"For Love"

“Excuse me,” the lady perched behind the desk calls out to Flicka and me as we cross the threshold. She’s like a bird dressed in red, her tone chipper. “We ask that you wear a mask on Fridays.” She points a wing at the box of face-coverings by the door.

“Why only on Fridays?” I whisper to my girl.

We oblige anyway, and Bird Lady is smiley, eager. “I love your purse,” she chirps.

“Thanks,” I say and gaze about the room. It’s my first time at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Flicka’s too. Only five others speckle the galleries, so I pretend the place is ours. We’re here for whatever the small museum offers, and we learn it’s Hazel Belvo’s “For Love” exhibition.

Assessing the Honey Locust series, Flicka and I choose which trees we favor of the nine. I say the third one on the second row—no, the first one on the third row; my girl has another opinion. But it’s only one tree, done in different palettes over time, blending the earthly with the otherworldly, so we’re always choosing the same one.

We wander through oil, acrylic, watercolor, and gouache, smelling rose trees and fireweeds and the same Giverny gardens Monet loved. The ladies—Les Maisonettes—enter the garden then, their dresses mimicking the flowers, and I can’t tell if life imitates art this time or the other way around because they’re art and life at once. And so are we.

Next comes the pencil work. There’s a series of twisting bodies in procreational contortions but done in such feathery light graphite, I can’t make squinty sense of it. In another frame, grief hits; the mother has lost her son. We move through her screams to an earlier series, also in graphite. Vibrations from car and subway rides in the 1970s guided the artist’s pencil into balls of scribbles from Loganton to Bloomfield, PA or Black River Falls to Madison or 50th Street, F Subway.

I bring my face as close to the drawings as I can and still maintain clarity. I stare at the squiggly lines, imagining landscapes rushing by outside the glass. Maybe a little backseat car sickness would’ve brought it an additional edge, but it’s so good like this. I move from one frame to the next. Where was Hazel going? Of course the places are listed, but where was she going?

Of all the art I’ve seen today, this is my favorite.

“This is brilliant,” I say to my girl. “Why didn’t I think of it for our Epic Family Roadtrip of 2019?” I still mark the long car ride like an italicized title in my brain. A pencil rendering of our travels would’ve made it even better.

“You can still do that, you know,” the girl says, “on another car ride.”

Oh, trust me. I will.

Honey Locust series

Paris Garden: Giverny II

Les Maisonettes: Vera, Hazel, Ruth, and Mable

Grief III

Travel Drawings

Travel Drawings (close-up)

A happy day at the art gallery

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Bibliophiles, unite!

What’s harder than finding time in one’s day to read a book? Finding time in one’s day to read a book aloud with one’s adult child who’s still living at home but working full-time and as heavily involved in volunteering as one is.

Okay, I’m talking about Flicka and me, and it’s our New Year’s idea (the word resolution is too exacting) to tackle a bunch of books together. The idea is sweet, the schedule tight. But we’ll do this thing—even if we need to plug the activity into our calendars and stay up past our bedtimes.

Early in January, over cups of ashwagandha tea, flames dancing in the nearby fireplace, my girl and I discussed our reading goals. Our book list would cover a variety of genres, include a few classics we should’ve already read, provide entertainment, send us on trips through time and place, and grow our faith roots deeper.

See what you think.

Books of 2024

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr, literary fiction)

The God I Never Knew (Robert Morris, religious/spirituality nonfiction)

The Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman, cozy mystery)

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, autobiographical/psychological fiction)

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro, speculative fiction/unreliable narrator)

Earthlings (Sayaka Murata, bildungsroman/psychological fiction)

Neither Here Nor There (Bill Bryson, travel literature)

Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray, satire/social criticism)

The Gospel Comes With a House Key (Rosaria Butterfield, Christian literature)

Sunburn (Laura Lippman, private detective/psychological thriller)

The Elizas (Sara Shepard, psychological thriller)

Menfreya in the Morning (Victoria Holt, murder mystery)

East of Eden (John Steinbeck, allegorical novel)

Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky, psychological drama)

In case you’re interested, we’re only halfway through All the Light We Cannot See, and it’s already February 1. Can we do it? Can we complete this entire list (don’t forget the reading aloud part) before “Auld Lang Syne” floats through the air?

Also, what do you bookworms recommend should we find ourselves craving more after Dostoevsky exits the building?

