Words with friends

I’m spending the last afternoon of 2014 doing something I hope to do a lot more of next year – writing.

I’m not making a resolution to write more, mind you, I’m just wishing it so.

Resolutions seem a bit old school these days. Even the sound of the word – resolution – is antiseptic and cold. Besides, couldn’t we all fill our attics – and basements – with empty well intentioned resolutions we’ve abandoned over the years? They’re right over there in the corner with the ThighMaster.

My friend, Amy, had a great status update on Facebook the other day, declaring that she was not making any resolutions but taking a one-word approach to intentions for the new year. Her word for 2015 is health and she hopes to focus on this word every day in some fashion.

Amy is the mother of a two year old so I don’t know how she has time to focus on anything extra but I can already tell by some recent updates that she’s off to a good start.

I’m a big believer in “less is more” so Amy’s post was intriguing to me and I started thinking about what I would want my word to be.

I tried out a few and then very quickly landed on one – kindness.

Just saying it out loud makes me feel better.

By definition

And I love how one word can cover so much ground – kindness to others – all others, yes, I suppose even Republicans and Time Warner Cable representatives. Hey, I didn’t say this would be easy.

I’m talking about real kindness – deeper than just helping the old ladies at my church out to their cars on Sunday after service or letting someone into a long line of traffic.

Kindness to my spouse. That one is pretty easy. I mean you really have to almost try to not be kind to someone named Joy who has a smile that could disarm Darth Varder.

Kindness to myself. Gulp. Somehow I think this one is going to be the toughest. Like most folks, I’m quite accomplished at beating myself up. Ironically, over the years, those beat downs have often been about failed resolutions.

Amy and Jules seem to be on the right path.

I think Amy is on to something here.

And I think kindness has actually been stalking me for awhile. Over a year ago, my wife and I were having a very intense conversation about marriage and what was the most important thing we each wanted in a relationship. We both said, almost simultaneously, kindness.

So it was quite fitting that at our wedding in DC this past May, my best friend, Carla, read one of my favorite poems by Naomi Shihab Nye – “Kindness,” of course. It is an achingly beautiful poem and I hope you will read it at the bottom of this post.

It begins like this: “Before you know what kindness really is you have to lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.”

I have lost many things over the past several years – things that I loved with my whole heart – and I think I do understand more clearly what kindness is.

Before you know what kindness is as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

I think this goes way beyond “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” – this is an intentional way of being in the world and it takes a fair amount of courage to embrace it.

I think I’ve often tried to follow kindness in my life but this year, I’m hoping it will follow me so if I happen to stumble, I can just look over my shoulder and know that I’m still on the right path.

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye

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 everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

An Irish exit

Suzanne Claypool Goddard

Sometimes there are people in our lives, people not necessarily in our closest circles that we are just inexplicably drawn to. You know, the person you’re always happy to run into at the grocery store – the person that always leaves you smiling and feeling oddly hopeful.

My friend, Suzanne, was one of those people in my life. She died suddenly last week at the age of 77 from a massive stroke.

I had one of those chance encounters with her at a Bel Canto concert in Greensboro three nights before she died. Bel Canto is a marvelous professional chorus that has been performing in the Triad for over 30 years. Suzanne adored this group and served on their board of directors.

She gave me tickets to the holiday concert last year and was delighted when my wife and I attended. Last week, I bumped into her as a big crowd was filing into the church for the final performance of the year.

We hugged and chatted for a bit as we meandered in and she looked, as always, bright and beautiful. She had pretty white hair, cut stylishly short and she was always smartly dressed.

Somehow I ended up sitting directly in front of her for the concert. She introduced me to someone sitting beside her and then, as I returned to talking to the friend I was sitting with, I heard her say, “She’s the executive director of Triad Health Project and she’s just precious.”

Seriously? I’m fairly certain my own mother never referred to me as precious.

But that was Suzanne – she made you feel like you hung the moon every time she saw you.

I would often see her at work when she would drop off groceries for our client food pantry. She would always pick up food for Triad Health Project when she went to Costco and she would worry that she should have gotten more fruit cocktail and less tuna fish. She was so thoughtful about what was most needed for our clients.

Suzanne making one of her regular grocery deliveries to THP.

That was Suzanne.

She served on the board of directors at a similar agency when she lived in Dallas and HIV/AIDS was an issue she was passionate about.

I seemed to run into her more and more in the past year and she was so excited to hear that I had gotten married. She was a longtime supporter of LGBT rights and was thrilled when same-sex marriage was legalized in North Carolina.

We also shared a great love of the Episcopal Church. She was a much beloved member of Holy Trinity, the largest Episcopal Church in Greensboro, and I belong to All Saints, one of the smallest parishes. I have been thinking a lot about many of my dear friends at HT and how deeply they must be grieving this loss.

After the robust applause had subsided at intermission at last week’s concert, I turned around to see Suzanne’s beaming face as she pronounced, “Aren’t they just wonderful!?”

Oh, how she loved her singers.

When the concert was over, we hugged again and wished each other Merry Christmas.

Then I came into work a few days later to hear from a colleague that she was gone. It’s so hard to imagine that much vivaciousness suddenly vanished.

