Groundhog Day!

 I rarely can pick a favorite. Maybe it has to do with having six children: mothers aren’t allowed to have favorites. I do love fruit. But which fruit is favorite? I never can’t decide between half a dozen.

Same with movies. But in my all-time top five is Groundhog Day. I literally have three copies: a regular DVD, the 20th anniversary edition, and a Blu-ray version. I watch it at least once a year, on February 2nd, and usually more often. I have actually watched it at least two dozen times. Stop the action at any moment and I can tell you the next several lines of dialogue.

One of my four sons emailed me that Groundhog Day is playing in theaters on February 2 this year. Guess where I’ll be tomorrow?

Have I mentioned I love this movie? I once gave a Relief Society lesson about it. (Relief Society is my church’s women’s organization. We meet together on Sundays for spiritual lessons.) For me, the movie is profound and deep. The director, Harold Ramis, once stated that people of disparate spiritual traditions have told him that the movie is in tune with their values and traditions.

It's a story of redemption. Like many cliched terms, redemption is used so often because it expresses something deeply human. Many of us crave redemption: from mistakes we’ve made, from mistakes others have made that have harmed us, and from pain caused by this very imperfect world.

Phil Connors finds himself thrust against his will into a hero’s journey. He’s finds himself waking up day after day in the same little town of Punxsutawney, living through February 2nd over and over and over again. (The screenplay deliberately obscures how long Phil spent in February 2nd. Estimates have ranged from 10 months to 33 years.). His journey inspires me every time.

If you love the movie, watch:

Harold Ramis on the Metaphor of Ground Hog Day [sic]

Britt-Marie Was Here

I've listened to Fredrik Backman's novel Britt-Marie Was Here three times. I love Britt-Marie.

I listen to a lot of reading material: novels, non-fiction, scriptures, and religious works. It helps get me out the door for long walks, do weight-training, and sweep and scrub my kitchen floor.

When I was a schoolgirl, I invariably answered the question grown-ups often asked children, What do you like to do, with a one-word answer: read. Reading opened up worlds to me.

 

When reading became difficult, a few decades ago, it was a deep wound to my self-image. I was a reader, that was near the core of my identity. Yet my depression, and medication, took that away.

 

After several years of resignation, I finally took my son Matt’s advice and tried audiobooks. It opened up the world again. I still have trouble retaining what I hear, but at least I can comprehend and enjoy it at the time.

 

I belong to a women’s book group and in November 2021 Brit-Marie was on offer. A book about a socially-incompetent old woman, a ‘nagbag’ who starts coaching a children’s soccer team? I took a pass. But it was late fall of 2021 and the group was going to meet in person. Introvert though I am, I was starved for social contact. So, four days before the meeting I changed my mind, got the audiobook, and was smitten.

Backman has a marvelous talent (I’ve now listened to A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer, Beartown, Us Against You, The Deal of a Lifetime, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, and Anxious People. The Winners is on my Libby hold shelf). He draws complex and sympathetic characters and helps readers fall in love with unlikely candidates. He’s an astute chronicler of human nature with all its nobility and foibles.

Many of us may be like Britt-Marie, more complex and layered than can be detected from the outside. Britt-Marie is so much more than her nagbag exterior. She has a history no one fully knows and appreciates and capacity even she is unaware of. I believe that’s part of being human.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most famous American poet of the mid-nineteenth century, observed, “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

I whole-heartedly recommend Britt-Marie and every other Fredrik Backman book. If you do read it, or already have, leave us a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Holiday

 We had a wonderful Christmas Eve. All our five living children were home that day and evening, along with our four grandkids. We had vegan chili for supper and opened presents. Our grandson, Andrew, led us in singing “The Sounds of Silence,” which he had just performed with his fifth-grade choir at school.

I decided to take Christmas week off, just take a full holiday. It was wonderful, including yesterday when, for the New Year’s Day (observed),  Sam and Savannah, Eliza and Link, came for a supper of Alexander's Pizza and a game of Five Crowns. I don’t even remember who gave the game to me, many years ago, but I’d never talked anyone into playing it before this holiday.

But today dawned, drizzling and grey, and yet again I didn’t have enough time to do all the things I hoped.

