The island: Part 1

Today I think of our island. Not the tropical variety, although wouldn’t I love to own one right about now, in the middle of this Minnesota winter? Instead, I’m thinking about the nine-foot-long feature, capped in quartz, stretching across our kitchen.

Long before our house was fully realized—when it was still mostly an architectural idea sketched on paper—I had a vision. Husband stood at the stove, cooking for the masses, and I wiped down the countertops. Joy fueled our movements. The French adjective quotidien, meaning daily, springs to mind as I recall the vision, and the word frames the scene. What’s more daily than a kitchen island in the center of everything?

We use our island hard, and I assume discussions will happen around it. When we bought the house, though, I imagined the bulk of heartfelt exchanges and weighty thoughts would be birthed in the sunroom. What I didn’t anticipate was that our kitchen focal point would host stories so soon, so often, so deep, and from the least likely. But so it is.


“I wasn’t a good husband early on,” the handyman says, backing out from under our kitchen sink. He straightens to standing, splays his palms on our kitchen island, and switches his gaze between Husband and me. His son, his associate, stands nearby, attention trained on his dad now. “I neglected my wife and family. I wanted my work more than I wanted them.”

The older man’s eyes turn glossy, and I wonder how his sleuthing out a solution for our electrical situation (the dishwasher and garbage disposal had been wired into the same outlet) could bring a personal story.

“We got married pretty fast, since my wife was already pregnant with this one," he goes on, thumbing toward his son.

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” the son says, his expression neutral.

The older man waves away his grown kid’s comment. “We were a mess, but that was then. God shook me into the man I am today.” He swallows a quaver. “Hard as you-know-what, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Gratefulness overshadows my surprise at the sudden story. This man doesn’t know us, and yet he speaks. I glimpse Husband’s reaction, and it matches my own. The electrical issue doesn’t seem so important now, and we keep listening—to him and to all the others who come after him in the following days, weeks, and months. (Because we have a lot of goings-on over here.)

And the island listens too.


(Come back next week for more island stories.)


New year, new word (your responses)

Last week, I invited you, my readers, to submit your words for 2023. From what you sent me, 2023 will be filled with excitement and promise. Enjoy!

*****

In years past my words have always been focused on healing or managing some sort of pain or angst. One year it was ‘breathe’ and for two years it was ‘release’ (that was a hard task for me!) Last year, a phrase, ‘it’s what I’m working with’… a hopefully humorous move toward self-acceptance.

This year I wanted my word to represent living, doing, being bold and sassy in the face of anxiety and fear. My ‘word’ this year describes how I will choose to conduct myself toward joy… I will be ‘gutsy-glorious!’

Deborah, Beldenville, Wisconsin

*****

Word for 2023: Mine is rejuvenate. After a fall in 2018 that changed my life, I declare I am putting that all behind me and plan to rejuvenate my body, mind and soul by feasting on God’s Word.

Charlene, Deer Creek, Minnesota

*****

My word for 2023: Regenerate

Becky, Mahtomedi, Minnesota

*****

Trust (v.) = to believe in the reliability, strength, ability of someone or something

No idea what’s coming

Running anyhow

Trying too hard

Giving up?

No. Giving in . . .

To Him.

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

The following submission contains excerpts from Dori’s blog, With Robin and Flowers. (Click HERE to subscribe. It’s a delightful read. You’ll thank me later.):

The phrase that came to my mind was “love is patient.”

At the dinner table tonight, after a rather pleasant day, one of my children got an attitude about the meal. Because, actually, this person preferred it (for once) and wanted a third enormous helping.

“No, that’s enough. You need to eat the other meals offered you during the day.”

Head hanging, the tiny person mumbled.

“Sorry, what was that?” Philip [their father] asked over his by-now-cold bowl of noodles.

“I wish I had my own home. So I could be alone.”

I bit my lip to keep from chortling—or snapping how I wish I had my own home to be alone in too.

From the mouth of babes spring some real fleshly truth, people.

So often, I feel deeply blessed by the duties that consume my life.

But sometimes, the duties test me. Like, TEST ME.

The housekeeping, with its cyclical pattern of dirty clean dirty clean, and all elements (clothes, floors, surfaces, dishes, children, dog…) at varying points in that process. If you want everything clean at once, well, too bad. Hire someone.

My sister-in-law once said, “Before I became a parent, I used to think I was so patient…” and I instantly fell prey to the covetous heart—as I realized, I could never have said such a thing about myself. Many people have told me how nice I am, but nice isn’t the same as patient. In fact, I’ve come to believe that my supposed “niceness” is merely the polite combination of deafness, a quick smile, and nonconfrontationalness.