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Shayla and Ulysses

Shayla trudged into my small office and dropped into a chair. The space gave a living room feel, the two of us in soft chairs facing each other, but there was no warmth in this setup; Shayla brought a cold front with her, and I wished I had worn a cozier sweater.

I asked the usual work questions as an employment consultant, my job all about helping people get jobs. Shayla offered clipped responses to my questions. She said no employers had responded to her calls or follow-ups. She said people had stolen her resumé more times than she could count. She said she had applied for sixty jobs in the past week with zero results.

A person needed a mental health diagnosis to qualify for my services, and I already knew about Shayla’s struggles from the diagnostic assessment that came with the referral. I recalled my initial meeting with her months earlier. That day, I hoped to learn about her life as I clicked through the intake. Instead, she dozed in the chair in front of me, and I needed to rouse her to ask each question. She mumbled a yes or no, then snoozed again.

Later, I checked in with her social worker who she had visited that morning. No, Shayla had been fine then, but maybe she had taken cold meds? I brushed away my immediate concerns; I would believe the best about this new client on my caseload. I could find a way in, I thought, even though the door appeared to be shut.

But month after month, the door stayed shut. Missed meetings, no responses. Then one meeting but more silence.

Today, though, Shayla was there, awake, and glowering at me in our faux living room. “What’s the point of you anyway? I can find my own job.”

I told her specific ways I’d helped her and named other ways I could support her. “I’m on your side, Shayla,” I said. “We can do this thing together.”

“I take online classes at SNHU,” she said out of nowhere, and I caught a flicker of light inside her statement.

I asked about the courses she was taking, and something chipped away at the frost in the air.

“Can I read you a poem from one of my classes?” She was already rummaging through her bag.

“Of course,” I said.

She pulled a dog-eared photocopy from a green folder. “‘Ulysses’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson,” she said.

The classic poem, inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, told of Ulysses’ voyage to the Trojan War and his return to Ithaca, and Shayla delivered it with an intensity of feeling and sense of peace that soothed my world too—right there in the office.

“‘Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’” One beat of silence, and she replaced the paper in the folder.

My next breath brought me back to the office. “Wow. I loved that.”

Shayla smiled.

“What does the poem mean to you?”

“Ulysses fought battles and suffered,” she said, “No one really knew him or understood him. I feel that.”

“Hm,” I said and sat a moment too long, soaking it in. Shayla didn’t seem to mind.

Up until then, her goals were straightforward for someone seeking work, and my part in it was clear too. But an invisible page turned that day, revealing to me new methods for Shayla—a fresh approach. Maybe poetry and a different timeline were needed. No, of course they were. She and Ulysses first shared the desire to be heard, seen, and known.

I had never written up an employment plan for someone that included steps for both locating a future job and tending to a heroic heart, but I’d find the words somehow.

And Ulysses said, “Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

(Note: The names I use in my blog are always changed to protect the people in my stories.)

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Fitness goals?

“It’s automaton,” Flicka says, correcting me, placing the accent on the second syllable of the word.

Apparently, I’ve never said the noun aloud—only read it—and assumed the first two syllables sound like the thing we drive.

The word surges through my mind as if it’s the only one out there to describe tech billionaire Bryan Johnson, who some call the most measured human on the planet.

I discovered Bryan in December of 2023 and can’t move past his videos demonstrating the daily routines he developed along with his thirty closest scientific professionals. Daily, he eats a vegan diet, ingests 111 supplements, exercises an hour (at times running on a treadmill, wearing what looks like an oxygen mask with a hose trailing from it), adheres to rigid bedtime practices, and sleeps with monitors and electrodes affixed to his body. The machines measure seventy of his organs, and through his intense regimens, he seeks to reverse the quantified biological age of each. He performs daily health tests and spends two million a year on his experiments, offering his body as both guinea pig and gift to us. And now we onlookers can follow his ways through a membership that costs only $333/month.

Bryan’s ultimate goal? Don’t die. And he wears the T-shirt—those two words in all caps—to remind himself and others.

I’m glued to the comment sections of his YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

“He somehow looks incredibly healthy and terminally ill at the same time.” “What an inconvenience to prolong the inevitable.” “He’s a super advanced AI bot. They’re here, ladies and gents.” “Imagine if bro does all that and slips on a banana or something.” “Bryan is top-notch for sharing all of his research and findings with the world.” “He lives his life as an experiment so the rest of us can learn from him.”