That night I had a dream about Suzanne. She was terribly excited about packing for an upcoming trip to New Zealand. I told her that that was one of the places on my “bucket list” to see, too.

When I woke up the next morning, I told my wife about the dream and she said the loveliest thing that I just know Suzanne would have adored. She said sweetly, “New Zealand. Well, isn’t that a lovely metaphor for heaven.”

I don’t know if heaven is anything like New Zealand but I am certain that no one will have a better time there than Suzanne.

I just wish she had booked a much later flight.

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Wishing you fair winds and following seas, sweet friend.

I wish I had a river

I just read my bestie Carla’s Christmas blog post and my eyes are moist from a duet of bittersweet tears. She loves Christmas and her joy for the season is as palpable as her sister’s molten chocolate lava cake.

One of the things that makes Carla such a good writer is her gift of memory and I adore how she can recall the tiniest details of her mother’s holiday decorating routine from the smell of the cloves in her cookies to the fake snow on her wreath. She says, “My mom did Christmas right.”

My mom did, too.

Magnolia leaves. That’s what I remember most about my mother’s Christmas decorating. She would scour neighbor’s yards for leaves at all hours of the night and any flat surface was fair game but the mantle in our living room was her real masterpiece. As a child, I’m not sure I knew what elegant meant but I did know that our decorations were fancier than most of my friends and that made me feel oddly proud.

It’s funny what you remember – like the crackling of the hard frozen leaves touching each other as she meticulously made her arrangements. It’s a soothing sound to me now and I think I use magnolia leaves more to hear that familiar noise than anything else.

I’ve been through a blue Christmas or two with Carla when we were both recovering from loss and contrary to the Muzak in the mall, it’s just not “the most wonderful time of the year” for a lot of folks and I can still feel like a grinch for how oblivious I used to be to this reality – until it became my reality.

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Simpler times with my brother and our dog, Taffy. I still have that Santa.

Humbling, I think that’s the word for it.

Christmas for me has changed over the past decade as the loss of parents and a partner also brought about the loss of traditions. It has taken me a long time to be “okay” with that and I still approach this time of year with a sense of weary resignation.

My dear wife likes to gently tease me about calling any holiday thing we do for the second time a “tradition.” I can laugh at myself but the truth is that these new traditions make me feel grounded and connected in ways I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Going to the Christmas Day opening of a big new movie is one of these tradtions and this year’s entrée is “Into the Woods” with Meryl Streep. An amusing aside – I always run into some of my Jewish friends enjoying their tradition, too.

It’s a delicate balance – remembering Christmas past and celebrating Christmas present and I’m grateful to have found some ways to honor both.

My mother had a large collection of heavy glass Christmas trees that she loved. Her tastes were more modern than mine but when she died, I kept them. Last Christmas was the first year that my now wife and I shared a home and when I pulled out the glass trees, she was smitten and insisted we put them out on our mantle.

Tradition…

Yes, Mom, I did marry well.

I’m so happy Carla will be with her whole family for Christmas. I’ve seen that sad puppy face when she couldn’t be there and well, it’s just not a good look for her. I love her family – they are warm and loving and loud and funny and remind me of the family I used to have.

I always say that Carla is an old soul and my heart ached a little when she cited Joni Mitchell’s “River” in her post – “It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees.”

Me?

I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

Remember Pearl Harbor

December 7^th means two things to me – Pearl Harbor and the day my mother died, almost 12 years ago.

Both events caused mass shock and destruction, albeit on different scales – one historical, one deeply personal.

Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941.

I know it probably seems strange to you that I even note the connection between these events but as a writer, I’ve always appreciated the ripe imagery here.

My mother’s death was not a surprise attack – she had been battling a wicked head and neck cancer with weeks of radiation and then chemotherapy. The results were cruel – she lost 50 pounds and her voice only to learn that a previously undetected tumor on the base of her tongue was discovered.

I know you know – cancer sucks.

She was devastatingly brave, making even her aloof oncologist shake his head at her steely grit. He told us she probably had a couple of months left so we approached the holidays with a “We are the World” attitude, thinking we could turn the tables on cancer and make it a Hallmark Christmas.

A C. diff infection obliterated that plan pretty quickly and she died peacefully in a hospital on a blustery December night as I held her warm hand.

This is how I remember the Virginia sky the evening my mother died on December 7th, 2002.

I was happy she was no longer in pain and that her exit was full of grace and a peace that she rarely found in her life.

My bombs dropped later, as I dealt – or more accurately, did not deal – with a paralyzing grief and despair that I had never known. And there were many causalities – my loving partner (irreparable damage), my relationship with my sister (since repaired), and my own certainness in the world (a work in progress).

I eventually made my way back to the living and my life – a new life, not the one I had always imagined. And I always think of my combat experience with grief when December 7^th rolls around each year.

I think it’s important for me to remember it all – the pain, the destruction, and the armistice I finally brokered through a lot of hard work in therapy and a renewed relationship with my faith.

My mother died young – 70 – and in the past several years I’ve seen many friends navigate these same battles. I try to help in meaningful ways but for the most part, I think it is a solitary journey for each of us.

