A Lost Art

The sign at the cash register caught my attention: postal rates to increase January 26^th – stock up on ‘Forever’ stamps today. Even though the purchase of a sheet of twenty stamps would only save me sixty cents, I asked for a packet to tuck into my purse, indicating that I may as well get some before the price went up. The ensuing conversation with the cashier was eye-opening, as she told me that she hardly ever uses stamps these days, for she does all her bill-paying on line and doesn’t even check her mailbox every day.

My exchange with the woman, only a few years younger than me, was a vivid reminder of how our world has changed – and continues to change. My mother tells me of an era when mail was delivered twice a day, and stamps were two cents if you tucked in the flap, and three cents if the mail was sealed (hopefully with a kiss). Mail was actually used to communicate with real people, and the arrival of letters and birthday greetings was an anticipated part of the rhythm of life. We marked our day by the slap of the newspaper on the porch, the rattle of the milk bottles being positioned in the milk box, and the clang of the mailbox when the letter carrier transferred his or her daily delivery into our possession.

The milk truck is long gone, the newspaper business is at risk, and the decrease in volume in personal mail doesn’t bode well for the future of the United States Postal Service, already swimming in a sea of red ink. They’ve attempted to tweak their services over the past few years, announcing in 2011 that first class mail would be slower in delivery, reducing the percentage of mail delivered the next day. That boded ill for the procrastinator in me, already known as the belated birthday card queen in our family.

What about greeting cards? The aisles of greeting cards aren’t disappearing (yet), but I suffered sticker shock when purchasing a card for my mother’s ninety-first birthday. While I was tempted to choose one from the dollar section, I gave in and turned to the full-price row marked birthday, female relative, for surely the woman who gave birth to me deserves more than a dollar remembrance. With postage, that folded bit of paper cost me more than five dollars, which I gladly paid for with cash, another endangered species in the world as we know it.

The art of letter-writing is nearly extinct, replaced by phone conversations and Facetime, e-mails and texts. I’m saddened by that loss, as I’ve been gifted with many precious letters over the years which have strengthened my resolve when I’ve wavered and preserved the words of mentors who have spoken wisdom into my life. In preparation for this column, I pulled out a few of those epistles and savored the sense of connection they speak to me still today. While I’ve printed out a few personal e-mails over the years, the words of a hand-written note or a painstakingly typed missive on blue airmail paper seem to carry a weightier message for me than a text message.

Eckhart Tolle said, “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.” I concur with his observation for the most part, but I also realize that we cannot abdicate our responsibility to extend both our counsel and our care to the next generations in ways that can be preserved in more than memories.

The lovely Madelyn Simone, now approaching her fourth birthday, spent the night with us this week, and as I watched her fiercely concentrating on a jigsaw puzzle, that image challenged me of my responsibility to help create the frame for the puzzling pieces of life she will face in the years ahead. Perhaps it is time to add letter-writing to my Nana arsenal of story-telling, song-singing, and cuddling. Just think, instead of dropping five bucks on a fancy birthday card, I can take out a pen and begin. My dear Madelyn . . .

Anticipation

Ten days ago, Ohio was shivering in the grasp of a polar vortex. This week, I’ve spent hours scouring the web for the perfect vacation cottage to rent for our annual pilgrimage to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Our trip isn’t until July, but a certain family member (who will remain nameless) wants to have the details arranged well in advance, so I’ve been transported to the ocean shore the last few days, hearing the sound of the waves and smelling the fresh ocean breeze in anticipation as I look at potential rental sites on-line.

Anticipation. Carly Simon sang about it in 1971, and a ketchup company used the same tune in its commercials for many years as we waited patiently for our favorite condiment to finally slide out of the bottle. There is something about that word, other than Simon’s catchy melody fragment, that grabs our attention. We anticipate weddings, graduations, births and vacations with great expectations. Somehow, perhaps as a throwback to the teen-age world of magical thinking, we believe that when that wonderful day finally arrives, life will change forever and we will never be the same. And that is quite true. When a baby is born or a spouse joins the family, life is forever changed. But that change does not always bring blue skies and sunshine – we will continue to have our share of rainy days and Mondays, even on vacation (thanks, Karen and Richard Carpenter, for that image).