My Dad often says to me, “We’re all on a journey,” and my achiever beaver side pulls out a checklist. “So can we just get there already?!”

But as hippie as it sounds to say, the journey so often is the destination, in that this life is the one God is using to make us more like Christ.

The hurry-up-edness buried not so deep in my soul just can’t with it sometimes. I want to know why and why not now.

The bread has been in for forty-five minutes. It should be done by now. (I don’t have time for this!)

I taught this child how to do that, for a super long time. Why can’t they just be good at it already?! (I don’t have time for this!)

In the TV series The Chosen, why can’t Jesus just tell Peter to knock it off and make him and Matthew get along from the beginning? “Your brother (in Christ) is your best friend. Now hug it out and act like you love each other.” (Jesus’s ministry is just for three years. HE doesn’t have time for this!)

But He does. And He doesn’t hurry them along. This earthly reflection on the life of Christ takes me back to His Word: how patient He has always been. And then I think of my life. How patient He has always been with me.

Perhaps one habit I’ll take into 2023 is slowing my responses. Is authenticity to our truest fleshiest state actually being honest? Or is deferring ourselves to Our Elder, our Father in Heaven, the best picture of truth?

Dori, Sparta, Wisconsin


New year, new word (2023 edition)

It’s time for our yearly word game. Okay, it’s not really a game, but I like words, so it’s fun for me.

In early December, my word for 2023 sparked to mind while I sat in the quiet place. And it’s one I haven’t figured out yet:

KEY

What does KEY mean for me? Is it a means of gaining or preventing entrance? Or, is it something that provides a solution? Does it have anything to do with open and shut doors? Time will tell.

Now let’s talk about you.

If you choose a yearly word too and would like to share it, send me a message HERE with your word for 2023 and why you chose it. I’ll publish your writing in next week’s blog, along with your first name and city/state. (Subscribers, simply hit reply to this email.)


Pretty feet

From our bedroom window overlooking the backyard this morning, the old-timey lamppost by our pool house wears what looks like a two-foot cap of new snow, and I can imagine Mr. Tumnus leaning against it, arms crossed, gazing back at me.

I chuckle and head into the kitchen for some gingerbread-flavored coffee—I'll use the French press today—and Maverick City’s version of the African-American spiritual drifts through our home audio system:

Go, tell it on the mountain, Over the hills and everywhere

Go, tell it on the mountain, That Jesus Christ is born

It’s a joyful rendition, but the song’s origins, dating back to 1865 or so, were borne of pain. The musical gift, one of many contributions from an enslaved people, stops me in my tracks, and I go for its inspiration.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

My heart sings with hope, and I wonder if I have pretty feet. I hope so—even though I haven’t had a pedicure in ages and in Minnesota they’re buried inside mukluks six months out of the year anyway. Thankfully, it’s not about their appearance but about where they’re going.

And I promise to keep mine moving.

Go, tell it on the mountain, Over the hills and everywhere

Go, tell it on the mountain, That Jesus Christ is born


Markings

“Never heard of it,” the tattooed guy behind the counter at the shoe repair place said, smiling, “and my wife is Swedish and I’m Norwegian.”

I had only mentioned Lille Julaften (Little Christmas Eve) to the man because he brought up his Scandinavian roots and said my order would be ready on December 23, the date of the Norwegian celebration.

Over the next minutes, pleasantries and hospitality warmed the strip mall shop. Our business finished at last, Husband and I strode toward the door.

“Lille Julaften, Lille Julaften,” the guy said, practicing the new-to-him words on his coworker as we exited.

I laughed and climbed into the car, happy to bring a new holiday into someone’s life. But what I thought about most were the guy’s tattoos—simple statements of affection and remembrance. And those markings played in my mind the rest of the day.

Today, I think of the One we celebrate this season, and I focus on His markings:

His forever crucifixion scars, so we remember the past.

His name, written on His thigh, so we hope for the future.

Our names, engraved on the palms of His hands, so we know we’re treasured today.

Gifts, shoe repairs, Lille Julaften, and tattoos. All fun. But this Christmas, may our lives be like His: printed with compassion, inscribed for victory, and etched by love.

(Check it out: Revelation 5:6, 19:16; Isaiah 49:16)


Ingebretsen's

These days, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, as the old idiom goes. So, enjoy this Christmastime story from five years ago. Also, whenever I say “lefse plug thingy”, what I mean is electric lefse grill probe control, although that boring description doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely.