Another guy, A.J. Jacobs, American journalist and author, is also known for writing about lifestyle experiments. After a bout of tropical pneumonia and feeling ashamed by his middle-aged body he thought resembled “a python that swallowed a goat,” he set out to become the healthiest man in the world. His 2012 book, Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, takes the reader along on a hilarious romp where A.J. tries all the workouts, diets, and gadgets.

I consider these two men and think of my own goals for good health and possible longevity: Eat 80% well 70% of the time. Exercise. Love God and people. And since I can't not die, I embrace the following truths: My body is a temple, a living sacrifice, a tent of flesh. Life is a vapor that appears a short while; I came from dust and will return to it; my days are numbered.

While Bryan Johnson gets another blood transfusion from his seventeen-year-old son and A.J. Jacobs plays with the practice of extreme chewing, I'm bundling up to collect my steps outside on this winter day.

They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

No fear in life—or death. That's my ultimate goal.

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Movie on, I guess

Early in November, Husband and I watched Mystery on Mistletoe Lane, a Hallmark movie we streamed through Peacock.

“On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate this one?” I said when the show ended.

“I give it a 3.5 because there was no murder,” he said. “How about you?”

“I say 3.7. It was just a treasure hunt and not that mysterious.”

“True.”

A plan ignited in my mind. I scurried to make a call.

“Let’s create a list of Hallmark Christmas movies we have to watch and compare notes on them later,” I said to my mother on the other end of the line. “We can rank them on a scale of 1 to 5.”

“This is great since I get the Hallmark Channel,” she said. “When do we start? And do I win if I watch more movies than you?”

“This isn’t a competition, Mom.” But I wondered if I could knock out a movie a day anyway if I really applied myself to the challenge.

We selected our first four movies. I chose Christmas Island for its somewhat creative airline plot, and Mom picked A Heidelberg Holiday because she liked German culture and once studied the language. We both went for My Norwegian Holiday to watch our heritage play out and Rescuing Christmas because it was filmed in Duluth.

My zeal flickered, however, when I noted that although Peacock showed Hallmark movies, it wasn’t as generous as the Hallmark Channel itself, which we didn’t have. While Mom enjoyed a sumptuous buffet of cinematic delights far away in her own home, Husband and I picked at a bunch of undelicious visual leftovers here at our place. And the uncertainty of what would air (and when) left us a little less Christmas spirity.

We had access to Christmas Island, the first movie I agreed to watch with Mom, but I dozed off in the middle of it one evening, and the next night when I set out to finish it, it wasn’t available anymore.

“What’s that about?” I said, perturbed. But like a distracted kid seeing her next package under the tree, I ripped on. I’d just have to wander off the list and explain to Mom later. “Ooh, let’s do A Bride for Christmas.”

When it was over, Husband delivered his assessment. “I give it a 2.5 because it wasn’t about Christmas, and that dog was out of control.”

I gave it a 4 for some reason I didn’t annotate, and we moved forward.

A Song for Christmas—a movie about a beleaguered farmer and a city girl/secret popstar—was next.

Husband rolled his eyes. “That manager, Russell, is getting on my last nerve—my last Christmas nerve.”

I gave the flick a 3, and Husband matched my answer, startling me with a higher score after his low review.

We declared My Norwegian Holiday accurate for celebratory rituals (I think there was even a kransekake, the traditional wedding cake, in there somewhere), and Husband voted a 4.6 to almost match my 4.8.

Spurred on by Scandinavian stories, we viewed Christmas As Usual on Netflix, following the uncomfortable interactions between a young woman’s Indian fiance and her Norwegian mother when she brought the guy home to Telemark for the holidays. Although bleak, the movie schooled us on yet another pre-Christmas Norwegian tradition to adopt: Bitte Lille Julaften, “Teeny Tiny Christmas Eve,” to be celebrated on December 22, a day before Lille Julaften.

I told a friend about the new-to-us holiday we planned to add to our calendar. “Now you’re just doing Hanukkah in disguise,” he said.

We blew through A Match Made at Christmas, which won an underwhelming 3 stars and zero notes from me, but Holiday Road hit me right in the feels. Weather forcing nine strangers on a road trip together across the country at Christmastime will do that to probably anyone, except Husband who was away for work and missed the excursion. I gave it a 4.9.

