Snow Down

Let's talk about snow. I love it for many reasons. For me, it's all or nothing. Give me a blizzard. I like to shovel it. Yes, especially when it's newly packed, untrodden, smooth. As I scoop it up and toss it, I'm reminded of white icing on a stacked wedding cake, so pure and sweet. Snow is delicious.

Am I on a diet? No. I was just shoveling a path to my mailbox today and thinking how snow makes the landscape look so much more beautiful in the winter. Sticking to the frames of houses and naked trees, it illuminates the lines of every structure and plant. It covers the spots in my fence that need repair, the leaves I never raked, the barren garden. A real snowstorm is the only one worth while. It has the power to force life to a halt. Snow is a trillion white sticky notes falling from the sky on which God has written,

"Slow Down!"

I was born in a snow storm. When I was under the age of ten I remember high piles of new fallen snow in my yard. So much white that the road disappeared and my father would walk us down to the the hill near Robert Moses Causeway. We'd stamp down the street in boots and layered clothes pulling red plastic sleds. The sounds were muffled, and suburbia transformed into a magical white crystal forest.

Back home I'd lay my gloves and hat on the radiator and then sit on top of the pile. There's nothing like a seat of old-fashioned hot pipes. My feet were thawed, my cheeks ruddy from the cold. The only logical thing to do next was watch television and eat popcorn. Life is good.

Vision

I'm starting to see where I'm going in life, if that's possible. When I was younger I had certain ideas as to what I might become, both personally and professionally. In high school I had particular teachers whom I admired for different reasons. Gazing at them I could envision my adult life being very similar. My teachers, ironically, advised me NOT to become one myself. I, however, lured by the prospect of immersing myself and a captive audience in the details of classic literature, did not listen. So I became a high school English teacher for a while, despite the warnings. After some practice, I can say with certainty that this is a job I can do well, but I've also learned, as the Cat in the Hat says,

"That's not all I can do, oh, no, that's not all."

Writing is something I've always been driven to do, more so than other hobbies. I have a box of diaries from when I was growing up. I suppose it's an outlet. In college I'd enter a literary magazine contest each fall, in hopes of winning some extra cash to spend on Christmas presents. Every year, I'd win something, and I realized I could probably write for a living as an alternative career, if I chose it.

Personally, I had a secret goal first for family, children specifically. Making family a priority over my personal career goals, as scary and uncomfortable as that was, I admit, revealed to me other life opportunities. For example, youth ministry has been a way to meld my excitement for teaching with the chance to give teens the gift of strengthening their faith. Through this experience, I've learned that spiritual development is far more important than academic development, because it bolsters one's perseverance and endurance. I would not have had an opportunity to do the work I currently do (in youth ministry) if I did not leave teaching to raise children.

When I was a child my father lectured me a lot, and strangely, I enjoyed it. In fact, when I grew up and moved away from my parents, I missed those lectures. One of his little talks involved perspective. He said that we can only see so much in life, and that some aspects are blocked from our sight. He compared it to looking down the cardboard tube that is left after all the paper towels are used up. He explained that only God can see the whole picture, and that's where faith comes in on the part of humans.

Like he explained, it seems that I go through life with some invisible handicaps. Despite this lack of vision, I'm beginning to see threads in my life. I can see links between my strengths and talents, and ways that I can use those gifts on my journey. I'm not sure what I will do next, as my children pass out of diapers and I gain more freedom again, but I am certain that it will be very fulfilling. As long as I stay open to opportunities, and keep focused on my strengths, then inevitably I will make choices that lead to my growth.

As a new year begins I try to focus on this vision that I've been chiseling out for myself. Slowly, some form is realized. I hope that when my journey is over that I will have achieved my full potential, whether I think so or not.

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

- Yogi Berra

Picture is from Flickr

Hottest Christmas Toy for Dumbest Generation of Parents Ever Born

This, readers, is supposedly one of the hottest toys for the 2008 holiday season. This thing costs $39.99. It looks like something Baby Bigfoot dug out of his nose. Am I getting old, or is this country going to hell in a hand basket?

