Yuletide Musings

I came home a bit early to avoid the holiday rush and sat down to a typical night of channel-surfing, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but a listing in the on-screen guide for "Yule Log." So now I'm sitting here, blogging, basking in the light of a six-hour showing of a fireplace, captured in full high-definition glory. Call me crazy, but it's warm... homey... lovely...

I had a most blessed Christmas weekend. Dad got the news last week that his PSA is down to 7 (from 27 two months ago), and somehow this change for the better translated into a repreive from the typical holiday dysfunction. Nary an argument was heard as all the preparations were made, the presents were wrapped, the grandkids appeased. Quite marvelous.

Generally speaking, I am not a Christmas person - wait - make that "I am not an Xmas person." The lights, the inflatables, the endless remakes of "The Little Drummer Boy" by Mariah Carey and Kanye West and their ilk all make me want to find a cave. In years past, I've been left alone with Over the Rhine's "Darkest Night of the Year" -- the only Christmas album I've found remotely palatable. This winter, however, they've followed it up with "Snow Angels," an album of original songs that manages to be deeply spiritual and melancholy and intimate all at the same time. Thanks Karin and Linford - Much love. I also happened upon a double album of Christmas favorites by indie fave Sufjan Stevens and was absolutely blown away. The instrumentation and arrangements are gorgeous and he pulls out classics like "I Saw Three Ships" and "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" that I haven't heard in years. I highly recommend you pick them up.

But for now, that "To Go" piece of grandma's cherry pie is calling to me from the fridge. I think I'll scoop some vanilla and bask in the Hi-Def glow of Channel 1500. Great love and joy to all who still stop in to this little corner of Internetland now and again. May you be richly blessed.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Too Soon, and Yet, About Damned Time!

It's snowing in Minnesota. Yup, that's right -- first snowfall of the year on December 21. I don't know if it's a record, but grey was sure getting old.

Not that I'm a fan of winter - I prefer my weather a firm sixty-two and partly cloudy, thank you very much...

Still, I'm tempted to hit the balcony and catch a few flakes on my tongue, just for old times' sake...

I can't help but be enchanted...

Voices from the Past

So I've been trying to decide about getting another tattoo. For years, I've wanted the celtic design that appears on the cover of Jeff Johnson's 1984 CD Icons, but in the innumerable moves I've made over the past five-ish years, I seem to have lost the album art. Bummer.

Last night, this prompted a massive Internet search for the cover art, to no avail. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since the disc has been out-of-print for at least fifteen years, but I was still saddened. Until I got the bright idea to look for a copy of the CD itself. All I've had for years is the booklet, so that would be good on a number of levels. I started thinking back, trying to remember the songs, and several were still backed up in my cognitive hard drive. Wild!

I thought back to the end of my junior high years, when I was first coming to terms with my decidedly artsy nature - amazed that I survived seventh and eighth grades - listening to this collection of songs that was God-centered yet bore no resemblance to the typical bubble-gum, Jesus-y, Amy-Grant pop that dominated the Christian music scene. As I remember, it was the last track that stuck in my head, that I would listen to over and over again, sitting in the tan bucket seat of our conversion van and weeping in gratitude.

It was called "Windemere," Johnson's setting of a poem by John Keble that was written at the British lake of the same name:

Looking through the window
out upon the lake
Windemere is trying to sleep
but continues to awake.
High above the village,
standing on a hill,
an angel sings a psalmody
that interrups the still.

The song seeps through the cracks and gaps
of the weathered window-frame
and fills the room with praises
of an even older Name.
Through the walls that form this room,
I'm taken to that hill,
face-to-face with Someone
that my memory marvels still...

I could never hear these sounds,
I could never see,
I could never feel this breeze
until you blew on me.
I could never love, really,
I could never fear.
I would have never, ever thought
that I'd be standing here.

Thou who has given me eyes to see
and love this sight so fair,
give me a heart to find Thee out
and read Thee everywhere.

Standing in my dining room, looking through the slats of cheap apartment vertical blinds, I welled up again. This time, though, I was as grateful for everything since ninth grade as I was then for everything before. This crazy thing called life truly is a journey - a blessed one - and I find myself at thirty-five praying the same prayer I prayed at sixteen:

Give me a heart to find Thee out and read Thee everywhere.

Pendulum Swings: The Jared Chronicles, Part 2

This morning, I'm standing outside of work, desperately wracking my brain for new tricks and manipulations to convince Jared to come inside, into the nice cool air conditioning, but no dice. He's talking, dead-set on having my full attention until his van arrives to take him off to work. Little does he know I haven't heard a word he's said. I'm trying to figure out how I can keep him happy and still get my paperwork done on time. Suddenly, something he says snaps me out of it:

"My friend Shawn died."

"Really? What happened?"

"Oh, he was sleeping, and then he got sick, and then he died."

What do you say to that?

"That's sad."

"Yuh. I went to his funeral."

"That's good."

"Yuh. I put my hand on his coffin. Like this." Jared reaches out and pats the hood of my car gently, then lets his hand rest.

"I care about him. He's my friend," Jared says solemnly, staring through the blue steel.

