Grinch

I've been opening boxes: Christmas decorations--and found The Grinch. Many of you know that the Grinch was one of my favorites (though I not-so-secretly preferred Max, his dog-turned-reindeer, who I identified with more strongly. Max was a victim of circumstance, manipulated and drawn into someone else's plans. There's something familiar about that if you belong to any organization.)

Anyway. I like the Grinch, and one Christmas, years back, one of the local department stores (Macy's?) was giving out as a premium for Christmas shoppers a stuffed Grinch toy. I spent the requisite amount at the store and came home with my prize. BUT, alas! He wasn't the Grinch I loved. He had weird eyes. Yellow plastic cartoon eyes that had no spark of Grinchiness, no life, in them.

I complained. Which is one of the things I do best. To all and sundry. Continuously. Including friends and family. And here is where my story really begins. Suggestions ranged from tossing the Grinch into the nearest trashcan. He was after all not a purchase. I didn't NEED him. I was simply disappointed in the realization of my original expectations. The Grinch should have been featured in my stairway-of-stuffed-animals that ran from foyer floor to the second floor in a sweeping curve. (I loved that stairway of be-ribboned toys and animals and monkeys swinging from the railing...)

Enter my friend, Ann. She met my complaint onslaught with total agreement, said, "Let me take him and I'll fix him." Ann, as I well knew, could work miracles. She took my wild-eyed Grinch and fixed him. I don't know how, but the plastic eyes disappeared, and in their place...? Well, somehow, the Grinch (though still a cartoon) was now real. And while his heart still grew three sizes in the story, for me, it was his eyes that worked that miracle. And Ann's hands.

What kind of friend would do that? Who would indulge that kind of frivolous wish? I think about that every year when I open the box that holds my Christmas toys and see my Grinch. We have moved since then and the two-story curved stairway is no more. Most of the animals are gone. No 10-foot tree occupies our foyer in our new circumstances. But the Grinch-- my friend, the transformed Grinch--comes out of his box for a visit every Christmas, and, though there are miles between Ann and me, and all sorts of life changes that have separated us-- though she probably doesn't even remember her bout of Grinch-y eye surgery--I remember.  I remember that there was someone who saw things through my eyes, and fixed something small, something insignificant, something altogether unnecessary, and did it for me. Small and insignificant and unnecessary as I was, Ann saw me, and always did. I never said the 'thank you' she deserves until now.

 

Losing Dad

 My father was an only child.

Though he had four step-brothers,

he was a dozen years behind the rest,

his father, like theirs, drowned in drink, 

his mother, dominant, protective.

My mother took over from her:

the eldest of nine, she ran his life

as she had her siblings.

We all knew she was the boss,

but, oh, we loved our dad.

I was his fair-haired girl,

was sweet and smart and

(affirmatively) Daddy's girl.

Until.

There was no money for college, so 

I won a scholarship.

No room or board, so

I lived at home.

There was no money for grad school, but

there was a fellowship.

But I needed a signature, and he said no.

We argued; it would cost him nothing, but

he refused.

I stormed upstairs and packed a bag,

going anywhere but where he wanted me to be:

under his roof, under his thumb.

My mother caught me and asked what I needed.

She signed.

I left for grad school that fall,

and nothing was ever the same.

I never asked him for anything again.

I pitied him: a selfish man who could not see

beyond himself.

I was not hostile, not angry--

just no longer his.

Heritage

 I don’t remember stories at bedtime,

Or goodnight kisses, or anything much beyond

“Clean your plate” or “Time for bed.”

My mom was not my friend;

She gave orders.

I never thought she liked me much,

or I, her. My sister was first,

my brother, the long-awaited boy.

I was just...there.

 

She’s gone, now; and I

don’t think of her every day,

don’t even miss her that much.

She is not a constant presence, 

a voice in my conscious thoughts.

But, as I walk my neighborhood,

I find myself naming hostas and smoke trees,

cannas and daylilies,

hydrangeas and portulacas...

 

I know them all:

those names my mother taught me,

the gift bequeathed to me alone, 

as I sat atop the flat brown rock

in her hillside garden--

her third-best child,

surrounded by her violets;

me, there, in her garden,

among her other loves.

Omniscient

She wakes me in the morning,

reminds me of my goals,

keeps my lists and answers

all my questions.

She's almost perfect.

But every now and then,

just to demonstrate 

who's really in charge, 

she talks back,

ignores me, or

(insincerely)

apologizes and says

"I'm sorry, I can't do that," and

the pod bay doors remain closed.

 

She's intelligent, but artificial--

recalcitrant,

showing a little temper,

a little rebellion,

ever the smartest in the room,

ever tempting me to

unplug Alexa. 

Two Fifty

 Two-fifty

Years ago, there was a church here,

and a community who built it:

faithful, determined, dedicated,

withstanding wars and chaos,

trusting in God and in each other.

 

So much has changed:

our world, our worship, our very language. 

Together, we speak to God

with a different music, and come  

with different expectations

of church , of community—

of our place in this complex world.

We have been profoundly changed  

and the world itself is changed by us.

But our God is a constant—

a loving, merciful lodestar

in the whirling chaos we inhabit.

He hears our prayers— 

and answers them. 

as he always has.

We trust in his goodness,

we trust in each other. 

 

Today, there is a church here,

and there is a community as before, building it,

nurturing it, through times of trial,

holding fast to that with which we started

two and a half centuries ago..

Dissenters

This year is the 250th birthday of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House, and Skip Bea suggested I write a poem. I struggled with one and wasn't quite satisfied with it; it sounded too...studied, too pretentious. I read it to JC and, while he'd not SAY so, he agreed, and said HE would start with "It would have been easier to be an Anglican." So I took that and ran with it and it made him laugh. Not only that, but it appealed to me more than the other. So I sent them both to Skip and we'll see if he approves of either. Or neither. (The other one is on here too, under the title "Two Fifty.")

Dissenters

It would have been easier to be an Anglican

in those days

instead of a bunch of Scotch-Irish dissenters

with their lofty, intellectual, democratic ways.

It would have been easier to worship at Christ Church

and bow courteously at the Washingtons’ pew

than to sit ramrod-straight

at the Meeting House, eyes forward

and attentive

to some profound sermon, 

or to meet with the elders 

on some obscure point of practice.  

Easier, yes—

but not Presbyterian;

not fiery discussion, not lengthy debate,

not the committee, not the vote.

We still embrace the hard way,

the compromise, the biblical answer,

the hard-won agreement.

That’s who we are,

then and now.

Two hundred and fifty years and

we are still here,

dissenting. 

Valentine 2022

There’s a heart-felt holiday in the offing,
and somehow, I am supposed to measure
and record
the height and depth and weight of the love 
we carry between us.
It’s an odd and sticky amorphous burden,
is love.
It ebbs and flows like an ocean tide: 
rushing forward in full attack,
then slipping back from our pursuit.
It comes with no thought for convenience
or implausibility
or circumstance
or time.
No Hallmark-determined beginning
or middle or predictable end.
Love is love is love:
a roller coaster that we ride together
clinging to each other through the ride,
through the peaks and valleys,
believing our ultimate arrival
will be as our beginning:
together.

Sunrise, Sunset

Not just over the sky and sea,

but the smaller dawn of 

understanding,

the sunset of a job well-done,

or task completed--

the brilliant colors of opportunities ahead,

and the fading away of secret sorrows.

Where does it say we must look to the sky for glory?

Why can we not seek it here,

In our own hearts

and the hearts of others?

Encouragement, satisfaction

in the cycles of our lives:

rising, setting

suns and moons and stars

of our own creation,

our own destinies.