Let's bring back the good old days, when dad went out in a blizzard on Christmas Eve, spent six hours standing on line, and fought off three crazed 80's moms with triangular metal earrings to get me Pauly Jason Cabbage Patch Kid. At least that toy resembled a human. Sorry Muhammad Ali, but my dad is the greatest.

As a grandfather now, Dad says I need to make my kids more afraid of me, (as they climb on his lap and box his ears). I know he's right. Maybe if I buy one of these yucky things, that will make me scarier. Problem solved, dad. Thank you, China!

Meet Little Loren

As a little girl, I am afraid of the dark. I'm one of those kids who doesn't like to go to bed at night, to my parents' dismay. As soon as the nightlight goes on I cry for mommy, only stopping to listen intently to my parents verbal struggle over what to do about me. If the verdict is to ignore me, then I resume crying, louder. I do this because I'm sure monsters live in my pillow. They have shaggy orange fur, (it's the '70's). I can't let my arm or foot dangle over the side of the bed, even on the hottest summer nights, because an "ugly breen witch" waits to grab me from beneath it! An open window is a bad idea, a gargoyle could climb through it and take me to his cave where his blue brothers will roast me. I dare not look at the open closet door; the ghost hiding in my hanging clothes might see that I am still awake.

On the whole, night time is bad and scary for little Loren. Besides, I'm not tired. Sometimes, after a nightmare, I stay frozen in my bed, the covers up to my eyes, until I can muster enough courage up to run into my parents' room and climb into bed with them. After a few minutes there, I'm ready to face the horrors of my own bedroom again. Sleeping next to dad is not comfortable. His big body cooks me, and his snore is louder that any imagined creature that might visit me in the darkness just beyond my own bed covers. Like a soldier running through open gunfire, I scamper back to my own bed and jump under the covers. As I start to feel sleepy, I ask my little self: How could mom sleep next to such a loud, sweaty person?

Dad

A place he likes to be is in the garden
Or on a rotting dock with water sloshing
He casts his reel and listens to the winding.

We travel down small asphalt roads
And thoughts form casual conversation.
He's one person
who can break the surface,
Open the can of worms;
The air releases.

Once I had small tufts of hair.
He lifted me up so my head would be
Above the water.
Through an ageless chewing of waves
His shoulders are a dry seat.
Dad never lets me down.

Fences

The neighborhood where I play as a child is a typical Long Island suburb. Houses change colors like mood rings; the neighbor's car alarm is our equivalent of Big Ben. My father works an extra job pumping gas so we can move into the smallest cape on the block. My mother likes the school district.

I’m four years old when we pull into the driveway for the first time. I’m wearing my puffy orange coat with the synthetic fur hood. There is no fence separating the backyard from the front, which will soon change. Our steps echo in the empty house. Mom says every room smells like a dog. The attic space becomes our bedrooms. Mine is painted "happy, stay in your own bed at night" yellow. The kitchen has a "vintage" red refrigerator with a big gash in the front, and neighbors tell tales of an old lady who died standing at the stove, stirring a pot of soup. The neighborhood kids add some extra flair to the story. "It was a secret witch's brew," they whisper through holes in the fence. I don't like the house; I crinkle my nose and set my feet in the dirt near the stoop, refusing to go through the door. I want to go back to our apartment.

Mr. Carlo is the old man across the street. His garden is barricaded with chicken wire, off limits to the children of the neighborhood, but every so often our kickball ends up tangled in his tomato plants. Then there is hell to pay. On one such occasion, he takes a few of us into the basement of his yellow stucco house. On a high shelf is a garden snake suspended in a bag of liquid.

"Dis is whata happen to chil'ren who a go in a garden," he snickers, his bony finger waving angrily in the direction of the bag.

We run.

One day, mom has enough of Mr. Carlo. With the neighborhood kids standing beside me, I watch in horror as she storms through his gate, past his beloved garden, to knock crisply on the door. This is the same day he tells us it is okay to eat the mushrooms that grow on his lawn. We stand silent, imagining the confrontation taking place beyond his fence. Moments later, she comes through his gate, snapping it closed with vigor, and marching past us like Rosie the Riveter. Mr. Carlo never yells at us again.