Five Star Christmas was notable for its first kiss between the main characters at the halfway point of the story. But why so early? We all expect The Smooch to come at the very end, in the falling snow, somewhere near midnight, a blinking star overhead, and with a jovial onlooker or two, but in the middle? No. That’s moving too fast, if you ask me. I gave it a 4.5 anyway.

Two weeks into December, Mom visited. I showed her my messy legal pad of movie scribblings. We had watched some of what I had told her we would and more of what I had never admitted to her we did. Husband had viewed numerous movies with me but missed a handful too, and I applied a rating to most of them but not all. My system was missing titles, poorly documented, and inconsistently scored.

“Wanna watch some more?” I asked her.

“Of course,” she said.

To finish off the season right, we paid $5.99 to access the Hallmark Channel through Amazon Prime, and Mom and I blazed through Rescuing Christmas and Jolly Good Christmas together.

If I could sum up my goal for chasing holiday movies through the last two months of the year, it comes down to two words: Mom time.

And really, that’s the end of my story.

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New year, new word (your responses)

You readers really came through with your words for the year—and you inspire me.

Enjoy these submissions for 2024! (I’m also including the two from last week for you to savor again.)

*****

Aspiration instead of expectation (the killer of joy and appreciation), and abundance so I remember life is not a competition; there is plenty.

Deborah, Beldenville, Wisconsin

*****

Time is my word. God’s timing is perfect and His promises will come to pass. It’s just a matter of time.

Linda, Eben Junction, Michigan

*****

Courage. I'm starting a new business and I have everything lined up to make it happen. I just need the courage to start producing and putting myself out there!

Leah, San Pedro, California

*****

Self-care

Salina, Blaine, Minnesota

*****

Prosperous! Not just in finances but in relationships, personal growth and my spiritual walk with the Lord.

Shantell, Maple Grove, Minnesota

*****

Word for the year 2024: REFRESH

Refresh (v.) = update, revive, restore, give new strength or energy

(in computer language) = send a new signal and display changes

I click the refresh button (Ctrl+ R) for my life, and the picture changes

Updated, but not always new and improved

Sometimes frustrating messages: “can’t reach this page” and “checking the connection”

Connect me with You, Father, and refresh me

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

Mine is persist.

Flicka, Fridley, Minnesota

*****

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New year, new word (there's still time!)

Hi, readers!

Two of you sent me your words for 2024 (enjoy them below!), but more of you wanted to share yours, so you still have a chance to submit (lucky you!)

Here are the instructions:

Send me a message HERE by Wednesday, January 3, 2024, with your word/verse/idea for the new year, and I’ll run it in next Thursday’s blog installment. Subscribers, simply hit reply to this email. (Please include your city and state with your submission.)

*****

Word for the year 2024: REFRESH

Refresh (v.) = update, revive, restore, give new strength or energy

(in computer language) = send a new signal and display changes

I click the refresh button (Ctrl+ R) for my life, and the picture changes

Updated, but not always new and improved

Sometimes frustrating messages: “can’t reach this page” and “checking the connection”

Connect me with You, Father, and refresh me

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

Mine is persist.

Flicka, Fridley, Minnesota

*****

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New year, new word (2024 edition)

Today is about you, reader.

Do you have a word/verse/idea for the fresh year? What is it? And why?

If you’d like to have your answer published in next Thursday’s blog installment, send me a message HERE by Wednesday, 9:00 p.m. CST. Subscribers, simply hit reply to this email. (Please include your city and state with your submission.)

Here's what I've got for 2024:

Somewhere between viewings of Five Star Christmas and Love Actually, right after I padded to the kitchen for yet another krumkake, I got an early New Year’s gift, my word for 2024. It came as a directive in all caps with an exclamation point driving home its urgency.

EYES FORWARD!

I guess I’m setting aside present distractions and switching my gaze off of the past. Time to zero in on what’s in front of me. It makes me think there’s something notable ahead.

Of course there is.

No, my word for the year isn’t krumkake, but here’s a pic of the Norwegian treat anyway. (Mom made us three batches.)

Ponder

I awoke today with the word ponder on my mind. It was meant for the blog, and I didn’t anticipate it leading to terrible things.

For most women, the first announcement comes in two blue lines on a white plastic stick. Mary got her soon-to-be-pregnant news from an angel.

I once heard someone say if you see an angel, you’re in a dire place and need help. Far from cherubic, those heavenly beings are terrifying. And Mary was terrified to see one too.

