And now, a brief pause in our programming.

On reflection, it seems as if, in the past few weeks, I have turned off my Washington awareness in favor of household issues. That is true. It is far easier to focus on immediate problems than to look at Washington and try to forecast what the next few years will bring. It's not very useful, but it IS easier on the psyche.

So now, while a lot of personal balls are still in the air on this side of the country, the big ball has dropped in Washington. Donald Trump is the president. There was no last-minute reprieve; it was not a collective bad dream; there is no easy way out. We simply need to endure the embarrassment (and worse) of having an ill-prepared, inarticulate, narcissistic, misogynistic blowhard as our representative on the global stage for the next four years. Hard as it is to digest, this is the bitter pill we have to swallow. Gulp.

What is to be done in a situation where the country has apparently run amok? When Congress appears to be lining up behind this creature and his billionaire boys' club (otherwise known as a cabinet), actually supporting (or at least feigning support) for his off-the-cuff policies. He has so little respect for the American voter that his promises and policies change at his whim, rather than in response to factual information,  He picks and chooses what he wants to believe, and dismisses as 'fake' whatever does not fit his particular reality-of-the-day. What can be done?

The running advice has been to speak up and make the voices of reason be heard; to provide financial support to those organizations that are bound to be most affected by Trump cuts and his conservative Congressional cohorts. Social media calls upon us to be the change we want to see in our world--to be the kinder, gentler people we want to see in the news. What this all brings to mind is something I learned years ago as a child in a Franciscan school and sang at my high school graduation: the blessing of St. Francis...

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

Where there is injury, pardon.  

Where there is doubt, faith--

Where there is despair, hope,

Where there is darkness,light,

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive, 

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Words to live by, particularly now. Sing it with me.

Superwoman is dead: the next episode

Superwoman is dead. I don't think I realized that until the rugs were delivered and JC and I had to wrestle with rug and pad and placement, not to mention moving furniture to make room. Seriously, every day of this (relatively small) move, I have given thanks that we did not wait to make these moves till we were older. They would never have happened. I reiterate: DO IT NOW if you are thinking about downsizing.

I wish I had been documenting this week, but I have been too busy and too tired. Usually we hit town and launch immediately into what needs to be done because we only have a week or two to get things accomplished. We have done the same this time, and I fear that in mid-February, we will stop, look around, and say, "Now what?" In the past two weeks, we have met and scheduled and packed and unpacked and shopped and stored and hauled and (let's not forget) laid rugs and padding, and given our credit cards friction burns from overuse. We have stepped onto the merry-go-round as it hurtled along, full-tilt, and we're still standing. Barely.

It used to be that this was not that difficult or that exhausting. I remember moves where I faced a family room so full of unloaded boxes that we couldn't step inside the doorway and had to unpack a path to the TV set--using a stepstool to get at the highest boxes. I remember unpacking alone while JC was off on a trip, trying to get everything put away before he got back. And I did it. No more.

BUT...the end is in sight. As always in a move, there are bits of homeless debris here and there that don't belong anywhere. There are things that are in the wrong places and things that cry out for organization. Right now, I'm not listening. It's time for a cup of tea and a cookie, and maybe even a nap.

Notes from the West Coast

Here we are, the first week of 2017, and while the rest of the world (or at least the rest of my world) is cringing at the prospect of the inauguration, we are in not-so-sunny California, dealing with the middle third of our moving trifecta for this year. We are putting the west coast house in order. Which entails rugs and blinds and figuring out where to direct the avalanche of goods coming our way from the east. On Friday.

In this house, we currently have 5 gate-leg tables. Coming with the movers are two standard dining tables, each capable of seating 8 to 10 people. It is apparent from all this that we could hold a sit-down dinner for 40, without even breaking out a card table, or utilizing our kitchen island (which seats four.) We are currently deciding which of these tables will win a trip to our newly-acquired storage space. A difficult choice indeed.

Then there are rugs. We are blessed with hardwood floors throughout, and cursed with the necessity to cover them. One bedroom has carpeting; the living room has an Oriental rug. Which leaves us with the need to order three rugs-- and two runners for the hall. Macy’s January sales are our friend. As is Overstock.com. Of course the rug we want may be out of stock, which complicates the issue. But all will be well. I have faith. If not rugs.