Now read on, my friend. Read on.

*****

“Don’t let me forget the lefse plug thingy,” I say as we saunter down the sidewalk past the painted picture of a man and woman in a horse-drawn sleigh on the side of Ingebretsen’s.

“The reason we’re going,” Husband says.

“Yeah, but I know how I get when I’m in there.”

The mild winds feel more like early September than December today, so without the usual arctic fingers tearing at my coat, I admire—maybe for the first time—the rosemåling touches on the mural.

“Hey, we should get some pea soup while we’re at it,” Husband says.

We enter Ingebretsen’s, a Scandinavian food and gift shop, which has cozied up on the corner of sixteenth and Lake since 1921. The place exists all year, but only enters my consciousness at Christmastime. And I see I’m not the only one.

We head for the store’s deli. The line is thick like braided cardamom bread, and people draw numbers from a dispenser. Husband and I part ways so he can order up the pea soup he first tasted at Sons of Norway more than a decade ago. A barrel-chested worker, sheathed in an apron, slices off two frozen wheels for him. At the other end of the deli counter, I wait to catch the eye of another employee.

“May I sample the pickled herring in sherry, please?” I say.

The man skewers a sizeable hunk of fish with a toothpick. “Here’s a big one for you.”

After all his trouble, I wouldn’t be courteous if I didn’t order a half pint. I request a half pint of the herring in creamy dill sauce too, so the first container isn’t lonely.

Next I wander to the cheese section, my mouth watering when I eye the log of gjetost. I refrain—this time. Husband and I meet up at the refrigerated section. Flicka sidles over.

“In the airport in New York, I saw a lady squirt some of that directly into her mouth,” she says, indicating the caviar in tubes. “Remember?”

“Uh, no,” I say.

A septuagenarian in a Nordic sweater, his mouth set in a tight line, plows through our family meeting and plunges his hand into the refrigerator, snatching one of the last packages of lefse. Sometimes the holidays trigger desperation.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, glancing at us. But the way he grips his lefse, I wonder if he is.

We meander to the gift shop on the other side of the store. I eye the pewter jewelry, the cheery red candleholders, the napkins graced with trolls.

“Are you ready to go?” I ask the family, worried I might damage the checkbook if I linger.

“We should probably get what we came for,” Husband says.

I wrinkle my brow. “What?”

He nods toward the lefse supplies; my memory prods me back to reality.

And there’s one lefse plug thingy left—just for us.

My lefse plug thingy. With a little flour still on it I see.


Seen

If the word snowflake was at the top of a card in the game of Taboo, I’d guess the buzzable words below it would be precipitation, winter, tiny, white, icy. If I were creating the game, though, I’d also include unique. 

When snowflakes gather, like they did on Tuesday, I see the mass of them and make plans for how I’ll manage them, move them, and get through them. When one snowflake in the storm is singled out on my glove, though, I catch my breath. Beautiful, surprising, unique. And when it melts away, I know I’m the only human who saw it.

In October, I got another job. As an employment consultant for people with disabilities, I gained a caseload of eighteen. There’s training for how to move through it, manage it well, and document it accurately. When an individual is singled out in a face-to-face meeting with me, though, I catch my breath. Beautiful, surprising, unique. And when they go away, I hope I’m not the only person who sees them.

I think of the shepherd of the sheep. He had one hundred he protected, cared for, and guided, but one wandered off and disappeared. He left the ninety-nine to search for it, though, and at the sight of it again, I bet that shepherd caught his breath. Beautiful, surprising, unique. And with joy, he carried the seen one home.

And now there’s you. Only one in the sea of humanity. You think about how to manage your days, hours, and minutes. You wonder what you’re doing and if there’s a point to it all. Singled out, though, you make the Shepherd catch His breath. You’re beautiful, surprising, unique. And whether or not you believe it, you’re seen.

You’re always seen.



Yep, it's Thanksgiving!

I’m chopping up celery and onion and drooling over the thought of stuffing.

I’m loving my family and thinking I don’t deserve such special people.

I’m feeling good-sore from cleaning for hours yesterday and rejoicing that the grime and dust bunnies are gone.

I’m dancing with a chef’s knife in the kitchen (yes, I’ll be careful) and laughing that I still don’t have rhythm.

I’m burning a candle and imagining it smells like a good-looking man in a flannel shirt, a kitchen towel slung over his shoulder, who's reaching for the grater to zest an orange.

