgery as i type. he’s in portland, maine, a time zone away, and i got up early to keep vigil from afar, to keep watch over our little guy, and his mama and papa who are huddled, worried, as they wait outside the OR door.

mr. milo & me, almost four years ago

29 Comments

January 1, 2016

and a new year was born…

londonbooks

dispatch from london…

psst. while you were wrapped in the fading twilight hours of 2015, my curly-haired boys and i were due to be nestled along the banks of the thames (where midnight comes seven hours ahead of the place i call home), watching the sky explode with light and wonder (please God, only with this…).

soon as i settle back on these shores, these glorious shores, and shake off the jet-sag (that’ll be tomorrow by bedtime), i’ll tap a few musings from our days spent in london, where our little family has taken our first en masse trek across the very big pond. being the original nesty-girl, especially at christmas, i’m not one to yearn to leave behind my little tree, and all the boughs of red berries tucked about my house. but london at christmas? the visions of frost-dusted window panes danced in my head. as did the notion of tea at fortnum & mason. and waltzing the aisles of harrods. or, better yet, those quaint little shops, where as you push open the centuries-old door, step off the cobblestone sidewalk, a tinkling chime welcomes you in. a dreamy girl could go bonkers in storybook london. and to think i get to travel with my very own guide to architectural wonder (upon wonder after wonder after yet another wonder — pray for my legs not to give out, as our resident critic has penciled in outings from pre-dawn till day’s end, for days upon days). and, dearest of all, we’re inhaling it all with our sweet pair of boys! (an exclamation mark isn’t too often pulled from my writerly tool kit, but in this case it’s all exclamations.)

you can be certain my little heart was filled with a prayer as i watched the midnight sky of londontown bloom into radiance of the sparkly new-year variety. the prayer, no doubt, put to rest the heartache of the year we’ve now left. and it gathered up all the magnificence of those we love who didn’t make it beyond the year. the prayer, indeed, comes with a vow to live more emphatically in all the ways they would have lived, the ways the world so desperately needs.

at heart, my prayer for the new year is so simple, and yet so steep a climb: dear God, let there be peace, but more than anything give me the strength and the faith to love, always, as i would be loved. let us be the light — gentle, soft, certain — that will not be snuffed. let us be the light for which this world so achingly yearns.

may your every day be stitched with wonder. may your hours be blessed. and may your heart hear the whisper it longs for….

merry blessed new year.

now, let us begin…..

what might be a wisp of your new year’s prayer?

18 Comments

December 11, 2015

nine.

nine

we mark time to measure something far deeper than the number of days. we mark time to take stock of our soul. to plumb its depths. to trace across its undulations. to peek into the shadowy places, and bask in the patches of pure illumination.

tomorrow, the twelfth day of the twelfth month, this old chair will once again glide across the stretch of shadow and light on which it began. its ninth circle round the sun. nine years of keeping watch, of perking my ears to the faintest of whispers. the whispers of the heart, yes. but just as certainly the wind rustling the leaves. the blue jay’s squawking. the world holding its breath. the pounding of bare soles against hardwood planks, rushing to the door to welcome love home.

at the break of dawn on december 12, 2006, i tiptoed down the stairs to a little nook of a room where a screen glowed, a screen waiting to be filled with words, with pictures, with postcards from the front — the homefront, in this case. the heart and soul of the homefront.

i had no real idea how all of this would unspool. but i knew that i wanted to carve out a hollow of quiet, a tide pool along the rushing river of life, where you and i might plop our bottoms onto a rock, might dip our finger into the current, might watch the light shifting, listen for the crunch of the forest under the wee padded feet of the creatures who call the woods home.

i knew i wanted a sacred someplace. a place where kindness prevailed. a gentle place, a home for tenderness and telling the truth. a place where we could bring our brokenness, or, just as emphatically, our bold claims of hope.

it would be an enchanted someplace. or at least that’s what i prayed.

i’ve long believed in enchantment. long believed in the possible. and the power of divine imagination. you can, sometimes, if you’re spectacularly lucky and a whole lot blessed, will your way to the landscape of which you dream.

when i was little i spent long hours in the woods across the way from the house where i grew up with a motley crew of four brothers. i plunked sticks into the pond where the ancient turtle basked on a log. i splashed across the rocks in the stream where crawfish bobbed from deep down in the dark.

that’s where i learned to believe in so very much of what still matters — the sanctity of silence, the incandescence of heavenly light, the blessing of being alone, the joy of muddy boots.

and maybe, too, that’s where i learned to believe that, fueled by imagination and spiced with a good dash of faith, i just might carve out a holy place.

and if there’s come to be anything holy about this make-believe table, circled with so many old chairs, it’s thanks to the good grace of your company — your day-after-day, week-after-week, year-upon-year coming by to share a few words, or a story, or kindness or wisdom. and ladles of love.