I realize, yet again, that it has been a story of my life: always fantasizing about doing more than humanly (or at least Mary-ly) possible. A few months ago, I sat in an Adirondack chair, gazing at my fall garden. I realized that sincere gratitude is a huge piece in the quest to find calm and peace. I trust that the serenity gained from deep gratitude will help me as I let go of the false idea that I can do everything.

This is a perennial topic between Jim and me. Jim has been self-employed since 1986. I've been a homemaker since 1981. You'd think we'd have figured it out by now, but we haven't. "Whereever you go; there you are." We realize we are bad bosses to ourselves. If an employer treated his staff the way we treat ourselves: constantly setting up unattainable goals and expectations, the employees would quit and the business would fail.

I don't have any answers. But it's a new year. I'll get up tomorrow and try again.

Lighting a candle, part one

 "There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle" – Robert Alden

The end of daylight savings time came as a shock to me. Perhaps I’m still not used to it coming so late: it used to end the last Sunday of October. A quick Google search informs me that the switch to the first Sunday in November happened in 2005. I guess I’m not as graceful a pivoter in my golden years.

I mentioned the shock to my therapist who reported he’s had many clients struggling with the evenings darkening sooner. It seemed like the dusk on November 6th was more than an hour earlier than the evening before.

Noticing a smattering of multicolored holiday lights springing up in mid-November, I decided to join the movement: I installed strings of lights on our shrubs soon afterwards. As always, I'll keep the lights on at least until Epiphany (Three Kings Day, Old Christmas (Amish), Little Christmas (what my mother called it): January 6th).

Light is so important to our mood. Light boxes are one aid. Lighting my living quarters certainly affects my mood. For years, in order to be energy-efficient, we had compact flourscent bulbs throughout the house. In cold weather they warm up slowly (we keep our house in the low 60s) and don’t cast full light immediately. The newer LED lights we’ve installed are more efficient and respond immediately. As the winter solstice nears, I find myself flipping every switch on in my 'new' kitchen, except for the sink disposall.

Our sun makes life on earth possible. It also makes life more bearable. (Fun fact: lowly fungi play a vital role as well. Practically unseen, their tiny tendrils transport nutrients and water from long distances to the plants’ roots. In exchange, plants share the sugars produced through photosynthesis.)

As the days continue to shorten this month, I hope you can take time to find some extra light, in as simple an action as turning on the kitchen light, enjoying the holiday displays, or walking in the sunshine.

I love the New England tradition of putting lit candles in windows. A symbol of welcome and warmth, they serve to push the darkness away.

(Another fun fact: Robert Alden (1836-1911) was a Congregationalist minister knew Laura Ingels Wilder. She used him as a character in two of her Little House on the Prairie books.)

Mount Shasta

 In 1995, I took a 10-week road trip around the country with my kids in a pop-up tent trailer. In California, my sister and I travelled from Orange County (near L.A.) to Seattle. In far northern California I discovered Mt. Shasta and fell hopelessly in love.

Mount Shasta is a majestic peak in the Cascade Range, which includes Mt. Hood in Oregon and Mount St. Helen’s and Mount Rainier in Washington State. It rises 14,179 ft in elevation and is home to several glaciers. So why had I never heard of it?

If Mt. Shasta were in Germany or Italy or France, it would be as famous as the Matterhorn. But it is only the fifth highest mountain in California and ‘only’ 11th in prominence in the United States (how high the summit rises above its surroundings).

We camped within sight of the mountain and I reluctantly left it the next morning.

As I write this, my husband and I are on a West Coast road trip. I originally planned it for 2020, but we know what happened that year. This year, we flew into Seattle and rented a car to drive through Oregon and into California to see the Pacific Northwest and visit friends and family. High on my list of ‘can’t be missed’ destinations was Mt. Shasta. I have a framed photo on my office wall and gaze at it daily. I’ve told countless people of my 1995 discovery (including you now).

When we arrived in Seattle, smoke from wildfires diminished visibility. Seattle and Portland, Oregon, were ranked first and second globally for the poorest air quality. As we entered northern California, I wondered if I would even see my beloved Mt. Shasta. Finally, I rounded a bend on Interstate 5 and there it was, looming as majestic as ever, though grey with atmospheric smoke.