Sometimes, our heightened focus on what is anticipated keeps us from experiencing the joy and sorrow of the here and now. How often have I been so busy planning and packing for the next thing that is going to happen that I miss what’s right in front of my face?

And here’s the other problem. Sometimes an intense feeling of anticipation dulls the actual experience. That’s what Winnie the Pooh understands. “Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.” Whatever it’s called, the same word describes the first glimpse of the ocean after being cooped up in the car for fourteen hours, somehow even a better feeling than the actual plunge into the ocean.

Working on this column, I had an enlightening moment as I hummed “Anticipation.” It’s not huge in the scope of the universe, but I’m struck by how the tunes of my adolescence continue to speak into my daily living, even many moons later. B.J. Thomas taught me that raindrops would keep falling on our heads, but they can’t defeat us, while the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose helped me understand that sometimes, “it’s too late to turn back now.” I even wonder if Elton John’s Crocodile Rock was a prophetic marker for my involvement in the development of the Kroc Center here in Ashland, but that may be a bit of a stretch.

I do have some concern for the teens of today, for when they are coming down the homestretch of life, sitting in their rocking chair with their gums and their memories, the hits of 2013 will be echoing: Can’t hold us, we can’t stop, roar, and scream and shout. Not quite the bridge over troubled water that Simon and Garfunkel promised to me.

But I digress. The other part of my vacation equation is that by nature, I’m definitely a homebody. I’m much more content in my own bed and kitchen, and a few days into the vacation experience, I’m singing another 70s favorite, this one from John Denver’s pen: “take me home, country roads, to the place I belong.”

Since we won’t be loading up the car for another 185 days, I’m going to wait a few more months before I get too deep into anticipation mode. But in the meantime, when the snow piles up outside my window, I’ll sneak a peek at the beach photos and smile in anticipation. After all, July is just around the corner!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I’m one of those people who has a song for just about everything, including potty training, swimming in a swimming pool, and, thanks to Bubble Guppies, for taking the grand-dogs outside. So it’s no surprise to my family that the song on my lips this week has been Frank Loesser’s classic duet, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

It sure has been cold outside. I’d heard of the Polar Express, but I’d never heard of a Polar Vortex until this week. According to the weather experts, a polar vortex is a persistent, large-scare cyclone or low pressure system located near either of a planet’s geographical poles. Since I thought cyclones only occurred in Kansas during the Wizard of Oz, this was news to me. Call it what you will, it certainly brought chillingly cold weather to us, resulting in burst pipes and even a water emergency when intake mechanisms in Lake Erie got frozen. The photographs from lighthouses along the lake shore and from Niagara Falls were spectacular – an incredible winter wonderland, if only the wind chill wasn’t so unbearable.

I was sure that my childhood days in Buffalo were just as cold on a daily basis as the weather on January 7, 2014, but some quick Internet research showed that while we had our cold days, especially for the walk home at lunchtime every day, the frosty temperatures on the thermometer were definitely outside the norm. Those childhood days were cold, but this event was “historic” in its extreme temperatures.

When something goes wrong or life circumstances puts me in a snit, I do draw upon the truth that someone, somewhere, has it much worse than I do. And that is true in regards to our frigid weather. As one example, the Canadian city of Winnipeg averages twelve days per year at twenty-two degrees below zero  or lower– and that’s in Fahrenheit. That’s definitely tougher to handle than one day at ten below.

So what do they do? They “plug in” their cars to keep the engine block from freezing, they don’t use their cell-phones or iPads outside, and they do not attempt to determine if their tongues will stick to metal, because as Flick found out in A Christmas Story, it will stick! Winnipeg residents even have a standard answer when asked how long winter lasts. Here’s what they say – “until the mosquitoes arrive.”

On the other side of the world, local residents have the opposite problem – it’s too hot. There’s been a heat wave in some parts of Australia in recent days, and it has caused the death of thousands of bats. Apparently bats cannot live in temperatures over 106 degrees, and so our Aussie friends have been watching bats fall from the sky in droves, ending up DOA. Don’t be surprised if there’s a bat-filled remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds coming soon to the theater near you. Remember, you heard it first in the Ashland Times-Gazette.

