Random Thoughts

This might surprise you.   The only thing about it that surprises me is that I am just now willing to admit it publicly: I dislike holidays. Holidays - without the rose colored glasses Now before you go into your, “Susan, Susan, Susan, it is just this year !   You have had a hard year, it’s the first Christmas without your dad, your sister is sick…” spiel,   let me clarify that it is NOT just this year.   I have disliked holidays most of my adult life I think.   It’s just now, after the shitty year I have had, I am ready to talk about it.   Holidays are a recipe for sadness.   Holidays set people, us, all of us, up to fail.   Let’s look at the current holiday – Christmas.   Not only are you expected to buy amazing gifts (that fit) for a bazillion people.   Not only are you expected to have a Pinterest perfect tree in your perfectly clean living room.   Not only are you supposed to bake cookies and cakes and package them in dainty little tins to hand out to co-wo

I would pretty much bet my paycheck that we are the only people “working” in Bethlehem who don’t actually believe in the story of the wise men and the manger… Let me back up.   There is a DRIVE-IN CHURCH in Daytona Beach, Florida.   I know this because we live part-time in Ormond Beach, the city next to Daytona, and we happened upon the drive-in church once while out on a drive and found it hilarious.   What a concept, eh??   A drive-in CHURCH! Us outside the Drive-In Church the first time I saw it in 2013. I thought it was hilarious.  I didn't realize how KIND and ACCEPTING the people who go there are.  I hadn't met them yet! Then one year I read a little blurb advertising DRIVE-THRU BETHLEHEM, hosted one weekend a year by the drive-in church.   If that ad didn’t intrigue me, nothing would…   So, I signed us up!   No, I didn’t sign us up to GO to Drive-Thru Bethlehem, I signed us up to VOLUNTEER at it!!!   The first year I signed up (online, sight unseen

I haven’t had much time lately to sit down, relax, think, and create.   Writing seems a luxury of times past, as all of the minutes of every day lately feel taken up with care taking, errands, laughing with my sisters, doctor appointments, and the like.   Not that I begrudge any of that – I am exactly where I need to be right now doing what I am supposed to (and want) to do. But I cannot let a MARY DAY pass by without putting my thoughts on “paper”. For the uninitiated, Mary Day is October 20 th .   It is the anniversary of my mom's (Mary) death – October 20, 2002.   I can’t believe it has been 16 years already.   16 years seems short and at the same time very, very long.   When someone important in your life dies, things inevitably change.   All of the “big events” that happen remind you of the hole they left behind.   Births of what would have been great-grandchildren…   Holidays…   Weddings…   And now, illness.   With each event you are reminded that they

I am the type of person who, when I decide to do something, I DO IT.   I like to get something started and FINISH it.   I mean, not like big projects , heaven knows the wine rack/shelf unit I wanted to clean and repaint sat in disarray for a year before it finally got done and reassembled…   But in general – if there are dishes to be washed, I wash them.   If there is laundry to be done, I clean it.   If there is a bill to be paid, I write out the check and take it to the post office. Which is one reason that dealing with someone with Alzheimer’s can be so frustrating. Because, as I am learning more every day, when you are interacting with someone whose memory is compromised, it is not about the end result, it is about the DOING.   The activity.   The time spent having something worthwhile, something soothing, something meaningful to accomplish – that is the goal.   Not the finished product. The task that first brought this to my attention was a puzzle.   There were som

No, not an actual physical fire.   But a psychological one – maybe metaphysical.   Not one that can be put out by water or foam.   Still – a fire of epic proportions. “Your house is on fire, friend.   You can only keep what you really need.”   That is what David told her, our friend, when we finally got there.   To her apartment.   The apartment we knew, yet somehow knew not at all. We had been in the apartment many times over the years.   She is a family friend.   She became a citizen with the assistance of our family.   She reveres our family – keeps photos displayed in prominent places.   When our matriarch and patriarch died, we became her family.   We seem to be her only real friends.   She has acquaintances – people she waits in line with in the early morning to get gifts of food from the local church or mosque, people who live in her building.   But her walls are so thick – her guard up so strong – that one wrong move (so often unintended) cuts people out of her life

I like that I live “one stoplight away” from our country’s capital (that is the phrase every realtor who lists a house in our neighborhood uses, causing us to wonder, “What route do they drive into the district?” and also “One stoplight , perhaps, but four traffic jams…”).   Close proximity to DC means we can easily join protests, marches, and celebrations.   I love that.   And, let’s be honest, since November 8, 2016, there have been lots of protests and marches to join in on, but we’ve been light in what I could consider reasons to celebrate… Little boy with his sign at a protest against the Muslim Ban at Dulles Airport I have made more protest signs and spent more arm-aching hours holding them in the air the last 19 months than I have the other 52 years of my life combined.     I like protests and rallies .   Especially in this day and age, I find them to be a space filled with INSPIRATION, with HOPE, and with the BELIEF that things can and will get better.   These lar