Sunlight.

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Although I prefer a rainy day to a sunny one, I will say this about sunlight: it can make even the most drab of items shine.

Discarded junk takes on a heavenly aura when the sun is out. The colors found in a pile of trash make up a rainbow of history.

Mother Nature takes on a new dimension. The restful blue of an ocean becomes more vibrant and reminds us of the life teeming beneath the surface, a world otherwise more hushed — if not downright silent — when a blanket of clouds selfishly halts the sun from spotlighting the sea. The calming green of our gardens is brightened, a reminder that both the cloud’s rainy offerings and heaven’s light are equally important. Dull tree bark is brought into focus — sharpened — as tiny blemishes speak of its history and life to-date.

It can make the most ordinary of items extraordinary: a paperclip is transformed from matte to sparkling. Birdseed is no longer an array of browns and golds — it’s a field of grain shimmering under a vast, Midwest sky. Eyes are no longer a single color — they’re a kaleidoscope when the rays work their magic. And a downturned mouth is all but begging to smile once again as sunlight makes its way into our laugh lines — lines which remind us that where there was once a smile, another shall come in time. Lines which remind us of the people who helped create them.

Tonight, for the beauty of sunlight, the unique perspective it happily shares with us and the never-ending array of silver lining moments it can grant for both the common and the uncommon, I am thankful.

Halloweenland.

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I’ve never been a big candy fan, except for when it comes to most chocolate varieties — particularly those that shack up with peanut butter — and Smarties.

Who else remembers those tiny pastel tablets that practically dissolved into a sugary cloud the moment they touched your tongue? I used to crush them all up until they made a tiny mountain of candy sand and then I’d lick my finger, touch it to the powder, then eat. Lick, powder, eat. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Each year I’m reminded of how many people enjoy decorating for Halloween. There’s a tiny home just around the corner and, for most of the year, its white picket fence sets is apart as a sweet, unassuming house. Come October, however, it’s a graveyard. Purple twinkle lights are draped around the fence, cotton batting spider webs are strewn between the front porch posts, an orange twinkle light spider web is hung from the peak over the front door, and faux tombstones with zombie hands coming out of the ground adorn the lawn.

Another street seems to favor the inflatable props. Tonight, a giant [read: the size of about nine sumo wrestlers] inflatable black cat watched me pass by; its head turned as I walked from east to west. Admittedly, it was a little creepy. I suppose that was the point. The inflatable castle had inflatable ghosts emerging from its windows; an inflatable tree had an inflatable bat perched atop its branches.

Inflatable overkill.

A few more blocks away is another neighborhood known for its empty nesters and neatly manicured gardens. These residents seemed to prefer simple wreaths of twigs, fall foliage and autumn-colored ribbons along with Halloween-themed house flags over the more gaudy decorations. Interestingly, I fall into this camp. About three decades early, but hey — I like to prepare.

The temperature dipped when I was in my final half-mile, and suddenly the air was filled with a sweetness that was unmistakable: Smarties. They were heavy on the breeze and I loved it. It was like a sugar rush minus the calories — my thoughts were taken back to sitting on the living room floor and dumping out a large, plastic, black-handled pumpkin. The trick-or-treat loot would be methodically separated, counted, frozen, then rationed for the next six months. Ah, childhood.

Who knows why we celebrate Halloween, but we do. Maybe we’re reliving our younger years, or maybe we’re creating the ones that we never had. Maybe it’s simply a good excuse to get together with friends, to have a good laugh over a good scare, to revel in a haunted house, to enjoy a costume (though, if you’re me, you seem to come across men who enjoy wearing them throughout the year — yikes), to remember a loved one’s favorite “holiday” or to simply carve a pumpkin and roast its seeds. Whatever the reason, there may be as many people as there as reasons to celebrate it, but they’re all fun to sit back and observe. Tonight, for Halloween in the air and for its characters on display that took me back to my younger years, I am thankful.

A new light.

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I’ve never much cared for it, as I’d prefer a pepper, fern pine or white birch tree to the carrotwood that’s in front of the house. But tonight I found new love for it.

It recently received a haircut, and this evening it seemed to be standing more tall and proud than usual. It used to have a friend on the other side of the yard, but said friend was wreaking havoc on the concrete and had to be taken out.

Through the freshly pruned branches and sparse leaves, the sky appeared a lovely, dark shade of charcoal gray. The only thing darker was the shadow of the tree itself. A week ago, pre-haircut, the thing was so dense that looking out the window meant seeing nothing more than pure black. Now there is shading to the night.