Global worker Dick Brogden writes, “The soft lights and gentle music of Christmas alternate with the festive side of the holidays and lead us to excise the terror of God coming to tabernacle on earth. Missing the terror of Christmas, we miss its deeper peace. God coming near is both wonderful and terrible: wonderful for it leads to our salvation, and terrible for it leads to our judgment… Jesus came to earth to divide out sin and to crush it. Christmas starts a war that ends with peace.”

I prefer to focus on the cozier side of Christmas and of Mary, the teenager favored by God. She was the girl God trusted—and she trusted Him back.

There’s a familiar Christmas song asking the same questions I wonder today. Did Mary know what was coming when she accepted the assignment and welcomed the pregnancy? Did she get it when she gazed at her baby, watched Him take His first steps, and noticed Him missing that day on their road trip home from Jerusalem? Did she see a flash of whips and blood and agony when she felt His infant hand squeeze her finger? Or sense the coming elation of His abandoned grave?

Maybe Mary caught a glimpse of the future of her boy Who still stirs up trouble with His presence. Or maybe she didn’t. But she pondered all the details she knew, giving thorough care to store the memories for later.

Today I ponder too, trying to imagine. And I’m terrified, comforted, and at peace because Christmas calls for all of it.

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.

Treasure hunt: Part 3

It’s Christmastime, but all I see today is my first girl in a pink jumper—one-and-a-half trips around the sun to her name—crouching to claim her treasure. A thousand pastel ovals dot the rolling field of green, begging to be taken. Kids zig and zag, snapping up as many as they can tote in their buckets, but my toddler’s basket is empty, and she’s content with the first egg she finds. She plops onto the ground to open it.

I squint in the Arizona sun and sit with my little one on the grass. It’s only April 15, but it’s warm—especially with the five-month-along bump under my sundress to keep me cozy.

The unborn one that Easter of 2001 eventually got her own basket, and so did the sister who followed her. We soon learned all three of our girls knew how to locate hidden treasure, no training necessary—even with the passing years as the hunts grew more challenging.

Object permanence, the ability of a baby to know things still exist even when they’re not seen, is the start of a magical adventure. And we humans forever seek it as we pursue the special edition, the specific tool, the lost earring, the perfect gift, the ideal person.

Vestiges of the search follow me through my life. I'm decades beyond the Arizona egg hunt and thousands of miles away from it too, but the eternity-set-in-the-human-heart moves me to fetch the mail, check the calendar, click the text, open the box. My life is full of chasing, hoping, expecting, waiting. And now it's Christmastime when more is more.

I quiet myself and focus on the Truth again.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart...

The reminder is everything. There's no need for all the looking; I've been interacting with treasure this whole time.

... and I will be found by you.

My Great Reward is here.

Treasure hunt: Part 2

This season of giving to others makes me want to search for thrifted treasures for me. It’s pretty self-serving, if you get right down to it, and I wish we Americans shared England’s altruistic term, charity shops, for those delightful stores where I find all the used stuff.

This thrifting for ME in a season for OTHERS defeats the holiday spirit, and maybe therein lies my 2018 lesson. (Remember the second-hand lamp? If you missed the drama then, click HERE now to enjoy it.)

Two weeks ago, I swiped a discerning gaze through my local thrift stores. A breathless assessment of their inventory on a Tuesday morning during my workday showed me I had picked the right day. So much art, so little time.

As an employment consultant, I’m required to do weekly job development. My clever supervisor once shared with me her techniques for conducting the task, even while running errands: simply ask job-related questions of the managers or employees while shopping, and done; it counts for the spreadsheet. And who knows? A job for one of our clients could result from our efforts, she said.

That Tuesday at Savers, I scooped up a 2 x 3-foot oil-painted landscape, a three-dimensional Jesus Walking on Water picture, two paintings of roses by Dianne Harter, a rosemåling plaque, a modern man-body done in acrylic on canvas, and a piece that looked like an ethereal scarf caught under glass. I edged toward a manager moving about on the sales floor.

“So, I’m curious about what it’s like to work here,” I said, noting the blue glass vase in the woman’s hand. She placed it on a shelf and smiled.

We chatted. I wove in questions about their hiring practices, seven-year background checks, the application and interviewing process, and oh, was there drug testing? I finally revealed my identity as an employment consultant and thanked her for the information. She said things like if I had more questions, I could reach out, and other things like I should send my people her way, and she'd be happy to talk with them. I made a mental note, but it was hard to hear her over the thoughts about the artwork in my cart and where it should live in my house.

