It's All About the Red

It was Fall, or nearing Fall. I was clueless (as I really never think of myself) when someone whose company I was thoroughly enjoying sort of interrupted us both and blurted out "You know I am falling in love with you...." Well, knock me down with a feather, I had absolutely no idea. That said, when I asked him his favorite color sometime later in the season as we admired some leaves in their many variations, first he said RED without hesitation, and then I suppose in a moment where he decided to seize the opportunity to woo, he said "You are my favorite color."


Let me tell you how ludicrous that was! I have never been a red girl. My favorite color for the longest time was yellow. My favorite Crayola crayon as a child was "yelloworange." I had a t-shirt that color that I wore to death in the fifth grade. In my earliest teen years, I morphed into a lovely pale yellow, and even made myself the palest yellow linen dress. Somewhere in high school I took a drastic turn toward blue and have never looked back. A love affair with someone whose favorite color is red could never last with me in it!


I woke up early this morning. I turned on the television to find one of my favorite dancers taking a bow. It was public television, so I quickly grabbed the remote and searched the feature that tells you what programs will be coming throughout the day. Lucky me, in three hours there would be a rebroadcast. I set my alarm for 8 am and went back to sleep with visions of the "Firedance" in my head. I woke at the appointed hour and bolted out of bed and toward my (blue) wingchair. And waited and watched. She would be only a portion of the program, but I was glued to the tube as they used to say. Well, once again, I was clueless. The "Firedance" began, only this time, no fire! This was not MY dancer. I didn't even stay tuned through it.


Many years ago, when my husband and I were first married , we caught a documentary on flamenco dancing. I have been on the watch for it ever since. In it, the instructor described the metaphor behind flamenco--- something about the reaching up to the sky and down to the earth and the constant search or need for balance in between to be struck. Oh, I wish I could remember exactly how she said it! We were both mesmerized by the description. Years later, when I saw Maria Pages perform the "Firedance" I was utterly taken with her and flamenco again.


I am a sign language interpreter. I enjoy theatrical interpreting. To say I enjoy music would be the understatement of the century. Here is the whole of all those fascinations; Pages' hands are exquisite. And then there's the red dress. Even I cannot deny its power. Same dance, different dancer, though, and I changed the channel.


Here in these last days of Fall, I am designing a tunic for holiday attire. The idea for this came as I began to unpack Christmas decorations for my classroom. I began to covet the European old-world Santa suit on a stuffed doll. Deep crimson velvet, white fur trimmed cuff and hem, embellished with gold embroidery. Now why couldn't I find something like that to wear this Christmas ??? So I made a sketch and began to procure the materials. Faux fur? Check. Elaborate Chinese frog closures? Check. Vintage golden ribbon embroidered with deep red chrysanthemums on its way from China? Check. I am still scoping out the main player in this project, because even I realize it's all about the red.


Not sure the materials will make it in time for this Christmas... not sure there will be time to make the garment in mind if they do. If any of it comes into being, I will post photos of it here. Meanwhile, I will have the memory of the "Firedance." And the dream of my tunic. And the balance in between memory and dream. The leaves will be gone soon. We'll need something to fill the void. Maybe that is why people pour christmas lights all over their homes or string lights on their trees...to fill the void left from Fall's departure?


Below are some links to some things that feed the senses for even a blue-loving girl like me:


Maria Pages' "Firedance" --- pay attention, if you will, to the moments at 4:10-4:12... something about the timing when she knows the exact second in which her skirt will find her hand takes my breath away : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jLGS7Y_TM&feature=related .


And just for fun, Chris De Burgh's "Lady in Red"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqmXja6ElME&feature=related
and


Bryan Adam's "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2KgzKETBw .

I was once a letter-writer. So much so, in fact, that when I was in high school and in the midst of a college/career search, the then object-of-my-affection said "I never thought about you going to school to become something --- I just always thought you'd be writing letters somewhere !" Truth is, I often wish I was still filling reams to mail off to my friends. But real life is too demanding. My job... much as I love it, my job takes away a great deal of who and what I enjoy.

So I became a paper-product collector. I can't say I became a consumer because by and large the products are with me. Under this desk and against the wall there are plastic containers full of greeting cards, note cards and stationary. It was on my mind to fish out the thanksgiving cards. I have quite a stash of those, what with my love of autumn.... But in the end, I stood in a grocery store's hallmark aisle and purchased several more packets of cards. I stole an hour one morning last week and HURRIEDLY addressed and signed a few dozen cards. I even ran out of them and had to search for some suitable note cards (which I keep at work) with russet colors to add to the stack. That evening, just to make sure they got on their way, I ate a fast-food dinner in the post office parking lot as dark descended, and then pushed the pile through the slot all while firmly holding to the belief that if I was lucky, these cards would get to their destination the day after the stuffing and cranberry were put away.

Thanksgiving Day noon was hectic. Someone in our family is dying, and plans were revolving around a hospital visit before family gathering and suddenly they were released to home with hospice care. That and my husband forgot to ask when the family was actually gathering. I picked up my phone to carry out that simple fact-finding mission and found a message instead.