I’m dreaming of Christmas and smiling that someone gave us a ten-foot-tall pre-lit tree to enjoy (that we’ll put up tomorrow.)

And I’m contemplating the sacrifice of thanksgiving and offering up God-praise for every last thing, hard or soft.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!



Call to rest

Sometimes invitations to rest come in funny ways.

I think of the days of my littles on tricycles. I indulged in fantasies back then, imagining I could grab some exercise on Victory Memorial Parkway too, but with peddling toddlers, there was no getting my heartrate up. I watched them favor full stops over movement, their triking ways carefree and slow. But in the moment, it was a call for me to rest. And sometimes I saw it.

I think of the minutiae of the day now—the paperwork of life—and when online bill pays or registrations are halted because of system errors, timed-out sessions, needed updates, or loss of connectivity. At first, I’m irritated, but it’s a call for me to rest. And sometimes I see it.

I think of all the illnesses around me lately. Flus and colds and stomach bugs abound. I feel fine, but eight of my friends and three of my family members are figuratively limping along, tissue boxes in tow. I don’t worry I’m next, but I think of upping my good practices and slowing down anyway. It’s a call for me to rest, and I can see it.

I think of the times I’m hustling to work when I steer the Toyota around that corner and see the neighborhood’s fowl strutting across the street. They’re not quick about it. In fact, those turkeys sashay with a sense of entitlement, looking down beaks and over feathered shoulders at me with disinterest. No, you can wait, they seem to say. I exhale with intention because it might be a call for me to rest. Okay, I guess it is. No, I can see for sure it is.

Today the atmosphere is dotted with snowflakes, and I know roads will be as slick as two days ago when Husband witnessed buses and cars sliding down the hill going towards Central. I’ll take another route to work, just in case—no sense getting my proverbial long johns in a twist over it—and even in the longer drive, there’s a call to rest. I can already see it.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Eulogy for a lamp

Inflation. Election. Recession. And other icky words that end in ion. I don't want to think about any of it today. So, I'm changing the subject.

This week, we drew names for Christmas. Yes, we do it for our family of five because a few years ago we decided it was too much pressure for everyone to give everyone gifts. But thinking of the holidays reminded me of shopping, and shopping brought back memories of The Lamp. So, it's time for the retelling of this cautionary tale from 2018.

*****

Nothing says Christmas spirit of giving like driving to a thrift store to buy oneself something fun when one should be shopping for others.

As I parked in front of the Salvation Army downtown Minneapolis, any guilt I might have felt skittered away like an errant snowflake on a sunny day. This excursion would be quick. Just one sweep through the store to check out the goods. Only five minutes needed to see if they were selling the table lamp I wanted, then I would focus on everyone else again.

My desired lamp was of the statue or sculpture variety—the kind with characters on the base doing something interesting—and in a pinch, even cherubs could work. The item would include (but was not limited to) the following specifications: off-white ceramic, a neoclassical look, kitschy.

Inside the front door of Salvation Army, I sniffed. People often likened the odor of a thrift store to a musty basement. But to me, the cast-offs of strangers smelled like inspiration, adventure, and today, the hope of heaven in a light fixture.

Once past the kitchen wares, I made a beeline for the lamp section. So many options, so little time. But wait. Could that be what I thought it was up there on the top shelf? Was it even possible? Yes.

The lamp. Soon my lamp.

A cream-colored ceramic sculpture of a boy holding a basket formed its base. A wonderfully gaudy piece. Perfection.

I clicked a photo of the prize and shot it to Flicka via text. What do you think of this?

Her response was immediate. I’ve always wanted one like that. How much?

$15.00

Oooh. A steal.

Hers was all the encouragement I needed. I eased the lamp—heavier than I expected—off the top shelf. As I pulled it into my arms, however, its cord tangled with that of another, and down came the light attached to it. Crash!

On the store’s carpeting—too skimpy to have cushioned the impact—lay shards of glass from the lamp that had once lived next to mine.

Oh no.

Cradling my treasure, I found an employee in another aisle. “I broke a lamp. So sorry. Of course I’ll pay for it.”

“No big deal,” he said, following me to the scene of the accident. He crouched to scoop up the pieces. “Happens all the time. You don’t need to pay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, for real.”

I thanked him and strode to the nearby testing station, screwed a light bulb into my baby, and plugged it in. It glowed, and I think I did too.

As I paid, I thought of my new lamp and what our bright future might look like together. As I walked out to the car, I pictured Husband rolling his eyes at my dreamy find, but my girls smiling. They would definitely smile.