I paid and lugged my new treasures out to the truck.

“Whatcha got there?” Husband-on-the-couch said when I got home. TV voices in the background debated a criminal case.

“Nothing of concern,” I said sweetly, waving a hand. “The total was like $60, so…”

“Hmm,” he said, more interested in the fictional court hearing anyway.

I arranged my new things just so, and two revelations hit me:

1. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the honor of kings to search it out. (Maybe God is into treasure hunts as much as we are.)

2. The chartreuse walls in the bathroom where I hung the rose paintings now call for a pink rug. (I’ll check the thrift stores tomorrow.)

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Five senses and a time of thanks

I’m pausing my treasure hunt stories to give thanks. My whole being is grateful today, and my five senses are awakened to the goodness all around me.

I’m thankful I can smell fresh laundry, taste wasabi, feel the cowhide rug under my bare feet, hear bossa nova music playing right now, and see the future in my grown-up girls.

I asked my family:

Husband: I am thankful for the feel of g-forces pushing me back into my seat as the plane takes off, the sound of Reverend Peyton and Larkin Poe and my friend’s voice on the other end of the phone making me laugh, the sight of the backyard I get to wake up to, the smell of wood fire in the fall and winter, and the taste of food shared with good friends.

Flicka: I am thankful for the feeling of the ground under my feet and the sun on my face while I drink my coffee on the front step. I am thankful for the taste and smell of said coffee as well as the smell of wet dirt and leaves in the fall. I am thankful for the jazz music I listen to going to and from work and the sound of silence when I turn the car off to go inside. I am thankful for my sight—all the books I can read and the faces I can see.

Ricka: I’m thankful for:

• the feeling of the wind blasting into my hands and face leaning out of the window on a summer evening drive

• the smell of pools in hotels that remind me of the excitement of being a little kid

• the smiles I see in people—smiles are some of my favorite things God created

• hearing the noise of my family laughing until we cry, singing made-up songs, talking in funny accents, and just causing a ruckus

• the taste of T Bell at midnight when you’re with all your best friends and you’re SO hungry and you finally give in to the craving

Dicka: I’m thankful for the smell of lilacs that tell me spring is here. I’m thankful for the sound of music playing with the windows down on a summer night. I’m thankful for the taste of shrimp fried rice from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I’m thankful for the feeling of my family’s hugs. I’m thankful I can see beautiful sunsets with my family or friends.

What are you thankful for?

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Treasure hunt: Part 1

I picked through my dish of rings, searching for The One. I don’t often wear my original wedding ring, favoring a silver band I bought in France to my marquise diamond set in gold—an iteration owned by almost everyone wed in the early nineties.

But I wanted to wear it that day in August of 2018 to another wedding. My dress called for a gold ring, and so it would be. But no.

Where was my ring?

Maybe it was in another jewelry box or dish or jar. But none of those offered up the missing piece. When had I last spotted it? Memories were hazy. Had the girls borrowed it for fun? They said no.

I conducted a massive purge of the house in early 2018 in the weeks before Flicka’s graduation reception. Did I scoop it up by mistake then—along with tarnished hoops, bracelets missing beads, and souvenir shell necklaces—and donate it? Life was full of people; I threw parties, hosted events, and hired cleaning ladies for jobs. What if someone—? But I couldn’t let my mind wander there.

Husband selected that gold ring for me in 1992 without my input. He wished to surprise me. Also, I was greedy back then, and he couldn’t afford my choices; better to keep me out of the process altogether is how the legend goes. He had chosen well, though—all on his own.

As we boxed up our house to move in 2020, I yearned for that bit of diamond and gold, my hopeful eye tuned to its possible glint in dusty corners or in places where beds once stood.

Still nothing.

Yes, it’s only a material possession. No, it doesn’t truly matter in this life. But at the end of 2023 now, I still pine a little for that ring. What if it could call to me from its hidden place like Wisdom, who takes her stand on the heights, at the crossroads, next to city gates, and at the entrance of portals?

She is better than any wedding ring in the world, and she cries out to anyone who will listen:

Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

No examining dust under beds. No poking through old jewelry boxes. Just ears to hear and a heart to perceive.

I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.

