I loved Ireland...the endless GREEN countryside and the miles and miles of rock walls. The music, the dancing, the Irish lace curtains and the gypsies that kept sneaking into our Shelbourne hotel... it was magical.
This version of "The Cup Song" with a young girl singing in Gaelic brought back lots of memories. I taught this game to the sixth grade girls at our school. They nearly drove their teachers crazy before the year was out.
One day I was sitting in the faculty room during lunch when suddenly we heard clapping and stamping coming through the wall that connected us to the girls bathroom. The teachers were shocked... "what on earth is that noise?" I quietly got up to leave and smiled ... "Beats me."
Imagine living in a world where everyone knows the rules
and you can count on the person to the left of you
I love these paintings by Beth Carver. They make me want to join them for the afternoon. They are surely, the best of friends. I imagine they've thrown caution to the wind, not giving the fat nor the calories in that ice cream a second thought. What's the saying... "Life's short, eat dessert first."
I grew up in a house with six brothers. My first experience with a real girlfriend was my oldest sister in law. I was only five and she was 20 when she married my brother but I vividly remember that she adored me. She would talk about "girly" things with me and once when I was about seven she gave me a little bracelet with eight tiny lipsticks attached. They were real... real lipstick. I was beyond mesmerized.
Over the past 60 years she has always been a
soft place to land. What a wonderful woman.
Why does it take some of us so long to figure
it out? Jeanne and one of her granddaughters
My daughters and daughter in laws
The year I got divorced I made an amazing friend. She was also going through a divorce and we had an immediate connection. When a divorce happens it quickly becomes obvious that friends and family get worn out. They just want you to be happy again! I was lucky to have this friend. We talked for hours, for months, for years. We cried, we agonized, we went over and over the details. We got each other through the worst of it. And through all of that we laughed and laughed and went to lunch and the movies and laughed some more. She was the closest thing I have ever had to a sister.
Then one day, out of the blue, she did a 180 on me. She would not explain why, she said she couldn't talk about it. I apologized many times for whatever I had done, but there was no turning back. The friendship was over... she walked.
OUCH... all I could do was just keep moving. It took a while to recover but in that process I learned a couple of things about being a better friend.
First, I allow my friends to move in and out of my life freely. Just because I don't see them everyday doesn't mean we're not still friends. I am not "needy" and I don't cling to any of them. I'm my own BFF. If no one is available I am comfortable going to the movies alone, to lunch, even shopping... its all good. I have lots of friends and family and I enjoy them but I allow them the same freedom that I value.
The second thing I learned was to be a better version of myself. I had to honestly look myself in the mirror and see if I liked what I saw. There were a few rough edges. I am fairly quick witted and I love to laugh but I have worked very hard to make sure that what comes out of my mouth does not hurt someone else. I am definitely more patient and then there is... FORGIVENESS. I have finally, finally come to understand that I should forgive others quickly and freely not just for them but because I can't keep carrying it around... its too heavy.
Am I perfect? Absolutely not... I am a work in progress. I love this quote by George Elliott. It speaks to the kind of friend I would like to become...
"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
Sunday, March 2, 2014
MEET TONYA....
Master Gardener and owner of Perennial Gardens
I have been blessed, in this life, to know some pretty remarkable women... Tonya is one of them. When I started this series "Women of a Certain Age" she immediately came to mind. We have known each other for more than 20 years but as I visited with her I was shocked at all I didn't know. I can more clearly see, not only, how she became a master gardener but how she has connected with the earth in such a way that everything she touches blooms.
With Tonya's permission I will tell her story...
Tonya's Guest House
At a very, very young age, Tonya's mother abandoned the family. Her father, overwhelmed by his circumstances put her and her two brothers into the foster care system. It fully lived up to its reputation. They remained in that situation until Tonya was four years old. Then one day she and her brothers were whisked away and placed for adoption.
She recalls being shown her room for the very first time. Not only was there a bed just for her, but a beautiful dresser filled with clothes she could call her own. To this day she loves the smell of the wood and cedar in a dresser drawer.
Then... her adopted parents divorced and once again her life turned upside down. She remained with her father but life was extremely difficult and harsh. She recalls wishing for "normal"
Tonya's one soft place to land was her Grandma Irene. This good woman taught her to garden and to love the earth and Tonya found peace and solace digging in the dirt. She even mowed lawns with a push lawnmover for 25 cents just so she could smell the grass. Gardening saved her soul and became her passion. Tonya's Herb Barn
Moving to the country, Tonya has transformed her backyard, quite literally, into a botanical utopia. Around the Guest Cottage, the Herb Barn, and of course her Shop there are masses of blooms. As a master gardener, she knows every flower, herb, tree and weed under her care.
Guests come to dine under the arbor and many a lucky bride and groom have celebrated their special day in her "little piece of heaven"
She teaches gardening and herb classes, raises chickens and has just acquired some darling goats. Well known for her "tussie mussies" and her flavored oils she is "famous" for her Lemon Thyme cookies.
All that Tonya missed as a child she created as a adult. Encouraged by a loving husband and six lucky children she has transformed harshness into tranquility, loneliness into beauty and neglect into a gentle, forgiving nature.