I stood the lamp on its base in the back seat, propped a bag next to it, and drove off. My thoughts skipped back to the Christmas shopping list, the few things I still needed to purchase for the family, and when I could wrap the gifts I would buy.

I rounded the final corner to our house, but something in the back shifted. A rustle of a bag. A light scratching. Thump!

I put the car into park in front of our house and hopped out. I opened the back seat’s door, reached for the bag and—

Oh no.

My new lamp had tipped over—why hadn’t I laid it down?—and there on the floor in the back was sculpture boy’s head and basket, separated from his body. No!

Maybe there was still hope. Maybe I could glue it. But the beheading had sprinkled tiny ceramic chips everywhere. All was lost. I sighed.

The only time my secondhand delight spent in our house was the time it took to pass through it to its big black grave in the alley. I snapped a picture of the deceased before dropping the garbage can lid once again.

Two lamps broken in one day was no fluke. Was there a moral to this story? Of course there was. And in my heart I already knew it: one should be more careful transporting breakables when one shops for oneself at Christmastime.

The casket.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.


Thoughts in the wind

Wind whips loose leaves, swirling them around me. Nothing about the warmth—73 degrees—on this early November day in Minnesota makes sense, but my hopes quicken. Two old hits spring to mind, and they meld. If Bob Dylan and the Scorpions collaborated on their change songs, I don’t know about it. But I think of them now, and as I log my steps, I sense mystery in the air. I turn my hearing up a notch.

Is there a message for me in the wind?

My expectation stirs like the foliage, and I listen, likely wondering the same God-question as Elijah. In the story, a great wind crumbles the mountains. An earthquake splits the ground. A fire blazes. But God isn’t in the wind, earthquake, or fire—not that time anyway. In comes quietness, though. A thin silence. What follows is a whisper. And God is in it.

Maybe the ancient man’s situation—running for his life when the queen is out to kill him—affects his listening skills. He wants loud, I’m guessing—I do too when I’m in self-preservation mode—but he needs the quiet Voice and the message that follows. Same here.

I take more laps around the neighborhood because I want the steps. I need the warm wind, further direction, and inner calm too.

The whirlwind of leaves subsides now. And I listen for the Whisper.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.


Scrapbook of a weekend

Last weekend, we drove north about five and a half hours, turned left just past Holt, took a right a few miles after that, and ended up at Mom’s place. Our family of five managed to be together on this mini road trip to northern Minnesota, something of a miracle these days now that the girls are grown.

Mom has a teacup collection. She never actively pursued it, but the collection came to her over the years.

“Maybe we should drink out of those cups while we’re here,” I said, never having seen them out of their cabinet.

“Go right ahead,” Mom said.

So, we did. And if a person (me) sits around sipping from dainty cups for any length of time, another person (Dicka) inevitably braids her hair. Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka also ripped around on dirt bikes and in the E-Z-Go, and they scaled a silo during their days on the farm too.

I ambled through the Quonset, again assessing the old church altar and frame I intend to turn into something amazing in my house. Stay tuned.

While poking through Mom’s extra freezer one evening, I found a small red box—the kind check blanks once came in—containing frosting flowers from my older sister’s first birthday. I texted her a picture.

Do you realize what Mom still has in her freezer? I wrote. Pink frosting flowers from 1966 anyone?

She texted back. Am I supposed to be eating them at some point?!

I also found frosting flowers from her high school graduation in 1983, but that’s neither here nor there.

Needless to say, we had fun. Below are some pics to prove it.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Come spring

Here comes the winterizing of the yard.

Do we empty the big ceramic pots of their soil, turn them upside-down, and let them weather the soon-coming arctic blasts outside? Or, do we empty them and lug them into the pool house to spend their winter there? Husband suggests a third possibility: maybe we leave them outside just as they are but cover them in plastic.

Uncertain, I toss a fourth choice into the mix. “How about we bring them into the house, and I’ll try to keep their flowers alive all winter?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Husband says.

This is a lot of work I see now. Husband and I consider heaving them inside by hand. But I picture strained backs and blackened toenails and say as much. He rolls the wheelbarrow out of the garage, and my jaw slackens; it’s like he invented the handy implement. Why didn’t I think of it?

We make multiple trips picking up and delivering pots into the house via the sliding glass door on the lower level. I position the glazed beauties near the glass, hoping for enough light to nourish their still-hanging-on plants.

I assess the struggling growth. At some point in early August, I lost interest in them, my neglect showing in their dead parts. But there’s green there too; hope springs eternal, after all. I can resurrect them, can’t I?