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Stories from synesthetes

Some people enjoy a private life filled with colors, shapes, flavors, and sounds the majority of the world doesn’t experience. These people are called synesthetes.

Last week’s blog generated a big response I wasn’t expecting. Some of you reached out to me, calling what I described a superpower. Some of you said you were envious of what I reported, and some of you asked the colors of your names. (It’s true. To me, all of your names have colors.)

In case you missed it, you can read last week’s blog installment HERE. Otherwise, enjoy these readers' responses.

*****

I totally see letters and numbers in color! My hubby thinks I’m crazy, but a bunch of my kids see it too. I had no idea it had a name! I see the numbers in a distinct physical format (as well as the months of the year). Glad I’m not alone in this! I see the months as a horseshoe with the opening to the right. There is a jump from December to January. I see numbers starting out horizontal from left to right, then going vertical!

Coco, Altoona, Wisconsin

*****

This has me thinking more about what I’m actually seeing with letters and numbers! The colors shift and don’t remain the same all of the time. I also have feelings towards letters and numbers… some I find warmer/colder in personality than others!

Bea, Monticello, Minnesota

*****

Letters don’t so much have a colour, but time has a shape. For example, the months of the year are in a circle and so right now, November, is at the southernmost part of the circle. I suppose that’s a form of synesthesia. I am in the midst of these ideas with my research work. Yesterday in our meeting (three PhDs and three associates–we are paired), we were talking about how the mind organizes adjectives into colour groups. Right now I am coding codings and finding like meanings (20 different colours). The researcher I am paired with also used colour, so we are going to put together our findings. The discussion went on to if labeling can truly be objective and how do we eliminate subjectivity when we are trying to find meanings to data. I think the takeaway is that one can’t, as much as we want trueness and faithfulness in handling data, subjectivity is always present.

Flo, Transcona, Manitoba

*****

Some of the colors and sizes have changed for me over the years. Letters have always been in various (though changing) colors, but they vary in size, shape, and arrangement! Letters for me arrange themselves in a spiral-like structure, sort of like a tornado funnel! That makes x, y, and z smaller and toward the bottom. Numbers have also been in color but aligned mostly left to right, much more orderly than letters!

I’m embarrassed to tell you that my mental prayer list (primarily family members) starts out with names (not faces!) in a horizontal sequence and then moves to a vertical arrangement! Weird! Maybe that’s like a family tree but not really.

Birdie, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

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Color me different

Yesterday, my supervisor delivered the icebreaker question to start our weekly team meeting. “If your personality had a color, what color would it be?”

“Light blue,” I said, not missing a beat.

My coworkers shifted into contemplation mode, frowning or drinking from water bottles or bunching their lips to one side, their eyebrows coming together. Seconds lapsed. Why the deliberation? They acted like they had never thought of this—like they didn’t see letters and numbers and sounds in color.

“A person I serve has synesthesia,” one of the women said. “He says the sound of my voice is lavender.”

I wanted to say, Well, yeah but didn’t. Not that her voice sounded lavender to me, but the concept was my reality, and it wasn’t hers? I jotted the new-to-me word on paper: synesthesia.

My mind spirited me back to a day in college when I must’ve admitted my outlook to a classmate.

“So, what color is the letter a?” she asked.

“Yellow,” I said.

“Hmm.” A wrinkled nose accompanied her smile.

And a green traffic light sounds like an e-flat played on a flute, I wanted to say but didn’t.

Since my very beginning, I've enjoyed my secret life where colors marry letters and numbers. And I've enjoyed it as normal. After college, no one asked again, and I didn’t think about the sensory crossover anymore.

Until yesterday.

“So, do you see numbers and letters in color?” I asked Husband.

“No.” And he surveyed me like he wasn’t entirely sure I was okay.

I bandied the question over to Flicka and Ricka. No, neither one had the pleasure, but at least Ricka understood my meandering reasons for why I saw her name in navy blue.

I dug into the condition—or gifting, as many creatives consider it—and learned 4% of the population has what I have, or variations of it—others who can taste shapes or smell sounds, hear discomfort or see music. It's not a disease, disorder, or disability, sources say, but an automatic and involuntary blending of senses. The brain is a spectacular place but unusual. Try telling your doctor the pain in your side sounds like a swelling pump organ. (And no, I’m not trying to be poetic.)

I'm fully awake now and know I walk through the world with only a few others who also see the letter k as orange. Or maybe it's another color for you.

What do you see?

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