T'was the Christmas House

If you had walked into my childhood home during the month of December, you might have asked if Mr. and Mrs. Claus resided there.  You would have seen a fourteen foot tree in multicolor-glory packed with unique ornaments, a variety of nativity scenes, nutcrackers, toy soldiers and sparkly surprises on nearly every surface of every room.  The surprise of mistletoe hanging above the toilet might have triggered you to lock the bathroom door, just in case.  The miniature toy train chugged to holiday tunes while itty-bitty ice skaters twirled on the frozen lake.  When gazing out toward the view of the bay, you would spy a life-size Santa clinging to the boathouse chimney.

Mom worked on the sparkly details, while Dad took the job of lighting up the house, both inside and out.

My favorite job as his helper was to go through all of the light strings for the tree, inspecting every bulb and replacing as needed.  In those days you could revive a dead string with the repositioning of a wire, planting a fresh bulb, or by splicing a new plug onto the cord.  Nowadays I grumble as my early-learned skills are ineffective on the throw-away cheap light strings manufactured to be replaced, not repaired.  I relish the memories of the hours spent picking through the bag of bulbs and the nuggets of wisdom I received from my Pa.

Once he had the ropes of incandescent outdoor bulbs placed along the gutters and around the front door, my sisters and I would make toast by smooshing crust-less white bread into “dough” to wrap around a relatively clean colored bulb.  The heat of those old-fashioned C9 bulbs cooked the bread into a crispy little shell in a matter of minutes.  Making them was the point, but we ate the warm, sometimes gritty treats too.

When I was really little, Dad spent the late weekends of November chopping yule logs for every friend and aquaintance for miles around.  Glitter was added to spark colorful flames, along with the traditional berries and greens.  Come Christmas Eve we would drive around the neighborhood and plop the decorated hunks of wood on porches with a hearty “Merry Christmas!!”

Every fall our entire family became a Christmas Card Workshop.  You see, my dad is an artist and has painted beautiful things his whole life.  For a few weeks each year we would spend our Saturday and Sunday afternoons painting individual, original Christmas cards for everyone we ever knew.  Dad pulled out his water color tubes and pallets and we learned about color mixing and how water interacted with the pigment.  We had some examples to follow, but we were free to embrace our own creative impulses.  We painted and sent at least a hundred, if not more, very original and often extremely rustic cards every year.  After we child-labor elves grew older and busier, Dad printed his original cards at the family print shop and hand painted each card before Mom added a personal note and affixed the festive stamp.  I have saved them all.

Dad’s holiday music library is unrivaled.  From Johnny Cash to Elvis to Vince Guaraldi to the Nutcracker Suite, we had all the genres covered.  Not to mention Alice’s Restaurant was considered a MUST LISTEN during this time of year.  Holiday music would play for hours on end with never a repeated song.

Every single year, from the first of six children to the last of many, many grandchildren, Dad spent the last minutes of every Christmas Eve sitting beneath the sparkling tree surrounded by young’uns while reading aloud from The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore.  As he closed the tattered hard-bound book, we were enchanted, excited and ready to run off to bed in anticipation of Christmas magic.

This Christmas, as the more recent years have foreshadowed, our Papa is slipping far into dementia.  When I am able to make the trek over the mountains for a visit, otherwise quiet he announces, “That girl is here again!”  At other times he asks Mom repeatedly, “When was Christmas this year?” noticing the decorated tree and colorful lights surrounding the house, but not sure if the holiday is coming or going.  He then retires to his room to watch Jeopardy and fall into the comfortable, yet confusing routine of his new life.

He may not engage in the season like he used to, but the holiday magic he created for decades has passed on to a few generations of Stones and to others beyond our family.  Each December when the task awaits, I always look into my inner Puk (his family nickname) when I decorate and embrace the beauty and music of the season.  I am so grateful for that.

This winter I can’t help but feel the great weight of melancholy, as I no longer know how to connect with my incredible father whose gifts have gone silent - or so it seems.  I will do my best to carry on his lessons, and to continue to pass them on to my family.

Happy Christmas to All…and to all a Good Night!

My Leaf's Purpose

A while back, I can’t quite recall when exactly, I heard/read somewhere that if you catch a falling autumn leaf in the air before it touches the ground it is a sign of good luck.  I fell in love with that idea.  The thought of this leaf, with a lifespan of one single season having never touched the ground - will never-ever touch the ground - because I caught it in my hand.

