Friendship

It has been a long time since I had anything to say, apparently. I didn't realize how much time had passed since the "thinmint" episode but it has been a lot. Several things have happened that probably deserve a blog, but today I want to write about friends.

We are all used to a routine and as we grow in responsibilities there is less and less room for our friends. There are certain people that you see just because their circles intersect with yours, and others that you go months or even years without running into. At some point these friends may have had a circle that coincided with yours, and now you have just moved forward.

I find myself being unsuccessful with pursuing those whom I have no occasion to run into. It can be sort of difficult because of schedules or locations but for whatever reason I just don't get around to pursuing them in the ways that I would like to. The wonderful thing however, that keeps me from feeling terrible about this lack on my part, is that because of the time I did share with different individuals, we have a bond, and even if it is not nurtured daily, we have the memory of the time when it was. It makes all friends, current and past and future valuable for the different places they occupy in my life.

This past weekend I got a package in the mail, and it was one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever opened. It was a jar, filled to the brim, with pennies. Hand painted on the outside were the words, "thoughts of you". What a gift to share with someone you love- that even if you do not tell them or speak to or see them regularly, that they are always close to your heart.

Friendship of this caliber is such a valuable reminder to me that I have been fortunate in my life to find amazing individuals. Even if they are far from me now, we share the common experience of having learned to know and love one another.

Some Days You Need a Thinmint

Girl scout cookies- I would like there to be a time when the sale of these wonderful things may actually be a nationally recognized week to celebrate, on par with some of the other weeks- National Boss Week, National Step-Grandparents Week, National Luncheon Meat Awareness Week. However, unlike some, these cookies really are something to have a week for. I am not lobbying for another nonsensical holiday, per say, but the truth is, if you don't have a "contact" that knows the inner workings of the marketing time, you are at the mercy of your community to remind you. And, who wants to miss out on Thinmints?? or Samoa's for that matter? Certainly not me.

This year I wanted to be loyal to the lovely family that delivered (late) my huge order of cookies. I am not usually an advocate of buying 10 boxes of cookies, but they DO have to last the whole year. So, I waited. And waited. And waited. No one came to my door, and no one asked me to buy. Are these cookies so well known now that we must seek them out? Apparently so. Since no one came, I did not order. And, for the last month I have really really wanted a Thinmint. Sadly, I passed by the one display I did see in favor of the non-existent order that I thought was coming. I gave up and tried to come to terms with the fact that this was going to be a year without the special addition of Girl scout cookies.

As I was driving to the beach this weekend I briefly felt a sense of renewed hope. A minivan beside me had painted on the back in huge letters: "I HAVE COOKIES" with an arrow pointing down. On the side it said, "LAST CHANCE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES". I did what any desperate person does as they are taking a road trip and are 4 hours away from home, I rolled down the window and gestured wildly at the people in the van. My roommate took the initiative when they rolled down their window and said, "We want cookies!!" The man driving smiled and said, "what kind?" We were grabbed with panic. Did we even have cash to purchase these lovelies on us? Would they take a check? What would we ask for? She took the initiative again and said, "Thin mints!" Ahhh, the best cookie of them all. Guess what he said?

Yes, that is right. He said what you would expect :( "They are all gone."

Oh well, at least we tried. Thank goodness Edie's Ice Cream is now carrying the seasonal ice cream for the magical National Girl Scout Cookie Awareness Week- Thinmint, Samoa and Tagalong.

What Do You Do with a Kangaroo?

I love to read. Growing up this title was one of my favorite books. From an early age my mother did the thing that nurtured a child's imagination like nothing else. She took me to the library. Every week we had loads of books and we knew the librarians by name, they were our friends. Going to the library was not just about going to see them, or getting new books, it was a trip into the land of imagination and fantasy. Mom would study the illustrators and track their new books, the pictures being just as important as the stories for transporting us into different places. I learned how to solve problems, how to think about things from different points of view, how to empathize with people that had challenges that I knew nothing about. Even though she is gone now, the love of reading that she gave me remains, and to this day I find little that compares with the exhilaration and contentment of curling up and reading a new book.