And I think Winston Churchill got it right about war, any kind of war, when he said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

My beautiful, glamorous, elegant mother.

Tour of Beauty

Andiamo!

That’s the Italian word for the phrase “Let’s go!” – and that was pretty much the mantra of my recent trip to Italy.

We andiamoed all over the boot.

My wife and I decided on Italy as the destination for a belated honeymoon after our wedding in May and the actual planning of the trip taught me that compromise is an important part of a successful marriage. You see, my wife wanted to book at tour – a big fat tour – two weeks, 16 cities, with 43 of our closest personal friends that we had not yet met.

I had never been on such a tour but somehow knew that I would hate it. I don’t really have control issues (no, really) but I don’t much like being told what to do and when to do it. I had more in mind a smaller more intimate kind of trip. In the end, we compromised and booked the big fat tour.

What? I want to stay happily married for a very long time.

Selfies are just as silly in Italy as they are in North Carolina. This one was on the beautiful fishing island of Burano.

And to my pleasant surprise, the tour was not the least bit awful and it gave us access to so many unique opportunities we would have never had on our own.

I am now, of course, an expert on Italian tours and will share with you some important keys to having a positive tour experience. Prego. (You’re welcome.)

First – make sure there are lots of Australians on your tour. This is essential. “Aussie” is apparently universal slang for Most Fun People on the Planet. Seriously. We had 13 Aussies on our tour – ranging in age from 15 to 70+ and there wasn’t a dud in the bunch.

The folks from the land down under are a joyous lot and we closed the bar with them most nights. Actually, they let us hang out with them until we fell over and they closed the bar down. Apparently, Aussies also have hollow legs, allowing them to hold greater quantities of spirits.

And then there are those fabulous accents. They told us that they hate that Crocodile Dundee is the image most Americans have of Australians. I told them that we have similar fears, namely Honey Boo Boo.

They even made me a little Aussie dictionary, on a cocktail napkin, of course, with a bunch of their fun sayings. They call vacation “holiday” and all candy is a “lolly” – cute, right?

The next key to a great tour is a great tour director and we scored on that one big time with our guide, Muris, a handsome and charming Italian man – but then again, aren’t they all?

Muris is in his forties and has been a travel director for over 20 years. He was the perfect dispenser of interesting information without being professorial, enthusiastic but not perky. But what I loved most about Muris was how much he loves his country. He talked about Italy in the way you would talk about a beautiful woman and he wanted us to fall for her, too. And we did.

He spoke English lyrically with a sexy Italian undertone and would woo us with phrases like “hid-in treazure” when a surprise stop was upcoming. And he threw in some very special touches along the way – like popping bottles of Prosecco and offering a toast when we disembarked after our gondola ride in Venice.

Most of us – men, women, and lesbians – were in love with him by the end of the trip.

Another key to enjoying your tour is to prepare yourself by letting go of the following three things:

1. Sleep as you know it

2. Trying to not look like a tourist.

3. Fear of the bidet.

Allow me to elaborate. On most travel days, your bag has to be outside your hotel room door by 7:00 A.M. Yes, it’s rough, but nothing three Advil and a double espresso can’t cure.

You just have to admit it, Europeans are cooler than us. Period. I don’t care how suave and sophisticated you think you are. And they are impervious to all weather conditions. The first few days of our tour, the weather was unseasonably warm. One afternoon in Capri, we were sweating like Italian sausages in a skillet surrounded by impossibly gorgeous Italians sauntering around with scarves draped artfully around their necks.

Scarves!

Just surrender and clutch your Rick Steves’ guidebook with confidence.

Okay, the bidet. You have to face it – literally, because it’s in every hotel room just staring at you as if to dare you to engage. Australia doesn’t have bidets either and the fascination with this fixture became a running joke with our Aussie posse. One morning, I greeted them at breakfast with a hearty, “Bidet, mates!”

So be bold and seize the bidet.

My optional solo excursion in Lake Maggiore.

I did have a few low moments on the tour when I hit critical mass with the pack and I sat out some optional excursions to just chill out and soak up the local culture or as I call it, wine.

Sometimes it was just too much talking. And those damn radios. Every stop along the way we had a local expert telling us everything they thought we needed to know. Near the end of the tour in Florence, we were viewing the magnificent statue of David and I pulled my earplugs out to just gaze as our guide kept filling us with factoids.

My ever attentive wife looked at me seriously and mouthed, “She’s still talking.” I mouthed back to her, “I don’t care.”

I could have sworn David smiled at me.

But all in all, the tour was a magical experience. Most of our traveling companions were also celebrating special events – milestone birthdays, anniversaries, a grandmother’s gift to her granddaughter, and so on. And there was something very sweet and intimate about sharing a group dream come true.

Maybe that’s why on our final ride to our hotel in Rome on our last night together, there wasn’t a dry eye to be found when Muris cued up his iPod and we heard the romantic tenor of Andrea Bocelli serenading us.

Con Te Partiro.

Time to Say Goodbye.

Sunset over the Basillica of St. Francis of Assisi.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

Author: addisono