For all I know I may have made this up in my own head or in a dream and accepted it as a real thing.  When I shared this superstition with the children with whom I ran through the forest (a perk of my job helping coordinate running programs at the YMCA), they asked, “Who said that?”  I couldn’t recall, but it didn’t matter.  We started turning our faces up to the trees, awaiting the random flutter of a yellow, crispy leaf to chase.  

This leaf we sought had never been touched, altered or interfered with by our modern, tech-obsessed world.  This leaf that  likely interacted with ladybugs, birds and other flying beings, but lived entirely separate from our terrestrial reality.  It turned it's broad surface toward the sun, and was later washed by the spring rain.  Battered by the wind, it clung to the tree with a strong and flexible stem along with it's green, chorophyll-fortified brethren.

Now weakened by the shorter, cooler days of the season's change and facing the inevitable fall to the ground  -- if caught it in the air by one of us, we might somehow save this innocent leaf from corruption!  It could remain a pure element of the natural canopy from which it tumbled.  Immortality?

Yet, that leaf did serve it’s life purpose.  Aiming it’s broad face toward the sun's warmth, it transformed solar energy into food for it’s mother tree.  Fruit and seeds were nourished by this energy to guarantee generations of trees to come.  And critters sheltered within and beneath for the spring and summer months.

Then the days get shorter.  Once these leaves wither and drop into our world below, who knows what might come of them?  Someone may rake, bag and send them to the dump.  Or maybe they all are doomed to be stomped by boots, rolled over by big rubber tires and turned into pulp.  Then mixed with litter and road run-off to be forgotten.  Hopefully they land in the soil from which the roots grow and become one again.

Regardless of the truth (or absolute nuttiness) of this superstition, we - the children and I, spent the next hour dashing side-to-side, on-and-off the trail, to try to snatch these brittle beings before they touched the earth.  In almost all cases we failed.  And we nearly flew off of steep banks or ran head-on into trees in our desperate efforts. We debated whether it was bad luck to shake the tree first to loosen leaves…and decided that  it would, indeed, be cheating.

At the end of the run I had one trophy, fallen from a maple, that practically jumped into my fist.  Spencer had nimbly nabbed a small handful of various sizes and colors.   Alisa had tried SO hard, zigzagging at every possible target, but she didn’t catch a single fluttering leaf the whole time.  As we boarded the vans I offered Alisa my prized leaf to take home.  She declined.  It wasn’t the same if the leaf touched another hand before your own.  I completely understood.

Since then I keep wondering if I just made up that whole “good luck” thing in my mind or in a dream.  But it doesn’t really matter.  We all could use a little hope, good luck and magic to make it through life.  And just maybe there is more to a leaf’s life purpose than we know.

To Wear or Not to Wear...Underwear?

This all started years ago.  Like any lifetime runner, actually like ANY runner, I love to recruit converts to our sport.  I had photocopied a walk-to-run program from a book to share with a curious fellow pre-school mom.  After six weeks or so she came up to me excited to share that she was running miles at a time and feeling great!  She had even convinced some friends to join her and she now had a real-live running group.   Then...she scooted up close to me and half-whispered, “Can I ask you a question?”  I nodded and waited.  She looked around to make sure that nobody was close enough to hear.  “Do you wear underwear when you run?”

“Yeah!” I answered without hesitation, not at all taken aback by the question.

She went on, “Well…then why do running shorts come with built-in briefs if you are supposed to wear underwear, too?” 

Have you ever had one of those moments when a question or idea just smacks you in the face and changes your perspective forever?  BAM!!  This was one of those moments for me. A palm-smack right to the forehead.

“Good point,” I stammered, “I haven’t ever really thought about it…”  She looked disappointed in my answer.  She was sure there was a TRUTH out there that only real runners knew, and I was supposed invite her into this exclusive club by sharing the insider information.  Watching her face go slack, I felt so ignorant and unworthy of my “mentor” status.

After that day I continued donning my undergarments, whether I was running or not, because that was what I had done my whole life.  However my husband, who is a high mileage trail runner, began to discard underwear completely.  He had fallen in love with compression gear and decided “Why wear underwear when there is cozy spandex?”  No matter if he is dressing for work complete with jacket and tie, or for a 3-hour run in the rain, the first item of clothing he puts on is a stretchy short or half-tight.  He sits on the chair and squeezes his muscles, much like sausage into its casing, into the black spandex container.