All of this is a preamble to one thing that has been on my mind of late. How do you solve the problem of watching things move forward in someone's life that you love while yours goes in the opposite direction? I know there must be at least one story I read that helped me learn this lesson, but right now I am at a loss for which it was. I think all of us who know this issue are struggling. Happy with our own direction but bereft when we think of those we love moving into another one. Losing my husband was a different lesson- it was one in how to handle being a single entity when I had been operating as a double. This is not the same kind of thing- it is more like how to operate with a whole part of those who make up your family identity, absent, and at the same time- finding joy in it. The first thing (loss) is easy in that regard. No one expects you to be happy about it. You are given freedom to be sad and even angry. The second issue is open. I know my sis is glad to allow feelings of sadness, but I want to be happy. I do not want to mourn her leaving! I want to rejoice at this new and wonderful place that she is moving into. So, I can't find the answer in "What Do You Do with a Kangaroo". But if anyone can think of a good solution- I would love to hear it.

Arrrgg! Tagged!

Okay okay, I will play your little game. I have been tagged by Melissa and asked to share 7 things about myself. I however, being a person that hates chain mail, and email forwards, will not tag someone else. (Does that count as one? I guess maybe...)

1. I hate voicemail. I guess it all started with the invention of the answering machine. The obligation to check your messages, the problems with listening on and on, usually to a redundant message, and the fact that- if I am not at home, do I really need to hear what you have to say??? Thus with voicemail it is the same. If I am not able to get a call, then I will find out later- my phone tells me which calls I missed, so why do you also feel like you have to leave me a detailed message that I will here in full in just a few minutes or hours?? The only thing worse than voicemail is when you miss the call, call the person back and interrupt the long voicemail they were just leaving you. Then not only do you have to hear it twice, once from them and once from the machine- you can't avoid hearing it twice- cause that icon is on your phone now, and you know you have to make it go away!

2. I love email. Just as the recorded messages annoy, the email is a strange sort of happiness for me. I go to my computer and, woot! someone left me a little note. It is like waking up and opening a present. The only time I do not like this is when someone stupid like buy.com decides to email me- or when I get back to the computer after being out of town and see 10 emails (woot!) only to find that 8 of them are from my non-friends like target.com and harristeeter weeekly specials :(

3. I love the colors in nature. Fall was magnificent, and spring is here, and a sunset or (if I am awake) a sunrise is always something to make me stop and smile. I know they are just atoms and particles, chemicals and pollution all working together in the sky, or that they are genetically predetermined to be different colored leaves or flowers, but they are so refreshing that I can't help but enjoy the nature around me.

4. I HATE Wal-mart. With a passion. If I never ever had to go there again, I would be much happier, but inevitably, it is cheaper and easier to get it at the awful place and I end up being greeted insincerely, again.

5. I play an online MMO game called WoW. This may be a shocker for some of you; but I don't find People Magazine, or sitcoms, or TV shows interesting at all. I actually watch about 1 hour of TV a month. I do love movies, but that is different. My preference for down time on any given night is to log into the virtual world of my game, and go run an "instance" or a "raid". Anyone that doesn't understand those terms should google it- you may have a gamer in you and just never knew it! And, praises to Melissa, she has gone above and beyond the supportive sister role and actually learned the terminology and asks regularly how things are in my "guild". I mean, to be loved and not judged- an amazing gift.

6. I hate being late, and always am. This is a sad sad state of affairs for which I blame my father. Yes, Dad, if you are reading this- though you gave me many good things- this is not one of them. The logic goes like this for those of you who know the Wimmer Sisters and our sad story of tardiness. "I do not want to have to get there and wait. Surely I have 10 minutes to ___(substitute in something that takes exactly 10 minutes in the best case scenario that never ever happens). Surely it won't take me more than ____(substitute in a random number of minutes that you estimate your driving, walking, running distance to said meeting place is, and subtract 5). So I have time to do it!! I promise for all of you that hate waiting for us, or that hate ever being late yourselves, that it is not a conscious decision to disrespect our friends, or to be tardy. WE HATE BEING LATE!!! Sadly, our failed logic was taught before we were out of diapers and reinforced for the 18 years after, and it just rears its ugly head every time we have a meeting.

