Category: Essays

The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

This is day Seven in the Seven Solid Days of Smiling Salute To the Original Unsplit Atom for bursting forth into the Big Bang of Bounty that is this life.

Day 1 – Emily

Day 2 – Music

Day 3 – Magic

Day 4 – Cheese

Day 5 – Sleep

Day 6 – Nature

Whew!  I made it.  Seven full days of gratitude.  And it didn’t hurt at all.

This list could only end in this way — In this life, I could have no deeper gratitude than that I have for my sweet partner, Susie.  She makes all things better.

I could list for you the innumerable talents she has (all you would have to do is walk by the kitchen for the last few days to get an idea about some of her amazing abilities), but that wouldn’t come close to describing what she is to me.

She is the heart of our home, the nurturer to our children (both human and canine), and the vice-president of git ‘er done.  She is the most constant part of my life.  There is a moment when a partner, especially one that your society won’t allow you to marry, becomes family — that never-going-away, gonna-be-there-always, you’re-stuck-with-me-for-the-long-haul, no-deal-breakers kind of family.  I can’t say for sure when that moment is; all I can say is that we’ve had it.   It’s a subtle, quiet rite of passage that you can only see once you’re beyond it.   And then, the love of your life becomes your life.

She makes every day Thanksgiving for me.  One of the biggest reasons why I can live a life of gratitude is because she’s in it.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  May your blessings be too many to count.

Places Where I’ve Met God

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

This is day six in the Seven Solid Days of Smiling Salute To the Original Unsplit Atom for bursting forth into the Big Bang of Bounty that is this life.

Day 1 – Emily

Day 2 – Music

Day 3 – Magic

Day 4 – Cheese

Day 5 – Sleep

A late afternoon winter sky when the impending darkness could either be the muted setting sun behind low clouds or an approaching storm.

Sunset at Sedona with the red rocks rimming the canyon becoming animate in the last reflections of light from just another day in just another millenium.

The forever wetness of the rocks and leaves along the rivers of the Smoky Mountains where the fairies live.

Waves the size of buildings exploding on the lava rock shore of the Big Island.

Snow sloping to the gutters on a Michigan morning.

Rain as steady as a drum and playing encores all day long.

This happy little valley I call home, where I marvel at the continuous life-cycle of leaves, and burn brush on a winter afternoon, and drink the wine of communion with the hickories and oaks and maples, and walk out to feed the dogs on cold, rainy mornings, stand close by while they eat in huge gulps, and then walk back to the gate with one on each side, licking my hands.

One last taste or gratitude.  I can never tell.

Small Magic

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

This is day three in the Seven Solid Days of Smiling Salute To the Original Unsplit Atom for bursting forth into the Big Bang of Bounty that is this life.

Day 1 – Emily

Day 2 – Music

My grandson, Triston, is spending the night with us as I write this.  Earlier this evening he pulled a funny looking thing from the bedside jar where Susie keeps her pens for her nightly Sudoku.   The object in question is a twisted wooden stick with an amethyst on top.  It’s real purpose is to stick in a twist of hair to hold it up off your neck.  There must be a name for something like that, but I don’t know what it is.  However, I feel a personal obligation to answer any question Triston asks me with some degree of authority.   It’s the natural teacher in me, or perhaps the natural bullshitter.

“What’s this, DeeDee?”  He turned the witchy-looking stick around in his hands, perhaps looking for a writing point or an on button or a purpose of some kind.

“It’s a magic wand.”

“No, it isn’t,” and then a little less certainly, “is it?”

“Sure.  It’s Mimi’s Mini Magic Wand.  It’s for small magic.”

“Show me.”

Oh, boy.  I hesitated, but only for a second.  Triston has all the actual, factual, literal, fundamental information he needs from all the other sources in his life.  I rarely miss the chance to sprinkle a little mysticism his way.

“Okay, sit on the bed facing me.  C’mon, Mimi, join the circle.”  I motioned Susie into our midst and then held the wand in front of me, the amethyst suddenly sizzling like a campfire in front of us.  “What do you need magic to do for you, Triston?”

He didn’t have to think about it long.  “I want to fly.”

Damn.  “Well, Triston, most people don’t know this, but magic still has to work with the natural laws of the universe.  Magic can do a lot, but it can’t make gravity disappear.”  Okay, so it’s the natural bullshitter in me.  Actually, I believe magic probably could make someone fly, but he was just a child and I was only a baby spell-caster, so I thought we had better take it slow.  “What else would you like magic to do for you?”

He didn’t have to ponder this one at all.  “I want a four-wheeler.”

I started to say something to direct him away from the material world.  He had been out of sorts all night, whiny, demanding, rude, and difficult.  I knew something was bothering him and maybe he didn’t even know what it was.  I was hoping he would say that he wanted his mommy to be sweeter or his daddy to spend more time with him or his new baby sister to be fun to play with.  I was hoping for a clue about his mood.  But then I had the intuitive thought that I shouldn’t invalidate his desires, especially during a seven-year-old funkfest.

“Okay.  A four-wheeler it is.  Everybody focus on Triston’s new four-wheeler.  We are setting our intention for Triston to have the desires of his heart.  We don’t tell magic when or where or how.  We just tell magic that Triston would like a four-wheeler.  We see Triston riding his four-wheeler through a big field on a beautiful summer day . . . with his helmet on.”  (Even mystical grandmothers are still grandmothers.)  And we know that magic is working already to bring Triston his four-wheeler in the perfect way and at the perfect time.”

All night long, Triston had been distant, shut down, just not present with us.  But, I peeked at him during this “incantation” and saw an unfiltered expression of pure belief.  His eyes were squinted closed in prayerful concentration.  His hand rested atop mine on the “magic wand.”  I wondered if I could ever again believe as deeply as he was believing in that moment.   And then I said, with renewed conviction, “And so it shall be.”

This was as much for me as it was for him.  I’ll be watching for that four-wheeler to show up in Triston’s life.  I’m going to fight the urge to go put one on a credit card and leave it on his front lawn on Christmas morning just so he’ll believe in magic.  Instead, I’m going to believe in magic too and wait to see how it unfolds.

Let The Band Play On

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Of all the arts to burst forth from the creative spirit of humanity, there is none greater than music.  A musician is a painter, architect and thespian.  Without music, the world would be a soul-less place. 

I’ve seen music silence a room of rowdy drunks, unite a quarreling mob, change apathy to action and anger to peace. 

It is the intersection of art and science.  It’s the neighborhood bar where math buys sound a few drinks and they sneak away to copulate harmony into existence.  It’s the church social where poetry and percussion break bread together.  It’s the marriage altar of profound emotion and perfect pitch. 

Friends singing around a piano is the greatest form of communion, and wine is necessary for this particular Lord’s Supper as well. 

Music has broken my heart and healed it again. 

Love and music are the only two things I know of that can truly change the world.  They’ve both changed mine.