I’m not sure why I’m not a fan of the carrotwood tree. Perhaps I’ve grown up with them and I equate it to something old, something vintage, something dingy and decidedly part of the ’70s. Maybe it’s because I stepped on one too many of its miniature pumpkin-shaped pods as a child — pods which felt about as good as stepping on a tiny pine cone. I admit that my tree envy takes up the better part of my evening walks. Here a jacaranda, there a weeping willow — oh, how I love a good tree.

But I saw the carrotwood in a new light a while ago — literally. Its waxy, substantial, long oval leaves were reflecting the moonlight, and it was shimmering. Yes, my old, boring carrotwood was illuminated. It was almost glowing; its halo seemed to fit it quite well. It’s like it had been reborn.

Sometimes the things we’ve had the longest are the things that begin to adopt a dulling patina. Over the years, that which we never scrutinized and perhaps even enjoyed suddenly becomes something we’re less than enamored with, and that we might even wish we could be rid of. Maybe we compare it to what our friends have, what strangers have, or maybe we just long for a new view. Whatever the case, the tried and true can seem dusty and drab in the blink of an eye. But what was a bushy tree with gray-brown bark a few days ago became something new tonight — new because its recent refresh gave way to my eyes being opened to its renewed beauty. As I look out the window now, the halo is still there — perfectly in place and shining through the night. For a new, fresh view of the carrotwood and the realization that sometimes it’s not the old that becomes dated — it’s our way of looking at it — I am thankful.

The Light of Day

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I live just off a street that has seen better days.

About 25 years ago, maybe a little more, it was a street that saw the usual suburban activities: lots of kids playing on front lawns, dogs being walked, cats sprawled on front porches enjoying the sunlight, homeowners tending to flowerbeds. These days, many of those houses are the same — frozen in time — but there are a couple of questionable ones that the cops often visit. My crime-mapping app tells me there have been a few drug-related situations, which might explain the occasional helicopter shockingly close by, complete with its spotlight turning the night into day whenever it’s overhead in the evenings. Doesn’t do much to make a girl living alone feel the safest, but I grew up here so there’s something about that which makes me — for better or for worse — feel slightly invincible.

When I was in elementary school, my bedtime was 8 o’clock — maybe 8:30 if something educational or worthwhile was on TV. Last weekend I drove down said questionable street around 10pm and a gaggle of kids — all around 7-10 years of age — were playing in it, yelling and getting in the way of cars as they tried to pass by. (Shouldn’t they be in bed at that hour…? Where are their parents…?) As I tried to make it to my cul-de-sac, they lifted their skateboards and pretended like they were about to take a swing at my car. For the record, that would be an unwise move on anyone’s part.

They were, of course, unruly kids being unruly kids, and didn’t do any damage. As an SUV was approaching me and getting ready to turn onto my street, they saw me pause to let the other driver go first. But in their minds, I was stopping the car because I wasn’t amused by their antics. I think they thought I was going to come after them, because they scattered like leaves on a windy fall day, dropping their skateboards without hesitation on the sidewalk.

Heh.

I followed the SUV onto my street and that was that. Clearly I didn’t go after the kids (what was there to go after, anyway?), and I’m sure they resumed their activities a few short seconds later.

What’s funny about these kids is that I often see them during the day when I’m out and about running errands on the weekends. There are no skateboards being swung high in the air and no antics that inspire me to creep by them at a stalker-ish 5 mph, lest I need to slam on the brakes quickly. The light of day reveals exactly who they are, and their identity is clear — yet apparently they forget that if they’re “playing” in front of the same house during the evenings, not even the dark of night will fool anyone. We know who they are, and we have them figured out. To them, however, there is safety in numbers and the cover of darkness makes them impervious to responsibility, to being caught.

As humans, we’re sometimes be tempted to do things if we know we have a ready mask that hides us from the rest of the world or a little darkness to cover up our actions. But when the light of day comes and someone is there to watch us — only us, and without the support of anyone else — we may act differently: more trustworthy, more genuine, more angelic. It may be over something relatively small, or it might not. Regardless, I am thankful for the light those kids brought to a human truth and the need to act, however hard it might be at times, as though our movements and intentions are always illuminated for all to see.

Love Letters

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Have you ever kept something that had special meaning, filed it away, then come across it years later?