“How are you?” We ask each other this question just about every time we meet. Sometimes the response we get is, “I can’t complain.”Of course, it’s always possible to complain about the weather, the economy, or our mother-in-law, but after a while, nobody’s listening anymore. I like the way Maya Angelou puts it: “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.” Now I’m not suggesting that we trivialize the tragic occurrences in our lives, but, like Alexander in Judith Viorst’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, sometimes we go to bed with gum in our mouth and wake up with gum in our hair. And, while Alexander threatened to move to Australia, sometimes the Australias in our lives aren’t any better than what we have – just ask the bats.

With the advent of warmer weather, the Polar Vortex of 2014 lives on only in our memory. We can be grateful for the warmth of our homes and the rapidly rising temperatures. And since it is predicted to be in the 40s today, I’m changing my tune, humming Irving Berlin’s 1933 hit, “Having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.” After all, it’s simply a matter of perspective.

On the tenth day after Christmas . . .

With the dismantling of our Christmas tree this afternoon, the Shade family’s Christmas of 2013 will be history. All that’s left of the Christmas cookies are the crumbs, so before the tree comes down, here are reflections on Christmas 2013.

This was my second Christmas without the responsibility of kettle bells and toy collections that define a Salvation Army Christmas, my adult experience of the Christmas season. Old habits die hard, but I made it through without ringing a bell for old time’s sake, although I did lend a hand to the toy distribution and hosted a cookie decorating party for the shelter residents in Wooster. I was thrilled to discover that sugar cookie dough could be purchased in frozen, pre-shaped stars, bells and trees. While I truly love my buttermilk-flavored sugar cookie recipe, making cut-outs with ten small children is not my idea of a good time, and the trip to GFS preserved my sanity for one more day and gave a glimpse of a Christmas tradition to my homeless friends.

The concept of the various holidays is difficult for the little ones to understand, and the lovely Madelyn Simone keeps asking me if we can go trick-or-treating, and wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner on the 25^th of December. She loves the songs of Christmas, so we’ll sing those from time to time throughout the year, especially when we “need a little Christmas, right this very minute.”

While the snow fell around us this week, Madelyn and I went to see the movie Frozen, an appropriate choice for a chilly day. When we got home, we talked about the characters in the movie, the fearful Elsa, the feisty Anna, and the endearing snowman, Olaf. When I asked her who Kristoff’s reindeer was, she piped up, “Rudolph the nosed reindeer!” Good answer, Madelyn.

Here’s one of my pressing questions of Christmas: does replacing a bulb in the string of miniature lights ever work? When I finally dragged the decorations out of the basement, I had at least ten strands of lights, each with a darkened section. No matter what I tried with those tiny replacement bulbs, I had no success. Note to self – do not pack those lights away this afternoon – discard them – you won’t fix them next year either.

Then there is the challenge of asking family members what they want for Christmas. When Madelyn and I watched Bubble Guppies on television, the alluring commercials elicited the hoped-for response from my three-year-old consumer-to-be: “I want one of those.” But once the television was turned off, I’d ask her what she wanted for Christmas and she’d respond, “a whistle.” Where did that come from? Unaware of her request, her grandfather picked up a railroad whistle for her when visiting his sister in Kansas, and so Madelyn received the gift of her dreams on Christmas morning. Go figure.

One lesson I need to remember for the future is to stay out of the stores the week before Christmas. My willpower isn’t what it should be, and so when I run in to pick up just one more item on my list, I end up with one or two other gifts that I just couldn’t pass up. My son Drew asked me to get something for his sister-in-law at the mall on Christmas Eve, as I worked in Cleveland that morning and passed Strongsville on my way home. Against my better judgment, I agreed to help him out. While there, I remembered that Larry had asked for pajamas for Christmas, and I hadn’t even looked for them. An hour later, I’d determined that JC Penney, Sears and Macys carried tons of pajama pants, but I only located one stack of small, old-fashioned, button-down-the front pajamas, on sale for $24. Really? If real men eat quiche, don’t real men wear pajamas – in sizes bigger than small?

Pajamas, reindeer, whistles and cookies are images of my precious moments for 2013. As Dave reminds Big Bird on Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, “These precious moments, hold them very dear and keep Christmas with you all through the year.” Savor a few of your own special moments before the pine needles are banished until next year.