"Standing in her garden feels like coming home"
Join us Thursday and I will tell you about Tonya's adventures in raising chickens and share her famous recipe for...
Holocaust survivor, concert pianist and remarkable woman
Alice and her twin Marina were born in Prague in 1903. Her father was a prosperous businessman. Her mother, a well educated woman, moved in the city’s shimmering artistic circles often playing host to Europe's prominent writers, philosophers and musicians. Alice and her siblings were exposed to the "great talents" at a very young age.
Irma, her older sister, taught little Alice to play the piano when she was only five. At 16 she began serious study at the Prague German Conservatory of Music and by her late teens she was wowing audiences with her concerts.
She married Leopold Sommer in 1931 and together they had a son they called Raphael. Alice filled his life with music and he would later become a renowned cellist.
Aware that the Nazis were headed in their direction most of their family and friends fled to Palestine. Alice and her husband stayed behind to care for her invalid mother. She said... "The lowest point in my life was escorting my mother to the deportation center in Prague." It was at this sad time that she began to work on Chopin's Etudes.. a set of 27 solo pieces that are some of the most technically demanding and emotionally impassioned works in piano repertory. This music would quite literally save her life and the life of her son.
Then in 1943 the Nazi's came for her family. The three of them were sent to Terezin, a concentration camp that was promoted by the Nazis as a model institution. Many of the prisoners there were Czechoslovakia's foremost figures in the performing arts.
“It was propaganda,” she later remarked.
Nonetheless the sustaining power of music was real. She performed in more than 100 concerts for the prisoners and the guards. In her words...
"We had to play because the Red Cross came three times a year. The Germans wanted to show its representatives that the situation of the Jews in Theresienstadt was good. Whenever I knew that I had a concert, I was happy. Music is magic. We performed in the council hall before an audience of 150 old, hopeless, sick and hungry people. They lived for the music. It was like food to them. If they hadn’t come to hear us, they would have died long before, as we would have."
Alice's husband was sent to Auschwitz and died from typhus a short time later. When a guard approached her and told her not to worry, that because she played so beautifully she and her son would never be taken away, she realized that her music, quite literally, was going to save their lives.
After the war, Alice and Raphael emigrated to Israel to reunite with family. She taught for 40 years at the Jerusalem Academy of Music until her final move to London. Her son Raphael, an accomplished cellist died suddenly at the age of 64 from an aneurysm. Once again music sustained her. Friends recall that they knew she was going to be fine when she began to practice again.
For Alice, music was her passion, her life, her love. But it is only a piece of what has been a remarkable life. She refuses to HATE anyone... only LOVE. She even goes so far as to express gratitude for the experiences she had in the camps... it shaped her life.
One of the most memorable things about Alice is her smile and her laughter. She lifts everyone around her. The people in her London neighborhood and specifically her apt building count themselves lucky that they get to listen to her beautiful music everyday.
"They know when it is 10:00 AM because that's when I begin to practice."
Throughout her years in Theresienstadt, the loss of her mother and husband, the hunger, the cold and the death... AliceHerz Sommer was sustained by a Polish man who had died long before. His name was Frederic Chopin.
Known as the oldest Holocaust surviver, Alice passed away peacefully last Sunday at 110 years of age. She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of talent, passion, love, forgiveness and... laughter. A truly remarkable woman.
This is the trailer from the documentary "The Lady in Number 6"
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Those of you who live in warm climates might not be able to relate, but here in the Rocky Mountains it gets COLD... really, really cold. I have suffered through a lot of winters. My kids always had layers of down and boots and scarves and mittens because they had to go to school. Not me... I'm a "home-body." I stayed indoors by the fire, borrowed someone's parka to dash to the mailbox and counted the days until Spring. Now that I'm teaching again part of my job is to "man the crosswalk" after school. I knew it was time to get the gear! To my surprise I can now stand in subzero weather and be happy as a little clam on the beach.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE GEAR!
The essentials ... UGGS - They will keep your feet warm... end of story. They are expensive but you can't put a price on warm toes and they last forever!
HAT & GLOVES - I love mittens but for the really cold times I wear gore-tex-thinsulate gloves... bought them at Cosco for $10.00
The Olie Shearling Hat $89.95
Here is a link to hats that will actually keep your head warm and it comes in L and XL for those of us with big heads.
SILK THERMALS -They are,ounce for ounce warmer than wool, nice and flexible, and decidedly warmer than cotton thermals.
THE SCARF - I am honestly surprised at how much warmer I am with a scarf around my neck. I wouldn't be caught without one. The bigger and chunkier the better.
THE COAT - I have been wearing Eddie Bauer down for years but when faced with spending 30 minutes in negative 10 degree weather I googled "warmest coat on the planet." This is what popped up...
CANADA GOOSE MYSTIQUE. I have never read a bad review so I took the plunge only to find out it runs small and it was too tight across my shoulders. I had to send it back for a bigger size. The best place to buy this coat is on Amazon... you will save the tax and the shipping and that's a lot of money. This price tag is not for the faint of heart($750.00) Its worth it to be warm.
THE BEAUTY OF WINTER
With my creature comforts taken care of I can focus on the beauty of WINTER. It can hold its own against any season. I love being out in it. Maybe I should take up skiing... or just go for a walk.