7. An additional habit, that is slightly related in historical genetics is this one: when I am preparing to go out of town on a driving vacation I must achieve on the last day of departure all of the chores, errands and extra maintenance things that I have been putting off for the last 3 months. I must exchange mis-sized clothes at Ross, I must get the car's oil changed or inspection checked, go to the university and turn in a form that I have been carrying around since last fall, I must go to the store and pick out birthday cards for someone who is having a birthday in a month, I must clean and organize the guest closet, and absolutely, I must clean and rearrange all the furniture in the house. Maybe not these exact things, but always, things as daunting as this, must be done, in the last 12 hours before departure. And, of course, if I only have 3 of those errands left to do before I leave at 1pm, and its 1250- well that's 10 whole minutes, so I have time!!

One of these Days...

Along with the hope that comes from the last post, is the goal setting, the planning, the carpe diem. I know, it's a cliche. You say to yourself, "I am going to seize the day! Tomorrow I will dust off that old journal, or that old bike, or that old guitar..." And tomorrow comes, and the old thing, the old part of you that once took so much priority is left sitting in the corner, collecting dust, feeling like an empty teapot.
At this point, you have a choice. You can stop doing whatever it is that makes you neglect the old thing, the dishes, the work, the other hobbies, and go pick it up. Or, you can recognize a bigger truth outside of the guilt of not reaching out to that part of you that was and is no longer a priority. I think for right now, I am going to choose the latter.
This is what that really says to me: Yes, at one time the old journal was very important. I toiled over it and worked to give it attention, a little more all the time. Does that mean that now- years later, that is not a part of who I am? No, of course not. Should I feel guilty that I am no longer pursuing a great love of my life by not using it? Again the answer is no. The truth as I see it, is that those musings, those things of before that now gather dust are important. They are important because without them I would not be sitting here writing about them- they have shaped the person that I am. What is also important are the things that are getting all of my attention now. They are shaping me as we speak, and in a few years they may be gathering dust as I transition into a new phase of discovering the world around me and myself inside of it.
I guess what I take away from this is that we are all dynamic. We move, we change, we grow. There is always a way that we are "carpe diem", but it may not always be the way that we think we should be or the way that we think we are. Yet, if we are willing to relax and trust that we are where we should be, doing what we should be doing, I believe, that when we get to the end- we will be pleasantly suprised at the beautiful quilting of experiences that lies before us. So, I will not say that I will get to something "one of these days". Instead I will say- today is the day. And today is what it is- thank goodness for that.

"If there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for me"

When I was younger one of my first poems was called, "The Why Stage" where I mused on the time in children's lives that is filled with wonder. The age where, everything is a question and all things hold the possibility of fantasy and amazing surprises. Santa Clause is real, and the reason that you see the moon following the car home late at night is because the man in the moon is watching you. I remember when writing it, already feeling disillusioned at my own cynicism. Of course, being a teen and full of angst this is normal, right?
Interestingly enough, I think that it is the "why stage" that is both annoying and developmentally crucial for all of us. Anyone who is awake enough to ask questions has to go through this more than once. How many times have movies made you hope for the impossible, even as adults? Or what about just moving through the tangible world, and secretly hoping for the intangible to pop out at you? I mean, of course there will never be a dinosaur in the park, or a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it. We all know why there are shooting stars and it is not because of a king's necklace knocking one out of the sky. There are no fire swamps with rodents of unusual size, and if there are screaming eels- they are not throwing themselves at the ground to miss so that they can fly. The good guy does not always win, and usually the truth is not nearly as beautiful as it could be in our minds.
Or is it?
There is something about this great diverse mess of humanity that still amazes and boggles my mind. It is the hope and tenacity of the human spirit. Even though we know real, we hope for beauty. When surrounded with walls, we hope for flowers to come out of the cracks. We seek for stories that remind us of love, of light, of courage or passion, of the incredible. And sometimes, we find them.
Walking down a sidewalk, or up a steep mountain pass with my eyes on my feet I doubt. I doubt that there is anything to be amazed by, anything miraculous, anything except the cold hard rock and my feet going forward. I get so caught up in my own progress that I forget to look, forget to ask why. But, if we do not doubt, where is there room in our hearts to be proven wrong by the unbelievable?
Some days, you can be going along with the destination all mapped out, and there, right in front of you- is a piece of your imagination. Most days, it is just a dirt path, but knowing that you can be surprised, and wanting to be, is the thing that makes me know that doubt is not a thing to be despised, but a tool that sifts away the loose stuff and reveals rocks of hope.