The local movers (we have long since deemed ourselves too old to haul furniture on our own) arrive—on time! And with THREE guys and a truck, instead of the titular TWO. I had tagged most of the stuff to be stored, and they set to work. At the point when they were just about done loading, our yard people arrived, ready to discuss in detail their plans for improving the yard, which (of course) had to have our imprimatur before they could proceed. In the midst of which discussion I got a call from our friend the contractor back east who had kindly agreed to walk through the condo we are considering and render an opinion. As if three conversations at one time were not enough, the moving coordinator texted me at that point about the whereabouts of our truck, which had developed truck trouble in Texas (sounds like a new reality show..) At least the weather is nice.

I would be lying if I said this was all bad. I sort of like pushing furniture around, changing my environment, looking at things from a different perspective. There are always discoveries to be made, and a little shake-up now and then is good for the soul. The San Diego house was furnished piecemeal (as I remember, we opened up the door to our largest storage area and told the mover: take it all..) and now, we are trying to impose some order upon it and make it even more of a home, rather than a place to get away to for a week or two.

So, when the truck-from-Virginia-via Texas pulls up on Friday, it will set in motion the final stage—at least for the San Diego house—unpacking and finding homes for all the books and boxes and woodenware and cut glass and china and the myriad of other stuff packed last spring that have been waiting for transport west. Oh, the adventure of it all!

(to be continued)

How to Write a Christmas Letter

(If you don't know me, understand that this is all pretty much tongue-in-cheek. I am a big fan of Christmas letters--long and short, and look forward to each and every one!)

Arminda Eberly. That's the name that springs to mind whenever mine turns to Christmas messages. A cousin of my mother's, who--in Southern parlance--wasn't quite right, Arminda always had the distinction of being the first Christmas card received at our house, usually around Thanksgiving. Arminda was the first lonely snowflake in the avalanche of Christmas mail, and was celebrated accordingly.

My mom was always a card-sender--and a card-writer. Each by hand. No carbon-copies for her. No generalized Christmas letters to be tucked inside a card and sent off as token correspondence for the season. Long before Xerox simplified our Christmas duties, my mom sent letters in every card, and received letters in return: cataloguing the goings-on in the families of friends and relations since the previous holiday season. She started on Thanksgiving weekend and had everything in the mail by the first week in December. With all the electronic assistance I have, I am still lucky to get cards in the mail by New Years.

How to write a Christmas letter? There are rules (mostly not observed, I fear..) 

  

      1)   Confine yourself to one page. That means one SIDE of one sheet of paper. And in a readable font. None of this size 6 business. Brevity is the soul of Christmas letters.

      2)   Keep it light.  If it doesn't make you smile, don't say it. There are some exceptions, as noted below. Some letters become legendary in their own time, including one we actually received that marched stoically from ‘Merry Christmas’ through an astonishingly calamitous year that incorporated heart attacks, hospitalizations, a house fire, deaths, and everything else, short of dismemberments and jail terms. (That type of recitation is now characterized as a ‘Bud Fuller’ letter. Names have been changed to protect the oh-so-guilty author.)

      3)   If it's necessary to include sad news, do it quickly and move on. "We are sad to say that Rover is now chasing squirrels in the Great Beyond, but Muffy is still with us, and continues to terrorize the mouse population."

      4)   Give a sentence or two about each family member; if you leave someone out, readers will suspect the worst--either total disgrace, or that they are up there with Rover, chasing squirrels.

      5)   Don’t brag (although it is tempting to relay the latest bon mot from your grandchild…well, maybe ONE..)

      6)   Try not to be too cute. A letter from your dog or cat is pathetic. 

     

7    7)   Never, ever give up. Friendships have survived, purely on the basis of Christmas letters, for years. You never know when someone will emerge from your past, or when you might need a contact in Podunk, Idaho. I can cite personal examples.

      8)   Include a picture, if you can. Everyone else has also 1) gotten old 2) gained weight 3) gone gray. Here’s to truth in Christmas letters!

      9)   Include your email address or website or blog address. Someone might want to respond.

    10) Add a hand-written signature, at least. It might add a few minutes to your card assembly and mail process, but it pays for it in authenticity.

And, finally…ignore the rules. At this time of year—or any time at all—people are delighted to hear from you, whether the message is cheery or doleful, short or long, humble or…well, the opposite thereof. And if Fluffy or Mittens or Spot feels the urge to take pen in his or her paw, well, who am I to discourage anthropomorphism? Life is short, and so is the season of goodwill toward men (even if it did start the day after Halloween.) Write that letter! I am waiting by my mail slot!