A doctor friend once told me that if you take the time to get to know someone, anyone, you are likely to discover great sorrow in their life. Most of us experience sorrow, disappointment, and even tragedy. Sometimes it can feel like life has greyed us out.

Mt. Shasta offers hope. Although the smoke dimmed its visibility, it still rises triumphant from the ground, firm and steadfast, unchanged by the air around it.

The wildfires will subside and the air quality recover. Fresh snow will fall and Mt. Shasta’s glory will be fully visible to all who visit. But Mt. Shasta didn’t change. The smoke could never diminish its true nature, only hide it temporarily from our eyes.

Denial

 Looking back over my behavior, how could I fail to see that I was sick, very sick?

I’d spent two weeks feeling exhausted with intermittent high fevers and night sweats. But each day I thought I was getting better, until the fever would hit again or I’d find myself unable to forgo a nap.

Two of our grandkids spent the week with us and I played the electronic babysitter card: turn on a movie and sleep on the couch.

Then we went on our annual ward campout at Camp Joseph, the Church-owned campground at the Joseph Smith birthplace in Sharon, Vermont. I had planned it to be as low-stress as possible. My son Sam had agreed to handle all the food. We rented cabins so we didn’t have to set up tents and sleep on the ground. But it wasn’t enough.

Camp Joseph is a lovely, well-groomed campground. It has rolling lawns and copses of trees. Very easy camping. But just walking less than a city block to the bathhouse wore me out. And I fell three times. Jim was standing next to me during one. I told him that it was my gardening sneakers. Not wanting to take my new sneakers camping, I had donned my gardening sneakers. After the second fall I looked at the soles: they were slippery smooth with no tread. (I tossed them as soon as I had a chance.)

Besides the falls and exhaustion (I carried a collapsible camp chair and sat down any time I wasn’t moving from place to place.) I had mental confusion. I couldn’t remember the date: I was confident it lay somewhere between August 14 and 30 but could get no closer. I’d been planning this campout with all four grandkids, Jim, and Sam and Savannah for months. But the date was not accessible in my brain.

All of that and I blamed the falls on my no-tread sneakers.

How often do we see ourselves clearly? Do we blame our circumstances on no-tread sneakers?

After the campout, my doctor discovered a kidney infection and with a simple course of antibiotics (Thank you, Alexander Fleming!) I recovered. In August I slept ten hours out of every twenty four. Now I’m back to eight and have two more hours in my day.

Is this a harbinger of old age? I know a woman, older than me, who had to use a walker. Then she embarked in some serious physical therapy. Now she is walker-free. We all run down eventually, if we’re blessed to live long enough. This time I recovered.

Grape Jelly

 I love jam and jelly. My mom taught me to make jam (jelly always seemed so much more work and besides, I like fruit pulp.) We specialized in tomato jam (seasoned with cinnamon and cloves). These days I make cranberry-rhubarb and blueberry.

One day, I wanted a snack, something small and light. I opened the fridge and got out the jar of Welch’s grape jelly. I never buy the stuff: I’ve graduated to Trappist brand. The Welch’s probably entered the house during a family reunion last summer (and is still unfinished a year later). I took a spoonful and had such a feeling of wellbeing: I thought it was the sugar.

But the next time I craved a spoonful, a memory came to mind: a bitter penicillin pill tucked in a spoonful of grape jelly and offered by my mom. I realized that grape jelly, which nowadays I regularly eschew, is a comfort food for me.

I had an odd relationship with pills as a young girl. It was an ordeal for me to swallow pills. I still have trouble, even though I have plenty of practice. Between vitamins and psych meds, I swallow ten pills a day. And I still occasionally gag.

One day my mom and I came upon a solution (when the jelly wasn’t sufficient). I kneaded some white bread into a mass of goo and wrapped the pill completely. Without the bitter taste I was able to swallow it. Mom pointed out that the wrapped pill was larger and should be harder to swallow, but for me the wrapping was just what I needed to get the pill down.

I probably won’t make a habit of buying a large jar of Welch’s grape jelly. My homemade cranberry-rhubarb jam and Trappist’s blueberry, cherry, and ginger, hold charms Welch’s can’t match. But the grape jelly warms something in the deep recesses of my heart.