Over the years I have occasionally brought this subject up on long runs with friends.  I have been surprised by the range of answers and reasons that bubble up.  Mary dislikes briefs so much that she won’t even wear running shorts that include briefs - she’s all about smooth running tights with no creeping or binding, even in the summer.  Tammy agrees and adds, “For the record, there is ruthless mockery when ptl's (panty lines) are spotted in my group.”

Deb swears by finding the RIGHT underwear for running - high quality with no seams or fancy trim.  Denise likes a layer between herself and her tights, but is fine with the coverage the built-in brief that running shorts provide.  Mark prefers a lycra under-layer, even with shorts that have briefs, and avoids cotton because of the dreaded chafe risk.  Carol is all about business - tighty-whiteys at all times.

Here is a summary of my informal, non-scientific poll (of people I wasn’t too embarrassed to ask):

• ·         Some folks’ number one concern is panty-line with tights, yet others regard comfort as most important, panty-line or not.   (By “Some folks” I mean some women)

•          Most men like to go free and easy when it comes to tights.  They don’t claim that it has anything to do with panty-line.

•          A slight majority of men and women leave the undies at home when wearing shorts with built-in briefs.

•          Anything that chafes during a run, undergarment or not, gets donated to a local charity.

Apparently there is no one TRUTH to the question.  Going Commando appears to be a matter of personal preference.  People choose what works for them, or like me, they do what they do because that is what they have always done.  So…to wear or not to wear underwear? Whether you are a newbie runner or an old timer with thousands of miles under your feet, what you are wearing under your racing shorts and tights is entirely up to you!

You Can't Digitize Poop

Despite the popular emoji 💩,  you just can’t digitize poop.  This statement came tumbling out of my orifice recently when discussing a local news story on our morning run.

It’s true! There isn’t a “send” button on your touchscreen that sends that unmentionable brown matter into cyberspace where you no longer have to deal with it.  At this moment you’re thinking, “Flush handle…DUH!”  You’d be correct in that the handle acts as a message SEND button, and may as well give you the reassuring feedback message, “Your poop has been sent!”  But to where?  Mind you, it was not simply translated into computer code and transferred as a nanobyte of information to The Cloud , an odorless invisible infinite place that we can ignore.

In the real world, poop takes up space and has weight (and a smidgen of odor). In other words, poop has mass.  Mass cannot be created or destroyed - Law of Conservation, baby!  Did you know that there are four bags of astronaut poop on the moon, left behind by Neil Armstrong on his Apollo mission?  Poop is basically forever.  What I do know is that I bag my pooches’ poo every day and it certainly adds up over a short period of time…and it doesn’t go away until the garbage truck comes. And I have been on plenty of school field trips as a mom and a teacher to the local sewage treatment plant.  I’ll avoid graphic descriptions.   Just take my word - it does NOT simply disappear.

According to the book The Truth About Poop, people produce one ounce of poop for each 12 pounds of their body weight.  For the average man that is almost one pound per day!!  (Many of us may have the urge to deny that amount…and we smell like roses, no doubt.)

Add that up.  For the average life span of the male human species of 70 years, that means over 25,000 pounds of excrement!  Do you want that piling up around you?  ‘Course not.  And you don’t have to live with that. WHY?  Not because of high-tech fiber-optics or itty-bitty computer chips (although they help) or solely due to brain-geek-created binomial code.

Plumbing is our REAL hero here.  And plumbers, and folks who understand the workings of the massive invisible infrastructure that lays beneath our feet.  Without that infrastructure, and the people who have spent their lives as students, apprentices and professionals, that POOP might be what is beneath our precious little feet.

A recent local news article lamented the coming shortage of plumbers and other hands-on trade workers that keep our quality of life moving, literally.  Apparently the older generation of those who keep electricity running to our homes and water moving in and flushing out is nearing retirement and the new generation doesn’t seem to appreciate their importance.  Everyone is scrambling to learn the computer-based skills…and if you talk to any young teen these days many will tell you that they plan to become incredibly successful video game developers and testers, with their bums taking the permanent shape of the recliners in which they reside.  There is a fear that there will be a shortage of non-digital trade workers.  If this happens and all of the youth do do the technology thing (oops - did I just say“doo-doo”??) we could theoretically end up knee deep in our own 💩.

