Virginia

There is a saying that we all create our own reality every day.  I can't help wondering then why we are so obsessed with the reality "shows" we seem to love. 

I confess that I have not seen more than a few snips of "people shouting at each other, people falling over, people ruining other people's houses" -- well, I do admit I have watched more than a few snips of people ruining other people's houses.  And the quote is from an episode of AS TIME GOES BY, when the characters are trying to find an evening's entertainment.

If there are threads that connect us, we have to understand which of them have the strength to endure.  Otherwise, we will not be certain that the fabric of our lives can hold.  But how can we test these strings of connection?  So many are ephemoral. But those just might be the strongest if tested.

Wisps of conversation, whispers of encouragement, a flower full of scent yet the petals falling -- offerings of comfort, offerings of hope -- these matter.  These are real.

We have seen many wonderful performances at the Hollywood Bowl, so it is hard to pick just one that is the best, or the first one that sticks in the top of my mind.  The first time we took our kids, ages 8 and 10, we sat in the very last row ($1.00 seats back then), and saw Victor Borge way down on the stage.  We didn't have binoculars, but because the sound was so good we didn't miss a thing.  Our son was transfixed, our daughter enraptured, and they both have been fans of both Borge and the Bowl, ever since.  That was back in the 1980's.

The phrase make believe has become especially intriguing to me now that I have three grandchildren.  The power of it is absolutely astonishing and compelling.  The grandchildren are ages 5, 4, and 2.  And they all can do this make believe stuff really well. 

What they do not seem to need is artifacts from somebody else's make believe, entrepreneurial and costly as it may be.  Disney -- step aside.  Barbie -- step aside.

I have a whole cache of fairy, princess, fancy-dancy, and fire chief costumes.  What they always choose, in the end, is an old scarf or scrap of fabric, a feather, and some cardboard thing of their own design.  And they will it all to work.  And it does.

They have created whole worlds of baking, dancing, puppet drama and shows requiring hand-made tickets, curtains from bed sheets, and audience participation without much help from the 99 cent store or the Disney store that I so willingly provide.

I have been hauling and storing boxes, bags, and trunks of other people's things for the last four years.  The collection started long before, actually, but in the last few years there have been so many important family changes that the stuff in my life has exploded out of any reasonable proportion.   I have made several attempts to manage this unwieldy and oppressive baggage.  Sometimes I actually do take old clothes, old dishes, old toasters to the folks at the Good Will because they will take almost anything. 

THIRTY SIX YEARS, one month and 15 days ago we
moved into our starter house.

We had a plastic couch, a double bed, a maple tree,
a lemon tree, a lime tree,
three elms, three apricot trees,
a broken rabbit hutch,
a half-finished stable,
and a dog.

Two weeks after we moved in, we started a baby.

In the fall our son was born.

In December one of my grandmothers died.
She used to make the dog dance to get the butter on her fingers.