Saturday, November 26, 2016

Letters of contrition

Dear Mom, Where do I start in asking absolution for the many times I just did not take the time to listen and understand. Leaving your home. Dad had the easy way out and you were left with the unbelievable hard part. Choosing what to take and what to leave. So many layers of memories, trivial things that hand no actual value, except to you. Things you so wanted us to value and treasure. Things we should ask to keep. Not so much to go to the remainder man or worse the landfill. I am sorry I was not there, that as usual a project was more important than sifting through the accumulation of 50 years and dispositioning every treasure. As so often you said someday I will be in your shoes. I did not understand or listen.

I am moving. Not a new thing. I have moved more times than I ever planned. This has been the longest I have ever lived anywhere and I brought everything with me from the last move. But, this time I have to cull down the everything. I was working on a box of miscellaneous photos. Just photos dumped in a box waiting for the day I had time to sort them out. I found pictures that included the big uncomfortable rocker in at least 4 houses. No one ever sits in it. It just balances out a corner. The dining room set and the same pictures in multiple houses in Canada, and Roanoke and Ashburn x3, Charlottesville and Charlotte. It looks better now that it is lighter. And the two eagle mirrors are gone, damaged in one of the moves. But the ladies and fruit sellers persist. I am not sure I even like them. I think they own me not the other way around. I just keep packing and moving them afraid that if I let it all go somehow I really will be without any past, I will be found to be shallow without substance.

I know I lamented the old worn end tables and the blond dresser and so much more, but I know now that it was for you proof that you had been a person of substance. Someone who had a family. Someone who mattered. I am so so sorry. Mea culpa, Mea culpa, Mea maxima culpa. Your daughter.

Friday, November 25, 2016

Mystery solved to garnet bracelet

A few years before Mom died she gave me a garnet bracelet. She said she never wore it. I had the crab claw catch changed out and added a chain. It was a mystery why she had the bracelet. Her birthday is November and that was topaz. She had several pieces of topaz jewelry. I asked her if she was sure since it was a pretty bracelet, and she said she just wanted me to have it. Today I was reading the National Geographic Christmas catalog and what should I behold - a handcrafted garnet bracelet from India. Slightly different design but close. Aunt Jane was a catalog shopper, she loved museum catalogs. Mom gave me the bracelet after Aunt Jane died and we discovered she had changed her will and insulted Mom. Ever frugal Mom couldn't just throw it in the trash. Why me? Maybe because Aunt Jane had added injury to insult to injury by leaving Lee and I as executors to her estate left to our other cousins. I have no idea why me, maybe I was in the room when she found it. But mystery solved that it was not a treasured item, but something despised but frugality kept her from throwing it out. Probably a good lesson for me to take to heart as I declutter and downsize this month.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Deja vue again or conspiracy

I follow the news, read two newspapers in the morning, try to find some balance in the crazy news cycle and I worry. The insatiable 24 hour news cycle has taken on a life of its own. In the world is there enough news to fill 24 hours - yes. Does 24 hours of world news actually come over the airwaves? No. What becomes fodder for the talk is one scandal after the other, real or imagined. Add on top of that an FBI director channeling J Edgar and it is a potentially explosive mix. Exactly why today does the FBI think it is necessary to release 17 yr old files on Bill Clinton's pardons. Hmm let me think. Is it the same reason a Director thought it was Critical to release a fuzzy letter that email on Anthony Weiner's laptop might possiby be critical to be released in the midst of a contentious election cycle with less than 10 days to go? Years ago, when I still believed in Public Service as a higher calling and the good of the people worth fighting for, J Edgar had other Ideas.

I am a child of that era. When disagreement with a war no one understood, and a war where for the first time there were semi real reports "live" from Saigon in our living rooms in black and white that made my generation question what we were doing. When showing up at protest marches or supporting the cause put you on a secret watch list that resulted in your vehicle being called in for a rigorous inspection if you moved and registered in a "red state". The FBI or Homeland Security or NSA or any of the Alphabets are under a lot of pressure to keep America Safe from danger, home grown or imported. But I worry that the Director has crossed the invisible line between protecting US (a la Pogo) and playing Politics in a very dangerous way. There are no innocent actions, no Oops, at the Director level. You don't get to that position accidently without a great deal of savvy. Any person who thinks they can manage or own the Donald and he would be a more malleable leader is ultimately a fool.

 

Vanity the ultimate gotcha.

Vanity 1. Heels, shoes. They were my addiction. I loved being able to wear heels, sandals, cute shoes. Even if they were slightly uncomf...