Reality is if those young-uns want to succeed, a bunch of them would take a look at the technical schools and apprentice opportunities. Because soon enough we are all going to be paying top dollar to ensure our poop leaves the premises in a timely manner…as well as receiving electricity to our homes and sound, structural roofs over our heads.  

And schools might well bring back an emphasis on mechanics, wood shop, automotive repair and real world, hands-on experiences.  We ought to give those areas of study the level of respect they deserve!  We don't call it the porcelain throne for nothin'.

Tina Fey - Schmeena Fey

The young Tina

It cracks me up when I see that “inspirational” list of folks who are now famous yet had humble beginnings.  The point of it, I think, is that you, too, can be rich and famous - just follow your dreams, work hard and soon you will be lifted to the heights of wealth and celebrity.  You may recognize it: the list usually starts with the statement, “At age 23, Tina Fey worked at a YMCA.”  And then goes on to list well-known, successful personalities and how they started out.

Well, here I am at the age of…well…let’s just say I’m more than double the age of that wide-eyed Tina Fey and just recently landed a full-time position at our local YMCA — and it is my DREAM job!  I will be co-coordinating the youth running programs for the county, which I have been doing part-time for the last two years.  I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.  You see, my professional background is in elementary education and my favorite pass-time and social outlet is running.  Although I am passionate about working for and with children, I found the bureaucracy and stress in the education system stifling as a family member and partner (my husband being a dedicated educator - one of us has to stay sane for the kids).  And I’m simply not fast or talented enough to make a profession out of training for and running races.

Never had I imagined, when I was a young and inexperienced 23 year-old, that there was a job description that included running, inspiring young people to love running and nature, educating girls to love themselves the way they are, promoting healthy habits, sharing an office with like-minded and fun people, and working for an organization that puts the well-being of our community above all else.  Yep, dream job.

I work with so many cause-driven, passionate people who would give you their own lunch if you were hungry.  In fact, I’ve seen them do it.  Our CEO was a grand success in the grocery business before retiring early. He was lured out of retirement by the Y values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. He found the cause-driven philosophy so compelling that he now works in a 100-year old building that offers showers to the homeless and scholarships for children’s swim lessons to struggling families, among many other wonderful things.

Yes, I am fortunate.  I have a stable family life with a professional spouse and have very few worries.  We live within our means - call us simple if you will, but we don’t need a whole lot. 

Working a modest job doesn’t always mean you have failed, or that you have settled for something less.  Sometimes it means that you have simply found your place in the world. You see, not all people measure their life’s success by dollars or name recognition.  There are folks that don't aspire to have their name in lights or to own multiple vacation homes. There are plenty of folks out there who wouldn’t give up their modest jobs for all the luxuries and privilege that Tina Fey and her cohorts have, because they know they are making a difference in their own, small world.  I know, because I work with a big bunch of them.  And I’ll bet you wouldn’t recognize a single one of their names.

My very first live concert was The Village People.
Do you think that was an omen?
Everybody sing it now, "Y-M-C-A!"

Fear and Love...and Family

Uncle Mike was beloved by his many nieces and nephews, yet there was always a little bit of fear when he walked into the room.  I can relate, as I was his baby sister by 8 years and several inches.

He was a fascinating big brother.  Strong, well-liked by his peers and unpredictable, he was fun to watch, but you also had to watch your back.  The younger siblings never knew when the threat of a “whirly” would finally come to pass (picture head in toilet - FLUSH - instant soaking wet bee-hive hairdo).  Food fights were not uncommon. One time I remember hair full of sticky raw egg, and a face full of cupcake frosting on another occasion.  We had to hide our personal candy stash from him - he never pretended to eat it, he simply ate.  We had one locking door in the house - the bathroom.  If you were chased, you had to have enough of a lead to slam and lock the door before he reached it.  Otherwise you braced yourself against the sink with both feet pressing on the door while his arm, caught in the door, flailed wildly in search of its human target.

When we all grew up, if you can call it that, his teasing shifted to the next generation.  Every niece and nephew was christened by having their infant bodies pressed to the ceiling by his long, strong arms while the mother (one of Mike’s sisters) pleaded for him to stop.  Only baby Noah had the distinction of stopping the ceiling fan with his small skull.

