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Ten Years Later

Ten Years Later

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Ten years ago I wrote a post that was strangely prescient,  a post about guns early the morning of the Sandy Hook shooting, before that tragedy had happened.

In the post, I told the story of a shopping expedition the night before and how it was difficult to find anyone to help me in the large sporting goods store — difficult until I wandered into the firearms department.

You can analyze it any way you will. You can pin it on our frontier mentality, on the myth of rugged individualism with which our nation has become entangled. You can bring politics in there too, although ten years ago we weren’t as polarized as we are now. 

But no matter how you attempt to explain it, there are 20 six- and seven-year-olds who never went home that horrible day, who never grew up, graduated from high school and got their first jobs. Families shattered, lives upended. 

We’ve endured legions of school shootings and other massacres since then, including Uvalde, where almost as many children lost their lives as at Sandy Hook. Ten years later, the tears that have fallen could fill another ocean. But still we do nothing.

Urban Campfire

Urban Campfire

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It’s been a while since I sat around a campfire, but I did last night … in the middle of D.C. That it was part of a professional association meeting, that it was around a fire pit, that the occasional helicopter chugged overhead, didn’t seem to matter.

We were outside, the food was terrific, and the darkness and the crackling wood invited, if not ghost stories, at least some tales of journalistic hijinks and derring-do.

When I returned last evening I kept smelling something familiar, something comforting. It was the aroma of wood smoke in my hair. 

Waiting

Waiting

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A friend of mine wrote a one-act play about Advent called “Wait — It’s a Musical.” I always liked the title, the play on the word “wait.” I’m thinking of that play and that title today, on the first Sunday of the liturgical year. 

Every year the readings and sermons remind us that this is the season of watchful waiting, of calm preparation. Every year, this message must compete with tinsel and glitter and Mariah Carey belting out “All I Want for Christmas is You.” 

So I try, and somewhat succeed … for a week or two. But inevitably I’m pulled into the Christmas orbit. The shopping, the baking, the watching of holiday movies, one of which features, yes, “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

On an overcast November morning, it’s easy to feel the ancient longing, to hear the plainsong chant. But in a week or two, all bets will be off. 

Hardly Nothing

Hardly Nothing

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When a day is filled with as much cooking as yesterday was, the next day must be filled with, uh, pretty much nothing.

So how does one go about nothing, anyway? I’ve never been good at it. 

Walking, reading, more eating — hardly nothing, but sometimes they can feel like it when they’re going well. 

Quicksilver

Quicksilver

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It’s a day to feel grateful … and to ponder gratitude. One thing I’ve noticed is how mercurial it can be, how it can lie leaden in the heart until something happens — a friend calls, a baby laughs, the dough rises — and suddenly it flies up, a bird with fluttering wings. 

You try to catch it as it soars, but soon it’s gone again. Was it really there, or were you just imagining it? 

I choose to believe the former.  Its sightings may be sporadic, but its presence is real. 

Cranberries

Cranberries

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This morning I’m considering the cranberry, the perfect color of it, its tartness and completeness … and the way it slides beneath the knife when you try to slice and dice it. 

I’m considering the many berries I have to slice and dice … and potential ways around that. Food processor to the rescue!

It’s not even Thanksgiving and I’m already looking for ways to avoid cooking. This doesn’t bode well!

Turkey Time

Turkey Time

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The other night I had a funny anxiety dream. I was strolling through a store on Thanksgiving afternoon, casually browsing, picking up treats for the holiday meal, when I suddenly realized that I had not put the turkey in the oven. Not only that, but I had failed to bake the pumpkin pies the night before. 

As I frantically tried to figure out how to feed 20 people with no turkey or pie … I woke up. 

Ah yes, I thought groggily, a Thanksgiving anxiety dream.  When I came to full consciousness the next morning, I remembered my middle-of-the-night panic with a smile — but a jolt, too.

Yes, I was given a reprieve. But the big day is coming up. I hope I’m prepared!

(As close as I can come to a turkey photo: a turkey teapot photo!) 

Michael Gerson: 1964 — 2022

Michael Gerson: 1964 — 2022

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The world lost a great columnist and thinker yesterday when Michael Gerson died of cancer. Though I’m not an evangelical Christian Republican, I fond much to admire in Gerson’s columns, especially the ones about faith.  I was not the only one. The tributes are flowing in. 

In 2019 he spoke at Washington National Cathedral about his battle with depression, which had hospitalized him only weeks before. Though he credited medication for helping him turn the corner, he also spoke of “other forms of comfort,” including “the wild hope of a living God.” 

Those who believe, he said, know that life is not a farce but a pilgrimage, that hope can “grow within us, like a seed,” and “transcendence sparks and crackles around us … if we open ourselves to seeing it.”

Gerson didn’t just write about heavy stuff, though. Last summer he described his new Havanese, Jack, as a “living, yipping, randomly peeing antidepressant” and declared “I’ll never live without a dog again.” He never did — but now Jack, his family, friends and readers will have to live without Gerson.

I’ve written very few fan letters in my life, but last May I wrote one to Michael Gerson. He’d written a column that acknowledged a return of the cancer he knew would end his life, and I wanted to let him know that one reader, this reader, had taken much comfort from his words. He was kind enough to write me back. But it’s in his published words that I will remember him best, like this one from 2017:

If the resurrection is real, death’s hold is broken. …  It is possible to live lightly, even in the face of death — not by becoming hard and strong, but through a confident perseverance. Because cynicism is the failure of patience. Because Good Friday does not have the final word.

Saints and Souls

Saints and Souls

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The poet John Keats described autumn as the “season of mist and mellow fruitfulness.” But this is one of the first foggy mornings we’ve had all fall. 

It’s a lovely one, though, softening the vivid yellows of the tulip poplar leaves, making it difficult to see the houses across the backyard, let alone across the street.

Fog is atmospheric and perfect for this morning, post ghosts and goblins, the feast of all saints and the eve of all souls. 

Trick-or-Treat!

Trick-or-Treat!

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Ghosts and goblins haunted the streets of my ordinary suburban neighborhood yesterday during our third annual Halloween parade. 

Two costumes in particular caught my eye, worn by two adorable toddlers who are so hard to capture standing still that this (admittedly very amateur) photographer had no time to consider background.

But the bee and the dog did pose momentarily before joining the parade and grabbing treats. And later, they enjoyed the moon bounce, which sent them scurrying and tumbling down the slide. 

And this all happened the day before All Hallows’ Eve. Tonight: more of the same…