I do this a lot. I’ll keep birthday, Easter and Christmas cards, cards from my parents to my cat so that I can look back on them someday and count on a smile coming across my face when I need one the most, and I keep notes — thank you notes from friends whose baby showers, weddings and bridal showers I attended.

Tonight I came across a note that I haven’t seen in years — eight years and almost four months, to be exact. Somehow it made its way across the country with me when I moved home from Connecticut, as did an airline itinerary. When I was shredding some office stuff tonight, I came across it.

Lauren – I had a very good time. Enjoyed getting acquainted with your new world and have some wonderful memories to relive in my heart over the months ahead. Your new apartment is very nice — it is so “you” — tasteful and creatively elegant! I love you! -Mom

It was dated June 27th, the final day of my mom’s trip to visit me in Connecticut when I lived there. I don’t believe I saw it before we left for the airport, but when I returned from JFK, it was sitting there on my kitchen counter. It made me cry, because it was just like my mom to write one. When I was living in California, she’d send one or two a week even though I was only an hour away. In Connecticut, they were more frequent — recipes, letters she wrote while sitting at her computer and decided to send via snail-mail instead of dropping it into an email, “thinking of you” cards.

I can picture the exact spot where I found it when I returned home from the airport. It was resting on the gray-blue mottled Formica kitchen countertop, securely weighted down by my royal blue wrought iron cookbook stand which held a massive Better Homes and Gardens recipe book. At the time, I probably saved both it and her itinerary in the event the unthinkable happened and she never made it home — I was guaranteed to have at least one thing from mom nearby. But I realized tonight that the note has many meanings now.

It’s a reminder of a fairly tumultuous time in my life and how my parents’ support, despite a few thousand miles separating us, never waned. It’s a reminder of where my writing bug comes from. It’s a reminder that the small things in life — dropping a letter into a mailbox for someone or leaving one in a hidden place, then being on the receiving end of it — can be the most rewarding things. It’s a reminder that no matter how many silly, funny, sweet, corny or informative mailings I might get, there’s no doubt that love is tucked into the envelope each and every time.

Interestingly, I think it’s true what they say about moms: she knows best. Her choice of words is interesting to me now, years later. It’s as though she knew my time there was limited.

…some wonderful memories to relive in my heart over the months ahead.

Maybe “months” was nothing more than wishful thinking, or maybe she was willing that to be the case with her mom-powers. Either way, it came true. I moved back to California about nine months later, settled back into a job at the agency I’d left for Connecticut in the first place, and resumed life as I knew it.

Tonight I am thankful for finding the note that I’ve had safely tucked away for years and the meaning that has been added to it since 2005. It’s a reminder of a lot, not the least of which is the realization that some of the best love letters aren’t the mushy or romantic type, but the ones that are sent with love and written by family because we’re forever in their hearts and minds. What a beautiful, blessed gift.

Look & Learn

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One of the things I love most about lessons is that they can be found anywhere.

The pipe fixture that the garden hose connects to in the front of the house has a leak, and since it was hidden behind a few rose bushes and other shrubbery, the leak was essentially invisible.

At first, the signs were slight. Some peeling stucco here, a bit of dampness there — but either could have been due to the age of the house, the recent rain or the last time I had the sprinklers on. Upon further inspection, the problem seemed to go a bit deeper. An expert will need to be called in, because the main line appears to be involved.

Yesterday a couple of bushes were pulled out, exposing the situation and adding clarity. That small bit of peeling stucco was slightly larger than originally thought, and the dampness was very much due to the pipe. One only needed to listen closely and the sound of water dripping was audible.

Do you ever have people in life that seem to get you a bit off track? They might be your closest friends, maybe even family, a loved one or a colleague. At first their effect is welcome, but over time you can’t deny the fact that something is being chipped away. Eroded. Something is turning into the spiritual equivalent of peeling plaster. The surface is still somewhat intact, but the damage underneath is apparent.

What’s worse, you’re sinking. It’s slow, and the temperature might feel somewhat nice, but make no mistake: you’re going down. The culprit? Certainly not a balmy, pleasant spa — instead, it’s an expanse of mud. Quicksand for the soul. A sticky situation that’s easily remedied, however — assuming we’re up for a bit of house-cleaning.

You might need to call for backup. You may need to lean on an expert or two. But before long, that leaking and eating away that’s compromising your very foundation will be taken care of, and solid ground will prevail.

