It was quite a drive from where we stayed in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, to Acadia National Park. We chose to do it on the second full day we were there, and it was a bit disappointing to find so much fog in the scenery once we got there. I waited until we were home to process this particular picture in the computer since Lightroom mobile doesn’t allow for processing HDR. Or I haven’t found it yet. I don’t like the resulting picture as much as I thought I would, so I tried it in black and white and liked it better. But that could just be my mood lately.
I also liked it better when I saw the world in black and white. Right or wrong. The news, the political ads, the ugliness out there feels like an invading army to me. I seem to have misplaced my rosy glasses…
I have become a bah humbug sort of person. I don’t say that proudly, or lightly even. I grew up with a reverence for the day we celebrate the birth of Christ, and I loved making Christmas for my own kids through the years. Growing up in a big Italian family there were many treats to be had at Christmas that we didn’t see for the rest of the year. As the daughter of a fireman and a nurse I spent the major holidays at my aunt’s house, with my working parents coming and going, plus lots of relatives dropping in to visit. Special times that I couldn’t have appreciated at the time what treasured memories they would turn out to be. So when I got married and moved away I did my best to recreate the holidays I treasured. I made lasagna for Christmas dinner, something the family had switched over to some time in my preteen years when they decided that they were ITALIAN, for goodness sake, and weren’t going to duplicate the Thanksgiving dinner at Christmas anymore. I made the Italian cookies that are flavored with anise. I made strufoli, the tiny honey balls we only had at Christmas, and, when I could find it, I bought Torrone, a nougat candy that came in individual boxes that were exquisite little works of art in themselves. For many years Christmas was a wonderful time of year. But those days are long past, the kids are grown and gone, and even the grandchildren are grown. It feels like the media has taken over all aspects of life, including the holiday, and you can’t escape the pressure to be HAPPY, to spend more and more money. The meaning is lost, hence bah humbug.
With my bad attitude I have disappointed the new special person in my life who still treasures Christmas. Our first Christmas together and he didn’t expect my usual light-hearted self to just want to get this whole thing over with. We will visit his relatives for Christmas, and when a discussion of what to have for Christmas dinner came up my offer to make lasagna was accepted. That perked me up a little. It really warmed my heart when my daughter said that she is making lasagna for her crew too, and she is making strufoli for the first time in years! Now I will make strufoli too. I collected all my recipes yesterday, and my friend wanted to stop at the nice Italian deli near him, and I wondered out loud if I might find Torrone there. Boy, did I ever! Torrone in the little boxes. Torrone cut into wedges like a slice of layer cake, some topped with chocolate! Torrone packaged in the shape of Christmas trees! I stood there with my mouth open, and possibly drooling, as every where I turned I found Torrone. So, yes, I did find Torrone, and I think I might have found my Christmas spirit too.
The feature photo is a display of containers of strufoli, larger honey balls than the ones we used to make, but it made me happy to see my familiar treats. I wrote this post early yesterday, before a heart-warming (and tear-jerking) message from my daughter showed up online. I was already on my way to finding that elusive Christmas spirit, and now I’m happy to say that my strufoli is made, and my lasagna is coming together. So let me wish a Merry Christmas to all with a happy heart. And the new year? Well, there is always hope…
She was a kind and generous soul. She went the extra mile for her friends and family. Her daughter and grandchildren were the loves of her life. She is gone now, quite unexpectedly, despite a long history of health issues. She was my sister. I was in NH visiting when it happened, so I was grateful to be able to be with my niece and her family as this new reality set in. I’m back home now and settling back into my routines isn’t coming easily. It seems I just needed to say a simple goodbye to a sweet soul who asked little and gave much. She is at peace now…
Life is funny. It operates in it’s own time, on it’s own schedule. Like this picture of One-Foot Fred that I came across this morning. It was taken at sunset and I never go to Aripeka at sunset, but obviously I did that day in 2018. Every now and then you wake up in the morning with your head on straight, or so you think, your ducks in a row, you think, and you are in charge of things and know which end is up. And by that evening your there has been a sea-change in your perspective. I’ve experienced this in it’s saddest form, and finding my way from there has been quite the process. But you muddle on and eventually you get yourself together, you know where you stand and how your life is going to be. And that’s when life might just decide to throw you a curve ball in the most unexpected and welcome of ways, and your heart warms to new possibilities. If this blog is among the missing while I savor this new reality then please be happy for me, I know I am.
Oh come on, don’t tell me that you haven’t fried yourself a nice piece of quiche for breakfast before. Or ever. Especially when your brilliant idea from the day before didn’t turn out as you’d planned. I wanted to use up the spinach that I’d left a few days in the refrigerator, and I had potatoes I hadn’t used, so I thought they would make a dandy hash brown crusted quiche. There may be a reason that the online recipes I saw called for frozen hash browns, perhaps they magically don’t turn brown the way potatoes usually do. I know that mine were turning brown faster than I could grate them. But I was committed (don’t say it) at that point so on I went, browning the hash brown crust first, and even though the bottom crust looked more soggy than crusty I went ahead and poured in the filling and baked it. Which didn’t improve the bottom crust any, but it was edible. Faced with trying to figure out what to do with it the next day I knew I had nothing to lose so I resorted to my little frying pan, and when I saw it was browning quickly I covered the pan, even though I imagined a volcano erupting in there, but surprisingly it was quite good.
I’ve been feeling rather scatter-brained lately Not able to sit down and make a plan for what I might want to do this summer, even if it’s just a fantasy. I opened the maps function of the computer and put in the farthest possible destination for myself, and now I stare at the map of the US with that blue line that would lead me there. And there are choices, not one blue line but two, and infinitely more really. Last year going to New England felt cozy, but looking at that map, that blue line, makes me feel like I’d be traveling naked. Exposed. So my mind boggles even as I try to use up the stuff in the refrigerator and tell myself to start making lists. Making plans, and frying my quiche…
An uncle came to stay with me once, I’m not even going to try to think of how long ago that was.He was an academic all his life, a college guidance department head, which is probably why he phrased it as wanting to see my ‘nest’.That that thought came to mind seems like a natural progression during this nesting season here in Florida, when birds are on my mind a lot of the time.And somehow that phrase further brought to mind something my closest friend’s husband said to me once after visiting with them.While I had always felt the closeness between this friend and myself, communication was not so easy in the days when we both had little kids, businesses to run, and lived 3000 miles apart.So I invited myself to visit them after many years, and when he drove me to the airport to leave he said that we were ‘two peas in a pod’, and that it was a crying shame that we hadn’t been able to be part of each other’s daily lives all along.On my way to see them on that visit I had said to myself that knowing myself I ought to be nervous, after all I was going to see people that I honestly didn’t know, but I wasn’t at all worried.And from that first moment that I stepped back into my friend’s life, and home, I felt completely at ease.More than that though, I felt like myself.My true self, the ‘real’ me.Silly, huh?Who’s life was I leading all those years, living all over the country and raising my kids with only occasional visits to the place I continued to think of as home?Those were happy years that I treasure, but there was a little part of me that felt alone.No, apart.Disconnected.But not any more, not since I’ve made connections to the past, connections that are mine alone.Little children that we once were, and who have lived such different lives, are now knowing and cherishing each other in this last part of life.How we got here hardly matters, it’s just so wonderful to be here.
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 