the mud

We have been relaxing the past few days.  Sitting in pajamas, playing games, enjoying the light of the tree.  I am savoring every moment of Christmas bliss.  We have created an insular world of joy and peace and it feels good.  I won't check emails, I won't think about work, I won't think about the countless tasks that I put off and planned to get done over the Christmas break.  They don't seem so significant now.  I won't think about sad.  We are cocooning.  I remember after 9/11 having the same feeling.  My family had rented a house down the shore at the end of September, not knowing how much we would need it.  It was just before my brother's kidney transplant and we all needed to be together.  I remember feeling so safe and insulated against what had happened and what was to come.  Everything was happy there, the calm ocean, the quiet of a fall sun, and the lone squawk of seagulls no longer confused by the crowds of the beach, no longer drowned out by the s

Last week I was in two different Kindergarten classrooms during a Lockdown Drill.  It's always a little scary.  One student, after it was over, said, "I was so scared, and I was so brave."  I imagine the little ones in Newtown were very brave.  There are children who don't feel safe or brave right now.  I love the idea of Ann Curry's to do 26 Acts of Kindness, and am trying my best, but if you want to one thing more, I would kindly suggest that you visit  Donors Choose.  There are tons of teachers who are asking for some very basic supplies to make their classrooms more loving and nurturing learning environments.   You can see where your donation is going and what type of district it is.  A teacher asked her kindergartners this week to write letters to Santa.  Their wishes are so simple, yet so complex.  "I wish my daddy would come home,"  "I wish my mommy would get a house so she would be happy."  In memory of those in Newtown, and for

I have heard/seen reports that Newtown is taking down their Christmas decorations.  I beg them not to do it.  Newtown, you are precisely who Christmas is for.  Christmas is not just for the little children who believe in Santa Claus and presents and whose faces light up under the lights of the tree.  Christmas is for those who need to believe in hope and love and joy again.  Christmas is the greatest gift to grown-ups, the ones whose hearts are hurting the most. I know some grief.  I know that it would be easy to curl up and not be around this Christmas.  It's not going to be easy when you are missing someone who has been there every Christmas and who has brought joy and light to every Christmas celebration.  (One year my brother was not supposed to be home for Christmas.  He created this elaborate plan to surprise my mother.  His friend came to the door on Christmas Eve and asked for Austin.  My mom told him, sorry, Austin was not coming home this year... and Austin popped out

When I teach religion classes, I teach the children that our prayers are really just like magic words to God - the same magic words we say to everyone else, "Thank you", "Please", and "I'm sorry".  "I love you" is a prayer too.  But I've learned this week that saying I'm sorry is so much more profound.  I am so sorry for those families affected by the violence in Connecticut.  We mourn with those who mourn, we cry with those who cry, we pray with those who pray.  I can't imagine what the people of Newtown are going through. I don't know why or how or what to say. The only consolation I have is this, that in the time of great need we are lifted up.  I am so so sorry. On Friday morning I found myself in a little chapel for mass.  I hadn't planned to go.  It just happened.  The feast day was that of St. John of the Cross, and whatever your faith, there was an important lesson there that carried me through the news that

The other night in Dick's I hit the gift wrap jackpot:  BOXES!  I had asked for one box and they told me to take the whole case - they got their shipment late and had more boxes than they knew what to do with.  Being that it was ten o'clock at night on a Friday and no one else was around, another shopper and I loaded up with as many as we could carry, laughing all the way!  However, in North Face on Saturday, the clerk looked at me very accusingly when I asked for a box (for a winter coat, it had to be bigger.)  "WE are a GREEN store.  WE are trying to ELIMINATE waste."  Yes, I am an awful person because I use boxes to wrap gifts.  I tried to explain to her that I am trying to go green and so was going to wrap JUST the lid this year, so I can reuse them and not have to throw away paper on Christmas morning, and I started blabbering and blabbering about how I HATE trash too and I really am at least a LITTLE green and all that wrapping paper on Christmas morning just

The December calendar is practically full already and I don't see where I'm going to fit in baking or wrapping or even bathing, but I know it has to happen. On Christmas there will be presents and food and fun and the lights will all be hung and the stockings too, but right now there's a lot more work to do. And I still have to work work. But I think I'm going to take a Cookie Day, not a day off, not a sick day, just a Cookie Day. I'll be in my kitchen all day with the butter and the flour and the mixer and the radio turned up high enough that I can still hear it. I'll dance around the kitchen all day.  One of my earliest childhood memories is baking with my mother.  She used to bake in our grandmother's kitchen when I was very young, filling poinsettia-covered cookie tins with sprinkle cookies and sugar cookies. The cookie tins were stacked on a shelf of a built-in hutch in my grandmother's pantry, and given to guests and relatives at Christmas

Dear Austin, I can't believe it's been six months since you've been gone.  We miss you something fierce.  I hope you are content.  I bid you peace. There is so much to fill you in on, so much you have missed.  We have to catch up.  First, you'll be happy to know that Obama won the election.  I think I would have heard you yell from way over here if you had seen that election night.  It was pretty cool.  You'll also be happy to know that Avalon survived Hurricane Sandy.  It was a really bad storm in October that knocked out much of New Jersey and some of New York.  I'm sorry to say that Breezy did not do so well.  Lots of damage.  Remember when we drove up there to pick up Walt?  That was a great trip.  Didn't we go on to New England?  We drove all day and night it seems.  Is that when you bought that Yale sweatshirt that I "stole" from you?  I can't find it now, but I'm still looking.  I know you ripped the collar when it didn't fit