Are you in a situation that needs some attention? Is something trying your patience or turning your values upside down? There’s good news in it: most paths we find ourselves going down allow for U-turns at some point, and for as often as the world seems to have nothing but bad news to share, helping hands are plentiful. They’re ready to pull you up and out, ready with a gentle touch on your shoulder when the going gets rough. Repairs can be made, and healing can begin. It simply takes a bit of digging and clearing out of those things which may be masking the very elements that are set to be our undoing.

Tonight, for a leaky pipe, a newly-cleared garden that’s made the root of the problem visible and for lessons that can come at any time, from anywhere, I am thankful.

Elementary Appreciation.

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My evening walk takes me past the elementary school I attended from kindergarten through third grade. A lot about it is the same, but much is completely different.

There’s a scrolling LED sign in place of the old marquee which held changeable, firm letters. It’s the new millenium’s way of announcing the important things, I suppose — half-days, birthdays, upcoming holidays and vacations. I miss the old sign.

When I walk past the dumpster, it’s not the stench that makes me take pause — it’s the flood of memories that takes me back to the days when we’d get McDonald’s hamburgers, tiny cardboard cartons of fruit punch and a bag of Lay’s potato chips for lunch once a week. Or maybe it was once every two weeks…I can’t recall exactly. But I remember the smell following an afternoon of partially eaten buns and patties cohabitating in a stuffy trashcan. It was repulsive, yet it spoke to a fun, decidedly atypical school lunch that we were fortunate to enjoy while staying within the safe confines of the campus. I can still remember holding the smooth, waxy punch carton in my hand and being mesmerized by its burgundy color and white type.

When I walk past the parking lot, I remember the rows of lunch tables under giant shade trees which used to be there. Sometimes we’d draw a hopscotch pattern in chalk and play if we finished eating early. I remember Mrs. Orr, the lunch lady who would take pity upon the children whose lunches contained a whole orange versus one that had been quartered. She would take her orange peeler and effortlessly reveal the pith-covered segments; there was never a shortage of kids around her, clamoring for assistance. The lunch area also is where we’d congregate for school assemblies and awards. It makes me sad that it’s one giant, treeless blacktop now full of nothing but lines that denote too many parking stalls in too small of a space. Sigh.

When I walk past the playground, I remember playing under trees there, too. They’ve since been removed, their proud, tall presence replaced with a concrete and asphalt bus turnabout and another school also crammed into too small of a space. Nothing flora-related makes me more depressed than seeing trees planted in a 3′ by 3′ space in a concrete sidewalk, except seeing no trees at all — particularly if they’d lived a long life only to be cut down in the name of progress, of expansion.

I miss the classroom walls lined with crank-out windows, although the general shape and color of the building remains unchanged. The old windows were replaced with more efficient ones long ago, and the young, immature plants under the front office windows are now all filled out and look quite lush. My mom used to work in the front office, and whenever I glance at the building I remember occasionally seeing her during my school day. Knowing that many kids then and now often are away from their parents for 12+ hours at a time, I can tell you that I didn’t realize how lucky I was…but now I do. And I continue to be lucky to have both of them still around.

If you’d have told me as a kindergartner that I’d grow up, go to college in Michigan, return to California, relocate to Connecticut and return home once more — to the same town I grew up in and a stone’s throw from my elementary school — I either wouldn’t have believed you, or I might’ve considered it a bit sad. Who would want to go home? What sort of grown-up does that? Where’s the growth? Isn’t that similar to going in reverse?

The truth is that I love the town I grew up in, and I know it’s because of the childhood I was fortunate to have. Not everyone has that in a home or in a childhood, but my hope is that they find a sense of warmth of peace in some place, at some time, in some way. For mine and for the memories I have which take me back to a simple, carefree time in my life which I appreciate and remember fondly now more than ever, I am thankful.

Fair enough.

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Seeing a crescent moon and its sidekick Venus sinking low on the western horizon makes me smile. They’re the visual equivalent of a deep breath and a relaxing exhale, beckoning while reassuring us their path is safe.

Tonight was a bit too cloudy for them to be visible, but knowing they were there made the cool night air slightly more warm. It was the first night that’s really felt like fall since the season began. Others have come close, but tonight takes first. Last night they were very visible — they reminded me of an old scene where someone is illuminating their walk upstairs with a candle, the tiny point of light acting as a hand-held beacon and casting a slight glow with each step.