looking back over the nine blessed years — and thanks to the wizards at wordpress who keep track of these things — i can see at a glance just where these 729 posts have taken us, a bit of a roadmap in reverse, a by-the-numbers snapshot of what’s captured our imagination: 39 posts have considered the angels among us, 16 times i’ve laughed at myself (clearly, no one was counting), stillness has been a subject 22 times, motherhood 101, motherlove 44, mother prayer 17. we turned to cooking — for comfort, for joy — 42 times. blessings have been the subject du jour 64 times, paying attention 51 times, worry 11 (yet another serious under-estimate), wisdom only once (egad!). savoring moments, at 89 posts, is solidly a leitmotif.

and in just the last year here at the chair, we’ve traversed death and grief, awe and hope and hearts that are shattered by the most intimate of devastations or those played out on the world stage. we’ve considered quiet and the eloquence of silence. and this year, blessedly, the trumpets blared at the prodigal homecoming of my firstborn. i’ve written of words and books and harper lee. but if i had to pick three posts that will stick with me forever, it would be the prayer of remembering, the day my little one tried his hand at healing the sick, and, more than any other this year, the magic day at the magic hedge, where my most beloved friend and i pressed each sacred hour against our hearts, knowing, too well, the hours — and she — would soon slip away, a hole in my heart will ache till the end of time.

bless you. and thank you. for every kindness. for every dollop of wisdom. for your patience, your faith, and your blessedness. for the times you make me laugh out loud. and for every time you’ve made me wipe away a tear. from my heart to yours, a never-ending embrace.

may we never give up on the promise to infuse this weary old world with all the love and goodness we can possibly muster.

much love, b. images

22 Comments

January 2, 2015

the blessing of beginnings

i’m just in from my morning rounds, my make-believe that i’m the caretaker of the dawn. the nubs of my fingers are nearly numb, for i stayed out too long. i was breathing in the heavens, breathing in the star-stitched sky, scanning for the disappearing moon, the moon playing peek-a-boo this morning.

the world was just rustling out of its bedsheets — or so it seemed. the trees whispered. off in the distance, a train let out its morning moan. i might have caught the stirring of the cardinal’s wing. or maybe it was a night critter, finally ambling home to bed. something in the bushes moved.

i know no holier way to greet the day, the morning light. i know no holier way to unfurl the carpet for the year that’s new, that’s just beginning. today, the dash between the first and third, the dash between the world’s new year and mine (my birthday is a string of primes: 1.3.57), is wholly a day of quiet rapt attention. i’m crouched down low, tucked off to the side, scanning the year ahead, the days of possibility. i’m considering what might come — what might break my heart, what might take my breath away, what might bowl me over with pure sheer joy.

i’ve come to think that my time-delay birthday is one of the gosh-darn blessings in this life that pretty much dropped down upon me. sort of like the curly hair that i’ve come to realize has saved me zillions of dollars in pink sponge rollers i’ve not had to buy, or hours not spent in the beauty parlor chair where alchemy and goop put curl to other people’s stick-straight locks. i had nothing to do with odd birthday or curly locks — or any of what amounted to my starter package, really. but, along the way, i’ve learned to make the most of it.

so my year comes on tiptoes. my year slinks in around the bend. no crash-bang-boom for me. i take my new year launch in itty-bitty baby steps. i’ve three days to consider the turning of the page.

and there’s little i love as much as a new beginning, a chance to start again. to dust off my knees, inhale a deep and cleansing breath, and make a vow: this time, dear God, i’ll try even harder.

try harder to bite my tongue when the words are bunched up in my throat, just ready to launch a harsh, “will you PLEASE hurry up! will you PLEASE clean your room! will you GET OUT OF BED!”

try harder to breathe deep the mantra of dorothy day and st. therese of lisieux: “by little and by little.” as in, by little acts of kindness, by little courage, by little acts of love in the face of awfulness, we stand our one best chance to take up a notch this life that sometimes scrapes our knees and gives us hives and burns our eyes with stinging tears.

because it’s worth a pause within the pause, here’s a passage from robert ellsberg’s brilliantly edited and annotated, ‘dorothy day: selected writings’:

“simply, it consisted of performing, in the presence and love of God, all the little things that make up our everyday life and contact with others. from therese, dorothy learned that any act of love might contribute to the balance of love in the world, any suffering endured in love might ease the burden of others; such was the mysterious bond within the body of Christ. we could only make use of the little things we possessed — the little faith, the little strength, the little courage. these were the loaves and fishes. we could only offer what we had, and pray that God would make the increase. it was all a matter of faith.”

i suppose, because i seem to circle back to it every year, it’s becoming my new year prayer. it’s the only way i know — by little and by little — to take the mountain climb.

i’m certain there’s a wise person somewhere who realized the only way to change the world was one baby step at a time. in my scant few moments of insight — when the world before my eyes snaps crystal clear and sharply focused, instead of all a blur and hard to comprehend — i suddenly grasp that most folks who are making a difference, a big fat difference, are doing it with no more magic than you or i possess. they’re simply smart enough — or unfazed enough — to realize that one step firmly planted in front of another, that one phone call made, or one question bravely asked, or one trip across the street or across the ocean (it hardly matters which, sometimes), just might be the one that starts to pile up, to tilt momentum in the direction of holy change, in the difference between a world that is and a world that just might be.

maybe it’s time to steal a play from the smart-people’s play book: the baby-step guide to living. maybe it’s time to line up in the baby-step brigade.