I think of the famous scientific experiments done on plants in three rooms. Harsh words are spoken to the ones in the first room, kind words in the second, and silence in the third. In time, the results are evident; the plants sprinkled with kindness grow more.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

I resolve to do better. In fact, I’ll do a winterful of better.

“Oh, you’re cute,” I say to the spindly lantana and his neighbor, the wave petunia, as I start my habit and water them. “You’re so healthy too. Good job.”

Come spring, we’ll see.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.


Thoughts on leaves

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Did anyone else, in high school in the 1980s, read S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, memorize Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” watch the movie that shared the book’s title—chin quivering during the scene where Ponyboy recited the poem to Johnny—and try to stifle sobs in front of friends when Johnny, while dying, said, “Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold”?

I thought so.

*****

My mom, in her weekly newsletter to the family, shared a meteorologist's explanation of how leaves change color. Chlorophyll molecules use the red end of the visible light spectrum to power reactions inside each cell, while the unused green light is reflected from the leaf, and we see that light. When the process stops in the fall, triggered by cooler weather and shorter days, we can see a leaf’s true colors.

I think of that bit of science while a meme flies around social media. There’s a picture of vibrant but fallen leaves, and it says, “Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.”

All this information works on me, and I feel the intended pang plucking at my chest.

I also think about the raking.

*****

I gaze at our next-door neighbors’ front yard tree, and the sight sucks breath from my lungs. I text to tell them how gorgeous I think it is. The woman texts back saying they love it too. Most often it only turns yellow, she says, because the leaves aren’t on long enough for it to turn red like this year. The truth is, its beauty pains me, but I don’t say as much. Instead, I stare at it from our kitchen window, my heart twisting and my vision blurring.

And I’m thankful for the gift.

Our neighbors’ tree

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.


Play: Part 2

“Do you wanna play in the basement or draw and listen to records?” My older sister, Coco, said. There it was again, the Saturday afternoon question of my 1970s childhood.

While the fictional city of Winnebago (click here for last week’s blog installment about our basement adventures) often beckoned us, the floral couch in the living room—near the stereo with its turntable—called to us just as often. And we scurried for the paper and pencils.

On the regular, Dad rescued paper destined for the school’s trash bin and brought it home. Mom stowed the reams in a box on a low shelf, and it was miraculous, that stash; it never emptied. The dot matrix printer in the school office spit out an endless supply for us kids. What looked like computer coding marked one side of the pages, but Coco and I didn’t mind the already used paper with its perforated edges. What mattered were the blank sides. That’s where the magic happened.

We sharpened our pencils and readied ourselves for an afternoon of creation. We drew houses—cut in cross-sections, so we could decorate their insides—and we drew people. A gifted artist, Coco created humans with their hands behind their backs because she was mature enough to know hands were hard to master. My people had blobs at the ends of their arms.

Because we needed accompaniment for our creativity, we picked through our collection of vinyl, deciding what appealed most to us that day. A story record featuring Uncle Charlie and Aunt B maybe? Or music? If we went with music, we always reached for our favorite: the Lundstroms.

Long before I knew about groupies, Coco and I fit the definition. We owned a stack of Lundstrom albums and freaked out when a new one was released. We studied the covers for hours, sketching likenesses of the traveling family while we listened to their crooning. Coco was so good at capturing each detail with freehanded accuracy. I used tracing paper to get it just right.

“Is that a comb making her hair puff out like that?” I said, scrutinizing a picture on an album insert.

Coco squinted at the photo, pulling it close to her face. “Maybe she curled it that way. Probably ratted it too.”

Mom and Dad fed our Lundstroms obsession by taking us to a few of their concerts not far from home. Mom even let us pick out patterns and fabric and sewed us clothes like the Lundstrom girls. After one of their performances, I jumped into the photo intended for just Coco and the teenage Londa (even though LaShawn was closer to my age of about seven.) I wore side ponytails and my trademark chapped lips; Londa posed like a dream in yellow; Coco looked annoyed.

Our passion for the team who traveled in two buses throughout the United States and Canada three-hundred days a year for two decades and produced sixty albums flickered out, but I don’t recall when. Our later growing-up years brought new musical artist fascinations, and movement in leotards to Joanie Greggains aerobic records replaced our Saturday afternoon drawing sessions.

Last night, I clicked through YouTube videos of the Lundstroms, faded footage bringing the family to life once more. Flicka watched with me. We giggled more than a little, but those lyrics came right back to me so I could sing along.

Wow.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.