The Day After

I woke up that morning and the first thing I saw on my phone was a message from my daughter saying she had searched FB 'feelings' for 'despondent' and could not find the emoji for that. I lay there in bed, trying to absorb the fact that the unthinkable had actually happened. I even said that I did not want to hear the analysis of the election, or hear the inevitable speeches. I did not want to see any of the players, or candidates, or talking heads, or correspondents, or voters. I just wanted to be quiet and not have to engage with the chaos around me.

I spent most of the day doing just that. We had breakfast; I read some of my book (fiction, totally escapist); we walked down to the river and toured the tall ship that arrived here last night.  JC and I stood on the wharf and listened to what Hillary had to say to the people who had worked for her--we'd missed her concession speech. She showed class--as might be expected.

And now it's time to look the future in the eye. Inexplicably, people have made their choice and we have to live with it for four years. The country has stood for 240 years; surely we can last 4 more. There are all kinds of cliches to throw out there: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and stuff of that ilk. It doesn't really help. The hardest thing to deal with is the fact that there is so much brokenness in our country right now, and I'm not sure we know how to fix it. Trump isn't going to do that for us. It's up to us.

How do you gather up and neutralize all the anger and hate that elected Trump and rejected Hillary? There have been so many lies told and accusations made that I don't see how that web can be unraveled and we can all come together again. The American public has lashed out in every direction, like a maddened bull in the ring; in its confusion, it has attacked Hillary, Obama, women, Muslims, immigrants, Congress--any leader or group or institution in its path. Trump has been the matador, waving all the red flags.

We all know that those bulls in the ring die. We are, however, better than that. Given a common antagonist, even the bull-headed Congress we've experienced in the past 8 years may see fit to work together with their Democratic counterparts to thwart the death knell that Trump seemed intent upon ringing. Maybe, faced with threats to all we hold dear, we will reclaim our better selves and make room for the disaffected at the table, and think more seriously about how to put our lives back together, to reconcile our differences, and return to the government of the people, by the people, and for the people that Lincoln spoke of in the midst of another bloody period of divisiveness.

Things are much more complicated now. We are tied in knots not only because of domestic division,  but over financial effects, short and long-term; over our place in the world's uncertain economic and political spheres; over nuclear codes; and rampant conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. And we find ourselves being led by an unpredictable and quick-tempered man whose 'truth' depends on circumstance and his own convenience. Whose associates do not exactly inspire confidence, He comes with baggage, both personal and legal, and it is hard to put that all aside and offer support when we are so very much afraid of what this presidency will mean for the world, for us, and for all the people who have listened to and believed the vile and vituperative outpourings of his campaign.

Donald Trump is not the complete problem, however. He is just the most visible symptom of something deeper and darker: the image of America that we keep pushing back into our personal Pandora's box: an America that embraces prejudice and racism and intolerance, that closes its doors and its borders and its heart to those in need, that feels entitled to step on the weak in pursuit of personal gain. This is not who we are, or at least not the country we set out to be. This dystopian image is everything we have fought against for the past 240 years. We cannot give up now. We cannot turn our back on the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
the wretched refuse of other teeming shores.

We cannot roll up the welcome mat in New York harbor, and add conditions to those freedoms and opportunities we purport to extend to everyone: yes, you have rights, IF you are white, if you practice an acceptable religion, if you check the correct box under 'gender'. Yes, you can have medical care, and housing, and food--if you can afford it. That is not the people we aspire to be. We have lost our way, and the way home is not readily apparent. What we do know is that it does not involve imposing limitations on immigrants, religious freedom, or women's rights--limitations that would be giant steps backward in the journey that started here two hundred and forty years ago.

Election Eve

Almost over.

The long dark night of the soul 

that we call a campaign…

slithers toward dawn..

Slander, lies, half-truths,

exaggerations. 

insults and baseless 

accusations: ended.

All the auxiliary players:

the pundits and powers

who interpret

at length and armed

with selected facts, 

cherry-picked 

for their own

prognostications: silenced.

Slurs, and fights, signs

and threats

interviews and jokes,

and twitter-feeds,

debates and interruptions,

the relentless ads

that no one believes

anymore: done.

And despite the speeches,  

despite purported

scandals and misdeeds, 

deliberate or imagined,

despite the coverage, 

the inexorable and execrable

24/7 news cycle,

we are left with less, not more.

Less truth, less confidence,

less faith, less hope,

and certainly, less charity.

We are divided and distracted,

dejected and diminished,

teetering on the precipice..

Time—and tomorrow—

will tell.