When Gramma bought the oldest nieces their first barbie dolls for Christmas, it didn’t take long for Mike to behead them and proceed with a game of keep-away with another uncle.  Doll heads bounced over the support beams in the rec room to the sound of screaming 5 year-olds.

My favorite memory of Mike with my little Delaney was when he convinced her that if she allowed him to draw all over her face in sharpie, then he would let her do the same to him.  I’ll never forget his devilish laughter as she chased him, face thoroughly decorated in thick black lines, yelling, “Not FAIR!  It’s MY turn!!”  He placed the marker up high, out of anyone else’s reach and that was that.  It was days before that marker completely faded away.

Ella was only a toddler when she learned where to find her shoes when Mike was around.  He always took her black patten leather shoes, filled them with ice and hid them in the freezer.  At first we would actually LOOK for them around the house, but it wasn’t long before we knew where to find them and she would have to put the stiff, frozen shoes on her tiny feet.

He was also wonderful with all of the kids.  He took them sailing, rowing, skiing and mountain climbing.  He wanted them to be adventurous and free, like him.  If one of them showed fear he would push them even further until they realized that there was nothing to fear.  Or if there was, to be very, very careful.

I am sad that we lost Mike when my girls were still young.  The older cousins had more time to learn from him and appreciate what he had to share.  And to conquer their fears.  My fear, when he died, was that he would be forgotten.  Thankfully he lives on in his nieces, nephews and other loved ones, in their adventurous spirits and priceless memories.

Happy Birthday, Big Brother.  Wish you were here.

(at top - picture of Mike with the prize octopus he caught scuba-diving in front of our childhood home.  A scared young Sharon sits safely up in the kitchen window)

How the Other Half Lives

Despite the wind storm this morning, I packed up the dogs and headed into the trails.  The landscape was still muted in shades of blue and grey, with bits of color emerging with each passing minute as the winter sun reluctantly pushed above the horizon.  The trees were celebrating the wind in a wild dance, much like the mosh-pit at a night club, thrashing and swaying in unison with the gusty, blustery rhythm.

We weren’t the only ones using poor judgment, willing to risk a branch to the noggin to get some fresh air and much needed exercise.  I had one or two conversations with the regular early morning folks, hollering over the roar of the swirling wind.  I was glad  we risked it - it’s not often that you get to see white caps on the duck pond…..well, practically, anyway.

There were plenty of branches down, alright.  Mostly small to medium evergreens with an old rotten tree down in the deeper forest.  We were hopping and sidestepping, but thankfully the debris was already under us and not striking from above.

These are the days that I want to be a dog.  Or at least be a guest in my one of my dog’s brains.  With their superior sniffers, these pups seem to find every freshly downed branch and inspect it with their rubbery black noses.  There are older branches, brought down in the last storm, that they simply ignore.  It’s the ones that have just tumbled from above that they find most interesting.

I like to think that they are assembling a picture with the scents they find on these bits of nature.  Up there, in the tops of the cedar trees and the cottonwood branches, live the mysterious tree dwelling wildlife.  The owls and eagles, who fly like birds, but their breath smells of meat.  The squirrels and chipmunks that taunt the dogs with their fluffy tails and then scamper up out of reach.  The raccoons, seen only in the dark of night.  Although the dogs have seen these creatures and chased them from time to time, the high-rise tree residents remain a mystery to them.

Each sniff of a downed branch gives the pup another detail of life in the sky.  This cedar branch - sniff - this was a perch of a mama owl who sat, watched and waited for her rodent prey to carelessly come out into the open to be her owlet’s breakfast.  That cottonwood twig - sniff - that was the top rung of the ladder to the entrance of the squirrel family’s den, it may even have a tuft of fur snagged in its craggy splinters.  The hunk of moss - sniff - a pillow for a slumbering chipmunk infant, now shivering while it’s chipmunk parents scramble to reconstruct their home.

I suppose it’s a bit like we humans, who seem to enjoy watching television shows about hoarders or the rich and famous.  We’re just trying to catch a glimpse of how others live.  Maybe to make us feel better about our superior lives, or to dream about what it might be like to live in a mansion with servants.  The creatures are likely more interesting.

Unfortunately I can’t be a dog for the day, or borrow their fantastic sense of smell.  I have tried -  I picked up one of the newly fallen bits, and even took a whiff myself, but all I can tell is the kind of tree it fell from.  Since I am merely human, I’ll just have to continue to imagine why the odor of those branches is so irresistible to my canine companions.