I'm struck by his gesture, by his use of the present tense. My eyes drop to the pavement, looking down at the driveway to avoid being blinded by tenderness. Jeremy's dog Bud is lying panting on the sidewalk. Subject change.

"Big Kris got a puppy."

"Really?"

"Yeah! He looks just like Bud, only little and yellow."

Jared scrunches up his face in irritation. "Not yellow. Bud's a chocolate lab."

"I know... Big Kris got a yellow lab."

"Bud's a chocolate lab. But he can't have chocolate chip cookies. They're poison to him. Only me. Only I get cookies. Not Bud."

He says this with every ounce of profundity with which he just spoke of Shawn. I can't help but bust out laughing. I guess wisdom comes in many forms.

In his recent poem, "How to Be a Poet," Wendell Berry writes:

There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

I think I know what he means...

The Karma of Care: Strange Places

Lately, I've been feeling like a human Care Engine. My June flew by with days spent attending to dad and nights at work. Dad is, to borrow an adjective from an unfortunate context, a "flaming" extrovert. Asking him to sit alone at mom's condo all day is akin to asking George W. Bush to pull off a convincing Hamlet. It's just not in his nature.

So for much of the last week or two, I've been chauffer and companion and gofer. Making thirty-odd trips a day between kitchen and recliner for iced tea, SunChips, insulin, or anti-androgen pills. Driving to Abbot for an IV infusion in the chemotherapy room (and that's a whole 'nother post), to Office Max for mailing labels, to SuperTarget for summer sausage. You'd be surprised how tiring it can get. I used to stay up for an hour or so after the boys went to bed at work, but now I crash like a bandicoot.

To top it off, my job has been frustrating. The Down Syndrome guys I care for have been unusually needy, and due to short staffing, I've been working four nights a week instead of my usual three. Those fantasies of not having to work are back with a vengeance, but along with them come the Practicality Gnomes to remind me of medical insurance and the perils of student loan payments.

Those damned Practicality Gnomes are a total buzzkill.

Then the other night I was at work, and one of my clients (we'll call him Jared) was supposed to be in bed a half hour earlier. I opted not to make an issue of it since he had the next day off work. I just packed up, undressed, and went to bed as usual.

Long about 11:30, I hear some motion. Sure enough, here comes Jared out of his room. I know it won't do any good to crack down and tell him to go to bed, so I try to lead by example and fake sleep. Jared turns on the hall light and I hear him creeping over to me, whispering my name. I don't respond. I sense him looming over me, bracing myself for whatever joke he wants to play, and instead I feel his blunt fingers gently tucking the blanket beneath my shoulder.

A few seconds later I'm still not hearing footsteps, so I crack my eyelids to see what's going on. Jared's at the armrest of the couch, where I've tossed my clothes. He picks up my pants and quietly folds them into neat thirds, setting them pocket-up on an empty stretch of bookshelf. He lifts my button-up shirt and hangs it over his arm about three different ways, trying to keep it from wrinkling. I'm about to laugh at his good-hearted frustration when he starts buttoning up the shirt. My chuckle catches in my throat as he gets to his knees, smooths the cotton flat on the beige carpet, and folds it carefully, Banana Republic style. He finds a place next to the pants for it to spend the night in wrinkle-free peace, sets it down, and pats it into place.

He turns back to me, and I quickly shutter my eyes. I smell rapsberry Jell-O on his breath and feel his whiskers scratching my eyebrows as he plants a quick kiss on my forehead.

"G'night, Jeffy" he whispers.

Tears come to my sleep-faking eyes as the hall light cuts out and Jared's door utters a creak made louder and longer by his effort to be quiet.

"G'night, Jared" I reply to the blackness in gratitude.

Care is a two-way street. Sometimes it comes back to you in the ways and places you least expect it.

The Shape of Things

Okay, so I've been quiet for a while. Here's what's happening.

My dad's prostate cancer is back. Only it's not in his no-longer present prostate, it's in his spine. The presenting issue is that one vertebra had malignant growth to the point where he lost control of his legs. This is how we found out. However, there is "involvement" on three other vertebrae. So I've been on that journey.

As far as blogging is concerned, it's been a mixed bag. I can't tell you how many times I've thought, "I could SO blog about this," but it hasn't felt right. Not that I don't want to share, because there have been any number of sacred moments, but because I was/am afraid of turning this blog into a cancer diary. Bleh.

I'm only now starting to feel ready to juggle - to seek some balance here. Cancer-related entries will happen, be sure, but I've got other things to say and be heard on mixed in. The problem is, they're all trapped in my skull, percolating away in a big churning mess - a mess I can finally get to. So look for me to be back more regularly.

That is, if anyone's still bothering to check this... :-)

Correspondence Overheard

Dear Tree,
I wish you had eyes so you could see green.
Love, Boy.

Dear Boy,
I wish you had roots so you could feel green.
Love, Tree.

Jeff's "Dream Car of the Future"

OK, picture this: Mini Cooper Convertible, either...

hydrogen powered

-or-

gas/electric hybrid, E-85 capable.

It's quick, it's earth-friendly, and it's STILL dead sexy... Any thoughts?

What's yours?







P.S. No Hummers, please...