My beacon tonight was neither the moon nor Venus, but the occasional streetlight and cell phone glow. The romance was gone, for sure, but the memory of it sustained me for four miles. A gray combination of fog and clouds was filling the evening sky; you could feel the dampness that last weekend had shunned in favor of dry, blustery winds. It’s a different kind of love affair for me, gray weather is, and one that I’d gladly embrace since the heavens weren’t keen on showing themselves to me. Fair enough.

Sometimes we hope to replicate one scenario but are given another. While the memory of the fleeting somehow sustains us until it comes around again — if it comes around again — we learn to appreciate that which is directly before us and acknowledge its beauty all the same.

Tonight I am thankful for the unique magic in opposites and for the ability to appreciate both ends of the spectrum equally. It is, after all, only fair.

Toe the Line

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I woke up this morning at 3:15 for no good reason. I remember being startled and assumed for a moment that I’d been jolted awake by an earthquake — only the dining room chandelier wasn’t moving. Weird.

After a glass of water and shuffling around in the dark to make sure nothing was amiss, I eventually fell back asleep and awoke again around 5:15 after the strangest dream.

In it, I was on vacation at a Spanish resort and missing my left big toenail. It was a bloody stump of a digit and it looked terrible. I remember hoping that people would do little more than glance at it, assuming that the red was nail polish instead of blood. I never said my dreams were normal.

When my alarm went off, my toe — the one in bad shape in my dream — was in bad shape for real. I’m not sure what I did to it when I was sleeping, but it hurt. A lot. It ruined a perfectly good Spanish vacation, too. The nerve.

All I can figure is that it was the position of my foot during slumber, or that I kicked myself — or possibly the bench at the end of my bed. Maybe I’m a sleepwalker and rammed it into a doorjamb. Who knows?

It’s hard to say what goes on in our lives sometimes. One day your plans are going accordingly, while other days you might look around, blink, then wonder, “Wait — what just happened?”

You might wonder if you’ve been going through life half asleep, or sleepwalking entirely. You may not know which way is up and distinguishing fact from fiction might be more and more challenging. The lines are blurred. Things are messy.

But sometimes what happens outside of reality can affect reality itself. It might make us more cautious, more aware or more alert — just as my toe situation made me today. If I can manage to wake up with a sore foot, that’s reason enough to go through the day a bit more cautiously than normal.

Today I am thankful for those little things that perk up our radar when things would otherwise be status quo. You never know the things that are placed in our path during the day to make us slow down a bit, or to simply pay more attention.

The Show

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Bruce Hornsby is one of my favorite musicians, and “The Show Goes On” is one of his songs that I adore the most. There’s something about the way the piano slowly, quietly introduces the song, then builds into something that’s both contemplative and sure, confused yet hopeful.

It’s a fitting melody and appropriate title for a phrase that’s so applicable to life on any given day. Something didn’t go as planned? The show goes on. A loved one passed? The show goes on — even though we may wish otherwise. Long face? Crying? The show goes on.

Regardless of the act or scene that we find ourselves in, the show does, indeed, go on. Even after a stage play or a movie, there are the credits, the discussion about the film itself, maybe even an after-party. Interpret that as you wish.

Time passes by — sometimes slowly, sometimes at a pace that feels like the decades have transpired in a matter of seconds.

You’d better try to find it before it passes you by.

It passes, yes, but time that passes someone by is the worst kind of passing. Ever. Whether we’re paralyzed by fear, loss, insecurity, a memory or something not yet known, a dormant, uncaring, disinterested life is one that is in desperate need of CPR lest we perish entirely. It gives new meaning to “passing,” really. But what that CPR is will vary from person to person, as well as from situation to situation. And yet it’s there, yes — that life-saving grace is absolutely out there.

Where will you find yours? What is yours?

The show goes on as the autumn’s coming as the summer’s all gone. Still, without you, the show goes on.

We’re all in our own show. We all have our cast of characters — some lead roles, and many that are supporting actors and actresses. Some story arcs are wild and unimaginable, others may seem quiet, useless or lackluster. But a story is a story, and regardless of who comes in and out of our own, ours will go on for as long as it lasts. Living for the soul and doing by the heart is the task in between point A and Z, in my opinion. And for knowing that the show will go on until its end and continue to bestow lessons upon me from which I can learn and use to inform my next decision, my next scene or my next act, I am thankful.