I stopped to listen. It was the best friend of one of my aunts. My blood- family, by the way, except for the boy, are all gone now. This is my surrogate aunt in my eyes. She is also the person on the planet whose personality seems most like my mother's. Of course I would remember to send her a card. Actually, what happens is I more often berate myself for not calling her more than I do.

In any case, there is her voice on the phone, and it is seeming significantly weaker. I quickly try to calculate her age while I am listening to the message. It registers that by some miracle, my card has reached her before the day. She is saying thank you over and over. She is, actually, in the midst of a litany. She says it made her day. She says it made her Thanksgiving. She says it did this and this and this. I strain to remember what I wrote beyond our names at the bottom.... MAYBE I jotted that I mean to call her soon. But honestly, I don't think so. I thought she had family. A niece nearby ? But her voice is telling me no; that this card had this effect tells me she is quite alone on this holiday. She ends with "thank you, thank you, thank you for always thinking of me."

Such a little thing to do. And honestly, I never expected such a reaction. I file thought of this moment away for use when I am on a self- deprecating binge because, believe me, I am prone to those. I also file thought of this moment ---of the gratitude in her voice ---under 'reasons to pull more note cards from the boxes beneath the desk.'

I cannot be the letter-writer I once was, much as I would like to be. But I should really thin out my greeting card stash and be sure to write a few lines...especially if one in a hundred cards sent could have this effect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

Thanksgiving

Pilgrims
move among us.
Silent, their gray lips mouth
prayers for the bountiful fields of
autumn. Feathered Indians stand
tall in quiet corners
invoking harvest home in a strange tongue.
This is our Thanksgiving.
Gathered together, we
are visited by the grace of
old guests.

~Myra Cohn Livingston

From the book, "Celebrations"

I was pretty much minding my own business. I was being lazy. I was sort of thinking about the things I wanted to get done today. I thought I would check my email before I made a real commitment to getting those things done. And it was there so simple and quiet. Three words from one of my students. From a student who by the grace of some God somewhere has the use of ONE finger on the one limb she can somewhat move. Sudden and shocking like a whisper in a cave. "I love you." And my whole body feels like it has gasped.

The Thing Is

To love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body with

stand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

by Ellen Bass

What did YOU do in school today?

After a rather gruelling week of lots of paperwork and very little sleep, I needed to do something a tad less cerebral. When the kids got on their buses, I got my sewing kit and felt and some special papers out... and, of course, the class skeleton ( aka Mr. Thrifty ) and dressed him for Thanksgiving Dinner ...( which will be on Tuesday ). I think he should sit at the head of the table... don't you? I think he's hysterical. My husband assures me I am the funny one! The poem that follows is also something I find hysterical, and although I am especially grateful that I do not share the speaker's disdain, I still make sure I find this batch of words each Fall before the feast ....





“Pre-Holiday PMS”


by Ginger Andrews


I don't want to be thankful this year.
I don't want to eat turkey and I could care
if I never again tasted
your mother's cornbread stuffing.
I hate sweet potato pie.
I hate mini marshmallows.
I hate doing dishes while you watch football.
I hate Christmas. I hate name-drawing.
I hate tree-trimming, gift-wrapping,
and Rudolph the zipper-necked red-nosed reindeer.
I just want to skip the whole merry mess—
unless, of course, you'd like to try to change my mind.
You could start by telling me I'm pretty and leaving me
your charge cards
and all your cash.


from An Honest Answer
(Story Line Press).

Autumnal – nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges of the day… Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it… Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very outside edge of the senses… deep shining ochres, burnt umber and parchments of baked earth – reflecting on itself and through itself, filtering the light. At such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere, by repute. Yesterday was blue, like smoke.

- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

"Autumn teaches us that fruition is also death; that ripeness is a form of decay. The willows, having stood for so long near water, begin to rust. Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons." --Gretel Erlich, from "The Solace of Open Spaces."

Oh They Say It's Your Birthday...

Actually, my birthday approaches...

I don't know where I found this list; I definitely didn't write it... but it seems appropriate for this time of year....

40 Tips for Better Life

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.

3. Buy a DVR and tape your late night shows and get more sleep.

4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to __________ today.'

5. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

6. Play more games and read more books than you did last year.

7. Make time to practice meditation and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.

8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

9. Dream more while you are awake.

10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

11. Drink green tea and plenty of water.. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.

12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

13. Clear clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.

14. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.

17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy vampires away.

18. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

20. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

21. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

22. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.

23. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

24. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'

26. Forgive everyone for everything.

27. What other people think of you is none of your business.

28. GOD heals everything.

29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

30. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

31. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

32. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

33. The best is yet to come.

34. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

35. Do the right thing!

36. Call your family often. (Or email them to death!!!) Hey I'm thinking of ya!

37. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements:
I am thankful for __________. Today I accomplished _________.

38. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

39. Enjoy the ride. Remember this is not Disney World and you certainly don't want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride.

40. Please forward this to everyone you care about.

May your troubles be less, May your blessings be more, May nothing but happiness come through your door!