for one thing, there’s less of a realignment when, inevitably, i flub it. taking a deep breath and trying again is a whole heck of a lot easier when all you need do is “take two” in the baby step department. but baby step + baby step = toddler step. and toddler step + toddler step = well, you get the math.

so here’s my prayer for this new and not-yet-scripted year:

dear Holiness, cast your rays of sparkling light — of shaft of sun, and dappled moonbeam — across my pot-holed path.

give me grace to hold my words, to not engage in prattling on about the wacky folk who try to topple me. give me grace — and wisdom, and a dash of far-sightedness — to live each day as if it’s my one last chance to leave a trail of the world as holy as i imagine it could be.

give me one last puff of energy on the evenings when i’m drained, and the phone rings and it’s someone i love who needs to talk it through, whatever is the hell the one i love has just encountered.

give me forgiveness in dollops. give me, please, enough to share it with abandon — most especially on those who try to take me down, who call me names that break my heart, who whisper unkind somethings.

dear God, thank you for bringing me once again to the crest of this next hill. thank you for the chance to look out upon the undulations of years past and days ahead. hold me in your tender palm, and those blessed unshakable arms. be the hand i squeeze when i get scared. and the pure fresh air that fills my lungs.

dear God, help me take it up a notch. and be ready with the band-aids when i fall and skin my knees.

much love, always, b.

dear chair people, can you see the itty bitty dot of light in that picture up above? just above the filigree of tree? that’s the ringed wonder, saturn. and just before dawn it was shining in the southeast sky. now, i have just about the dumbest little camera known to humankind and it never ever takes the dots of light that i’m hoping it will capture. but today, miraculously, it did. well, if you get out your magnifying glass, you’ll see it did. a small wonder like that is enough to start my day with a skip to the heart. so i hope it’s a contagious skip, and you too encounter a star-stitch of wonder today.

so, what’s your blessing for the new beginning?

26 Comments

January 10, 2014

back to business

i nearly forgot how much i ached all day monday, the day my firstborn packed his bags, flapped his arctic wings and flew back to the hills of western massachusetts. i nearly forgot how the whole day felt like an uphill climb, and how each time my little one and i looked each other in the eye, we knew we were hollowed, were drained, had just had the plug pulled out of our sink.

blessedly, we birthed a tradition back on that uphill empty day. our dear across-the-streets were suffering the same heart drain, had just sent their elder child off to the vermont woods, and what with a vat of leftover beef stew in the fridge, and a pot of mashed potatoes to boot, we inaugurated what we think will become our annual “plus three instead of minus one” rite of soothing our oozing parts. and, as they walked in with a hot-out-of-the-oven blueberry-blackberry crispy-crumbly, all vapors of heartache up and went poof! (forgive us, you faraway children, it’s not that you’re a solid swap for fruits under buttery wraps, it’s just that, well, a dousing of sugar makes your leave-taking all the gentler to swallow.)

the polar cold didn’t loosen its hold till late tuesday night, so it took till wednesday for school to re-open and, thus, the real world to settle back in, the post-holiday, post-new year, back-to-business rhythms that i, for one, find as cleansing and invigorating as a frothy green drink chock-full of parsley and kale and mustardy greens.

why, i even hauled out the scrub bucket and mop. dis-assembled the yule tree. penned the thank you’s. tucked away the holiday dainties (to use a vintage wordchoice for confections, one i bumbled upon over the new-year stretch). turned in a book review. ironed the christmas-y napkins, tucked them away for a long winter’s nap.

i was gettin’ down to business in a scrub-dutchy way.

it is what january calls for, if you put your ear to the frosty winds and listen hard. diligent work, assiduous effort, those are the siren songs of the month at the top of the year.

in my case, it feels like it’s been far too long since i’ve gotten down to serious business. put nose to grindstone and cranked out a solid assignment. and, wonder of wonders, i find that i hum when working hard. when i can hold up a tangible something at the end of the day, and say, softly: “i did this.”

any day now, the last batch of edits are due from my little book’s editor, and then i’ll be sailing toward the copy editing desk. and i’ve promised myself i’ll get brave and dial up one or two assigning editors, in hopes of plunking some coins in my decidedly bony porcine bank, the one that’s teetering on nothing but fumes. in the meantime, i’ve signed up for an online poetry course, one that will hold walt whitman up to the light and bring a cambridge lecture hall here to my old maple table. and, for pure delight and because i believe in it as one of life’s richest assemblages, i’m picturing a dining table filled with madly opinionated, yarn-spinning chroniclers of everyday truth, wisdom and hilarity.

it’s january and the year is filled with promise. time to shake off the sloth, and see what i can pull from the depths of my deeply blessed soul.

how ’bout you? what’s on your i-promise-to-do list, not because you feel obliged but simply because it inspires?

that framed moment above was just before my firstborn shuffled out the door with his duffle sack. the little one, leaning into him with all his sagging heart, not wanting him to go. ever. it’ll be months, and three full seasons, before he returns. these long pauses never get easier. and the heartache never dulls. so flow the rhythms of loving a faraway child.

pull up a chair

Tag: new year

January 13, 2023